Filming

Sunday the 24th, we finally started filming. We only had a short cap in which we could film as otherwise we couldn't have all been there together. The scenes that we would have liked to have film was, the running u to the house, the study scene and the kitchen scene.

We managed to film the study and kitchen sections but not the running into the house. This was because, by the time we were all there, set up and got ready, it was too dark to film outside. This is as the camera wouldn't have picked up all the action and we wanted it to be set in the middle of the day.

On Thursday the 28th, three of us went into town to film the 3 shot shots. This went really well and as it didn't take very long, we filmed each shot about 5 to 6 times. This is so we can chose the best one and the one that fits in best with the previous scenes. So we will be uploading them on Tuesday and hopefully it will all fit together nicely. So fingers crossed.

Voice over auditions

Over the top of the beginning we needed a voice. We all have the perfect voice in our minds so it was just finding it that was the problem. To try and find people, we took a flip video around with us as asked people to speak into it.
The speech that we asked them to say was 'I don't care who this guy is. If this gets out, the whole damn Government will go on trial. You have 48 hours. I want him DEAD!!!'
We got loads so now we have picked the best 5 girls, best 5 boys, and 3 special guests at the end as well. Its in a little video which is black, so sorry its not very exciting to watch.
Let us know what you think of them and tell us which one you think you think is the best.

I hope you enjoy! :)

Storyboards

The new and improved...final storyboards for our Thriller opening.

We decided to keep our initial ideas from the first storyboard, with a few minor changes.

The 'BAZZAM''s signify a change in narrative; from present to past (flashbacks) Enjoy!

Questionnaire response 4

Although the people that filled out this questionnaire isn't are target audience, I feel that they were worth asking. This is because they teach Media at Coventry University, so they are the one's that are most likely to give us a deep into depth answers which will give us loads more information to work with.
1. How old are you?
41, 37, 48
2. Are you male or female?
male, female, female
3. What sub genre is most appealing to you?
1 said 'psychological and crime'
1 said 'action and psychological'
1 said 'political'
4. When you hear the term 'thriller', what do you think?
1 said 'exciting, red herring, lots of suspense, lots of problems'
1 said 'protagonist/antagonist, fast paced'
1 said 'frequent action, left breathless, exhilarating, emotional and apprehensive'
5. When watching a thriller, do you prefer a simple plot or a more complex one that requires you to think?
All 3 said 'complex plot'
6. Do you prefer a narrative that plunges straight into the action or a slower start?
2 said 'straight into the action'
1 said 'slow start'
7. Do you prefer a male or female protagonist?
All 3 said 'male lead character'

Blog To-Do List! 19/01

The following is what we got told we needed to add to our blog in order to maintain our high-grade:

Red = Done!

Research Actual Audience
Location Shots
Music Planning/Sound Effects
Planning for Evaluation
Analysis of Previous TCC Work

This is merely a reminder to our group of what needs doing/what has been done.

Plan for Evaluation Task

For our evaluation of our thriller opening, we decided to do a 'making of' featurette; we feel this would be more interesting and visually dynamic than a director's commentary, however, we may incorporate aspects of a commentary into our featurette in order to explain what we were trying to achieve at a certain point.
In our featurette we plan to include stills and videos of the filming process as well as including frames from the finished product and interviews with each individual member of the group, allowing us to answer the questions set for the evaluation. In order to make this happen, we will carry an additional camera with us to capture the process of production.

The questions for our evaluation are as follows...Underneath is a brief summary of how we plan to answer that specific question:

1. In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real Media products?
- Show clips or stills of conventional and unconventional features within our finished product, and compare with other thriller's in the market, determining whether or not it challenges or conforms to real Media products.

2. How does your Media product represent particular social groups?
- We will relate back to our plot, describing how it represents the Government as untrustworthy and corrupt; a notion held strongly in the mind of the general public - We will most likely use a director's commentary for this part of our evaluation.

3. What kind of Media institution might distribute your Media product, and why?
- In the near future one of us will research Media Institutions, to find out which is specialised in producing thriller films, because therefore they would be able to effectively advertise and distribute our thriller.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
- We made our thriller based on what our target audience said they wanted in a thriller, and we could discuss how we achieved this, by distributing a questionnaire to the people who answered our original questionnaire. We could also include a clip of our audience reviewing our opening directly after viewing.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?
- We will address this question alongside question 4.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
- We will definitely film some of the GarageBand process - describing how we came to chose the certain samples we used and how they will affect the atmosphere of our thriller opening. Our blog is a good documentation of the technologies we've used and it in itself is also a new technology we have become familiar with during this process.

