FINAL VIDEO

21. Ryan Pather, Nadia Benahmed, Damilola Lawson, Sharina Smith from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Question 1 Sharina Jade Smith

In what ways does your media product use, devolop or chalenge forms and conventions of real media products?

There are 4 different types of film opening: 

• Narrative opening (the most common and traditional type of film opening and is therefore, the mostly used type.)
• Discrete opening (use of, what can be described as, a short mini-film within the actual film.) 
• Titles of blank screen (literately uses credits over a blank screen)
• Stylised opening. (uses rapid, fast editing with graphics.)

These are the main conventions of film opeings , and each has their own set of rules in order to differentiate their opening from the rest. 

The convention of a Discrete opening is the introduction of a sequence which is seporate to the actual film. (For e.g. a mini film within the film.) Discrete openings tend not to give a lot of information away to the audience and usually includes fast jump cuts and might appear blurred in the viewers mind. The film, Se7en has a perfect example of this. 

The conventions of an Opening with titles over a blank screen is giving information of the film to the audience through text and and sound choices. This is used mainly in thrillers as, because the screen is usually black, however simple it may seem it can be used to great effect. The film Dead Calm uses an example of this. 

Finally, the conventions of a Stylised opening is the use of rapid editing, whilst incorporating the use of  graphics. This type of opening usually sees the images and pictures specially edited to make it fit in with the theme of the movie. This can be used to create immense effect of action. an example of a film where this type of opening is used is Peltham 123.

For our film opening we decided to use a Narrative opening, as we felt this would give the best effect for our film. 

The conventions of title sequences are as follows:

• Movie Title and Appropriate Music

Our Thriller used minimal music, and really made use of the massive, significant impact that silence can make. The movie title was placed inside the movie, in big, bold writing in order to capture the audiences attention. 

• Cast and Crew 

• Characters and Setting

• Mise en Scene and Editing

The costume selected within the opening was relevant and connected to the thriller itself as we wanted to portray the character as an average, young teenage girl so her costume had to be selected in order to reflect this image to the audience. The setting was selected in order to reflect the thriller element of the opening to the audience: we chose an isolated, location of a graveyard as they are spooky, and is usually associated with horror/death.  unexpectedly but helpfully, during the filming the weather was a grim, dark, day that was pouring with rain which helped a lot in creating the atmosphere for the film. 

• Cinematography/Camera work

Question 2 Sharina Jade Smith

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our thriller opening represents particular specific social groups such as Age, Gender and Ethnicity, it does this in a number of different ways.

As the media industry is generally controlled by white middle class men, therefore the generally have control of what and who is represented within films. 

Our thriller challenges the stereotypes connected with these social groups in a variety of ways.

Age for example, is represented in our thriller opening as a challenge as our main protagonist is a young, teenager/young adult which is unique as within the industry in most films the main protagonist is somebody of either a considerably younger age group, or a considerably older age. Teenagers seem to mainly just star in firms rather than be the central character in them.

Gender is also represented and challenged within our thriller opening, as our main character, our lead protagonist, is a young female rather than a middle aged, older male. This challenges the typical stereotype that the male is the leading man in films which is what is usually seen. Also when females appear in films with a leading role they are usually dressed in provocative, suggestive or revealing clothing.

Lara Croft, is an example of this as she is shown below, wearing very suggestive clothing in comparison to the leading female from our film opening, also pictured below:

Our thriller opening, therefore, also challenges this stereotypical view of women as the leading female in our opening is dressed in a plain black top and baggy jeans: unisex clothing.

Ethnicity is another social group that is challenged within our thriller opening. The main protagonist in our opening is a woman of colour with African origin. As the media industry is predominantly controlled by white, middle-class men, the main protagonists of most films are usually of a white origin. By making our protagonist a person of colour, this ethnic stereotype is, therefore, challenged.

Class, additionally, is challenged within our thriller opening as the main protagonist in our thriller opening is of a working class background, however in most films, the main protagonist is of a higher social class. 

Question 3 Sharina Jade Smith

Question 3 from Shazi999

Questions 4 Sharina Jade Smith

Questions 5 Sharina Jade Smith

How did you attract/address your audience

Reviews from people of our target audience about what they thought of our opeing. 

