Dean's Evaluation

Media Evaluation
We were set the task of coming up with the opening to a thriller related film, which had to be about 2 minutes long. Many thrillers use the "anything can happen" rule, which means they don't have to follow real world rules. There is also the fact that most if all thrillers are mysterious with the fact that they do not revel the story until the very end.
There are many factors that influence thrillers and many other film genres alike. These include lighting, sound, mise-en-scene, camera angle, and the plot. These factors were taken into serious consideration when we were filming and editing our final cut. We also took on board the definition of a thriller stated earlier. The ways in which our thriller opening incorporated generic conventions, is that the lead character is a woman and is portrayed as the weaker sex throughout the clip as she is stalked by what is apparently a male. This is shown in the scene in which her car breaks down at the side of the road and she investigates the origin of a twig snap she hears nearby. We decided to portray the stalker as a point of view (POV) shot in this scene. This was decided as it gives mystery to the stalker as we are unable to see him. Our thriller develops these conventions as there is a strong emphasis on the female coming across as more vulnerable than a male would in the same situation. The use of the conventions indicates a hybrid thriller-horror genre, this is because of our use of light and shadows to portray an eerie and dark setting giving the viewer the sense of suspense and tension. However, a horror definition is an unsettling film designed to frighten and panic the audience while invoking terror through the use of gore and strong bloody violence. Whereas our film doesn’t use strong bloody violence, it has horror influences with the use of terror and panic when the woman is kidnapped. The film we were inspired by was “Vacancy” as this film has a similar atmosphere to what we were trying to represent within our own thriller.
There are not many social groups represented within our thriller with only one character shown throughout the opening. This character is portrayed to be female and around the age of twenty to twenty one, white British origin and a middle class background (but this does not necessarily mean this is the only target audience). Although we do not see the stalker, the character is male with unknown age or background to give the sense of mystery. This links into the target audience as the females within the audience will feel a sense of insecurity and fear, while the males of the audience will feel frightened and helpless for the female as the natural instinct to protect her kicks in. Again this links to the stereotypical view of males being dominant over females.
I believe our final cut could be produced in a major Hollywood studio as the plot and storyline is well represented in many other Hollywood films such as “Vacancy” and “Hostel” (although “Hostel” has strong bloody violence, it also has kidnapping themes throughout) It could also be produced because of the visual style of the thriller. The film would be shown in cinemas across Britain, continental Europe, and the United States. There is potential for a sequel or a book to be released in future marketing exploitations. There is also the possibility of the film being a TV only movie which would bring in a lot more audience members, but may not come across as very professional or as successful as a mainstream cinema offers.
The visual style of the film is shown by the camera angles and lighting throughout the thriller as the stalker is portrayed by POV’s and darker lighting giving the effect of ‘literally’ a darker side to the him than the main female character who is portrayed with close ups, low camera angles and long shots. Also she is shown in slightly brighter lighting to portray innocence. This gives the audience a clear view as to who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist. There is also the music aspect of the thriller that gives it an eerie and tension building effect. We used an un copyrighted song in the back ground to give the mysterious and creepy effect. This is achieved as the song is slow and intimidating. While in the foreground there is a heart be sound that progressively gets louder to indicate there is something about to happen. This also builds the tension and suspense of the audience.
Our thriller is rated 15+ and would appeal to male and female audiences alike. The reason for the choosing of the 15+ rating is that the film has horror themes, but does not contain scenes of bloody violence, sexual influences, or drug related content making it suitable for persons of fifteen and over, instead of an18+ rating. “Vacancy” is similar to our film as it is a thriller-horror hybrid rated 15+ and has the same atmosphere we attempted to get in our film.
I think the kidnapping scene would be more emotionally straining on the female sector of the audience as here we see the female victimised and seen as weaker that the male stalker. I also believe the scene where the woman’s car breaks down at the side of the road would be particularly terrifying to the female audience as most women do not have sufficient knowledge of how cars work so in this situation, women would feel vulnerable and helpless until help arrived. But in our situation, help does not arrive so a female audience would be wondering how they would feel if this happened to them. I believe film would not be suitable for minors even with parental guidance as there are scenes of violence.
