Evaluation Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the finished product?

Evaluation Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Question 4: 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

From all of our feedback from our rough cut, our screening and our survey monkey questionnaire we could tell that our thriller is aimed mainly aimed at the youth. 

I think the youth would watch our film because of the intense and very fast paced scenes. I think that the youth are intrigued by very thrilling and almost scary moments in movies. 

Evaluation Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Question 3:

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Question 2:

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our thriller we have an all female cast which helps us challenge the stereotype that men are always the antagonists, i think the fact that we challenged the stereotype of men being the bad guys is positive for our thriller as it is different from many popular thrillers that very often have the men antagonists.

Our casts is supposed to represent characters that are in their early twenties which can give a god representation of what kind of things young people do, our thriller makes young people look like they are out of control and reckless. We didn't really consider the sexuality of our characters as they all play little parts and there wouldn't be enough time to show sexuality. 

We tried to represent all our characters as middle class, to do this we dressed them in quite casual clothes and made them speak how they normally do as they are all in the working/middle class area. 



We used the stereotype of the scary person in the hoodie, to add tension, this is a stereotype because there are many thriller movies that have that scary hooded figure in the shot, we can see this in our thriller at the end when the antagonist is standing over the protagonist, this is to show that the antagonist is trying to intimidate the girl on the floor and it shows a gain in power. We also see this in the film 'Shifty'. We see Shifty trying to intimidate the two young adults, by standing over them with his hood on this gives him a scary and intense look. I think the 'scary hoodie' stereotype is quite positive to our thriller as it creates the sport of intense atmosphere that we were trying to create.

Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation 1: 

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

Some conventions of the thriller genre are;
- fast paced scenes 
As seen in the movie  "Fast and Furious" 


via GIPHY

- frequent action
As seen in "A Good Day to Die Hard"



- resourceful heroes
As seen in "North by Northwest"
















- powerful villains
As we see in the thriller movie:"Psycho"

















- the plot is villain driven. 

- the villains present the obstacles.

- suspense -> creates excitement. 

- red-herring -> villain tricks audience that they are good.

- cliffhangers -> dramatic ending.

- setting -> exotic places and popular cities.

                                                



The thriller conventions that we used in our thriller piece, were Cliffhanger to leave the audience wanting to watch on to see what will happen next. We also had many fact paced scenes that created tension and excitement. We created suspense by adding in flash backs which i think was quite affective.
















Films like "Olympus has fallen", "Die hard" and "Hostage" are similar to ours, all these movies including ours includes hostage type scenes. 

Our film is unique, due to the fact that we have added a feminist subversion to the typical thriller genre.

i compared the scene when the antagonist is walking towards the protagonist to the scene from "The Forest" when Sara Price (played by Natalie Dormer) is walking through the woods. i think these scenes are quite similar as they both create a very intense and eerie atmosphere.

i compared the scene from my thriller when the protagonist is in the chair to a scene from "Reservoir Dogs" when this man is kidnapped and held hostage. these scenes are similar to each other because they both show someone restrained and not able to move. Also these two scenes are in similar lighting, they re both quite dark although from our thriller it is almost too dark that you can't see the person.





Then i compared one of the running scenes from my thriller and compared it to a scene from "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1" this is the scene where Harry, Hermione and Ron run away from the snatchers. My scene and this scene are similar because both the protagonists are trying to run away from the antagonist. 

Audience Feedback on Thriller

Questionnaire

For our screening we made a questionnaire for our class mates who watched our thriller and filled out the questions on the questionnaire.

This is our questionnaire:

Question 1:

We got replies such as:

"Professional and Mysterious"

"Good"

"...Intense from the start"

"good editing"

"well produced"

"feels like a trailer"

over all i think the feedback was good but all criticisms will be taken into account.

Question 2:

We got these answers:

"Good twist with the friend"  

"No, not my type of film"

"Yes, the opening was quite interesting"

"i would as i want to know what happens next"

"yes, because it ended on a cliff hanger"

Overall 12/15, 

1/3 people said no, 

2/3 didn't say yes or no.

Question 3:

These are the responses:

"somebody dies"

"she was killed"

"the main character will die"

"there would be a police hunt for the missing girl"

"story would unravel"

Most of the replies said that someone would die which i find quite interesting.

Question 4:

these are the answers:

"Tense"

"made me feel anxious"

"scared"

"it was thrilling"

"a little confused"

Overall I thing we got the reaction we were going for.

Question 5:

We got Replies such as:

"no as i was very confused"

"yes - Nice use of parallel"

"Yes - its well thought through"

"i enjoyed it because of the suspense"

"yes as the camera work and sound was professional"

i think that the majority of the audience really enjoyed watching our thriller.

Question 6:

these are the responses:

"camera and sound"

"nice cross-cutting"

"good variety of shots and dramatic music"

"pretty much everything"

we got some positive feedback on what we did well.

Question 7:

We got these answers:

"increase the speed of some shots"

"the storyline"

"the music isn't quite right"

"more dramatic music"

We will take all this feedback into consideration as we are going to re-edit our thriller to make our thriller better.

Screening

Screening

Once we finished editing our Thriller Opening Sequence, we decided to do our screening. The screening took place in our classroom with an audience of our classmates, other students and some teachers. We also produced a questionnaire to give out to the audience to fill out whilst watching the sequence and after the sequence has finished and the questionnaire included questions such as:

What was their first impression?

How did the sequence make them feel?

Would they watch the rest of the movie, if yes, why?
What would they think would happen next?

Did they enjoy the sequence?

What did we do well with the sequence?

What could we improve?