We also interviewed the protagonist of our film about her busy PR schedule about how she promoted the film and reached her target audience

Question 6 Sharina Jade Smith

Question 7 Sharina Jade Smith

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product 

At the beginning of the task during the preliminary, as I had no reviosu media experience, I foudn it quite difficult to understand what I was meant to do or how I was meant to start, and had a significantly lack of knowledge about the technology or how it shoud e used. 

Planning: In planing our preliminary task we used our camera skills and craeted a storyboard using camera shots. We used a range of different shots such as: 

Over the shoulder shots,  

High angled close ups, 

Mid Shot's

also, we experiemented with match-cuts. 

We done this in rder to test out the dofferent shots we were going to use when filming our real thriller opening. 

Mise en scene: When filming our preliminary task we couldn't establish mise en scene properly as we were restricted to filming within a building, however for our actual thriller opening we were able to go to different locations so this was enabled us to get a better established mise en scene. 

For our thriller opening we filmed the majority of the shots from within a graveyard and, therefore, were able to concentrate on significant aspects of mise en scene such as the LIGHTING: which was dark, dreary and spooky,  

PROPS: which was the grave stones, trees, and general nature included. Depending on the location or the time you filming i.e in the evening or in the morning OR even depending on the weather on the day, you may have had to use lighting to help improve the lighting of some parts of the film or used it generally for your film, again depending on what time you film. 

COSTUME: The protagonists costume was selected in  order to portay a young ordinary teenage girl, we were able to esblish this correctly in our thriller opening, we also establoshed costume when filiming our preliminary task as Ryan was wearing a dakr hooded jumper, covering his face in prder to portay a mysterious, teenage boy.  

Editing: We used a range of match cuts within our prelimiNary task and real thriller opening. 

The 180 degree rule, which is making also had to be considered when filming. It is when the two subjects or object in front of the camera at 180 degrees. When the camera is switching from one character to another, it has to stay on one side of the axis for every shot in the scene. The first character will always be framed right of the second character who is then always framed left of the first. 

To add sound  using Soundtrack Pro, we had to open our film, then the sequence will appear on timeline. Theres then a selection of different sounds in order for you to select from to put with your film. The sounds can also be edited, as in cut, and the volume increased or reduced using final cut pro. 

Adding titles had to be learnt later on when filming for our real thriller opening. as titles were not used in the prelim. In all honesty, I did not learn much about the titles as within the group different members had different roles to take on.

Compared to the preliminary task I feel my skills have improved, however I do think we were taught so much to take on board to help us to not only create a Final piece but I think to learn new skills. I feel the prelim has help me to know what is expected of us when doing the Final film. Even though I enjoyed the overall experience and I'm proud of our final film, I personally feel that the prelim was more successful that the final film because in the prelim, we had more variations of camera shots and different editing skills such as the sound, we could have added in music to set a tone and mood. This could have attracted the audience more. Also we could have reached our target audience better by going to other social networking sites such as Twitter or instagram to advertise our opening. Another could have been Match cutting or the 180 degree rule but then again it would be depending on what your film is about and whats going at that time.

Question 1 Damilola Lawson

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions real media products?

Our media product have used forms and conventions of real media products to make it successful. We looked at different film openings to see how they were created to give a different mood depending on the genre. For example we looked at different types of film opening; Narrative opening is when you are introduced to the main characters, the location and the plot line. Introducing credits over a blank screen before the film starts and Discrete opening, an opening that is not part of the film itself.

An example of a narrative opening:

The opening of Kick Ass - 

Our opening is also a narrative opening -

 Depending on the film, title sequences can either come in at the beginning, the middle of the film opening. this included introducing Production and Distribution companies, and the Cast of the film etc. They usually will introduce a particular actor or actress before the film title to show that they have an important role in the film.

Question 2 Damilola Lawson

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our thriller represents social groups such as Age, Ethnicity and Gender. Our main protagonist is a young black female. Usually in thrillers, the protagonist is a white male who is portrayed as the hero till the end of the film.
However we can also compare our thriller to films with female protagonists for example:

Lara Croft of Tomb Raider

We have decided to go against this stereotype to suit our thriller.

