Shadow. (Media Thriller Task)

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progressions from it to the product?

Looking back at my preliminary task i have learnt many different things to do with filming a short film sequence. I have learnt new skills in many different areas of media such as the editing, filming and using different camera shots.

Firstly looking back at my preliminary task the editing was poor this was due to the fact that it was the first time i had tried editing, but going on to the main product, the editing was to a higher standard this was down to having the preliminary task to practice my editing and even improve my skills in editing.

Secondly i have learned many different ways to use a camera since the last preliminary, such as shot reverse shot and match on match action, this helps giving a variety of shots in the final product. Using different camera shots also allows me to show the audiences what the character is feeling without the character stating this.

Finally i also learned how to film properly, in the preliminary i was poor at using the camera and some times the camera was wonky or the character was not in the correct positions. Moving on to the final thriller i had learnt how to use a camera properly and none of the shots were wonky and the character was in the correct position.

In the thriller we used many different types of shots, such as a point of view shot (picture on the left). This gave the thriller varitey and didn't seem like it kept repeating itself. If we did use the same type
of shot, like in the prelim task, it would have become boring and the audience would not continue watching.

Whereas in the preliminary task we used mainly one type of shot which was the shot reverse shot. This shot normally appears when two or more people are engaging in conversation, this made the preliminary task boring as it was very repetitive and a lot of dialogue involved in it.

In the main thriller we also used black and white, this was to show the audience that the killer was having a flashback to when the killing happened. This helped us keep variety in the short sequence which keeps the audience entertained.

We also placed a title at the end of the film to fade in while the background film was fading out, this makes the clip look very professional and makes the audience want to watch the rest of the film because it has been left on a cliffhanger which creates suspense for the audience.

But on the preliminary task the title did not look professional because it was just placed in the corner and was not very noticeable so the audience may not know what the film was called if the only saw this short extract.

6.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

While filming and editing our final thriller we used many different technologies some of which i had not used on a previous occasion.

The first piece of equipment I had to use for my thriller was Google Maps. Google Maps was used for finding the correct location for our thriller. This was a very useful tool to find our perfect location for us to film our thriller, we could easily find a good place to film without actually having to go and physically search for a place which would be waste of time when we could spend that time on other parts such as planning.

The next piece of equipment that I used was the digital video-camcorder. I had not used a camcorder before so I had to learn how to use parts of the camcorder such as learning how to record, and how to connect a microphone to the camcorder. I also had to learn how to use the camera with a tripod which was easy once I got the hang of it.



During the editing process I had to get use to many different pro
grams that i had not used before such as, LiveType, Final Cut Express and Adobe After Effects. Firstly I used Final Cut Express to capture all of the recording onto the computer once this was done i had to filter through all of the recording that we had filmed and find the correct clips that we was going to be using. Once this was done I had to put these clips in the correct order that I wanted them in. After all the placement was done, I had to make certain clips black and white, to do this i had to drag an effect onto the correct clip and it made it black and white.

Once all the work was done in Final cut express I had to go make our ident in the LiveType. To do this i created a new file and created a text file and continued to change the text to 'StoryBoard Productions' which was the name of our ident. I then chose one of LiveTypes defult animations and placed it in the background.

After all this was finished i placed the whole film into Adobe After Effects where I put the credits and the Films name into it. I also faded the clip in places where I wanted, I done this in After Effects and not in Final Cut Express because i found it easier to do in After Effects.

I also used Survey Monkey so that i could create a survey for people to fill out online so that i could get an idea of my target audience.

I have learnt many things from this experience such as learning to take many different shots of the location and of certain scenes so that in the editing process we have a wider choice of choosing the correct and best shot for the film.This also prevents you from having to go and re-film if you have something wrong with that shot.

5. How did we attract/ address our audience?

4. Who would be the ideal audience for your media product?

Before we came up with an idea fro our film we created a survey on a website to find out what type of thriller the public enjoyed, how old they are and what was there favorite thriller was. We wanted to find out all these question so that we could come up with an idea that pleased the majority of people. We wanted to find out their age because we wanted to build a thriller around the person, if they was under 18 and we made the film an 18 restriction it wouldn't get seen by these people.

This is the first question that was asked at that was 'how old are you?'. In total we asked 10 people and the most popular answers was 16-25 with a few below the age of 16.  From this we found out our target audience, so we decided to film a more urban 'hip' thriller to connect with our audience.

This question was 'What is your favorite thriller type?' This question was to decided what genre of thriller we was going to created, the most popular was Horror and there was 2 crime suggestions, keeping this in mind we decided to put them both together. Due to the thriller being urban incorporating the crime and horror genres into this theme would be much easier than making it a spy thriller.