7. Looking back at your Preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
- Editing skills have been improved, and we will show clips of match-on-action transitions to show the improvement from our pre-preliminary, graduating up to our thriller opening.

Questionnaire response 3

To get some audience feedback we sent our questionnaire to a University. This University was in Coventry. The people that answered this questionnaire are actually studying media, so they were most likely to give us detailed answers and these are the answers that we need to take into account.
1.How old are you?
18, 20, 19, 18, 18
2. Are you male or female?
male = 3
female = 2
3. When you hear the term 'thriller', what do you think?
more question asked than answered,
Hitchcock
edge of your seat, often mysterious narrative that makes you think and has a twist to keep the a
audience on their toes
a film with both ups and downs, creates suspense
complex narrative
4.What sub genre is most appealing to you?
Political/Conspiracy = 1
Psychological = 1
Fantasy = 0
Action = 1
Comedy = 2
Crime = 2
5. When watching a thriller, do you prefer a simple plot or a more complex one that requires you to think?
Simple = 0
Complex = 4
1 wrote 'it depends what mood I am in, usually simple'
6. Do you prefer a narrative that plunges straight into the action or a slower start?
Slow opening = 3
Straight into the action = 2
7. Do you prefer a male or female protagonist?
male lead character = 5
female lead character = 0

Automatically, you can see difference in results between these results and the results we found in our other question response.

Costumes and Props

We decided to think about what we wanted our props and costumes to look like in more detail. Here is what we have chosen to try and make our set look like:

Costume & Make-up (Derek):

Home:

• Casual
• Jumper
• Jeans
• Dishevelled hair
• Slippers/Socks

Office:

• Suit
• Well dressed
• Groomed
• Tie
• Neater hair

Running:

• Suit with no jacket
• Tie loose, undone
• Messy hair
• Sweating slightly

Props:

Home (Kitchen):

• Radio
• Drawers with implements in
• Oven in background
• Fridge
• General kitchen items

Office:

• Notice board with lots of notes, newspaper cuttings, maps, pictures, photographs
• Computer
• Desk
• Chair

The results so far....

The results of our questionnaires so far, have informed us that our opening personifies what our audience expects and wants in a Thriller. It has a complex plot that plunges straight into the action, a male protagonist and is of a psychological/political sub-genre (the two most popular genres), which means that we are doing our job well so far!
We are currently waiting for the results of questionnaires that we sent to a number of students; most of whom are studying media at University. The results will be interesting to compare to those we already have collected, as these students form the majority of our key target audience.

Questionnaire Response 2

Roisin and I were the other group who went off around college to ask people to take part in our survey. Although people of school age were not our target audience, we decided to ask them anyway, because our thriller will probably appeal to a larger audience than the one we are targeting, and it is always good to interview a larger sample than the one you actually need. We asked 12 people from around our school campus.

Here are our results:

1) How old are you?

37, 17 (x4), 18 (x3), 16 (x4)

2) Are you male or female?

male (x6)

female (x6)

3) When you hear the term 'thriller', what do you think?

suspense, excitement, having to think, action, complex plot, edge-of-your-seat, jumpy, white knuckles, adrenaline.

4) What sub-genre of thriller do you prefer?

political/conspiracy (x3)

psychological (x5)

action (x2)

crime

sci-fi

5) Do you prefer a simple or complex plot?

simple

complex (x11)

6) Do you prefer to go straight into the action or have a slower start?

straight into the action (x5)

slow start (x7)

7) Do you prefer a male or female protagonist?

male (x10)

female (x2)

Questionnaire response 1

Today in the Media lesson, we split up into 2's and went round the school to try and get people to answer our questionnaire. This are the results that me and Jade found out when we asked 15 people.
1. How are are you?
16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,16,17,16,16,16,16,16
2. Are you male or female?
male = 9
female = 6
3. When you hear the word 'thriller', what do you think?
-a lot of blood, screaming
-fast paced
-a villain, blood, killing
-crime, definite protagonist, morally grey
-jumpy, good
-thinking
-sex
-exciting, jumpy, scary, surprising
-action
-action
-tension
-bomb, action
- blood
-adrenaline, rushing, tension, action, fast paced
4. What sub genre is most appealing to you?
Political = 1
Psychological = 6
Fantasy = 0
Action = 2
Comedy = 4
Crime = 2
5. When watching a film, do you prefer a simple plot or a more complex one that requires you to think?
Simple = 5
Complex = 10
6. Do you prefer a narrative that plunges you straight into the action or a slow start?
Slow start = 7
Straight into the action = 8
7. Do you prefer to see a male or female protagonist?
Male = 6
Female = 9

Even though the people we found aren't our target audience, we still felt we had to ask them. This is because it we still give us information about what we should include.

