Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product? 

Our thriller is aimed at both males and females, aged from 15 – 25. We decided this as be believed our thriller would fit into the 15+ age band well as it doesn’t involve swearing or any sexual acts. We thought that 25 is the oldest age group that would watch it as it doesn’t include much adult content which may not grab their attention for long enough. Whereas 15+ would enjoy it because of that reason. Below are a couple of people we thought our thriller would suit.

Name: Clare Brook
Age: 17
Interests: Clare loves psychological books, programmes like ‘Exile’ on BBC 1, and films like ‘Se7en’. She likes happy, meaningful songs from a classic rock genre including The Beatles. Clare is in her second year at Ashbourne sixth form in London, studying her favourite subject - psychology. Her part-time job is at an insurance company at the weekends, which doesn’t hold her interest too much but does help her with money, so she can go to the cinema and watch the newest films that she likes.  Clare loves the constant buzz in London and also the social aspect. In her spare time, Clare goes to the cinema with her 3 best friends, who also love psychological thrillers. Her favourite film is ‘Cape Fear’ as she likes the enigmas, story line and characters.

 

Name: Dan Cooper
Age: 23
Interests: Dan also loves psychological TV programmes, films and books when he has time. He likes to listen to classical music so he can relax and study to it. Dan goes to Bournemouth University and also studies psychology. In addition, Dan likes going to the sea-side and reading a good psychological book when he has the time. He enjoys the social life there and also the night life. Dan favourite film is ‘Silence of the Lambs’ as it includes an enigma and an amazing story line which he loves. 

Evaluation Activity 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rDB9L4wR1Y&feature=player_profilepage

We have done this evaluation activity by video. We have played the thriller film whilst analysing and explaining the choices that we have made.

We included the over the shoulder shot when we filmed this. We played the footage of the Preliminary Task so viewers can understand what we mean once they see it.

Final Piece. The Existence

On our thriller the end 5 seconds were cut off because the film would not upload fully onto YouTube which has therefore cut off the end. In the last 3 seconds Alex hushes Tabi and she realises that Alex is real and not just a dream. Also the title ‘The Existence’ comes up with the music on quietly. Furthermore, some of the music has been cut out during the film on this YouTube clip as it wouldn’t upload properly onto the hard-drive which then was put onto YouTube. 

BBFC

Now we have finished the film, we have looked back on the British Board of Film Class (BBFC) to see what we would now rate our thriller. From looking at what each certificate allows in films, we have decided to stay with certificate 15. This is an appropriate certificate as it then allows us to include adult themes, hard drugs, strong words, moderate-strong violence/sex references and mild non detailed sex activity. Films that are like this are ‘Good Luck Chuck’ and ‘The Uninvited’. In our thriller we have not used any of these features as we didn’t feel the need to include them, but later in the film there is then a chance for it to include any of the themes listed above.

Marketing

As marketing is one of the most important things for a film we decided to make this page to help to promote and market ‘The Existence’. As the social networking site, ‘Facebook’ has increasingly more popular, we thought that this would be the perfect way to get people to notice our film by suggesting the page to our friends who can then send it onto their friends to get more and more people involved. 

As ‘Twitter’ is becoming the new ‘Facebook’, we have also used it to promote our film as more teenagers are using it. We thought this would be a good way to sponsor our thriller as it would allow us to get in contact with the public to see what their views are and what they thought we could improve or keep in the thriller. Also, as people could re-tweet us, this would mean that more people would find out about the film.

Spell Check

As our blog is almost finished, It was important to spell check everything on the blog to make sure it the grammar was correct and made sense.   This involved looking at each of the posts and studying the language to see if there were any errors.

Music

We had a lot of trouble trying to find music to fit in with our thriller as nothing quite fitted with what was happening in our thriller. After a lot of searching between the group Alex found ‘Abducted’ which amazingly fit in with every scene! We chose this piece of music because as each scene was getting to a tense moment, so was the music which gives the audience a feeling of anxiety and it sustained the tension. Also, conveniently the music was just the right length for our film as we didn’t have music at the beginning which built up the tension as it was just Tabi sleeping.