Throughout the thriller opening, the audience is being asked to put themselves in the position of the stalker. This is shown with the use of a point of view shot to indicate to the audience they are witnessing the stalker ‘preying’ so to speak, on the young girl. The are only allowed to see the young girl through the eyes of the stalker. The stalker himself and the AA Man are not seen. Although the AA man is heard when he responds to the woman while she is on the phone to him regarding the break down. The impact of this on the audience is a sense of fear as they are looking through the eyes of the antagonist, which grips the audience and draws them into the storyline.
In the process of producing this film, we noticed our strengths and weaknesses when using the hardware and software. And we also noticed our strengths and weaknesses within the team itself. First of all, our main weakness was not using a tripod in contention with the camera. As a result of this we found some of our shot to be slightly wobbly. But this turned out to our advantage as it gave a very good effect when shooting the point of view from the stalker. For our filming process we started off with location scouting to find the best and most relevant places to shoot the film. After which, we set up dates and times for the group to meet on set and complete the filming in each location to latter be edited using Final cut express. We did have some problems about transport on my part, And as a result I was unable to attend two of the filming days. To resolve this, the group showed me what they had filmed and done, and to catch up I was given a more pivotal role in the editing process which was enjoyable. Also some of the film was a bit dark in some places, to combat this we edited the lighting and contrast in final cut.
Final cut express was a lot of fun and very useful. We were able to enhance the picture quality, sound, and lighting while rearranging the cuts to suit what we wanted it the look like. There were many things i learned about editing over the course of the project as this was the first time i had used such a program. But the main thing i think i learned that was the most useful, was the rearranging and cutting of scenes. This was hard at first but after practice this was and extremely useful tool. We also very much liked the colour connection effect as it gave the thriller its eerie look with dimming of the colours and contrast.
Garage band was extremely useful for music to be merged and integrated with final cut express. The key issue with the music was timing it right with final cut to get the music to come into play on the scenes necessary. In the end this worked very successfully, and we were extremely pleased with the outcome. We merged 3 tracks using garage band, of which were, a heartbeat effect and two background non-diegetic songs. This turned out well and was integrated with final cut to give the thriller a suspense effect. We faced some problems merging the heartbeat effect with the background song as the heartbeat was from YouTube and had to be embedded.
The planning stage was the most crucial as this determined the outcome of the thriller. To start off, we did research into the genre to determine what a thriller entails and what age rating most thrillers are aimed at. We did this by asking the target audience and researching on the internet for information about these topics. The next stage in the planning process was the storyboard. This step took time, and rightly so, as this would be our filming guide. We had to draw annotated diagrams to show the scene and the shots used in each scene. This helped us a lot in the filming as we had a clear guide on the location, and shots used on them locations meaning we would not make mistake on camera angles. This helped the filming process to run smoother with relatively no hick-ups along the way.
Our use of specific shot types improved greatly over the course of the project. And the point of view shot in particular as we used many point of views during our filming process. As a result of using many point of views, we perfected what angle it should be, and how wobbly or smooth the shot should be. This is shown in the thriller as it is a very good effect when portraying the stalker.
I feel more confident with the equipment after this project as I have got used to how the camera works and how to upload footage to final cut and the blog. I have also progressed in the use of the software programs such as Garageband and Final cut express.
Taking all this into account, I can strongly say that the end product was a resounding success, everything we envisioned was thrown onto the canvas and the thriller shows our success as a team, and our success at using the equipment efficiently and to a high standard of quality. Our thriller was also a success at fulfilling the task, as it covers the mark band and shows our use of the software and hardware alike. The end product was extremely professional and used everything we had learned to make a quality end piece, made through, hard work, teamwork and commitment.