Storyboard: Draft!

These are our drafted storyboards, purely to give us a rough idea so when we come to the real storyboarding, we can work from this and improve.

Dates

To get all of our coursework done we have to organise our time carefully because we have to have it done by a certain time. This means we needed to decide what we are going to do and when. The part we concentrated on first was our filming.
It was really hard for us to decide days in which we can all film. This is because three of us work at some point during the weekend. Because of this reason, we have decided that we will film our office scene in school as this would save us having to find some more dates in which we are all free.
We decided that, even if we don't finish filming before the February half term, we agreed that we would like to get some of the scenes filmed before then.
Currently, we are thinking of filming on the 23rd/24th or the 30th/31st weekend. However, this is dependant of the weather as when we film the running scene in town, we need the ground to be clear and not icy, otherwise this could cause problems and become dangerous for all of us.
However, it really all depends on when our actor can and we will have to fit around him.

Role's, location's and prop's

Roles
There are many roles in our film for us and actors. Here are a few roles that we need to locate to people =
+ director
+ editor
+ camera man
+ music/sound Creator
+ protagonist
+ voice over
+ women (wife)?
+ children?
+ extras?
Locations
Town -
-alley near doctors?
-grave yard?
-road by old cinema?
-abbey gardens?
-path way near the pond in the abbey gardens?
Office -
-office in school (maybe Mr.Alison?)
Kitchen -
-at one of our own homes
Props
computer, desk, office, kitchen, letters/pieces of paper with IMPORTANT information, clothes for actor (still needs to be decided), blanks of wood of under the dolly for the town scene, dolly, camera, costume for any other actors.

Our Main Inspriations...political context

Usually, political thrillers contain elements of recent political events in order to appear realistic and engage more closely with their audience. For example, after the events of 9/11 in 2001, there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of plots reguarding terrorism.
Today, it is clear that with the recent MP expenses scandal and current Iraq Inquiry, the prominant public attitude towards the Government is mistrust.
We thought that this cultural feeling of betrayal was both powerful material for a thriller narrative and emotionally engaging for the audience, so we decided to base our plot on perhaps the most controversial political event of the last decade; the mysterious death of Dr David Kelly and the Hutton Inquiry.
We were particularly drawn to this event because...
- it has remained in the public conscience since 2003,
- it already has an ambiguous mood surrounding it, which stems from the suspicious lack of evidence and numberous conspiracy theories,
- While investigating Kelly's death, Normon Baker (MP and author of the book, 'the strange death of David Kelly') experienced strange events, including the intimidation of his female assistant, and the unexplained wiping of his computer hard disk,
- only last year, six senior doctors called for the Inquiry to be re-opened due to insufficient evidence - once again fanning the flames of conspiracy therorists.

Our Main Inspriations...LOST

LOST [SEASON 4 EPISODE 5] THE CONSTANT
From the beginning of the planning process I was determined to incorporate the flashback technique demonstrated in this particular episode. I thought that the unique, contemporary style of this technique would not only attract our young target audience, but would also make our opening much more visually dynamic and intriguing to watch.

A match on action is used at the start and end of a flashback sequence in order to closely 'knit together' the transition between past and present; thus switching time zones in one seamless movement. Although this is a complex and arduous process (requiring intricate filming and editing), our group has gained alot of experience of handling match-on-actions from our preliminary task, so I feel extremely confident that we have the knowledge (and the drive!) to pull it off.

Watch the episode that inspired us ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRNxKMw0Xpc

Obviously this is not the whole episode, instead it is just the flashback transitions that have been edited together as a montage.

