Personal view on how filming went:

In my opinion, I think that our filming went well. When all of my group members arrived, we had to wait until it got dark since our opening was mainly set in a dark room. The scenery we had was good, we had enough time to get everything ready and to be shot. We all took turns in using the camera, teaching each other how things worked. This enabled us to work as a team and work progressively.

What was sometimes hard during filming was the amount of space we had in my room. Sometimes it felt like we were in the way of the camera, so we went outside of the room and waited until the scene was done.

Another thing is the fact that because we switched the lights off and only had a a dimmer, the room was still pretty dark. We could have made it more lighter, but to keep that light the same throughout all the scenes was tricky. When we reviewed some parts that we took, it seemed to be too dark to put in our opening and therefore had to be cut out.

Since we cut out a few scenes, just last week we had to go and film again, so that we hada sufficient amount of video to last. Me and my group member Ola, went back to my house so that we could film the street and then the hall way, then the doors to my room. We have already edited it and it looks pretty good. This was just another way of making our opening to our fim a little longer, because before it only lasted 1 minute. Now that we have added more to it, we have extended that time, (cannot give a estimate yet since we are still in the process of editing and putting in title sequences).

Opening of thriller: Editing so far

Personal Review of the filming so far

I think that we all have made so much progress in our week of filming, although it was challenging, we also learnt a lot of team work and encouragement helps.
The whole process of this was an eye opener as media work is not always easy to everyone. Filming also helped us learn different skills as we all took turns using the Camera and taking different shots, seeing how we can experiment with them.

Planning Story Board & Animatic

Planning our story board was challenging as we had so many ideas, but could not include them all. The story board consisted of our opening scene , and what blank spaces needed, till the end of the film. As we went on with our planning each picture was drawn accurately to how our scenes in the opening will occur.
In addition the animatic was an easy process as we have done it before, the only challenging thing is getting the timing right  and the speed correctly.

Planning Costume & Props

Although our initial idea of costume was a victorian white dress gown, to be very creative. It did not come together and we had to find an alternative which was a plain white shirt and leggings.

                                                         





Here is a snow ball/crystal ball we used to emphasise the character in our films innocence, and the progression of it, though it is slightly ironic. we also used it as it had a useful lullaby that could be used in our background sound.

Here we used a snow globe/crystal ball emphasising the  Actresses innocence, giving off a theme of slight innocence as well, which is fairly ironic. Also it has a lullaby with it that will come in handy with our sound.

These are other props we used, like the drawings, pencil, make-up etc.

Personal Review of Filming Process.

I thought the filming process was very fun, each of our ideas were listened to and we worked as a team to reach our final product. We all had a turn at working and setting up the camera, i took on the responsibility of photographing the filming process as it will help us when we were analysing the process. All our ideas were listened to which made the process more productive. We also filmed extra shots so that we wouldnt be short on scenes.

Thoughts on the filming process.

Day 4 of Filming

On the fourth and final day of shooting the thriller opening we shot the two very last scene, which is also a vital scene as it shows what the main character is capable of.

The mixture adds a gory feel to the peice.

We then filmed a final panning shot of the room.

We used acrylic paint mixed with water so that the colour would resemble blood, we then did a pan of the room in the morning, so that the audience could see that the bedroom was different to how it was after 3am.

Day 3 of Filming

On the third day of filming, we mainly shot the scenes that needed daylight in them. This included the scene where are main character wakes up and comes out of the room. We had to get a close up of the time, which showed 7am. We filmed her pressing the snooze button on the iPod dock that we used to tell the time. For sound we were planning to record another clocks' alarm so that it sounds more effective, because the dock we used did not have a loud alarm sound that fitted our expectations.

For extras we did a cutaway from the girls face to the train. We thought we could add this to our opening whilst editing if needed. We also did a cutaway to a snow-globe because the sound was very gothic and we thought it could add a nice effect to our piece

Whilst filming, we tried to get re-film some scenes if we saw something that looked odd or we left a prop out. We did this because in our preliminary we missed small mistakes which made the piece look very amateur. 

Editing the sound

Here I am trying out new sounds and effects for our opening film, I have including natural sounds and sounds from the examples given. The sound we are looking for is a dreary, dull, and frightening echoes and noises. Although we are going to be recording most of our sound ourselves, the background music will be quite tense and mysterious.

Day 2 of Filming.

On day 2 we shot the scenes where our actress was drawing out pictures in the night. We got close ups and medium shots of her face, as well as the pictures she drew. The pictures consisted of scribblings of eyes, random shapes and a person. The most significant one was the picture with the person, with the face scribbled. This was supposed to represent that she is not in her right state of mind, and out of control. This was one of the ideas that we thought we could add into the opening, but are still not sure whether or not it will definitely be in it.