Hannahs Media Evaluation

Our thriller opening incorporates several generic conventions.It does this through the use of costume, setting and plot. Our setting has common thriller generic conventions. We used a deserted country road with forest either side. A deserted location is often used in thrillers, as it is eerie and by being in a remote location makes it frightening. We used simple and casual costume, which is often used in thrillers as it makes the character easier to relate to. We used a point of view shot from the antagonist. This is used in thrillers as a way of putting the audience in the privileged position. Our thriller has typical features that you would expect to see in thriller films.

We used a natural environment and natural lighting, with natural props (twigs and woodland) we didn’t change the set but worked around the trees and natural objects. We chose a forest setting as they are commonly used in thrillers as they are creepy and the audience has probably been in a situation like out victim. Being in a forest, either alone or at night. The props we used in our thriller were mostly naturalistic in the forest scene. In the shed scene we added pictures of our main character, as if she had been watched for a while. We did this to as a disturbing edgy atmosphere to the scene. Example of one of the pictures we took with the main character in differnt clothng, this show how the stalker has been watching her for a while.Our media product represents a variety of social groups, by the victim being young and female. This makes the plot fit with modern films E.g. Taken, The victim is a young female. We chose a female victim in our thriller as female characters are usually seen as the weaker sex. Because of using a female victim and more vulnerable character, gender is represented in a stereotypical way. We chose to do this as females are seen as the weaker character.

We chose to target a teenage audience of around 15 + as this is the lowest age cetificate which would be sutible. We did this because it was the most convenient way to gather information, because we have experience of what this age group would like in a thriller. And we gained the information from this age group, when we first gathered information for ideas for the opening from a questionnaire we completed at the beginning of the task. We also chose to aim at teenagers as they can relate to the female victim, and the situation is realistic as we used a naturalistic environment. We also used an easy plot, which when we asked the audience at the screen test they knew what was going on in the opening. Also our target audience can relate to the victim as the plot was believable and not extreme. The audience can also find things in common with the main character and their situation. Our opening could be disturbing for a younger audience if we chose to make a lower age band, this would be because a younger age group may be disturbed by the main character being followed and the use of our point of view shot of the antagonist running towards the victim and also the victim being tied up. This would be scary for a younger audience as they may not understand that the story isn’t real and that the characters are actors. We intentionally chose to put the audience in the stalkers perspective through the point of view shot. This put the audience in the privileged position which makes them feel like they should try to help the victim. This helps to create tension and involves the audience.

Our thriller opening can be produced by a major Hollywood Studio, because it has a mass market and similar features of other popular thrillers. One in particular in the break down scene. In the thriller Vacancy and the plot being about a stalker, and being watched unknowingly. Our thriller would be best to be released as a movie at cinemas and the released on DVD. I think out thriller can offer sequels. As the stalker may not have been found. Posters and other merchandise can be made to help to promote the film.

Our film has similar break down scene as the film vacancy which the main characters not knowing where they are, we used some of the same shots as this film uses, by the use of a long shot, over the shoulderand a pan. Apart from their scene had been shot in a darker light and there are two characters. This is a common feature of thriller films, the main characters not knowing their location and being lost.

We didn’t come across that many problems with the equipment during filming. One problem we found when uploading the footage was that it wasn’t very good quality. I we chose to reshoot we could get a HD camera which would enhanced the footage. Apart from that problem the camera and tripod were easy to use. We didn’t come across many problems when filming, apart from when shooting the road scene. There were a few passing cars which made it take longer to get the footage. One other problem we in counted was the weather! When filming the forest scene it started to rain so we had to wait for it to stop! And when shooting the shed scene the wind kept blowing our pictures off the wall!

After using final cut express I have learnt how to cut footage properly. Also by using it to playback scenes and slowing the footage, it helped me to spot things that weren’t supposed to be in the shot. E.g in our first take if the car with smoke coming out of the bonnet you can see the kettle , so we had to reshoot which took time. I also learnt how to add credits to the opening and where would be the best place to put them. As well as learning how to match cut together successfully. I learnt how to use effects to darken the contrast. We did this because we had to do the filming during the day as it would be dangerous at night. I learnt how to add a fade to the end of the opening. This makes the ending look more professional.