    

Poster Influences

This poster has influenced us quite a lot on thinking about what to include in our initial poster. Firstly, the man looks very normal which immediately tricks the audience. He is wearing a bow tie which shows he could be a part of the business world. The red background shows the viewer that the film is a thriller and not a children film as it is a blood red which shows that death could be involved in this film. The line at the top reads ‘A man who has everything has everything to hide’ which could mean that the main character (Mr Brooks) has a deep secret that you will find out in the film, which again makes the audience want to watch the film. The date at the bottom of the poster tells the viewer when the film comes out which is vital information to sell the film and this has influenced us to include this on our thriller poster. The red mark at the bottom could be blood which gives the audience a clue of what the plot could be or what is going to happen during the film which is death. Also, the dot after Mr is the same blood mark as the one at the bottom. The edgy red boarder around the poster demonstrates that the film is edgy and thrilling. The colour of the boarder fades into black near the bottom which could intend that evil takes over this man in the film. The plot of the film could be included in this poster as the protagonist and antagonist could be one person. On this poster, the square of his face is red which shows that he may have split a personality or someone always with him. One of our ideas for a poster is to have the antagonist with half of her face with evil make-up on and the other side is innocent to show the split personalities that the protagonist has whilst suffering from schizophrenia. Also, the name of the main characters are included on the poster along with the directors name underneath to show the viewer who is in the film as they may like one of the actors usual films. The title of the thriller is one of the main selling points as well as drawing the viewer into watching it.

Changing actress'

Our actress’ have drastically changed since we first planned our thriller film. First of all we decided to have Alex Fresco’s cousin (Georgia Fresco) as she has had acting experience from the west end and films with Madonna. The other actress we originally wanted to use Lucy Kane as she has blonde hair and would fit into the protagonist stereotype. When we initially tried to film, everywhere that we had planned to film was either locked or the lighting wasn’t correct. As these actress’ are not in our group or even school it was very hard to organise when and where we could film. We changed the protagonist to Tabitha Munday as she is doing Drama AS level and also attends our school. The little girl is now Alex Fresco as she is in our group, did GCSE Drama and is willing to act. Even though Tabitha attends our school, it is still very hard to plan when to film as she does a lot of extra curriculum activities outside of school.

Pitch of The Existence

Dairy of a day shooting

We planned to film on Saturday 19^th March 2011 at 6pm. We all met in Ongar high street to film on the street for the first scene. The first scene had been filmed and we wanted to watch it back but found out the camera had broken and the head needed cleaning which means it won’t let us watch any footage back and we were unable to tell if anything had actually recorded. As one of our group members (Charlotte Mackenzie) had an iPhone 4 we decided to film a scene on that to see how it turned out. The quality of the recording was good but we would not have been able to edit on there and this would have been a massive problem later on. We then went to our second location, which was the public toilets but they were locked. Our third location was a bedroom and one of our members (Alex Fresco) lived very near the locations, so that scene was easy to film. As the rest of the filming did not work we didn’t want to film one scene as we are going to use other actors if we did not get all the filming done that day as the actors we used cannot get any time off school.    

We have planned to next try and film Wednesday 23^rd March 2011 after school in the original location in King Georges in Brentwood.  This worked successfully, with each scene being shot a few times so we could choose the best one when it came to editing, we did not have any major interruptions either.  However with our main actor having to go at half 5 for college we could not complete all of our filming on this day, therefore we kept and uploaded the footage onto the school system, and completed the rest of the scenes needed on Tuesday 28th March 2011 straight after school. 

Here, on Wednesday 23rd March 2011.  Rachel is completing Alex's make-up ready for filming, and in order to complete filming to a high standard.  Black make-up around the eyes was used to show abnormality.


