Evaluation question 7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the product?

When comparing our preliminary task video to our actual thriller film, there are vast improvements.

Lighting

During our preliminary video our use of lighting was very poor. In the shot to the left we aimed to create a strong silhouette effect to give the person a edgy, mysterious effect, but we were very inexperienced so it did not produce the image we intended.

When it came to making a similar shot in our actual thriller we were much more successful. We got our character at the correct angle in correlation to the position of the camera and light source. Thus creating a more defined, and better silhouette effect.






Sound Effects & Music

With our preliminary exercise we didn't include any sound effects. This made the project appear unprofessional and gave it a amateurish image. With out music and sound effects the audio between the two had to be perfect otherwise it would decrease the quality of the film. Whereas with the use of music and sound effects any pieces of audio that you do not need or want in the film for any reason, it can be replaced with the music and sound effects. We also found that the use of sound is very useful for creating tension and suspense. It gave the actions on screen some pace and took the ease of the editor as the sound helped to speed up sequences.


Camera Shots

With the preliminary, the majority of the shots were close ups. The lack of variety of shots made the close up loose their significance as this was seen as the normal shot. In comparison to our thriller, we incorpreated a variety of shots involving including

Mid low angle shots -

Close ups-

Mid high angle shots -

Evaluation question 6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Before creating this film, i was a completely oblivious to how much work goes into a film. Before i was a bystander, and all the time i was just interested in the story line of the film. As a result of the film, i feel like a reborn movie critic. I pay more attention to angles and shots used in the film, and i think about why they are used?, what are the shots trying to portray? This is mainly as a result of learning about mise on scene, trying to think about the settings of the film, the costumes of the character, the body language of the characters, the positioning of the characters and also lighting and colour of the shots. Along with the different types of shots such as long shots, mid shots, close ups etc, it has taught me that each and every shot is constructed to portray certain impressions, deliberate impressions.
This made me realise the importance of light in the shots and how also editing is a major part of making a successful movie. I realised that good editing can make any sequence more exiting , pacey, and dramatic with the correct use of music, and titles. The editing of the film was the hardest part. we had to get the sequences in order, and when they were we had to create suspense and make the audience want to watch. After correctly choosing music tracks to accompany the film it made a dramatic difference to the hole film and it transformed its hole interpretation. We found that during a film, some sequences cannot be connected. To fix this problem we put titles in between these sequences. This allowed the film to flow and also gave the film a bit of pace and excitement.

Throughout the project i used new pieces of technology.

Programs used during the creation of my Thriller

View more presentations from Jake Williams.

Evaluation question 5) How did you attract/address your audience?

We reached out to our target audience through the use of the Internet. I created a online survey on surveymonkey.com
This is the link for the survey , http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FNRMCMX

I sent this link to my friends via text but to widen the responses i posted the survey on my facebook account. This allowed me to get a lot more responses and a vast amount of different people to take the survey. I spoke about my thriller project and how feedback from this survey would help me greatly so i requested some responses and to my relief I got a lot.

This is the link on my facebook account that i have asked colleague's to complete

The thriller holds the audiences attention as the feelings of the hit man can be related to almost everyone, where you are asked to do something that you strongly disagree with, from the extremes to the minor. When this happens we all undoubtedly feel a sense of hostility and anger towards the person asking us to do the thing we don't want to, reflected in the hit man's aggressive behavior and tone of voice. What will keep the audience's attention will be who he is talking to as we do not see the victims face until the end, and what he will do to the victim. Along with the countdown theme of the titles, it will give them a felling that some explosion or detonation will occur , which keeps the audience engaged and on the edge.

Why will the audience what to carry on watching after the two minutes...

simply because the first two minutes are filled with mystery, suspense and tension. The audience will be left wanting to know the answers to several questions, like ..why didn't the hitman want to kill the target?..why is he so angry with the women,... what is the sudden flash of White light.. is it a bomb ??
With all the mystery around the hitman's relationship with the target, the boss and also why he is so angry will leave the audience wanting answers. The mystery behind the targets past will baffled the audience, leaving them needing, demanding a explanation.
The use of the cliffhanger right at the end contributes to a lot of the questions. With the sudden appearance of white light seconds after we see the victims face and realise who it is, if it makes me wonder what happens next, I'm sure the audience will also feel the same. The connection between the audience and the hitman will instantly make the audience want to find out how he handles the situation.