Garage band was helpful when creating a unique sound track which helped to add suspense. We were able to make the music start quiet and in the background and then gradually build up when we wanted a tense atmosphere. The only problems we did come across were being able to fit the music in time with the footage and the type of music we wanted. We chose three tracks and put them together to make it fit with our thriller.














When looking back at the preliminary task I think that my skills with using equipment have improved. As well as being more organised and being more specific of what we wanted from a shot. When planning out thriller we already had an idea of the types of shots we would need to show to get a good grade. We chose Point of view shots to show what the stalker can see. We used long shot to show the road and establish a location. We tried to include as much variety of shots as we could to make the opening jumpy and to get as many angles as we could.


I was very happy with the final outcome of the thriller. It was almost how I pictured it would turn out like when drawing the story board. If we decided to re filmed I think we should have filmed it when it was darker. This is what the audience suggested after the screen test.

Luke's Evaluation

Evaluation

In my AS media course I have produced a media product with the theme of a thriller. I did this with Elsa, Hannah and Dean. We had to make this all from scratch, we had to do market research and then put all our Ideas to make a final product. I had to plan film and then edit it by ourselves.
When planning our media product we all knew what we wanted what we really wanted to so, also as we are of the age 16-17 we knew what the market would want. We decided to make a thriller where It would be shot In the dark setting, In 3 different places and It would have a slightly creepy feeling to it.

In our thriller a girl brakes down In a remote area, surrounded by woods, she hears something In the woods so goes to Investigate. This first scene was shot in location 1 and mainly used medium shots, with a few POV from the stalker and over the shoulder shot in the car when it breaks down.
Then there is location 2, this is when she walks around in the woods to see if can find the source of the noise. In this scene there are a lot of POV’s from where and the stalker, so of him watching her and from her trying to look for him. In this scene we have also put in worms eye view, which is a very low angle shot. We went for a very much handheld feel, to get across to our audience that It Is very much just them 2 in the area. The scene ends when the stalker is running towards her and she screams.
Location 3 Is In a shed, where our victim has woken up tied up In a shed, again In this scene we have a few POV’s to show people what the room looks like from her own point of view, earlier on we had taken lots of photo’s of the protagonist doing her daily things, this Is to show that the stalker has been stalking her for a while and to add that extra creep factor. We had chosen that location as it was the creepiest place we knew that we close, it was a rundown shed, which you would not want to be.

When planning and filming we were very couscous about what we thought and knew our target market wanted, and what they wanted and liked what the conventions of a thriller followed. So we added In a lot of POV’s like In the forest scene, we also made sure that It was a women protagonist as when we did our market research that was what people liked, we also tried to shoot it in the evening as that was when It was dark without us It being too dark that we couldn’t film anything. Due to our market research and it showing people wanted to see conventions we didn’t think are necessary to challenge any conventions as we thought that the best effect would be that it was done like people wanted. As we wanted to add a creepy feeling to the thriller t feel into the sub-genre of a thriller horror, you can see this mostly as we have done it in the dark and from the last scene it being of the protagonist being tied up in shed. We as a group have all seen a lot of thrillers we when we were given this task lots ran through our head about what we should do in our thriller, so in a way many films Influenced us, but one that stuck out the most was hostel, the opening story line is very much like our own, but the locations are very different.

In the film women are very much stereotyped as being the damsel In distress so and the man (the stalker) very much In charge and very dominate, this was due to the thriller conventions and us wanting to keep to those, and also due to the cast that we asked to be In our media product a women fitted the role very well, as they are physically (In most case) smaller and then there are perceived to not to be able to handle themselves. This Is good as the audience will feel a lot more for the women as most people think that women aren’t able to handle themselves, this will mean people will get more Involved with the film, as In they will get sucked Into It.
I think that as this sort of film s the sort of film people want to see due to audience trends, this would be a perfect product for a large profit making organisation to make and produce, as this sort of film is a guaranteed success films like this have proven to do well, like the film hostel.
This film If released I see being a typical big blockbuster, a must see film for people that would want to see this type of film, after going In the cinema I would like to think It would also come out on DVD. I do not that that this particular film would have a sequel, but this film would be a film, for just that... watching.
Our target audience would be between the ages of 15- 40, the reason we said 15 was because that is the age certificate it would be, so legally we cannot aim it to any younger as they technically will not be able to watch it, the reason for the high end being 40 is because peoples taste of films don’t tend to change until later In life that that.
What I have noticed though is that both sexes would like to watch it as 16-17, but as you get older more into the late 20’s it moves to mainly the male market. But even though many females would like it, I would say it’s more of a male product, this would be mainly because of the dark theme to It, and that the protagonist s a female, the male may become slightly protective of the female and would like to see what happens, or they may like to see a women to be put n a very vunriable state and passive. Also due to it being a thriller-horror a lot of tension would be built, I’m not sure if a women would enjoy that and even be able to stand that.
From what we found out our target audience was very much the people that enjoy similar films available to the consumer. For example Hostel very much appealed to the male market due to it being quite a dark thriller.