I needed to make Alex look messed up and to make her look weak and basically dead. I used black eye shadow to make her eyes look deeper and i put white powder over he face to make her like ghostly and ill. I also put blood on her top to make it look like she had been cut and that she still has the wounds that killed her. I also put black make up round her face and on her arms to make her look dirty. This look was important to the shooting because we needed her not to look 'normal' or real.

Script

The Existence: Script

Written by Charlotte Mackenzie & Alex Fresco

Scene 1

Lucy walks down the lane with her iPod in, she looks down at the ground as she walks

Georgia enters and the two meet, Lucy begins to engage in conversation

Lucy: …Are you okay?

Only looks up when she finishes her sentence

Once Georgia is recognised, she begins to run away, tripping over she cuts herself

Scene 2

Lucy walks into the public toilets and begins to wash her wound

Georgia is already behind

Lucy looks up and sees Georgia in the mirror, she moves frantically looking around

Lucy: *breathes heavily*

Georgia is removed from the scene as if she has disappeared

Scene 3

Lucy wakes up

Lucy: *breathes heavily*

Georgia: Shhhhhhhhhh

Lucy turns to see Georgia sat in a chair, staring at Lucy

Shooting Schedule

Initially we decided to shoot in our free periods in school time as we are all together but this was an issue as Georgia has school as she is younger than us and lives around 45 minutes away and also we didn’t have similar frees altogether. When we planned this the props were not ready and thought through properly. We planned to film the whole thriller beginning in these free lessons but as we discussed this we realised that this was very unrealistic as it is too much to film in single hours. Also we would not have had time to get to our location, film and get back to school in time for our lessons as the location is 40 minutes’ walk away.

As a group we planned to film Sunday 20^th March 2011 at 9am. We planned to film the whole of the thriller in one day. We found out that we cannot all film that day as Mary Sullivan, Rachel Wardley and Charlotte Mackenzie all have work on that Sunday at 9am, also Georgia Fresco has an audition for the Olympic children’s choir that day at 2pm which means she cannot make it either.

The next time that we have planned to film to shoot is Saturday 19^th March 2011 at 6pm as Mary, Rachel and Charlotte finish work at 5pm, so we can all be at the location by 6pm. We are hoping to film as much as possible with all the props and scenes that we have planned earlier. If we do not get everything filmed in that one day then we are going to organise the next time we meet up that day. We all have allocated jobs to do. Rachel is doing a health and safety risk assessment on the area we are filming to make sure it is safe for us all to go in and film. We are all asking for permission from the owner of the land where our location is set. This is a diary of what we are going to do when filming:

6pm – Arrive and set up for our first scene on the road side.

7pm – Moving to our second location for the middle part of our thriller

8pm – Moving to our third location and filming the last part

9pm – Finish

More Do's and Don'ts.

Do’s

- Find an interesting place to film which is cinematically interesting to the audience.

- The Poster has the most cinematic scene on.

- Use nice/expensive cars or extremely old/vintage cars, not normal cars as they are not interesting.

- Instead of using zooms, get up close to the thing you want to film.  

Don’ts

- Do not use zoom.

- Do not film inside your house as this is not an interesting location.

- Do not have girls running down alley ways as it is boring and typical.

- Don’t lose site on the visual media

Mind Map



Questionnaire Results

From asking an equal amount of males to females mainly from the age range of 16-19, I have found out that most people like the suspense in thrillers but the genre of crime. This is usually because they like the reality of the story line which they can relate to. The main character and villain is the most important character within the film and that the majority of the group we asked watched thriller films every 3 months and like the characters best in thriller films. They equally liked male or female roles but not children and like films in colour rather than black and white as it is easier to watch and more enjoyable. The title is the most eye catching thing on a thriller film poster, which means our group needs to have a very good title to attract an audience. Thriller films are mainly watched by friends and should be opened by suspense. This shows that our beginning of the thriller could potentially contain suspense to draw the viewer in.

