Extra Feedback

As a class we decided to do some extra feedback within the class. This feedback was alot more useful then what received the other day.

Settings - It was good because the class was unable to tell we had used a college location.

Camera Work - The shots of Stu following Samie worked well. Also the close-up of Samie picking up a brick. This worked really well.

Editing - Good use of black and white, steady pace, flowed well, however went Samie turned round and smile ruined the effect.

Titles - Simple and effective, however the last title had no impact on the audience.

Soundtrack - (Mike =]) Some said the music was slightly over the top but was good in places.
But as a group we think he done rather well on the soundtrack.

That is the end of that =]

Feedback From another class

Another class came in to watch our thriller, the feedback we got was,

Question 1 Does it look like an thriller opening?

Answer = Yes it does it worked really well.

Question 2 What were our strengths and weakness?

Answer = strengths were a vary of shots and angels and the plot is clear. Weakness were some shots lasted to long and the acting.

Question 3 Does it appear to be repetitive?

Answer = Yes in some places

Question 4 What do you think of our titles?

Answer = they were to fast and couldn't be read.

Question 5 does the change from black and white to color work well?

Answer = At times, works well in the forest.

Question 6 How would you improve it?

Answer = Some shots shorter, no more than 3 long shots in a row otherwise very good.

We think that the feedback was mostly positive

editing the good, burning the rest

Today we added more credits to our sequence

We shot more footage but it is unlikely to be used as it is looking oj without but we would like to keep our possibilities open for when we add the music.,

Filming

Our silver lining -

It is Monday and with no real footage and our deadline is on Thursday we had to get our act together and sort this out. In the free before this lesson we all met up to re-film everything and see if we could save our project. We filmed alot of our footage in the woods at LongRoad, we changed our storyline but we are going to use some of the footage from the other filming session.

At the moment things are going alot better, however we are going to need to put in alot of work and work alot faster.

So i am not going to spend anymore time wiritng this when there is more important things to do =]

editing our opening sequence

Samie and mike story - Today we edited our film to make up some time because it is only 50 seconds long and we need it to be nearly 2 Min's. we have decided to put stills of the church at the beginning with the time 5pm, we will then add the sound of the chimes to give the impression of scary and that he attacks at midnight. We looked on the Internet to find the chime sound as the one on garage band is not what we was looking for and the Internet gives us more choice.
We went on http://www.grsites.com/archive/sounds/view/1055/ this site and we found the perfect bells that we wanted, so we are going to download but then found that we couldn't as the computer was to slow. So we downloaded it to the Emma's email address and then from that we were able to transfer it to our finial cut (hopefully). We when found out that we couldn't download it because the file was corrupted.
Emma and Stu are busy trying to find the church bell sounds, while me and mike write the blog. (yay!) .
We have to change our idea because we don't have enough footage, so we will film on monday

Rough Cut

Strengths - Good use of Graveyard,
Good shots,
Black and White is good,
Mood is set well,
Good pace,
Very creative,
Range of shots,
Looks like an opening,
Good music,
Good close-up of graveyard.

Weakness's - Confusing,
Too many zooming in shots,
Music needs to be less bubbly

At the moment our rough cut is still incomplete and still needs alot of work!

Thanks for the positive Feedback! :)

Filming

Emma - i travelled all the way to a little town of Hundon. While here i went and set up my equipment in the local Graveyard and filmed shots of the clock on the tower, shots of a grave with the name of Mary, and shots of the scene. After my trip to the graveyard i went round my friends house to do some more filming. I took shots of her doing her make-up in the mirror and put the camera in an angle so you could see her in the mirror. I also took a shot of her getting ready , these shots make it look as if someone is watching her. This then creates the effect of a stalker.

Then Samie done the titles.

Titles

Credits List - Thriller opening

A production presents

A Mitchell Brown Film

Mike Cooke

Samie Thomas

Costume Design Mary Ramsey

Art Direction John Anderson

Production Design Emma Kelly

Casting Ryan Campbell

Film Editing Chelsey King

Cinematography Jack Hill

Original Music Jennifer Caulkett

Produced Shaun Tobin

Directed Stephen Allen

Shots list

Today we have made a shot list which we will use when we are on location. The Locations that we are going to use are, Stu house and town.
we are going to film on Monday, here is our lists of shot we are going to use,

Shot list (Stu house)

Shot 1- Mid shot, Emma in closet

shot 2- close up, of mike eye

Shot 3- long shot, stu sitting on chair

Shot 4- long shot, zoom out to mid shot, stu leaving the room

Shot 5- close up, Emma getting racer blade out of sock

shot 6- mid shot, stu get mad cause Emma is not in cupboard

Shot 7- long shot, stu going crazy, about Emma not in cupboard

Shot 8- close up, of Emma face.