Once that scene was done, we then shot the scenes where she walks around the room. We got her to go around the room, scrunching up the papers on the floor and slowly coming back up.

Day 1 of Filming.

We all met at City and Islington College at 2:30, and received our filming equipment. We then made our way to Derya's house in hackney where we were to film the thriller opening.  Derya's friend Lisa arrived at  3 o'clock , and then we started planning out what we were going to film for that day.

We first filmed the close ups on our actresses face. We did a close up to show the characters split personalities: Good and Evil. We had to put gothic make up on her face, for example, black eyeliner around her eyes and dark eyeshadow to make her eyes stand out, we also backcombed the actresses hair to make her look scary.  We got her dressed in to the clothes we picked out for her. Two of us helped out with preparing our actress and the other two prepared the cameras and other equipment we needed to use.

Overall, the first day of filming was very productive as we got alot of filming done and was able to set up the cameras and lights quickly.

Story board for thriller opening.

 Here is the storyboard for our thriller opening. Judging by the sketches there will be various camera angles and scenes.

 The storyboard also shows that our opening will take place mainly in the dark and our character's face will be shadowed by her hair.

The drawings of the clocks also show that something may happen during these times.

Our Schedule Time

Student Analysis Review

I am going to be reviewing The List opening series, that was made by students. This video looks like it was well planned out, since we see it going in order, the saucepan and wine glass, we can clearly see the drop of blood inside swirling. What I really liked was the fact that we could hear the butter sizzling and the chopping of the onions.






I also liked that they had a medium close up on the saucepan, then a close up on the butter, and finally an extreme close up of the butter sizzling.  Also the background music seemed like a low sound that goes through out the whole video. I heard the ringing of the wine glass when the blood was pouring into it, which was effective because it intensifies the whole scene.

What I disliked in this video was the scene when the wine class was being put on the table and I think it would have been better if we could hear it hit the table.

Also, when there was the dropping of water into the glass, it would have sounded better if we could hear water drops.

Analysis Student Film Openings

Personally I liked all of them but Victoria was the one that stood out for me. I liked the use of sound and the way different scenes layered into each other. The opening scene drew me in straight away as the use of a Ballerina really inspired me.

The title was different, i thought it was chosen due to the Doll used as it looks victorian so the name came form it. it was unique as well. The change of music also made a huge effect, it change up the mood and brought the effect of Thriller genre.

                                                            

Many scenes like this from the opening really brought out the thrill effect and the music helped me understand what is going on and brings in curiosity and intenseness  .

There also was a lot of layered shots showing different scenes, the effect of this was really good, drew the audience in, as it made the atmosphere more mysterious and curious.







This scene was a bit confusing but as it all came together i understood the outcome of what the character is doing. It was very intelligent to use and portrya some what of psychotic sense somehow through this opening.

Our Pitch

Preliminary - Personal Review.

The preliminary was definately a learning curve. I learnt that keeping track of time is crucial and to always look back on the videos we have just recorded, in case there is something missing or an additional object that shouldnt be there.
The inital plot planning was alot easier, as we all had a chance to discuss our own idea and everyone listened to eachother and took what people said into consideration.
The editing was definately the hardest, and it enlightened me as to who was able to edit videos properly in my group. We were also introduced to Foley and realised if we really need sound effects we should do it ourselves as it sounds more authentic. I learnt how to make sound decrease and increase in volume which makes the peice very effective.

Art of the title.

This screengrab was from ArtoftheTitle.com which is a website specifically designed to analyse film openngs. I chose Captain America as the opening was very colourful and displayed what was going on within America at the time of WW11. It is quite an unconventianal opening and it showed war propaganda e.g. Uncle Sam and it also started with the director then the screenplay writer. Also all the people behind the scenes e.g. casting and music titles were before the actors, which is very unique. The Production and Distribution companies are second to last, they are normally at the start because without these companies investing in the film the film might not have been made, the Title is dead last which makes the opening look like a trailer.

Analysis of student film.

The student film i chose to analyse was VICTORIA.

Firstly, the sound complimented the piece perfectly as it was very sinister and eerie which made the clip effective. The non-diegetic sound started as the female character started lightly moving her arms which made it seem as the girl was a ballerina in a music box because it was very light and magical. When the girl falls unto the fall At the end there was quite an evil laugh which emphasised that the girl was evil.


I think the starting camera was very effective as we could see the girl's shadow as she was dancing which made it quite ghostly. There was a range of camera angles e.g. Close ups, wide shots and long shots.

Editing- the good thing about this video is that the title of the movie wasnt shown at the end which might make the opening look like a trailer it was shown conventionally in the middle. The cuts were very slow as the thriller is quite slow paced. I think the layering of two shots: shot of the music box and the girl dances adds mystery.