Production stages

Pre-Production
From using the storyboards, it really helped us as a group to plan ahead instead of going into filming straight away and not knowing what or where to film. The storyboards helped us think about what angles we wanted to film from that would make our preliminary work as successful as possible. Without the storyboards, I think our preliminary work would not have been as good as we would have had if we just filmed it without thinking about what angles would look best afterwards and give the right affect that we are looking for.  As a guide we saw a storyboard from an actual thriller film to help advise us on how to draw and write up a proper storyboard. On our storyboard we drew the shot that we wanted, wrote up a brief description of action, shot size, camera angle, lighting, colour in frame, setting, props, costume and sound. As we were filming this in school and only had an hour to film the lighting had to be natural, the costume we used had to be what we were wearing at the time for sixth form which means the costumes were quite formal and natural which didn’t really make a difference to our preliminary. By writing all this down we found that when we were filming it was a lot easier as we could get straight on with filming what we wanted to and not waste time thinking about what shot we want to film and argue about the shot type within the group.  

The year 13 students gave us a lot of helpful advice. They taught us how to use the camera and tripod. We were taught how to make the tripod bigger and smaller and how to make sure the camera is straight instead of pointing up or down by accident. The cameras were easier to use than we first thought as it is just a record and stop button. You can also edit on the cameras but it isn’t very good as you can only go back and record over what you have already done so we are going to edit our preliminary and thriller film on the computer to make it look better and more effective. The cameras we have are touch screen which makes it easier to use as it reduces the amount of buttons.

From watching other groups’ preliminary tasks, they have made lots of errors. The main error most of them made was that they didn’t have the camera high or low enough so the shot cut off the actors head or didn’t have enough of the thing being filmed in the scene. Another error a few groups did was that the camera shots were not quite right as they were too close or not close enough on some of the shots. We took lots of advice from watching these preliminaries. One of the main things that we learnt from the errors other groups did was to make sure the camera is on the tripod securely as another group didn’t make sure it was on securely and the camera was wobbly, this made the film look very unprofessional. Another lesson we learnt from them was to plan ahead as one group didn’t and the viewer could see that the group did not know what they were doing next. 

-Alex Fresco

Production

When filming the preliminary work, it was a successful filming; however there were some difficulties our group came across.  We had a few problems when we went to go and film, first off our group had trouble connecting the camera to the tripod this happened due to a lack of experience with camera technology.  Therefore our group had to be advised on how to connect it properly so the camera would be stable.  Also, when filming we had to do a couple of takes so they would look better once the final filming had been edited; this was because a handshake got cut out as the camera angle was too low.  When doing a second take, we realised that the camera battery was very low, and almost died.  Because of this we had to produce the second take quickly, therefore we had less time to concentrate on what we would like to change.  The camera wouldn’t let us rewind the footage to see if anything needed to be change because there was not significant battery left in the camera.   We also had interrupted filming near the beginning where background noise of voices and someone walking at the side of the camera in view could be seen therefore we had to do a second take.   When completing the preliminary task, we learnt how to use the tripod appropriately and how it can be adjusted to suit different camera angles within the preliminary task.  This can be carried forward to the main thriller because we will adjust the tripods height when using different scenes and camera angles to create an effect on the audience. 

Shooting took longer than expected because of interruptions when filming, such as a loud noise or people walking within the camera shot this involved us having to complete a second take.  Also, the people involved in the filming laughed at certain point which involved a retake afterwards.  Another thing we had to consider was finding a suitable location that wasn’t already taken by other groups filming there preliminary work and making sure the location would not get interrupted if it was in a busy place.  This is why we chose the stairs in the T block, as they are not used regularly, however it was halfway across the school, which involved a five minute walk, this time could have been used filming.  Luckily empty stairs involved no interruptions so we could complete our preliminary work quickly, asking permission to use the empty classroom next door and this got granted straight away. 