Evaluation question 3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our media project may appeal and be distributed  for viewing by USA production company, Legendary Pictures.
This is because this particular production company are involved in a long, successful list of thriller films including The Dark Knight, Inception, The Town, and Watchmen. With such a successful line of films it would be common sense to by released with the production company as our film has typical thriller elements and has similar themes to previous films, one being the town which includes the use of hostages etc. The production company could release the film as a spin off to the film, Hitman.

very similar shot used in our film,


However film 4 would be more realistic as it is a British production company that distributes more small independent films, in comparison to Warner brothers etc and the other big American production companies. This is because this project could be finished on a small budget, which film 4 specialize in.

As for viewing the film, i believe it would be the most profitable and beneficial for the film to be released at the cinema using celluloid as the majority of cinemas project films using this method. However releasing the film in digital would still be shown on mainstream cinema's, but it would also bring other advantages. This includes being cheaper to produce, and also be able to release the film via the Internet on sites such as You Tube,as it would be on a digital, transferable format, which in turn could bring in more publicity and revenue for the film. This is because a successful cinema experience would be the best opportunity to increase future  DVD sales unlike first viewing on television then DVD as it would gain more publicity, and could lead to a larger amount of revenue. Is is evident in the case the film Avatar. This film through cinema release was the biggest selling DVD in 2010 selling 10,156,458 units, bringing in an incredible $183,231,512 worth of revenue just from DVDs. I would advise the film to not be released on main stream television first as i do not believe the project could be transformed into a television series.

Evaluation question 4) Who would be the audience for your project?

From the results of my survey using surveymonkey.com, after posting the survey on my facebook account

This is the link on my facebook account that i have asked colleague's to complete

our target audience are 16-19 year old, the majority being female, which is why we tried to incorporate the issue of gender into the film, through women becoming more powerful. Although the film will particularly appeal to men as its an action thriller which traditionally appeal to men. On reflection our film will appeal more to men then women although as the majority of people, according to our research, go with friends, which in theory will include women.

Although when we carried some audience feedback, the viewers thought that the film would appeal more to men rather than women which didn't agree with our previous results. This indicates to us that to appeal to women more changes will have to be made in the thriller, although the audience believed that the lack of women viewers would easily be countered by a surge of a male audience.

As the majority of people according to my research watch thrillers with their friends so we will not try and appeal to a 'family' audience. After realising this we knew we could use weapons in our film as we are not aiming for a family audience. We know that our audience will want to watch our thriller as we have included the main element of a thriller our audience want, suspense. The overwhelming response to what makes people want to watch thrillers and what they believe a thriller should be build on is SUSPENSE. We attempted to do this through the use of short quick sequences To create tension. We constantly flipped being the present time and the past to create a bit of suspense for the audience to make them want to know how one affects the other, and how the two are related. The title sequence we created also ads to the suspense as it follows a countdown theme, as if something dramatic was about to happen , but never really does.

Here is a image i created using wordle which includes the key words from the results of my research, which all in one way or another can be related to our film.

Evaluation question 2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

With our thriller film we tried to represent gender in a specific way. The films involves a male hit man taking orders from a women boss. The male hit man could not come to terms with several issues, one being the target, and two taking orders from a women. This is in mind as in today's world women are beginning to take on a more important role not just at home but in business too and this film in some ways attempts to reflect the some feelings some male workers may receive through taking orders form a women.

As for other social groups such as sexuality, ethnicity, and age, we didn't make any deliberate intentions to represent them in any way as it was totally irrelevant to the film and we didn't feel it would be appropriate to incorporate these social groups in our thriller. In our film young people are not portrayed in a negative nor positive light as we felt it has very little relevance to the theme. i was to try and deliberately target ethnicity then i would have produced a prejudice film where violence would occur specifically because of the background and race of the character.

Evaluation Question 1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

View more presentations from Jake Williams.

Treachery

Finally fully uploaded, were is the debut of ... TREACHERY

Film Complete

Today after slight tweaking, we have been given the backing of our teachers to say that OUR FILM IS COMPLETE.
Unfortunately we are unable to upload it as we have not been allocated our candidate numbers yet. Once we have them, THE FILM WILL BE UP.

Titles

Today i spend a few hours creating our titles. They all follow a timer theme, where the words begin as a group of mixed letters and then begin to form the correct spelling, after a set amount of time. The words all do various types of fades, in and out, to draw the attention to them. Here is one of the titles.