The mise en scene contributed to the thriller, the use of dolls, music boxes, lipsticks and photographs make the opening quite ambigous but the audience can maybe peice together that the rest of the film could have a connection to childhood.

To conclude i loved this opening as I could tell that it would be a psychological thriller because it created questions for the audience.

Personal Review on how the Priliminary went

Since this was our Priliminary, we tried to take it seriously as our real filming. I think that it went pretty well, we were organised and tried to communicate with each other so that no one in the group was confused.

Whilst filming, we had a few issues such as staying in the correct side of the room and to see if things were out of place. We kept rewatching what we had recorded to see if everything was going well, such as sound etc. We were also introduced to Foley sound effects. This was basically a way of recording everyday sounds for film-making and adding it to the video.

During our editing process, I learnt how to use the sound programme (Soundtrack Pro), to also increase and decrease it at some points. This was sometimes tricky, but once I got the hang of it, it went smoothly.
Editing in general was hard at some points; an example is the amount of close ups we had. We had to think creatively to see how everything would have fitted together.

Preliminary (personal review)

We had our problems when making and editing our video.

Comming up with the idea of what to actually base our video on was okay, we came up with the idea of a police investigation quite easily and we included a range of shots but when starting to film we cam upon a couple of errors. Such as

Annalysing previous students work (The paper trail)

The name of the video first caught my attention 'The paper trail' its tittle is quite obvious regarding what the plot is or is about, i thought the plot was based around a murder investigation and the key to unravel the mystery was through a trail of documents. After watching it i realised that the video showed allot more detail.

The beginning of the film is shot it a way to not reveal to the audience exactly what the person in the shot is making, this builds the questions up in the audiences minds and created suspense until the object is revealed near to the end of the video. The fact that they used origami as 'the paper trail' immediatly made the video more origional and creative.

Near to the begining of the video is a wide shot of a guy sitting down staring at a box that is placed infront of him, this shot is done very well as the audience is already guessing who ths guy is and what is inside the box.

The location that they used was good as it suited there plot along side the airy and mysterious music it enhanced this feeling of mystery in the middle of know where.

In this shot of the guys hand he is moving it as if the nerve in his hand are out of control this gives the thriller a phychotic turn along side the shot where his head is acting in the same way.

Mild airy sound is used in the background througout the video to build up tension and suspicion, at dramatic moments in the video louder sounds are used like in this shot he drops the origami animal onto the desk and its sound is projected over the origional airy sound.

Overall the thriller opening was good there range of camera shots where captured at the rite times and made the genre clear to the audience. The tittle of the video was shown at the end of the video which was the videos only major down fall, it made the video look as thought it was a trailer and almost every film tittle is shown near the begining of the opening.

Annalysing previous students work

The thriller opening i will be reviewing is 'The paper trail' filmed by previous media students. By doing this i will be able to see what to do and not what to do, to help me and my group do better when filming our thriller.
And by viewing a selection on thriller openings it will give an incite to what the examiner may be looking for and what different techniques are being used.

                                                           (VIDEO GOES HERE)

Preliminary

Ideas for opening

Our first idea was inspired by the Blaire Witch Project. We were planning on having a group of teenagers that have been dared to go to a forest and stay there for a night. Theres going to be clips of of a few teens telling us how they're feeling about the dare. After this, they sit around a camp fire and do a ritual to call 'spirits'. The whole thing goes wrong and the camera falls down, there's going to be a lot of screaming going on, and one person is gonna disappear. Whilst the camera is on the floor, it fuzzes and then we see a figure of a girl from far, each shot of her getting closer and closer, eventually stopping on her face. (24/01/12)

Our second idea was of a class room full of students talking to each other and all of a sudden the lights switch off; this will create suspicion amongst the audience. We then a get glimpse of a girl that seems to be possessed. Then the lights switch back on, everyone has disappeared (along with the possessed girl), apart from one girl (she is the main character in our thriller). She thinks its a joke, and walks out the room in an attempt to find her class mates. Once she exits the corridor, she sees the possessed girl at the end of the corridor. The main girl shakes her head as if she's in denial thats she's seeing this girl. The possessed girl disappears and the main girl chuckles. She then turns around and sees the possessed girl right infront of her.  She runs away but trips and falls down. She then sees blood on her hands and the reflection of the possessed girl in the window, she recognises that it is actually her. Then theres a zoom in in the reflection of the possessed girls face.
(24/01/12)