Age - The age of the main character is different from the norm. She is a young female, in her late teens, so the audience can not only relate to her but can sympathise with her. Main characters are normally much older because they would seem mature, much wiser and usually the centre of attention. This all depends on what type of thriller it is and what target audience it is aimed at.

Ethnicity - The protagonist is black going against the norm where the main character is normally white. Usually in thrillers, the black characters tend to die first so having the main character being black is a challenge. I feel that the representation of ethnicity is negative because following the stereotype of black people doing bad things, the main character does kill her ex boyfriend.

Gender - The main character in our thriller is a female (as mentioned above). We decided we were going to challenging gender for our thriller due to the fact that in other thrillers, the protagonists are always male. This is seen as men are much more stronger than women are, so we did not want to follow the stereotype. 

Question 3 Damilola Lawson

What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?

For our thriller, we used Clockwork Pictures Productions in association with CandiMedia as our production and distribution companies. This is a smaller independent company. I feel that this would be better for our thriller because is a production on a small scale and it allows more freedom of creativity. Also, the company being a small independent company that they are, they release films by students to promote their skills and there work. They are also local.

Question 4 Damilola Lawson

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• Thrillers usually appeal to adults but also may appeal to the younger audience. The average age group for the target audience is between 16-25 year old. Due to my research, I found out that 16% of the audience are from the ages of 14-17, 23% are 18-24, 17% are 25-34, 18% are 35-29 and 26% are the ages of 50+.

• Psychological thriller - is a specific sub-genre of thriller with a focus on the unstable emotional states of characters. It often incorporates elements from typical traits of the thriller genre. Many psychological thrillers contain elements of, and often overlap with, the horror genre, particularly psychological horror. Psychological thrillers are 18+ due to the fact that they consist of violence and other issues which may be disturbing for the much more younger viewers.

Question 5 Damilola Lawson

How did you attract/address your audience?

In order for our thriller to appeal to the target audience, we had to make sure that we approached the conventions of a film opening and what it consists of correctly. 

Mise en Scene - The costume worn had to suit the mood within the thriller itself, so the main character wearing basic clothing that have been worn out is suitable for the storyline and what is happening in the opening. the setting was taken place where its very isolated compared to a city space. The opening was set in to places, a cemetery and the characters bedroom. Cemetery was used because in the opening something or someone was chasing the main character because she did murder her ex boyfriend. The bedroom was for when she wakes up from her dream. The body language and movement had to be negative because the protagonist is scared of the situation she is at that point because she is being chased. The lighting had to be low to set a dark and gloomy tone to the thriller. I feel that these aspects can attract the audience to see the thriller because of how it looks and the setting. Teens tend to enjoy watching films that catch their attention.

Actors - As you see in the thriller opening the protagonist is a young black female. our group decided to go against the stereotype of having the protagonist white older male.

Storyline - The thriller is about a girl who was in a abusive relationship with her ex boyfriend. She decides to take matters into her own hands and murders him. after 2 years she gets into another relationship, but during it her new boyfriend gets into an accident. That accident causes her to have visions and dreams about her ex boyfriend and how she killed him. Her she thinks that something or someone is chasing her and she is not entirely sure what or who it is. i think that this can appeal to the target audience because the protagonist is around the same age. Also female part of the audience can relate to this because they may be in similar situations.

Genre - The genre for our thriller is Psychological. we chose to go for this sub-genre because its has more of an interesting narrative and would have more of an impact to the target audience. This would also give the audience the power to predict what will happen within the film without giving answer till the end of the film.

Location - We had two locations. the first was going to Abney Park Cemetery to shoot the running scene and the second was at one of our group members house, in her room. Using the cemetery as the location would leave the target audience thinking "why is she there? why is she running in a cemetery?'' Also it fits with the storyline.

Film Name - we came up with the film name 'Tortured' because we felt that reflects the way she felts. the main character has been abused in her relationship, now, not only has she been abused she is now been chased buy something or someone. so we thought that name fitted the context. Also we didn't want to name it titles like Obsessed, or possessed because of the fact that those titles have already been used and also they give the answer away.