Music Sorted

We have received approval to use a new track in our thriller from moby gratis. This is our music LIFE LINE.

Problems with the Music

On reflection of our first draft, we noticed that some of the music we used from moby gratis didn't match some of the scenes and it didn't portray the feelings and intentions which it should have. To try and correct this we experimented with the speed of some of the shots to try and help create the atmosphere we intended. Despite our desperate efforts we were unable to create EXACTLY what we wanted. I decided to go on the hunt for some new music. Hopefully this new track i discovered will provide the few seconds of magic which will enhance our thriller to the next level.

Draft one of our thriller is FINISHED

Today We tool remarkable strides towards completing our film by completing our first draft of the film. The next stage is to edit the film to a outstanding standard.

Filming finished :)

Today we finally finished filming all of our thriller film. On the whole it has gone pretty well and we loom forward to puttin it all together and editing it.
Here is a shot of one of out cast tied up or a important scene.

Another day of shooting

In today's period our filming location is temporarily occupied. When we can use it, we aim to film the majority of our hostage shots today. This will include our woman being tied up by rope.

Our hitman will be frantically waving his gun, to show how annoyed and frustrated he is with the situation he has found himself in.

Filming Continues

Today we took further steps forward towards completing our filming process. We filmed some shots of the two mains characters faces which will be nicely integrated into our film. This shots include close ups of eyes, and mouths.

Sound Effects

After our failed attempt to capture the genuine sound of rain, we have decided we will use sound effects available in final cut express. We are looking to include sound effects such as rain, and also just some other creepy, mysterious sounds.

Music Approved

Today i recieved confirmation from Mobygratis.com that i have the permission to use two tracks from their database.

The filming begins

Today was the first day of filming for our thriller film. We tried to record some sound effects , being the rain as it has hammering down although it turned out to be a unsuccessful attempt as the micophone failed to pick up the sound as it started to rain lightly when we started record :/

On a brighter note though we begain filming some scenes from our thriller film. These were the meeting scenes between the hitman and the contractor.

Music: In process

Today i applied for the license to use non-copyright music for our thriller film, treachery. I have chosen two tracks which i think will undoubtedly create a suspenseful feeling, along with mystery, drama and fright.
I applied using mobygratis.com, and they ask the artists if i am given the permission to use the music. I had to fill in a form online and i will get my response within 24 hours.

WE HAVE A NAME

the news that you have all been waiting for...
Our thriller film will be called..

Treachery

My group was thinking about calling it betrayal, as the hitman betrayed the contractor , although their have been films called that before. So i thought to myself what other words have the same meaning as betrayal...DECEPTION
I looked on imdb.com to see if a film existed with that name. To my shock horror it had been, the film was released in 2008.
So back to the drawing board i went and then this word popped into my head, treachery
i looked online and finally, there were no previous film with this name !!
So i emailed my other colleges to get some feedback and they were delighted with the name so we all agreed that our thriller film will be called, Treachery.

Our Title Sequence

After researching the order of titles i came up with a ruff list of how the titles will appear and who will be named in each part for our thriller.

• Production Company Ident
• Shockwave production presents
• A film by ..Jake Williams
• Produced by. Dan Onslow, Jake Williams, Amanda Ngonyama
• Staring... Amanda Ngonyama...Dan Onslow
• TREACHERY
• Casting by.. Jake Williams
• Costume Designer..Amanda Ngonyama
• Music by.. Moby Gratis
• Film Editors...Dan Onslow, Jake Williams, Amanda Ngonyama
• Production Designer..Dan Onslow
• Director of Cinematography Jake Williams
• Producers .. Dan Onslow, Jake Williams Amanda Ngonyama
• Written by.. Dan Onslow, Jake Williams
• Director Jake Williams

Titles: The Art of the Title

A title sequence is the method by which cinematic films or television programs present their title, key production and cast members, or both, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound
As part of the thriller film we have to include titles in our film. I decided to go online in research into title sequences. This is when i came across a site called The Art of the Title. This is a website with one of the largest collections of film and television title sequences. The website looks at the titles, displays them , than discusses them.
When looking at the title sequences on the site, i was looking at what information was given. The majority of films follow a structure on who is introduced where, i.e the actors, directors, etc.
They appears to be in the structure, or close to the structure of :-

• Production Company Ident
• (Production company name) ..presents
• the producer/s of the film
• a film by...
• Main actors
• title of film
• other actors in the film
• casting by..
• the costume designer
• music by
• film editors
• production designers
• Other Roles within the film (i.e make up etc)
• director of photography
• producers
• writers
• directors

This structure is used and visible in the title sequences of :-

Panic Room


Se7en


Taxi Driver

Sabotage : Classic Example Of Suspence

Sabotage was released in 1936. The film was directed by Alfried Hitchcock, the 'master of suspence', and starred Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka and Desmond Tester.