Our third idea is about a girl coming home and seeing that everything is not in its place (zooming in and out of objects). She walks around and feels a drought and pauses. She also starts hearing rustling noises of things moving around. She says 'hello?' and it echoes. She starts getting agitated by looking around and starts checking through her stuff. The music tempo increases when she's looking around. She then hears a thud, pause, thud, pause. The she hears her own breath, and the viewers hears her heart beat increasing through out the opening. She slowly turns around from where she is and the screen goes black. Then theres a flash of her sitting on a chair tied up, looking scruffy. (Have the ceiling light swinging slowly) This shot only last a quick second and ends at a black screen.
(24/01/12)

Our fourth idea is about a girl running down a long alley way with blood on her face and a bloody knife, she's visibly emotionally unstable as she is falling on her self and clinging to the walls. She enters her house and clambers upstairs, there is a layering shot of her writing a suicide note and of her preparing to hang herself. There is and extreme close up of her tying a knot around her neck and we end the scene with her kicking back the chair and her legs dangling.  Afterwards there'll be the time of her suicide and it wil rewind to before it happened. During the opening there will be a narrative of her reading her suicide note. (31/01/12)

Introduction to Soundtrack Pro

Soundtrack pro for me was very complex and i found it very hard to use. The reason i found it hard was because there are soo many different sounds on the program and also there were various techniques that could be used to alter a sound clip which is why i found it confusing. But as i spent time on it, i understood how to use it more.

This screen grab shows me experimenting with sound levels.

My influence on thrillers

Personally i enjoy thrillers and love to watch them, the intence excitment of the susspence that follows a thriller make it enjoyable for me and will attract me to it.

 

I like psychological thrillers the most out of all the sub genres to thrillers, this is because psychological thrillers create more of a story that the standard action thriller. psychology on a whole intersets me and making a psychological story in a movie attracts me immediatly. The way in which it is fillmed also draws me in because i like to figure out the plot whilst watching the movie and camera shots help with this but also help me understand what the character is feeling, there for making me apart of the film.

Audience for thrillers

Thrillers are stereotypically targeted at males generally of all ages from the age certificate in which the film is at, this maybe because there can be allot of violence and allot of action is involved and woman are targeted for more romantic genres.
But due to the sub genres within thrillers make it broader so both men and woman are able to find what they enjoy the most therefor boosting the rate in which women watch thrillers.

On a whole the audience for thrillers start from 15 and above as the age certificate because it would be hard to know exactly who watches thrillers as the Internet is open and accessible to all ages.

The structure of thriller openings

The main things that consist of thriller openings are

• music
• colour scheme
• camera shots/ viewpoints

all these create the tension and suspense of the thriller its self depending on the movie plot itself.

The music to a thriller opening usually starts of slow and deep then gradually the sounds builds up to create suspense and tension. If there is a narrative in the opening there will be a low music selection that is barely noticeable but still build up tension.

The colour scheme is usually dark to create mystery in the actors of seen selection, colours being grayish blues, greys and black.

The camera shots or viewpoints give us a scense of what is going on in the scene and what aspect it should have on us for example if a murder had taken place in a building the camera would move around the room slowly building up our suspicion to if the murderer is still in the building or not. But it can slo show us who not to strust or who the audience should be suspicious of and who is vunerable for example a hight camera shot looking down on a character can make that character look vunerable or scared

and a low camera shot looking up at a character can make the character look 'in charge' or of importance.      

The structure of thriller openings

For the structure of film opening's i looked at the movie 'Bullitt' on the artofthetittle sequence website.

In this screen shot of the movie it shows how the set up of the thriller is structured in order.

An overall of the opening shots give us a clear idea that it is a thriller as the colours used such as dark blue and black give the audience a sense of mystery. In the second square of the screen shot shows a low camera shot of three men, this gives the audience a sense of suspicion as the shot is very dark and we are just about able to see their faces. Along with the suspicious ware house where men are doing business the music played in the back grounds also backs up the thriller theme, as the instrumental starts of slow (almost like the instrumentals played in 'james bond') with a light tapping of the symbols on a drum kit and a soft constant sound of a saxophone and then builds up to a high tempoed sound of the saxophone there fore creating suspicion and tension.

( http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/04/04/bullitt/ )

intertaxuality (Pyscho Example)

Here is an example of how the movie thriller 'the step father' interprets a scene from the famous thriller 'psycho'.

After the man had been stabbed by his fiance in self defence the man stumbled backwards into the bath pulling down the shower curtain in the process.

In the film psycho the woman who had just been stabbed a number of times pulled down the shower curtain whist collapsing forward to her death.

The camera zooms out of the medium close up of the man after he falls into the bath and here shows a wide shot of him supposedly dead in the bath.

Again the camera zooms out from the close up of the woman like in the the movie 'the step father' therefoe showing an example of intertextuality.

Introduction to Live Type

At first live type was a bit complicated to use, but as I carried on it got easier and easier and I was more confident using it, there is a variety of fonts that compliment different genres.

This screengrabs shows me experimenting with different effects.