Jack Colling Evaluative report final version

Jack Colling

Section 1:

Brief:

To film, and edit our own thriller opening sequence with our own choice in sub genre e.g psychological or crime thriller. The opening has to be two to 3 minutes long, and each member of the group has to head a section of its creation. For example one person would be in charge of filming and one person in charge of sound ext.

Thriller opening sequence analysis:

The dark knight rises:

The opening sequence to the dark knight rises is thrilling right from the start as it follow the usual thriller conventions. For example the film features this deep, mysterious background music which builds an exiting atmosphere into the opening sequence. The film doen’t hold back information like most thrillers do because it reveals the main character two minutes into the film and the action starts immediately which draws the viewer into the film immediately.

Leon:

The film leon does follow ordinary thriller conventions as right from the start of the film the main character “Leon” is sent to assassinate a man, this is thrilling in many ways as the director uses a small amount of film noir as the opening scene is shot in the shadows with intense beams of light shining through the bullet holes in the wall. However towards the end of the opening sequence the main character come across a small child, this is quite out of the ordinary as most thrillers do not feature children in them.

Target audience:

The target audience for our product 16 and over.

1.    James Taylor:

James likes a psychological thriller which builds up the picture of what is going on throughout and then at the end of the film there should be a dramatic twist which no one was expecting to shock the viewer.

2.    Liam Griggs:

Liam likes a psychological thriller to be very in depth and complex like the film “Shutter island” where the viewer thinks they understand the film completely and then at the end of the film it turns out that everything that they thought was correct was completely wrong.

3.    Joseph Gruby:

Joseph likes a psychological thriller to be complex and interesting but for it to feature film noir techniques to help build suspense and depth.

4.    Ross Keeling:

Ross likes a psychological thriller to be dark and quite sinister with a slight element of complexity but it should feature a lot of jump scares throughout the film.

5.    Kirsty lilley:

6.    Kirsty likes a psychological thriller to be complex and in depth but to have a fair amount of horror mixed in with it to make the film a gory thriller.

Storyboard preparation

·      Artificial lighting (carbon filament, light orange glow, street lamps)

·       Sub genres(psychological, hint of horror, element of crime)

·      Sound(background, foley sounds e.g character footsteps)

·      Character(secretive not much is known about him

2.

Shots:

·      Panning/establishing shot- used to establish the setting and can be used to set atmosphere for the film.

·      Close ups extreme close ups-used in a thriller to show fear or distress

·      POV- uses in a thriller in a intense part of the film to put empathy onto the people viewing the film

Section 2

The elements which I found most useful when regarding the pre production process was what people wanted the thriller to be like. For example the majority of people that I asked wanted a psychological thriller to be complex and interesting in order to make the viewer really think about what is going on in the film, “thriller to be very in depth and complex”.

The research that I did influenced my storyboard ideas greatly. For example I used flash backs with a blurred, out of focus effect to make sure that I didn’t give away lots of information about the film and held most of the information back from the viewer to give a element of mystery to my opening sequence. There is also a slight element of horror in my opening sequence due to one person saying that they like a thriller with a slight “element of horror”. After looking at some psychological thrillers I found that they almost always feature a house as the “main” setting, the story line mostly involves family whether some one has died or gone missing e.g a small child. It is for that reason that my opening sequence features a house as the setting and the base line of the story as about a family going missing.

The research that I did influenced my storyboard ideas greatly. For example I used flash backs with a blurred, out of focus effect to make sure that I didn't give away lots of information about the film and held most of the information back from the viewer to give a element of mystery to my opening sequence. There is also a slight element of horror in my opening sequence due to one person saying that they like a thriller with a slight “element of horror”. After looking at some psychological thrillers I found that they almost always feature a house as the “main” setting, the story line mostly involves family whether some one has died or gone missing e.g a small child. It is for that reason that my opening sequence features a house as the setting and the base line of the story as about a family going missing.

Section 3
Sound:

• "The first shot needs to have no wind noise" We responded by re filming our establishing shot on a day when the air was still so that there was no longer any un-wanted wind noise.
• "Add in a discrete sound when the main character is revealed" we responded by enhancing some of the normal sounds that featured in the shot.
• We noticed that we didn't have any sound effects which is why we added in sounds of intense heavy breathing and a strong heartbeat soundtrack.
• "It ended quite abruptly" we responded by taking a camera out overnight and we filmed a extra two minutes which left our total time at 2 minutes and 45 seconds after editing.
• "No credits or titles" We responded by adding in the title of our film over our establishing shot and putting the credits into shot number 2.

What parts of our production are effective and why?

After we had acted on our feedback I believe that our second shot is effective as the footage has been reversed and fades in and out to give the effect of someone fading in and out of consciousness, in-between the fades we added in the credits (Directed by...) we also changed the opacity of the shot to give the effect of it being in the past.

What parts of our product were less effective?

The shot of someone being held off of a roof top is the less effective part of our final cut because we recorded a Foley sound of someone screaming and shouting. However after we added this into the film we found that it didn't quite fit as it did not sound realistic. 

When I compared our final cut footage to the film Shutter Island I saw that our final cut was indeed worse because the film Shutter Island had a bigger budget than us so they used professional people and software to edit, record and cast their film which is why it is sleeker and easier to understand. The main item was the cinematography and camera work used in Shutter Island as the director used many different shots and they were so well used. For example he used a helicopter to do an amazing high angle long shot of the island he also had lightening and storm sounds going on intensively in the background, this set the atmosphere amazingly even before the actors started acting.