Plot

Karl Verloc (Oscar Homolka), the owner of a cinema, is part of a gang of saboteurs who are planning a series of attacks in London. Scotland Yard suspects Verloc's involvement in the plot and assigns Detective Sergeant Ted Spencer (John Loder) to investigate Verloc, initially under cover. Spencer conducts the investigation posing as a greengrocer's helper, selling fruit and vegetables in a shop right next to the cinema.
Verloc's young and beautiful wife (Sylvia Sidney) believes that her husband is a good man because he has been kind to her and her little brother, Stevie (Desmond Tester), who lives with them. However, gradually she comes to suspect that her husband may not be as good of a man as she thinks he is. Verloc gives Stevie a task to delivery some film canisters to the cinema. Stevie had thought that he was simply delivering a film canister, but he was unknowingly carrying a time bomb for Verloc, to be detonated in the London Underground station under Piccadilly Circus. Stevie however had become distracted along the way, which had delayed his delivery, and thus the bomb exploded en route to its final target, killing him and many passengers on the bus he was on.
Verloc confesses to his wife, but then blames Scotland Yard and Spencer for Stevie's death, saying that they were the ones who prevented Verloc from successfully carrying out the bomb delivery himself. Soon afterwards, as Verloc and his wife are preparing to eat dinner, she stabs him to death with a knife. When Spencer arrives to arrest Verloc he realizes what has happened, but is adamant that she shouldn't admit that she killed her husband. Despite this, she starts to confess her crime to a policeman. Then an explosion and fire at the cinema intervene, destroying all the evidence of her crime and effectively preventing the policeman from remembering whether it was before or after the explosion that she told him, "My husband is dead!"
At the end we see Mrs Verloc and Ted Spencer walk away together.

The Lord Mayor Show Sequence





'...master of suspense.'


Hitchcock creates vast amounts of suspense in this film in a variety of ways. One of which is by letting us , the audience know when the bomb is going to explode. This becomes a useful tool as thoughtout the sequence ( Lord Mayor Show ), Hitchcock constantly includes shots of clocks, letting us know the bomb is drawing closer and closer to its destination, but yet the characters have no idea . This builds suspense as we are constantly waiting for the bomb to explode, knowing it is going to explode, and not being able to do nothing about it. The fact we see the bomb and Hitchcock constantly uses close ups of the bomb also adds to the suspense.

The music used in this sequence also is cleverly used to create suspense as the sounds are very similar to the sound of a ticking clock, thus linking back to the destination time, the close up of the clocks. As the speed of the music increases, the time also does. When looking at the images accompanying this music, we can clearly say this is a use of contrapuntal music which adds to the suspense and tension as we get the impressions things are not all as appear, something disastrous IS about to occur. This is in connection to the tempo of the music as it increases as the time gets closer and closer to 1:45 PM.

Health and Safety Risk Assessment

Before we went out to start filming there are eight aspects of health and safety which we needed to consider, these are:

1. No filming in inappropriate locations
2. Check safety locations e.g. roads
3. Minimize risk of theft of equipment
4. When filming on location ensure teacher or responsible adult know where you are and have telephone number and when you will return
5. Check all equipment is working before you leave
6. Ensure you have permission for filming if necessary
7. Always film with at least one other person
8. Ensure you have the permission of those you are filming

Testing our locations

In today's session me any my fellow group members visited the locations of which we are filming our thriller. We went equipped with a camera to test out how good or bad the lighting would be from the different angles in which we aim to capture. The results were quite promising as their was sufficient light visible for the majority of shoots however some artificial light may need to be introduced,

As for he other half of shots, we require the use of a dark room, in which a board room/ meeting environment can be created. I had the idea of looking at the drama class rooms we have in school. As we examined the class we discovered hat we had instantly found our location for the meeting scenes. It has a black background on all four walls which is exactly what we want, to make the rooms appear as dark and mysterious as possible, within reason. We took out the camera and we started positioning the camera at different angles at various parts of the room to see if sufficient lighting was created with a combination of lights already featured in the class room. The results were also very promising and filming of these scenes will take place in the days to come.