If we were doing the preliminary task again we would make some changes in order to make sure our filming ran successfully.  These would be going to view the camera and tripods in break before the lesson in order to make sure the camera is fully charged and to pick a tripod suitable to our filming.  Our group would also make sure the classroom next door to where we are going to film was empty beforehand, therefore to avoid any confusion and to make sure we could get permission to use the classroom available.  Luckily, for our group this wasn’t a problem however it could have been a potential problem. 

-Mary Sullivan

Post-Production:

What problems did you have editing the Prelim task?
There were problems with the computers when we went to edit, this involved us changing computers several times which was time consuming.   Therefore, because of this we had less time to edit our prelim work.  The first problem we had was we didn’t know how to edit, the programme was knew to us so we resolved that by having a Year 13 student come in to the lesson and to explain how we do it. We had to get familiar with editing different shots and on one instance we accidently cut out one of the shots. We asked a Year 13 student to correct and to get back the shot that we deleted.  We also had to view the shots where we completed more than one take, and decide on the best one to put within the sequence because they were very similar we had to watch the clips twice which was time consuming.  Also, when uploading the finished sequence onto the final tape we had problems as it would not upload, and we could not find the finished sequence on the computer as it had been stored under a different file. 

What did you learn about editing which would be useful when it comes to the main task? Was doing the Prelim a useful exercise?
I learnt that when we done a few different takes, we had to pick the best one that went well with the sequence of shots and we edited out the others (cut them out). In order to do this we needed to take more footage to have a wider selection of takes to decide which one works best with the rest of the filming. I learnt how to put all the shots together to make one entire sequence.
The prelim task was useful because it enabled our group to get used to and adapt to the camera equipment, and how to adjust and use the tripod in order to make different shots and make them effective.  We also knew what problems might occur when filming, and therefore gave our group an idea of what to expect from when filming our actual thriller. It also gave us the opportunity to have fun with creating and planning different shots and for us to relax when doing it, we didn’t have to worry about it being the main thriller sequence.

What evidence have you got from people who have watched the task, in the form of feedback? We asked other people in our media class to look over our footage and final sequence, we asked them to evaluate our footage, with questions such as whether they thought the camera angles where right and if it flowed well as a sequence. The feedback was positive and they said it was good for our first attempt of a short film. However, we have to always make sure that when we do a pan shot, the tripod needs to be steady otherwise the camera will look jolted in the final sequence.

When you watch the prelim task does the finished product match your first visualisation? Why/Why not?Yes it does because it was a simple task with simple filming so our expectations were not high. They did reach our expectations and the whole group was happy with the result of the footage.
It wasn’t because we all thought we would have more of a challenge for our first production that it actually was, we were disappointed that we couldn’t do more filming with experienced shots including different sound techniques but it is only the Prelim task.

By: Rachel Wardley

Questionnaire

Questionnaire

1.      Gender

 Male                      Female

2.       How old are you?
15 or

under                    16-19                      20-25                  26-30                   30+

3.      What words do you think of when you hear the word thriller?

________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________

4.      What sort of genre of Thriller do you like?
Disaster Thriller
Mystery Thriller
Psychological Thriller
Crime Thriller

Other

5.       Why do you like this type of Thriller?
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________

6.       Which Character is essential to the Thriller and why?
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________

7.       How often do you watch Thrillers?
Weekly
Once a month
Once every three months
Once a year
Never

8.      What do you like about Thriller films?
Twisted plots
Characters

Suspense

Being scared
(other)_______________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________

9.       Who do you prefer to watch in a thriller?

Male

Female

Child

10.   Do you prefer film in colour or black and white?

11.   What is the most eye catching thing on a thriller film poster?

____________________________________________________

____________________________________________________

____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

12.   Who do you normally watch thriller films with?

Family                            Friends                    On your own

13.   How do you think a thriller should open?

Death                      Chase                   Suspense                 Flashback               

 Everyday life

-By Alex Fresco