These questions gave the basis for our idea for this thriller. to help us get more reliable results and to find out exactly what our target audience wanted we could have asked around a 100 people to make it more reliable.

3. What Kind of Media Institution might Distribute your Media Product and Why?

Created with Padlet

2.How does your media product represent particular social groups

1.In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop, Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products

Changes To The Thriller

While filming we had to make a few changes because we had stumbled into a couple of problems. The first of which was that we could not get the shadow of the killers on to the wall to using natural light. so we decided to get rid of that idea and just have a chase scene instead. In the new scene we used many of shots such as close ups, POV, panning. We also used match on match action in these flashbacks which we wouldn't have been able to do it if we was filming the shadows. Another change we made are the people who played the characters, we changed this because we thought that these people would play a better victim or policeman than the other. The final change is that we had to change our alley we was filming in, so the last flashback is in a different alley than the previous flashbacks.

Survey Results

Title Sequence for In The Shadows

Shooting Schedule

In The Shadows Animatic

List Of Characters

The Killer - Jhabed Abudul
Policeman 1- Sam Nweje
Policeman 2- Terry Bridges
Interviewee 1- Michael Hayes
Interviewee 2- Jhabed Abdul
The Victim-Terry Bridges

Mood Board

Location Sheet

Production Schedule Location Visit Sheet Programme Title: Shadow Client: StoryBoard Producktions Writer: Terry Bridges Producer: StoryBoard Producktions Director: Terry Bridges Date: 8/02/13

Rough Sketch/Explanation of location and key points to note Dark Alley way Interview place in the school Access to location via: Walk

Health and Safety Issues to note: n a dark area, possibility of someone approaching us.

Potential Filming Problems : Camera may be faulty Someone may interrupt filming e.g. by walking past.

Additional Notes:  (map of area/weather forecast etc) May rain, as a result it could damage the camera.  Windy

Treatment

Costumes and Props

Character Name: Main character, killer and interviewer 2 (Jhabed Abdul)
Costume: (Killing scene) Jumper, cap, tracksuit bottoms, gloves (Interview scene)  shirt and black trousers	Props: (Killing scene) Knife, mobile phone
Character Name: Police sergeant 1 and 2 (Terry and Samuel)
Costume: white shirt, black tie, black trousers, black blazer	Props: Tape recorder, phones,
Character Name: Guy killed (Terry)
Costume: T-shirt, dark jeans	Props: Phone, wallet, fake blood
Character Name: Interviewer 1 (Michael Hayes)
Costume: Shirt and black trousers	Props:

Contingency Plan

Shot List

Shot List
Scene	Shot Number	Description
1 1 1 1 1 1 1	1 2 3 4 5 6 7	Over the shoulder shot, interviewee 1 getting interrogated by policeman 1 and 2, silence for the first couple of seconds, policeman 1 asks a question. Jump cuts to next shot P.O.V from policemen 2 who is sitting in the chair opposite, he then asks questions, the interviewee seems nervous when answering questions, policemen get suspicious. Quickly Fades to the next shot Shot last for about 3/ 4 seconds. Blurry because it’s a flashback. Camera angle is a mid shot at a brick wall; dark two shadows are on the wall. Jump cuts back to the interview room Close up of interviewee 2 (the killer). Policemen 2 ask him a question about the murder; the interviewee smirks and answers the question. Quickly flashes to another flashback of the attack. Shows the shadow of the killer go and kill the victim. Dying sounds. Long shot of the wall with the wall in the camera. Jump cuts to a mid shot getting the two policemen in the shot and the interviewee. Policemen 1 starts to get angry and starts to hit the table. Policeman 2 holds him back as interviewee 2 strolls out laughing. Fades away to black then goes to the same brick wall as the flashbacks no shadows, pans down to the floor to a dead body then pans back up to the alley with the killer doing the same stroll and laugh as interviewee 2 in shot 6. Just a silhouette

StoryBoard

 These pictures show the storyboard that we created to help us plan out what is going to happen in each shot, it also help us determine what the camera angles are going to look like. It also helps us get organised for whem we start to film.

AS Media Thriller - Focus Group

This is our focus group were we pitched three different ideas to four of our colleges, after it ended they thought our crime thriller was the better idea out of our three so we are choosing to do that idea.

Risk Assesment

This is our risk assessment that everyone must follow if we want the filming of our intro to the thriller movie to go smoothly, if this is not follow there may be a chance that something may go wrong and someone might get hurt or something might get broken. 

