my final product

MEDIA EVALUATION QUESTION 7

MEDIA EVALUATION QUESTION 2

Question 2

MEDIA EVALUATION QUESTION 6

What have I learned about different technologies throughout this process?

 Since beginning this task I hadn't used most of these technologies before and throughout the process i have adapted and my use of technologies has grown massively. 

BLOGGER

When I started this course I had never posted a blog, I had heard of the concept but I now post updates frequently on my blog about my media project. My blog is attached to a group along with all of the other media students at Tupton Hall school and we all use this as a hub for information and resources. My blog has links at the top to direct you to certain areas within my blog which is not only useful for the reader but also I find it really useful for collecting and sorting all of my work. Blogger allows me to compile my work in an effective and organised way.

DSLR and TASCAM SOUND RECORDER

Since starting the process of making my thriller opening I have found these cameras incredibly easy to use as they are light, portable and can be transferred across to the computer with ease ready for editing.  These cameras are available at a fairly affordable price and offer a high definition image which has clarity. These cameras also recorded a high percentage of our film apart from some particular scenes when we used a Tascam sound recorder. We used this sound recorder to record various parts of dialect missed or not picked up clearly by the DSLR. At the beginning we struggled using the TASCAM but after a while we discovered how to playback and transfer files. Sound recording technology is crucial to a films production at all levels as no one wants to listen to crackley and unclear fumbly sound, and fortunately is available at a reasonable price. When using the TASCAM we attached a boom pole on a few occasions to get the sound clearly whilst filming outside in difficult windy winter conditions.

 

PREMIERE PRO

This is the editing software which we used to edit the entirety of our thriller film. This is a difficult software to use but we soon learnt the basics and were able to complete our film to a standard which we were pleased. In Premiere Pro we cut, trimmed and ordered our film so that it made sense and was in understandable and matched our story board. Premiere Pro can be purchased by absolutely anyone with a computer and is a relatively cheap and affordable way of editing videos. However, the effects and titles which you can add from P.P our very limited and therefore we had to use another software to be able to add effects and titles which we felt were suitable.

AFTER EFFECTS

Because of the limitations on Premiere Pro we exported our final film into After Effects, this an editing software which we all found very complex and difficult to understand but we persevered and we are all really happy with our outcome. I dedicated one night purely to After Effects to add motion tracking to our film. As our film uses a lot of panning shots we could use a simple still text over the top as I had previously done in my preliminary and this took a lot of effort. It is one of my proudest accomplishments from this course as i entered with very little computer editing knowledge and to come out of the project knowing how to motion track along with various other editing techniques makes me very happy. After Effects is allowing low budget media productions to edit their products to a high standard and bring together their final product to a high standard for a, yes you got it, reasonable and affordable price.

PREZI

Prezi is a presentation software which allows for a moving and more interactive powerpoint. I have frequently used it for my textural analysis and various other areas of my research and planning. This was a completely new software to me and although I had seen teachers use them in lessons i never knew how they were made. Press has allowed for me to freely show and present my ideas and subsequently I have used it in other aspects across school life. I find the software incredibly useful and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to use it as it has made presenting much easier.

INTERNET SITES AND OTHER MENTIONS

Youtube is a site that allows for videos to be uploaded for free and is known for producing and sharing viral hits and people that have gone on to bigger and better such as TV and Radio. It is great for smaller productions as it is free and has millions of visitors daily, even Warner and other big names release teaser trailers to the site. We used it to share our final product and I have also released a few other films for my evaluation to the site which our now on my blog. Slideshare is a site which allows for power point presentations to be published to the internet and embedded into blogger later on. I have used this technology frequently especially when completing my evaluation. Emaze is a site which allows you to publish slides on a quick, easy and more fascinating level. I have used this site for one of my questions in this evaluation and I think it I a great piece of kit. 

MEDIA EVALUATION QUESTIONS 4 AND 5

Questions 4 and 5

MEDIA EVALUATON QUESTION 3

Question 3

MEDIA EVALUATION QUESTION 1

Question 1

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP

My textural analysis of 'Before I go to sleep' can be seen here.

Research: Brief history of thriller films

Thriller is a genre of literature, film, and television programming that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as its main elements. Elements of thriller is literature can be dated back as far as ancient times with poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer's Odyssey whichuse similar narrative techniques as modern thrillers. Another example is Little Red Riding Hood  which is a psycho-stalker story released in 1697.

However, it wasn't until 1926 where one of the first thriller films was created by Alfred Hitchcock which was called 'The Lodger'.He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres and was renowned as one of England's best directors.Hitchcock continued to perfect his recognizable brand of suspense-thriller and in 1940 won an Oscar with the film Rebecca which is about the unusual romance between a young woman and an emotionally distant rich widower.