Here are:

Interviews with the member of the target audience

Interview with an actor from your film

Question 6 Damilola Lawson

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contrusting q6 

Question 7 Damilola Lawson

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at the preliminary task, I felt that it has helped me to develop my skills in which I used in my final product. Planning I feel was very important because it shows that we can put ideas together to create something new and interesting. From this point we record our ideas down and then create a storyboard for the chosen idea. This also helps to know what order we are going to put the scenes in when recording.

I've learnt a few camera skills in the progression from here being the preliminary task to the final product, the thriller opening. I've learnt how to use different types of camera angles depending on what's happening within the scene. I've learnt how to be familiar with the features such as Focusing on a certain object or subject and Zooming into something or someone. This includes going through the Health and Safety Regulations before using the camera or any other equipment for that matter.

Mise en scene, I felt I have learnt more in depth and I'm now confident in explaining what it is if asked. It is what you see in front of you, movie or play. This consists of costume, make up, setting, props and body language. These aspects of mise en scene can tell you about the character without them having to say anything.

What I've learnt from Lighting is that depending on the location or the time you filming i.e in the evening or in the morning OR even depending on the weather on the day, you may have had to use lighting to help improve the lighting of some parts of the film or used it generally for your film, again depending on what time you film. 

Editing has always been a struggle for me in general. I would get confused easily when it comes to editing something. I feel that the preliminary has helped me to overcome this and I now think that I'm better at editing. For example, using Final Cut Pro, I can cut out the sections of a clip that I need to make sure it fits correctly with another. Match cutting I can say I'm confident in noticing and also creating in the editing process, when there is match between two compositions in which the object or subjects in the two shots match match graphically, so linking to shots together. 

When the 180 degree rule was introduced and explained, I was still a little confused, but once it was used in the prelim, I got the hang of it and understood what it was. It is when the two subjects or object in front of the camera at 180 degrees. When the camera is switching from one character to another, it has to stay on one side of the axis for every shot in the scene. The first character will always be framed right of the second character who is then always framed left of the first. 

Personally, I thought that sound was self-explanatory. To add sound  using Soundtrack Pro, you open your film and you will see your sequence on the timeline. you then choose and select sounds to see what with will suit your film. You can also cut it down and reduce volume like Final Cut Pro. Adding titles was something that was learnt later on in the process of making the film. Titles were not used in the prelim. To be honest, I did not learn much on the titles. Within the group different members had different roles to take on.

Comparing these skills from the Prelim, to those of the the final film, I'd say that it has improved but we could have done more of the editing to make the Final film even better than it turned out. In the prelim, we were taught so much to take on board to help us to not only create a Final piece but I think to learn new skills. I feel the prelim has help me to know what is expected of us when doing the Final film. Even though I enjoyed the overall experience and I'm proud of our final film, I personally feel that the prelim was more successful that the final film because in the prelim, we had more variations of camera shots and different editing skills such as the sound, we could have added in music to set a tone and mood. This could have attracted the audience more. Another could have been Match cutting or the 180 degree rule but then again it would be depending on what your film is about and whats going at that time.

Across both productions, like I have mentioned earlier, I've enjoyed every moment of creating a Thriller Opening and I have learned new skills such as, being able to edit a clip or a whole sequence, how to add sound, what the different camera angles are, and learning all the film vocabulary in depth i.e Mise En Scene etc. If I had another opportunity to do have this experience again I would and I would make sure I do it better than I have done by being more confident in what I do.

Question 1 Nadia Benahmed

Question 2 Nadia Benahmed

                                Does Your Thriller represent any Particular social groups?

Our Thriller does represent a few social groups such as ethnicity and age also gender.As our main female character is a teenager also representing a main character who is of a different ethnicity from the norms of the main character being a white protagonist within the thriller.

Our Thriller challenges the social groups of gender and ethnicity as the main character being a young  black female also playing the lead in the thriller as usually the main character is a male.It also challenges the fact that within thrillers it is unusual to see a black female survive as normally the black protagonist does die first.It does challenge the fact that normally the main character within thrillers is  a white male from a middle class background this subverts the expectations of the social group of ethnicity within our thriller.