Due to the fact that a women is playing the part of the protagonist it would involve the women part of the audience and they would then feel that that may affect them, and would make them thing what they would do if they were in that situations, also due to the fact she is young, it would make people age thing it could happen to them. When our main character is tied in the shed it would engage people as it would make thing wonder how she would get out and then they would start to think how they would if they were put in that situations. I personally find it frustrating in films like thrillers as they do things that people would not in real life, for example go and find what they heard in the forest... it makes you want to scream at them to run, this feeling is shared with a lot from what I found from the audience research.
By having to plan, film, direct and edit this project I have come to be more confident in what I know in media and how to use the equipment. For example, when we first started I had no idea how to use the editing programs nor did I even know how to upload the film from the camera to the Mac. To start with I struggled to cut It all, and so did everyone else in the group, but a few a while we knew that what we were doing was wrong, so we went online and then looked at the programs tutorial. What it turned out we were doing was just putting markers in the film.

Apart from the Issues with the cutting of film one of the Issues was just general working of programs such as final cut express and garage band, but that was just practice that got us over these issues, and a lot of trial and error!
What was hard was the quality of the cameras, it was hard to get the detail and then to get the professional touch we wanted when filming with low definition cameras, but we had to use what we were given and we made the best of what we had.

When adding the music that we made in garage band it did not play, what we had to end up doing is making it merge with the film which all it needed was the press of one button. After cutting everything we found that it was not really how we wanted it to be, we wanted it to be a lot dark, so what we ended up doing was play around with the effects, and we ended up changing the contrast to just give It a dark look.

Making the credits was a first for me, I never knew how to do it, but after one of my group members showed me what do it was rather easy. We looked any many fonts and compared them to many other thriller credits to see If It fitted and after a long time we found some that we did. But after that we had to look at how everything else would work, like how would it appear, for how long, and then how it would leave, and the size of everything.
When making the music it was very hard to find a base to start at, as we were very picky over what we wanted our product to sound like, we wanted music in the minor key, so it it wouldn’t be too happy and we wanted to use it to help build suspense. When we did find something we had to change the tempo a lot to make it fit in with the film, so it stopped at points we wanted it to, we also wanted certain load parts to come In places so that was very fiddly. We also wanted to add a few sounds effects over the top of the music, so we had to change it all a lot to make sure that it either one didn’t drown either one out when it wasn’t meant to, but we also had to be able to hear them both most of the time.

When we did the preliminary work we did not really take it seriously, we felt that we could go out, with no planning and then just film anything in anyway, and no one would be the wiser. That was not the case when we went and did the full product. I learnt that you had to do a lot research to see what people wanted to see and not just make what was easy for us to do. We had to look at what other films like our own were like and then look for general thriller conventions and then follow those if that was what people wanted to see. We learnt that we had to take into account everything, such as if we shot somewhere we had to think about everything that you could see in the shot, that means looking at the background and think, should that be there? When filming the final product we tried to get as many different shot types as possible without it looking silly, we used worm eye view, which was a low angle shot and many POV’s close, long and medium shots. Developing the skills need just took practice. I think all considered given what we had to work with and the time we did a very good job, we took into account what the public wanted and acted on what, and that resulted in good reviews.