Storyboard

These are images of our completed storyboard

Ident : The Video

After some technical difficulties we have managed to upload our ident. This is our production company's ident for our thriller film.

Animatic

This is the animatic of our thriller film. It includes all of our main shots that we aim to include in our film.

Company Logo : The Final Version

This is our completed Company Logo

Location,Location,Location

After deciding on the theme of the film and the type of thriller we wanted to make, the search began for the location of our thriller. When attending a school assembly me and my fellow media members noticed a unused corridor and a set of dark spaces behind the stage. We went and investigated and took pictures and videos of the scene.
We believe we had found our perfect location to film. Here are some of the shots we took.

Treatment Sheet: Resources

Characters

In our thriller film only two actors will be needed. The two roles are the Hitman and the boss of the organisation.
The hit man will be played by a male, The Organisation boss will be played by a women.

Props

For props, we will require some rope, a toy gun, chairs and a table.

Setting

The setting of our thriller film is yet to be found however the search is on and we require a darkened room to film the meeting scenes, along with a setting close to the appearance of a cellar for the torcher scenes.

Treatment Sheet: Justification of our Thriller Idea

Our thriller film includes the key conventions of thriller films. Our film is full of suspense which according to my audience research is one of, if not the most important theme that must exist in ANY thriller film. Our thriller film has a enigma involved, through the use of the photograph as it is used to develop the plot and to create a sense of mystery as to who this person is, why they are involved with these types of people etc, which is another key convention of a thriller film.

Treatment Sheet: Conventions of a Thriller Film

Thrillers are essentially about the battle of justice vs. injustice where often there is a price to be paid for the conclusion of the story. A thriller is a film of suspense with a plot structure that reinforces the elements of gamesmanship and the chase. Thrillers can be spy based, tales of geopolitical crisis, legal thrillers, medical thrillers, or domestic thrillers. Commonly thrillers progress with a growing sense of threat or danger and the excitement of pursuit.
Thriller films are normally shown from two characters points of view. The first being that of the protagonist, which involves the audience more in events and creates empathy for the character. Or the story is occasionally told from the view of the villain, which can lead to empathy for the villain also at their twisted understanding or perhaps disturbing past that has led to the present. Although it can also create a sense of guilt..Events in the storyline enable the film to progress, and allow the audience to second guess what will happen next. In many films this will be wrong so adds to suspense.
The dialogue in thrillers never contains a complete explanation of events or plot, to give it pace, and maintain the mystery, which is essential in building up suspense.

Our Company Logo

Today me and my colleagues are in the process of creating our company logo. We have the idea of having a image of speakers with our production company name, Shock Wave productions, underneath it. The speakers have a obvious connection to the word sound waves which is why we have chosen the image of speakers.

Ident

Today we created our production company's ident. This ident will be used at the beginning of our film to introduce our production company. Todo this we used a program called livetype.
Used looked at established production companies ident' like











Originally we didnt have a production company name so we had to have a mini brain storm of possible names. We decided the best name was shockwave production. Once the name was settle, we went to work looking through the type of fonts and the animations possible. It was a case of trail and error to be honest and we ended up with our ident. It consists of the production company's name on a plain black blackground. The music accompanying the ident is non-copyright music in which we created using a software called Garage Band on the iMac. The finished product will feature soon.

Graphic Match

A graphic match is used by directors to connect two consecutive shots that are matched in the terms of their appearance. This is called a graphic match.

Editing

The Speed of Editing

The speed of editing is used to change the impression us as viewers receive about the speed of the action screen. If the editing was very slow and their was very few changes in shots, then we as viewers would know that their is a low tempo, whereas if their was a lot of changes in shots over a short period of time we would know that the tempo is quite vast, something dangerous is happening possibly.

The Style of Editing

When considering editing , their are several types of ways to putting together shots to make a continuous piece of footage. These types of shots are called :-

• A straight cut where it simply goes from one shot to another
• A fade-out where the screen fades out to black to show the passing of time possibly
• a dissolve where one image is slowly brought in beneath another one
• a wipe cut where one part of the screen moves to wipe across the other
• a jump cut where the audience's attention is drawn to specific place