This also creates an understanding of the use of Regional identity as our thriller subverts the idea that our thriller is set in a middle class white area as our main protagonist is from an ethnic background also that our thriller is filmed in a working class environment with aspects of a more basic setting although our thriller features in a an old cemetery which could conform to the idea that our Thriller is set in a middle class area Our thriller infact subverts the expectations of the social group gender although it does conform to the fact that the protagonist is of a very young age aiming for a teenage audience and older.

An example of another female protagonist would be Lara Croft which represented as quite feminine as she has long hair and wears quite revealing and sexual clothing identifying she is infact a female protagonist playing a masculine role as from the image below she holds guns on her thighs.Lara Croft is also quite similar to our main black female protagonist as both characters are female and which is un common.

Our representation of ethnicity is negative as our black female protagonist does infact murder her boyfriend this follows the stereotype of black people creating crime as the crime is un solved and the thriller portrays the young black female's state of mind quite unstable and confused.Our representation of a young black female in trouble could also be a stereotypical representation as the technical elements of close ups and the female being the only character shown in the opening.

Our representation of gender within tortured is stereotypical as our young black female is represented as having a weakness and in danger connoting that male characters are infact the breadwinner as within Tortured we follow the conventions of gender and strength as we didn't portray the female as having a strength in comparison to the female character Lara Croft.

Question 3 Nadia Benahmed

Final Edit

Question 4 Nadia Benahmed

Question 5 Nadia Benahmed

How did you attract and address your audience?

From the use of mise en scene within Tortured our main female protagonist is dressed in basic everyday clothes with conventional converses a brand most teenagers are familiar with and can relate to.The form of location doesn't appeal to our target audience as its not an area most teenagers and adults would visit on a normal day or would be able to relate to when they was younger.The protagonist is a female and can relate to the female target audience through the narrative as aspects of the narrative occur in a young females life such as relationship problems and depression.For example the main characters ends up killing her ex boyfriend and suffers psychological issues.

Here we interviewed several members of our target audience asking them what they thought about our film Tortured and their reaction to it. We got positive and negative feedback.

From the rough cut feedback it enabled our group to take on the points from the rest of our classmates some of the advice given was to change the name of our Film Opening as Tortured gives away the narrative and the events taking place immediately.Although I thought a name change would be good we also opted for other Titles such as The Wakening and The Illusion.

We have reached our target audience by showing our Viewing of Tortured in the local Angel Cinema where our opening was shown to young people varying between the age of 16 - 25 also teachers.

Question 6 Nadia Benahmed

Question 7 Nadia Benahmed

Looking back at the Preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From creating the Preliminary task it helped me plan and structure our ideas logically and develop our skills and planning for our film opening.Thinking of Pre production we didn't need a large variety of props within our Preliminary task but for our film opening post production was very important part of planning before the production could start.

We planned our Preliminary in a form of a story board which helped us to portray and add to our narrative in a clear form.We also created a story board in post production before creating our film opening this also enabled us to format our ideas chronologically in order in which events will flow in recording.

Our Preliminary task was our first form of filming with the cameras after going through health and safety before practice.I learnt the type of shots which would add to effect within our task such as close ups and various angles for example the 180 degrees angle shot also how to focus the camera when zooming in and out.This prepared us for our creation of our film opening.

At first I was unsure of what an 180 degree shot angle was but I later learnt that it was when the camera was  moving from one character to another as you can see below to show facial expression.We used the 180 degree rule within our Film Opening also match cutting.

Our Prelium Exercise Below.

Question 1 Ryan Pather

Question 2 Ryan Pather

Question 3 Ryan Pather

                       

Question 4 Ryan Pather

Who would be the audience for our thriller?

The main audience for our thriller would be late teens to early 20's, this is due to the complicated and at times disturbing nature of our film. It could prove to be too much for younger audiences and those older would not be able to connect with the characters as much because our characters are quite young.

Normally the target audience for psychological thrillers is from 18-24 as they are unlikely to have family ties and can therefore go to see films more often and that are meant for their age. Furthermore this age group are likely to socialise and thus creates a free form of word of mouth marketing. Thus increasing profit margins as less money is spent on marketing. Especially for the fact that a lot of advertising these days can be done on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter which are free and can create huge amounts of publicity since most of the world uses these sites.

This audience are also the ones with the most disposable income and free time and are more likely to go out to see a film at the cinema when it is released.