Shot 9- close up, of Stu face

Shot 10- zoom out to mid shot, Emma strangles Stu

Shot 11- tracking, Emma leaves

Shot 12- close up, of mike eye

Shot 13- mid shot, Stu starts to breath

Location: Cambridge town centre

Shot 14- long shot, of clouds

Shot 15- long shot, of people walking

Shot 16- close up, of Emma

Shot 17- zoom out, of Emma with Stu in the background

Shot 18- point of view, back of Emma's head and what she see's

Shot 19- Extreme close up, Stu smoking

Shot 20- mid shot, Emma getting strangled

Shot 21- over the head, Emma laying on the floor

Mike made us a new animatic to go with our new storyline and he has put our music with it and it sounds and look really good.

Working on a NEW storyboard

Psyco

The opening of 'Psyco' is well done as it follows what a thriller should use. The use of distorted lines and writing creates a harsh and distinctive effect. The soundtrack is very jumpy and adds to the atmosphere. I think Alfred Hitchcock changed the face of thrillers forever. It is a good example of a weldone thriller because it pushed the boundaries of films at that time. Hitchcock had trouble finding some one to produce his film due to its contents and shocked the audiences.

Troubles

As our day of filming went horribly wrong (due to everyone) we had to change our locations from what we agreed to do on our last post. Unfortunately we are now unable to use Stu's flat, but never mind so we are going with other ideas. We are not quite sure what road we are going down yet but hopefully all shall go well.

Locations

We have decided to start our thriller with a shot of the clouds to show innocence, and we have also thought about starting the thriller with colour then go into black and white.

We want to use shots of people in the town centre then using a striking effect that will identify the stalker and the victim.

Props

The props that we are going to need are,

1. A knife
2. A object to hit the girl over the head with
3. A room which will look like a cuboard
4. A t.v.
5. wire to tie the girl with
6. a torch

Shots we may use

Different shots, we are going to use a range of shots to film our media piece. Here is a list of shots,

shot 1- long shot as to get the effect that they are walking normally then zoom in as the person turns a conner.

Shot 2- close up on the man face looking surpisours and a close up on the person eye which the camra can follow to see the girl walking ahead of him.

Shot 3- mid shot to see the guy grabbing the girl and pulling her off screen and hearing her screaming.

shot 4 - close up of the guy hitting the girl over the head with an object, then a black out which opens up on shot 5.

shot 5- flashing images of horrible things.

Shot 6- mid shot of the girl waking up in a cuboard with nothing but a torch light.

shot 7- long shot of the guy having a fag and watching tv.

shot 8- normal shot of the guy walking over to the cuboard.

shot 9- mid shot of the girl with a touch trying to get free with a knife which zooms in to the fear on her face.

Shot 10- close up of the guy's hand slowly opening the door of the cuboard, then a close up of the rage in his eyes that she got out and the anger to get her back.

shot 11- the camra follows the guy around the appartment looking for the girl,

shot 12- mid shot as he returns to the cuboard to see that she is their

shot 13- close up on the girl as she leans forward to stab the guy.

shot 14- close up on the girl phone dialing a number and saying "job done"

shot 15 - long shot of the girl leaving

shot 16- close up on the guy eyes as he begins to breath.

All of these shot are not yet decided but the hole opening is going to be in black and white with one set colour which will stand out to give it a more detail affect.

Animatic

This is our first idea as a animatic. We showed it to the group and listened to what they thought of it, in order to improve it and possibly change it, to make our ides better.


we have decided to change it so that the man is following the girl and then he catches her, then she get hit over the head and then we have flashing images of blood and death, she wakes up locks in a cupboard. while the girl is locked in the cupboard the guy is chilling out, having a fag and watching tv. Then the guy goes to the cupboard and opens it and the girl is not their, so the guy goes crazy and searches for her. (the girl with a torch trying to get free with a knife), looks around really trying to find her. Then the guy goes back to the cupboard and looks and she is their with a scary look in her face and gets up and stabs the guy, then she gets her stuff and makes a phone call 'Job done!" and leaves. Mean while the guy waking up in a pool of blood and has a fit. Close up on eyes opening.