Opening to 'Vertigo'

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo's opening scene is a rooftop chase, i assume there is a criminal because there is a police officer chasing the man and another man who is also chasing the criminal but is not in police gear.

As he jumps over to the next roof the third man falls and is hanging on to the roof, the policeman tries to help but in doing so he falls over the man hanging on and falls to his death.

The camera angles in this opening sequence is very good because as the man who is hanging of for his life looks down, the screen makes it look like its moving further away, making the fall larger than it is. This is a point of view shoot so this is what the man is seeing when he looks down, which shows that he is fearing for his life.

Suspense

Suspense is anticipation regarding an outcome, such as a mystery, an example of this is in old cartoons when they tell you to tune in next week this is creating suspense.

Chuck Jones and 'The Rules'

Chuck Jones made a list of rules to follow when he was creating the road runner gags, the following rules are the ones he created:

1. The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going “Beep-Beep.”

2. No outside force can harm the Coyote - only his own ineptitude or the failure of the ACME products.

3. The Coyote could stop anytime - if he were not a fanatic. (Repeat: “A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim” - George Santayana.)

4. No dialogue ever, except “Beep-Beep.”

5. The Road Runner must stay on the road - otherwise, logically, he would not be called a Road Runner.

6. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters - the south-west American Desert.

7. All materials, tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the ACME corporation.

8. Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote’s greatest enemy.

9. The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.

MacGuffin

A MacGuffin is what drives  plot forward in a film, a macguffin helps the film continue for example in psycho the woman steals the money and leads her to the motel in which she is murdered, so if she did not steal the money she would not have travelled to the motel and there would be no film

Collateral

This film is about a cab driver who is basically taken hostage but the main character, Tom Cruise, he is taken hostage to drive the kidnapper round while he kills his targets and he must find away to save himself and the last victim.

This film was one of the first to use the digital cameras while filming, so this meant that it could easily be set up and the could film spontaneous events such as the wild coyote, if the wasn't using these cameras by the time they had set everything up to film the animal it would have gone.

Collateral was nominated for 2 oscars, and also won 17 other awards and was nominated for 36.

 This video is the trailer for Collateral, when watching this trailer you get a basic overview of the whole film because you see him met the last victim get kidnapped, and so on. This gives you sympathy for the cab  driver, and makes you want to go and watch the film because you want to know if he is able to survive.

Moby Gratis License Request

This is my request to download a non-copyrighted song being accepted by the website Moby Gratis, this song will hopefully be used in our thriller, this song is called wait for me and I think it will help us build up the tension in the beginning of the thriller, which we are hoping to create.

Source Code (2011)

Source Code is a film about a solider who wakes up in an unknown mans body and finds that he is apart of a mission to find the Chicago bomber.

The director of this film was Duncan Jones, the writer was Ben Ripley, and the main stars was Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan and Vera Farmiga. The budget of this film was $32 million and its gross has ended up being $54,696,902.

The film is a very good film although through it I did become slightly perplexed as i did not know what was happening or I did not get the story line. But apart from this, it was an exciting, and entertaining thriller from begin to end with non-stop action.

At the beginning we believe that the person we see waking up on the train is going to be the main character but when the bomb blows up on the train it throws us because we was expecting him to be the hero, but as we think that he then reappears strapped into a some sort of machine. 

     
This image is a very peculiar one, but i believe it to be representing him breaking the time loop like he does at the end of the film,  i think this because he is smashing through some sort of glass wall, so it could mean this. 

Focus Group

We had to plan a focus group to ask four people what they thought of our ideas, also they choose which idea they liked the best. We set it up so they were opposite us when we was telling them our ideas and questions about them. After we finished we asked them which one they thought was the best and they stated our best idea was our thriller about crime.

Camera Angles

There are many types of camera angles used in films. These shots are used to show the audience what is happening in the best way it also shows how the actors are feeling. The camera angles  are long shot, close up, point of view shot, close up, mid shot, extreme close up, low angle point of view, high angle point of view, extreme close up, black frame.

Lighting Exercise

Today we done a light exercise, this exercise was used to show all the different lighting techniques to make different moods, silhouettes, and gave us the understanding of the different lighting techniques. To do this assignment we needed to use torches and a dark room, we needed the torches so we could use them as our lights, although they are not as professional as what they use in movies, it is still good to show us the different moods that lighting can make if you put them in the right place. We needed a dark room so that if we needed it to be ark we could easily do it.

When filming to make it as easy as possible we used one person to sit down and do the lighting around him, we did not have a story to this because it was hard enough to do the lighting =, so it would have made it much harder to do a story as well.