Evaluation - Audience screen test

We asked 5 people the following :

- how would you rate the opening out on ten?
A-5
B-8
C-6
D-7
E-6

- did you clearly understand what was going on in the opening ?
A-Yes
B-yes
C-yes
D-yes
E-tes

- if not ? what did you think was going on ?
A-.
B-.
C-.
D-.
E-.

- do you think that the opening fitted in with the thriller genre?
A-Yes
B-Yes
C-Yes
D-Yes
E-Yes

- did you think the audio track created the right atmosphere within the piece?
A-Yes
B-Yes
C-Yes
D-Yes
E-Yes

-do you think the heartbeat helped build tension wihin the piece?
A-yes

B-no

C-yes

D-yes

E-yes

- did the audio help you understand what was going on ?
A-Yes
B-Yes
C-Yes
D-Yes
E-Yes

- would you want to watch the rest of the movie?
A-Yes
B-Yes
C-Yes
D-Yes
E-Yes

-did the lighting help create atmosphere within the piece?

A-yes

B-yes

C-yes

D-es

E-yes

- what did you think of the way the main character was portrayed?
A-Weak
B-Good
C-seemed true
D-Very good
E-realistic

- what did you think of the credits ?
A-Good
B-Good
C-Good
D-Good
E-Good


- do you think the lighting helped create the right atmosphere within the opening?
A-Darker
B-Needed to be darker
C-Needed to be darker
D-Darker
E-Darker

- what was the scariest moment in our thriller
A-the woman waking up in the shed

B-no monemt was that scary

C- the woman seeing something and screaming in the shed

D-when she is walking through the forest

E-When she wakes up in the shed

How could we improve our thriller?

Thicker forest,
Darker,
Have hood down in shed,

Elsa Evaluation

Our thriller incorporates some generic conventions for thriller films such as never seeing/not knowing who the bad guy is (in this case the stalker) We also used music in the minor key to create atmosphere and tension, a technique that is used in abundance in thriller films.
In our thriller we developed the convention of point of view shots from the stalker in order to develop this convention we used the steadiness and focus of the camera shots to show how the stalker was feeling to the audience. For example

In this clip as the camera is very unsteady and the shots are very out of focus due to the fast movements of the camera it shows that the stalker is very impatient and excited about something which makes the audience want to know what happening

As the opening to our thriller only includes one charac

ter the audience can see we did not represent a lot of social groups only women aged between 20 – 25.
Our thriller does represent gender in a stereotypical way by showing women as the protagonist and passive sex ending up as the victim (especially in stalker films) This however could be seen as a successful convention as many thriller films have done this such as

Our thriller would be produced and released as a TV movie. This is because it is inexpensively produced and it would only feature a small cast and it would not use very expensive special effects, which are all common traits of TV movies.
The visual style of our thriller is also lending to TV movie as the lighting effects are kept simple, as are the props and set.
This thriller also has opportunities for sequels, which would make even more profit.
The rating of this thriller would be a 15 however the target audience of the thriller would be older from 25 + of both genders. This is because our thriller will contain no 18 certificate material in the film such as gore, this means it will appeal to an old

er age range because of this and this would also mean it appeals more to women. Also I think the lack of expensive special effects within the film

mean that it would appeal to the older more mature audience rather than the younger audience. The older audience will also be able to appreciate the way the film makes you think about what’s happening and the way it allows them to try and draw their own conclusions before the film ending is shown.
In order to attract our target audience we used point of view shots from the stalker so that they feel like they have privileged knowledge of what’s going to hap

pen to the victim. It also allows them to see and feel like the stalker in order for the

m to try and figure out what he will do next.

The scenes where the woman is waking up in the shed and looking around at all the pictures of her would particularly scare the women in the audience as because it’s a point of view shot they are forced to put themselves in the position of the victim and feel the dread of realising they have been watched and the terror of wondering what’s going to happen to them next. This is also confirmed within our audience testing where 100% of the woman asked wrote that down as the scariest point within the thriller.

During the making of the thriller we learnt a lot about the different technologies and their strengths and weaknesses. The camera equipment we used was good although the cameras were not high definition and so did not pick up every detail.