So we are going to film this partly in the dark room is the cupboard. We can use a room in the college to represent the room where he is keeping her. We can have the walking part at the back on college on the field. These locations are not set and they can be changed.

Today's Lesson

In this lesson we finished our Final cut project. We uploaded 12 drawings from our story board, each was drawn by Samie and we took pictures of them using the camera on the Mac. When put in order the pictures show what we hope to achieve with our project. We have used close-up shots on some images for example on the last shot of the man dying on the floor. We chose the soundtrack that Mike had created, even though we liked Stu's it seemed to much of a dance track and didn't fit our thriller opening as well. Also Stu is not here again so he has't had much choice on what has been going on.

At the end of this lesson we hope to show our Final cut poject and answer questions that the class may ask us.

Soundtrack

We have started creating different soundtracks that we could use for our thriller opening sequence. Stu's creation was quite good and may work well for a thriller after a few changes. At the moment it seems to much like a dance track rather then a thriller soundtrack. Mike has also created a soundtrack which we may be able to use.

Both soundtracks have been created using Garage Band.

Lets Catch up =]

Looking around today it seems that we are quite far behind, so in today's lesson we need to get to where everyone else.

Our idea for our opening is not yet finalised however, we do have a rough idea of what is going on. We have decided to go along with the stalker idea but we are going to add distorted images of death to confuse the audience and draw them in to keep watching.

So far we haven't created a soundtrack for our opening but in today's lesson we ok pictures of our storyboard using photo booth. We then had to put our images on to the programme final cut and create something which will hopefully have some similarities to our thriller. While using final cut we are showing when we will be using shots like close-ups etc.

Next lesson

We need to take pictures of our story board and then add them on to final cut. By doing this we can get a rough idea of what our thriller opening should look like. When we have created a soundtack we will be able to add it to our final cut project to see if they work together.

storyline

During our thriller opening we have decided to use images of death and other images like the one above to give the effect of pain and add to the thriller.

Another opening we liked, Dexter

This is a thriller tv show. Even though it is not an opening of a thriller film we liked it because the story line is different.

Our Final Idea

Our final idea was a man being followed by a young woman walking through town, then a man walkes into a room and the women is behind the table in a room. The women then stabes the man and makes a phone call saying 'job is done' then exits the man then takes a breath. We think this should all be in black and white. We then did a story board to show our ideas and the camra angel we want to do.
we used garage band to make our theme music which is going to go with our triller.

Our Ideas

The movies that we thought of that would go with the mood of our thriller are;

After looking through various thriller openings we decided that 'Sin City' was very effective as an opening because the use of a comic book style mixed with the black and white made it different from other thrillers yet still very appealing. The use of certain specks of color for example the red on the women's dress makes the film seem modern and reaches a younger audience.


After looking at 'Sin City' we decided it would be a good idea to do our thriller in black and white and if possible we will try to have certain blocks of colour.

Another opening we liked was 'Se7en' the opening credits leave the audience confused about what is going on which makes them want to read more. The low chords and dim lights create a perfect atmosphere for a thriller which is something we hope to be able to achieve in our own project. The flashing images of death and the words that the camera focuses on gives the audience an idea of what the film will be about. The opening is clever and is memorable to the audience making it a very successful opening for a thriller.

First of the Blog =]

This is the beginning of the Thriller. Would you believe Stu isn't here, never mind.

We have spent this lesson looking at previous Thriller opening sequences made by LongRoad students, and we also watched the opening of 'Se7en'.

Here is an opening that our group thought was really good:



Structure/narrative and performance, the structure of the piece was really easy to follow , it didn't try to tell you the whole story in the opening, it did what it meant to by just doing the titles in a effective way. The narrative was clear throughout the opening, and the audience was able to tell that it was about.

Camera work - the camera work in the opening showed a varied amount of shots. The us of this made the opening more exciting and was able to keep the audience interested. The change between shots was fast which worked well with the pace of the opening.

Editing - The use of filter was excellent it made the opening seem distorted and worked well for a thriller. The ink in the bath was also good as it gave a clear and imaginative effect of blood.

Sounds - The soundtrack was the same throughout the opening and worked well with the rest of the thriller.

Titles - The titles were clear and simple whicvh worked well.