The decades of 1970 and 1980 saw a violent start in the thriller genre, with Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's first British film in almost two decades, being given an R rating for its vicious and explicit strangulation scene. The decades also saw conspiracy and spy films scattered throughout.

Present day thrillers are now following a theme of the very popular thriller genre – detectives/FBI agents hunting down a serial killers. An example of this is the highly acclaimed Best Picture-winning crime thriller The Silence of the Lambs (1991) where a young FBI agent Jodie Foster in a psychological war against a cannibalistic psychiatrist named Hannibal Lecter.

After learning about how different thriller genres have been effective and how successful they have been, it has given me more of an idea on what genre to base our thriller opening on.

FINAL STORYBOARD

Pitch

This is our Pitch to film company.

Media Productions- 6 Stages

http://prezi.com/pbhrf_hmlxry/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Storyboard

Risk Assessment.

Primary research

http://youtu.be/U3TEx921Iq4

One page proposal

One Page Proposal

Working Title: ‘Mind Games’ is our working title, it shows the mental health issues of the murderer and that his own mind is playing games on him.

Film Genre: Horror/Thriller

Length: Estimated 2 Minutes

Target Audience:

·        Age: (15+ Year Olds)

·        Level of Intellect: Anyone can watch however it does leave questions which

·        Lifestyle: People interested in thrills, mystery and drama.

·        Income: Anyone

·        Culture: Appeals to British (Dialogue = English)

·        Bias: Towards males due to only male actors

·        Audience Tone: Average film goer, inquisitive and interested audience.

Tag Line

“The more you know, the more it takes controls”

 ‘What If’ Premise

What if you honestly believe that you are innocent even though you committed the murder of your two friends?

The Story Synopsis​

It said that the mind has complete control. That it can make you do things, things you might not want to do, bad things, things you thought you were never capable of. But can you remember these things? As the mind further consumes it host, how do you escape it...can you escape it?

This is the story of what is supposed to be a calm night in with three friends; however they are all completely unaware of the horrors that may befall. As one friend battles against the severe mental problems threatening to take over, how will he cope with the sudden disappearance and death of his two friends? Will he start to unravel the truth behind the killings or will his mind take control? Certain of his innocence he battles with his unforgiving mind. But who really committed the murders? And will we ever know...?

Audience Appeal

We understand that our target audience (15+) would be seeking jump-scares, eerie atmospheres and the occasional sense of mystery. Baring that in mind, we believe that our final piece will be made up of, and consist of all 3 of these elements. Once our piece has been fully watched over we're definite that questions will be left unanswered (in a cliff-hanger type of manner). Questions such as "how did they become so inhumane?" and "could they of possibly escaped safely?", making the audience really think about the plot and what different outcomes could have occurred. We could imagine young, yet mature actors to embody these roles. Actors such as: Dylan O'Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Dexter Darden. These 3 could really capture the characters innocence yet potential to survive. Leaving that question of "are they capable?"

Visual Realisation

The look of the film with is very dark, mysterious, gloomy and the pacing will be fast. Films like this could be the clip called 'lights out'. Ours will differ because it involves our characters mental health but is similar as we also aim to show a minimal amount and use the power of suggestion. Another film in mind would be ‘Shutter island’ that took the same psychological approach and is a very good approach to that genre so is a good source to refer to.

 

Filming location.

Location for filming- Stubbing Court, Wingerworth.

I have decided to use this location as it is secluded and isolated which is perfect for a thriller. We as a group have decided to make a supernatural thriller and many films use similar locations as it is easy to create tension whether it be the sound of leaves crunching or trees creeking in the wind. We have the ability to film inside the house as it is in my family and is therefore easy for use to film here. 

Our Storyboard

Inspiration

This a video we found on YouTube and found some of the effects interesting, we are looking to leave it to the imagination of the audience. This video shows how we can make the smallest things seem more than what they actually are. We have taken inspiration from this short clip and the Women in Black. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-fDzdDfviLI#

Lighting effects

Lighting effects

 

We decided to play about with lighting within our group. We tried to use un natural lighting in a dark room to give the character a rather sinister look.

 

In this photo it shows the character with the un natural light source shining on the right side of his face showing his facial expressions. Whereas on the right side of his face there is no light and therefore creates a mysterious and sinister effect. We may consider using this effect in our thriller. Also in this photo the lighting creates a shadow effect in the background, this was not intentional however is a technique we could look into using.

 

In this photo we decided to put the un natural light so it was shining under the chin of our character this created the sinister effect we were looking for as it shows all facial expressions but doesn't give off any of the background. This again is a technique we may consider using in our thriller.