The tripod was useful in helping create smooth panning and tilt shots. One of the problems we faced while filming was how the camera picked up the lighting. The beginning of our sequence was all shot in the day, however on the different locations the slightest change of light made the sky look a lot darker than in previous shots, however this was easily sorted out during the editing. One effect we managed to produce well in the film was the effect of the operator talking on the phone. In order to make this sound realistic we had to record someone’s voice on the end of a phone and impose it onto the film. One particular effect I found useful for creating the required mise-en-scene of our film was the colour correction tool. Our thriller was supposed to be set on a gloomy, over clouded day. However when we filmed it was very bright and the colours on our film were very vibrant. By using colour correction and de-saturating all the colours in the scene, taking out the whites and adding in more black tones I managed to create the right atmosphere in the scenes. De-saturation was the main effect, which helped to create a dull, eerie atmosphere. Our audience testing showed that 100 % of the people asked said that the lighting helped create the atmosphere and tension within the film.

Before colour correction

After colour correction

Garage band was a useful tool in the production of our thriller. We merged three tracks together and used the volume control to determine the volume of each track and specific points in the soundtrack. For example when we wanted the heart beat quiet in the background and then decreasing melody two and increasing the heartbeat volume when we wanted it to be more recognisable within the soundtrack. This was good as the audience testing showed that most people said that the increasing volume of the heartbeat built tension in the piece and helped build it towards the action.

One of the problems we faced using garage band was getting the timings correct in conjunction with our film.
Looking back at our preliminary task I feel that I have learnt a lot since producing it. Through research I have learnt a lot about the genre of thriller films and the effect different areas can have on the overall appearance of the film eg. Lighting and camera shots. The detailed planning of our thriller film helped to make it easier to produce as the storyboard helped us take all the correct shots and make sure they complied with the timings we had written down. During editing we had the storyboard stuck on the wall in front of us, which made it easier for me to cut the shots to the right timings and to arrange them in the correct order. It also made it easier to see which shots could be cut down if one shot went slightly over time.

Our use of specific shot types has improved, such as the match on action, which we did in our preliminary task, which was not very successful as the timing was not very good. However in out thriller we managed to do an excellent match on action in the editing when the woman is seen getting out of her car.
Throughout the project my confidence with the equipment has grown and I now feel that I can do proficient camera work and am very good at using final cut express and garage band to edit and add atmosphere to the film.
I believe that the end product we have produced is fulfilling the task we were set as we have remained within the genre of a thriller and not crossed over to horror. We have used different effects in order to create atmosphere, tension and understanding within our thriller and have used our research, which we conducted before filming to help us produce a thriller, which would appeal to our target audience.

Preliminary task evaluation

During the filming and editing of our preliminary task, I learned a wide array of skills and techniques regarding the process in which the uploading and editing part takes place. I developed my skills using final cut express to delete and rearrange cuts so as to give the final product the look we wanted. I also learned how to upload the footage onto the computer and how to import it onto the blog.

I believe we worked very well as a team to get the work done efficiently and to a high standard. We all also gave our input into the editing process to allow the team to have a say on what the final product should look like and how to improve it.

Our final product sees Luke being called to the managers office as the manager (me) is concerned with the attitude and effort the employee is putting into his work. We see the managers concern and the employee respond in a less than serious manner. We chose this story as it portrays a typical work related incident that is not that uncommon in todays world.

Preliminary Task

primilinary task elsa, luke, dean

audience testing questions

here are some possible questions we could ask at our audience testing

- how would you rate the opening out on ten?
- did you clearly understand what was going on in the opening ?
- if not ? what did you think was going on ?
- do you think think that the opening fitted in with the thriller genre?
- did you think the audio track created the right atmosphere within the piece?
- did the audio help you understand what was going on ?
- would you want to watch the rest of the movie?
- what did you think of the way the main character was portrayed?
- what did you think of the credits ?
- do you think the lighting helped create the right atmosphere within the opening?


these questions could help tell us what went well in our opening and what didnt