Question 5 Ryan Pather

To make our film appeal to the target audience we tried to keep the storyline, the art direction and the layout as typical of psychological thrillers as we could. What really helped however were the characteristics of our main character, she was a young female. This would appeal to women as they would see a strong woman fighting through trouble and would also appeal to the men as they would see a damsel in distress. The male mental complex would force the men to empathise with the girl. However the girls age would have also created appeal as she is in her late teens, the same as the target audience and therefore the audience would respond positively to the main character as they would be at the same point in their life, even though in different situations, there are certain aspects of life that remain the same universally. Although not the underlying point to the story, the presence of domestic abuse could bring in a feminist audience as it is currently quite an issue and is in the media more and more, so to see a woman over come this could be a pull for some viewers.

As if the film wasn't enough, to attract our audience we had a showing at the "Screen On The Green" cinema in Islington on the 25th march, as an independent cinema, it has an appeal to younger viewers and older viewers due to its more relaxed nature and would be the perfect place to take in the complexity of what would be our film. The film was also uploaded to Vimeo, the video sharing site, this is a site aimed at professionals in the media industry and would help to create sophisticated recommendations instead of "man that was sick you should watch it" which one might get from such places as Youtube.

Below are some interviews from members of our target audience

Interview with the actress from our film

Question 6 Ryan Pather

                

Question 7 Ryan Pather

From the prelim to the final project I feel that my editing techniques have developed thoroughly, I did not use any effects or colour correction in the prelim whereas the final project had a large amount of effects put into it, from stabilisation to rotoscoping. In this way my skills as an editor have developed vastly.

As you can see the difference is quite clear. Both have the letterbox effect on them but the clip from tortured is much more stylised as it has a blue toned colour grade to give it a cold feel.

   My story boarding techniques have developed since the prelim. When it came to the final project I realised how useful and important a storyboard was to the planing phase to make sure all of the shots would work and just to be able to visualise the final product before it was films. Although a good storyboard also proved important during the production phase as it helped us keep track of what we had filmed and what we needed to film.





My filming skills had also developed, I realised the importance of handheld shots in a film. Handheld shots are able to create a connection between the audience and the film as they feel like they are actually looking around the scene, rather than a static shot as a real person wouldn't be standing completely still in one spot and therefore the audience gets pulled out of the scene.

Overall Experience

From filming our opening "Tortured" I thoroughly enjoyed the process into making a Thriller film opening as I enjoyed working with my group and we all worked well together although within the process of filming and editing I would of like to of had more input.Our groups narrative was quite complex to recreate but the planning and the creative side of it was what I enjoyed the most.The most stressful part overall would be filming in Abney Park was quite hard but after watching the footage I feel like our group has accomplished something after viewing the rough cut with all our hardwork coming together.Looking after the equipment and moving from location to location via London Transport local buses was hard as making sure we prirotise all our equipment at all times to create a realistic film opening.

 

 



Overall Experience of making the thriller

Personally, I felt the overall experience was a stressful yet rewarding processs. The planning itself was time  consuming as it required a lot of effort, and precising in detail in order to ensure that our thriller opening turned out exactly how we planned it, though in the end I'm glad we planned as throughouly we did. During the editing process as one team member brought in their own equipment and used it to do the majority of the editing of the opening it made the rest of the group unable to get invovled with the editing or have much imput with how it should be done or how the end product turned out. This enabled the rest of us to get on other with other tasks such as posting updates on the blog and tagging everybody in the group within those posts. When it came to one of the last stages of editing our opening our group disocovered that we didn't have enough clips that we may have needed. It was suggested that we quickly film some last minute bits to add though not all of the group agreeded with this so we just had to use the footage we already had - which ended up being alrite with the right editing overall. There were many times during the entire process were some members of our group felt that we were unable to do anthing, and felt useless though we still all tried to give input into the end result. Overall, I found the experience fun and rewarding as I learnt new skills and how to use a range of different softwares I'd never heard of before, though there are some things that i feel our group could have been done differently if everybody's input was considered.

thoughts about the thriller and experience

I feel that the overall experience was really good because I've learnt new skills such as how to use the camera, how to edit, even how to use Final Cut Pro. I feel this can help me for future references if I choose to do media/film studies in university. Fair enough I didnt do as much blogging task i could have, the research etc, I feel that our Thriller has been successful due to the conventions that we used. Next time, I have to put more effort into doing the blogging posts but to be fair I was more into wanting to learn the skills like editing and adding sound. (I was also behind in my coursework in other lessons) i enjoyed working with certain members of the group as other members decided to do their own thing and not support others.
Personally I enjoyed this experience and I would love to do it all over again but just with different people. This is just to see how it would go, better or for worse.