False Pretences - our basic plot (psychological/political/conspiracy thriller)

"The protagonist is an average man in his early twenties [profession is with held], who is investigating into a Government conspiracy (along the lines of the Hutton Inquiry). During his seemingly harmless interest, he stumbles upon a document that puts the innocence of the Government into serious question.
The antagonist [who the audience assume to be either a direct politician or a 'branch' off Parliament] sets out 48 hours for this 'threat' to be neutralised, and so the protagonist is suddenly thrust into a world of danger, corruption and betrayal.
True to its psychological sub-genre, the film covers these next 48 hours through fragmented narrative time and a series of flashbacks until the dramatic climax....."

Drafting the entire 'gist' of the plot was a crucial stage in our planning process as we needed to know where the plot was heading in order to ensure that the flashbacks in our opening were relevent and meaningful (not just put there for the sake of it!)

Our opening is conventional because....
- we conceal the identity of the antagonist and limit the background information on the protagonist; whilst still solidifying their roles,
- we use a range of different sets and locations,
- it uses elements of low key lighting,
- the lead is played by a male actor,
- [conventional of political thriller] the plot revolves around a political controversy.

Our opening is unconventional because....
- it uses a fragmented narrative time and flashbacks,
- there is a non-diegetic voiceover over the titles and first shot,
- the anatagonist (or the voice of the antagonist) is played by a female actress
- shots (depending whether they are set in the past or present) switch from colour to black and white.

Questionnaire

As a group, we decided to do a questionnaire to see what type of audience we will actually end up appealing to with out final thriller opening, and also to narrow down the audience that we plan on aiming at. So, we thought of some relevant questions, and we now plan on asking people from mainly the age and audience that we intend to appeal to (eg. university students), but also to other people as well, to get a wider sample, and to see if our thriller would appeal to a larger audience than we actually intended.

Here is the survey we are going to send out:

When we get the results back, we will post them on here so everyone can see if we are aiming for the right kind of target audience with the thriller we are going for.

Audience

As a group, we decided to create a detailed character profile of the type of person that our thriller opening is trying to appeal to.

Our audience is about 20 years old, and are considered to be intelligent. Many of them go to university to study subjects like English and Psychology. They are predominately male, but the margin between the genders is small.

Our audience is interested in finding out more about the world around them; they do not accept what they are told without first questioning and coming to their own conclusions. They are interested in conspiracy theories, but are realistic about them - for example, although they might believe that the government are hiding something from the general public, they are more sceptical about aliens.

They also enjoy socialising, and are by no means friendless. Many people would consider our audience to be 'the life and soul of the party' because of their confident nature and friendly demeanour.

When it comes to thrillers, our audience enjoys a more complex plot which requires them to think and make judgements for themselves, rather than having the plot spoon fed to them. For this reason, they prefer psychological thrillers such as 'Eagle Eye' (D.J. Caruso, 2008) and 'Memento' (Christopher Nolan, 2000).

In order to appeal to this audience as fully as possible, we decided to make our thriller a psychological-conspiracy thriller, with a complex plot that requires the audience to make some assumptions for themselves.

Initial Ideas For Thriller Project:

As a group, we all used a recent lesson to decide on general outlines/ideas for our Thriller, we wrote a spider diagram which includes the whole groups ideas and opinions.

Next lesson we hope to make our best ideas definite, and get started on times for filming, locations, actors, make-up costume (etc.)

Psychological Thriller

For our thriller course work we have many ideas for different sub-genre's but the sub-genre we think that we will be doing is a psychological thriller. So I thought I would do some background research into it.
The simple definition for a psychological thriller is: 'a suspenseful movie emphasizing the psychology of its characters rather than the plot'. An example of a plot in a psychological thriller is: 'the characters are exposed to danger on a mental level rather than a physical one'. My source for this information is definition.com.
To find out what sort of psychological films that are most popular, I went and found out what the 10 most popular films are. I got this list from a website called 'top10thrillers'. The results I found was:
1. Silence of the Lambs - 1991
2. Rear Window - 1954
3. The Manchurian Candidate - 1954
4. Taxi Driver - 1976
5. Se7en - 1995
6. Memento - 2000
7. The Usual Suspects - 1995
8. Play Misty with me - 1971
9. Straw Dogs - 1971
10. Les Diaboliques - 1971
To check this list I also went on other websites to see if other lists differ or are similar. Overall, the lists are similar, however, some lists say Memento is better than Silence of the Lamb but the rest of the lists are near enough the same. Throughout all the lists I found, Psycho wasn't on any. This surprised me as I thought it would be near the top. This is because its an old film but its a classic and still complex.