Before the sequence started, we explained the plot of the movie sot they wouldn't get confused whilst watching the sequence. We also got some verbal feedback during the screening that we took notes of.

Thriller

Thriller

This is the thriller that we planned to use as our final piece.

We plan to do a screening, were we will create a questionnaire for our class who will watch out thriller and answer the questions.

Rough Cut Analysis

Rough Cut Analysis

After being given feedback on our thriller rough cut we have seen several things that need to change or add to improve the quality of our film. One person said that our rough cut had too many shots in the conversation which made it hard for the viewer to follow what was being said, they also said that it would have been more effective if there was music in the background. When we do the final piece we will consider all of this feedback and make sure our thriller is easy for people to understand.

For the running scenes we may add more POV shots as our audience found them very effective for the action. We may also have to find away to explain why the friend disappears when the protagonist starts to walk away. We could do this by showing that girl walk away behind her.

I think that our fast paced scenes are very effective as it keeps the audience intrigued, and adds tension. Most of the comments on our thriller said that they really liked the plot of the story even though it was confused, and they also wanted to know more about the characters.

Rough Cut & Rough Cut Feedback

Rough Cut

Before the finished result of our thriller opening we had to make a rough cut. We Posted the video on youtube.

Then we had to collect all the feedback that was left for us.

We will take all this feedback into consideration when we do the final piece. 

Editing 2

Second Editing Session

In the second lesson for editing our thriller openings we edited the second scene and added sound/music.

When editing the last scene into the movie, we filled in the gaps that we left last time with parts of this scene to represent flash-forwards, this would make a viewer curious and question why those things will happen.

We then had to edit in sound/music to give an emphasis on the scenes. We added parallel sound into the sequence so that the music and the action would give the viewer the same feeling. The sound editing went well because we chose good soundtracks that made the scenes more interesting. We could have used more edited sound in our film to make sound transitions more effective.

Editing 1

First Editing Session

After filming we had to edit all the scenes that we filmed on the first day of filming which was at the park. 

We edited the first scene and left gaps to add in any other footage that we might need later in editing. I think that the editing went really well as we both worked together to put our ideas into it. I think that if we had more footage we could have made the editing even better. We could have also spent more time paying close attention to the smallest details of editing to make sure all the scenes and cuts flow very well.

Filming 2

Secong Filming Session

For our second filming session we filmed the hostage scenes which made most of the flashbacks in our opening thriller sequence. What went well with this filming session is that we had more people to cast as characters in our opening sequence which made all the scenes successful. The setting we used for filming these scenes was a drama room and this was a good thing because in this room we had access to equipment such as lighting and dark covers for a dark background which helped us set the atmosphere of the scenes, in the room we also had access to objects and props to help us make the scenes look more realistic. In the end we didn't use the studio lights we used lighting from our phones, we think this looked interesting because it gave a darker atmosphere than the studio lights and made it seem more eerie. As the photos show, we made a square guide to show the filming and acting space.  

Filming 1

First Filming Session

The first scenes of our opening thriller sequence was set in Central Park. We decided to shoot these scenes in the morning as only a small fraction of people would be around whilst we were filming which could create the atmosphere of isolation. We also filmed different sections of these scenes in different places in the chosen area. It is also convenient for us as while we were filming our footage, we would not get interrupted.  What went well by filming in this sort of setting is that we didn't have any interruptions and it was an easy setting to film in, there was a lot of space for us to do so. What we thought that didn't do so well is that we could have moved to a complete different area and used more types of shots and angles for the scenes we have filmed. 

Fourth Production Meeting (Ident)

Fourth Production Meeting

At our fourth production meeting we had to create an ident and company name for our thriller opening.

Our company name is: London D&T

These are the images we used to create our ident:

This is our finished ident: 

Speed and Style of Editing

Speed and Style of Editing

Editing-

 It's the process of looking at all the footage shot during the making of a film/TV programme and placing it in the desired order and joining it together.

The two key areas that we have concentrate on with editing are Speed of Editing, which is how long each shot lasts, and Style of Editing, which is how each shot is joined to the next. In a film each scene may last a matter of seconds, or it could continue for minutes but the length of each sequence shows the pace of the film moving the action along. The speed of the editing will help to determine the mood of what is taking place on screen.
If the audience is to feel anxiety and suspense the editing will be quick and the scenes/shots would be changing frequently for example in an action scene.




If a relaxed mood is desired, the scenes last longer and change less frequently. For example in a romantic comedy.


Nevertheless a film need not have any editing. The film Russian Ark  was filmed in one take using a steadicam and a digital camera. This required split-second timing and organisation.

A trailer for a film needs to pack in detail from throughout the film. Therefore the editing will be very fast. 

Straight Cut:
 Most common and 'invisible' form of transition. One shot moves instantaneously to the next without attracting the audiences attention. Straight cuts help retain reality. They do not break the viewers suspension of disbelief.

Fades:
 A gradual darkening or lightening of an image until it becomes black or white. One shot will fade until only a black or white screen can be seen. It can indicate the end of a particular section of time within the narrative. It can also show the passing of time.

Wipes:
 One image is pushed off the screen by another . Images can be pushed left or right. It's more common for the image to be pushed off the left-hand side as this movement is more consitant with the sense of time moving forward. Wipes are used to signal a movement between different locations that are experiencing the same time.

Jump Cut:
 A jump cut is where the audience's attention is brought into focus on something very suddenly. This occurs by breaking the continuity editing, this is known as discontinuity. It appears as if a section of the sequence has been removed.



The gap in action (when Seberg picked up the mirror) is emphasised by the use of a jump cut. A jump cut is used to startle the viewer and to draw attention to something.