Analysis Of Student Film Opening

 

From viewing another students film opening  "Angel Dust" it gave me various ideas when creating my groups own film opening.This is one of my favourite student film openings as I enjoy the open narrative structure with aspects of a secret male contacting a young female through a social networking site.The order of the titles appear across the screen to create a tense atmosphere with a build of suspense.I wanted to use the titles in the same way but according to our chosen narrative the titles appearing on the screen in the same way it does in Angel Dust wouldn't work .The audience can clearly see the relationship between the young female and the male on the social networking site but doesn't reveal the storyline all in the opening.The film opening ends with the main female character leaving the room and the computer screen which leaves the audience in a cliff hanger and engages the audience as the audience are shown the events through the computer screen.The story line of a young female being led on and decieved is also quite interesting as it is an occuring problem via networking sites.In my groups own film opening we also based the narrative of a young female in danger.

Film Riot

http://www.youtube.com/user/filmriot?feature=watch

This youtube channel is great and is where I have learnt most of the techniques I used to create the opening.

Art of the title

I chose to analyse the Captain America: First Avenger opening, I felt like it was a very effective opening and really sold the film. It does not stray from the main focus of the film and does well to create this patriotic opening through the mise en scene and of course the music. What I found odd though is the fact that they introduced so many actors in the cast before the main title since not all of the actors were hugely famous, further more they didn't put in production company credits at the beginning.
                   

Location BTS

           
As an avid photographer I took quite a lot of shots of our location since it was so appealing to the eye, below are a few of the best. Enjoy!

Rough Cut Feed Back

Rough Cut

After Viewing the Rough Cut of our Film Opening Tortured there are aspects I think as a group we could of done differently overall I think it does look rather scary and portrays the underlying narrative with ought giving to much information away all in the opening.It could use more facial close up shots of the main character showing more emotion and feelings as I feel that could of been used more for a greater effect.The setting of our Film opening was a good choice and suited our narrative and I think works very well.

From viewing the Rough Cut I think the use of close up of certain props such as religious objects like crosses and religious posters could of worked well to add to the religious sub genre which we added to the narrative although we didn't use the religious sub genre in the way we wanted to but we did film in a graveyard with viewings of religious statues.I would enjoy to make the full film with my group rather than just an opening which would be interesting also as a group we could much more adventurous and creative with our ideas. 

File size mishap

When the final edit was finished I tried to watch it and couldn't, turned out the file was over 10GB. A standard dvd only holds 4.7GB( just to put it in perspective).  All of the colour grading, stabilising  and other effects  didn't hugely effect render times so I was none the wiser until afterwards. Won't be making that mistake again!

Creating Foley Sound

Creating Foley Sounds

When viewing our rough cut our group realised we needed to add extra Foley sounds considering there was already sound being picked up in the background such as birds whistling and crunching on leaves and branches also wind while filming in Abney Park.When adding the Title of our film opening "Tortured" there was hardly any  Foley sound .As a group myself Nadia also Sharina and Dami went out into the quite corridors to create heavy breathing foley sounds as we was unable to find suitable female heavy breathing sounds which we could use on Sound Track Pro.We spent a while searching for sounds on sound track pro,but came to the conclusion that creating Foley sounds would be better.

Here I am giving advice to Dami to create a more realistic and clear Foley sounds also taking into consideration the timing of the heavy breathing so the Foley sounds created  could be in sync with the footage of our film opening.

As a group we all take each others advice on board and work together and find new ways of creating better Foley sounds we also tried to make heavy sounds of footsteps both myself and sharina helped create foley sounds which we also found quite fun an amusing activity to do.

Dami creating Foley Sound in the corridor while looking after the equipment.