THRILLER ANALYSIS - El Laberinto Del Fauno (2006) - Guillermo del Toro - Fantasy Thriller

1. What is revealed to the audience?
A black screen is shown, with non-diegetic sound of heavy breathing, accompanied by a woman humming a soothing tune. Writing appears, and the audience becomes aware of what is occuring before and during the storyline (Spain 1944, after the civil war, the armed resistance against the new fascist regime) The camera then slowly pans to a young girl with blood on her face, breathing heavily and obviously in distress, the camera pans anti-clockwise into a close-up, to show that she is lying on the ground. A voiceover then begins to describe a fantasy world, where a young girl longs to enter the real world, and does so - clearing her memory and killing her; her father swears he would wait for her to return to him.

2. What is conventional?
- The element of the unknown
- The main character is introduced; the audience feels confusion to the manner of her introduction; as she is badly hurt and struggling to breath

3. What is unconventional?
- Having a good and thorough understanding of the backstory to the storyline; whilst still maintaining the element of the unknown
- The camera angle when panning into a close up of the main character's face, as she turns from the edge of the frame to the center

4. How has it inspired me?
It has inspired me to perhaps explore a rare sub-genre of thriller, and daring to be unconventional and individual, while still using fairly simple techniques of sound and camera shots/angle and managing to successfully create an unknown for the audience.

THRILLER ANALYSIS - Pulp Fiction (1994) - Quentin Tarantino - Crime Thriller

1. What is revealed to the audience?
A black screen with the definition of 'pulp' is shown - it seems to have two, very seperate meanings. an american woman and british man are then shown sitting at a booth in a diner, smoking and drinking coffee, the man discusses how he will "never do it again" - it then becomes clear they are talking about robbing banks etc. and how it would be much easier then what they are doing now. The decide to rob the diner; as it becomes clear they are a couple. The woman seems calm to begin with, until she pulls out a gun - creating a different persona; beginning to swear and scream. The frame showing the couple holding guns is then frozen, music then enters along with a black screen with titles appearing slowly.

2. What is conventional?
- The opening raises a lot more questions than it answers; the audience is unsure if they are main characters, but they seem (to begin with) fairly essential to the plot so far - as well as it beginning half way through a conversation.
- During the dialogue there are conventional over-the-shoulder shots or mid shots of individuals within the conversation
- The lighting is fairly dim - showing an ordinary setting.
- The violent nature at the end of the opening sequence.

3. What is unconventional?
- The definition of 'pulp' before the title of the movie.
- The viewer feels involved with the characters - the 'hipness'
- Forshadowing seemingly pointless things to the plot.

4. How has it inspired me?
I liked the false sense of ease you are put into throughout the opening, a seemingly typical setting, and calm atmosphere surrounding an odd conversation, resulting in violence.

THRILLER ANALYSIS - A Clockwork Orange (1971) - Stanley Kubrick - Crime Thriller

1. What is revealed to the audience?
Barely anything is revealed in this opening - there is a mid shot of a strange and sinister looking male; staring at the camera menacingly. The camera then pans out slowly to reveal 3 more men beside him - all staring blankly, without purpose. The panning continues into a long shot, causing many more people to be revealed. A voiceover begins; the audience then becomes aware the sinister male is named Alex, Alex continues to tell the audience the name of the 3 men beside him (while the camera continues to slowly pan away from them) and describing how they are planning to do with the evening, whilst similtaneously drinking, what is hinted at, some kind of drug or hallucegenic.

2. What is conventional?
- The title sequence; a blank red screen, changing to blue and quickly back to red - the red connotes violence in this case.
- The editing is predominantly made up of straight cuts to begin with...
- Slow, rhythmic and a quite haunting harmonic playing throughout opening - creates tension
- Main character(s) introduced to audience - through voiceover - fairly conventional

3. What is unconventional?
- No diegetic sound
- The main character staring into the camera - not letting it leave his gaze
- The mise-en-scene raises a lot of questions, the setting is out of the ordinary, as well as the clothing and make-up.

4. How has it inspired me?
I really like the unconventional way Alex stares into the camera, and when the camera slowly pans out revealing more people surrounding him - which includes the way it is all one shot with no cuts between, creating a completely smooth yet, sinister shot.