Evaluation

As media evaluation

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Film Feedback

We Devised a questionnaire that we handed out to people while they watched our film. This will help us with our evaluation on the feedback parts.

Age: 17
Gender: 3 females, 2 males
Favourite genre: Comedy, Romance, Thriller

1) Did you enjoy the film?
A: 1) yes
A: 2) yes
A: 3) yes

2) Was the music chosen suitable for our film?
A: 1) yes
A: 2) yes
A: 3) definately

3) Were the credits displayed well?
2 good points: A: 1) colour/movement of credits 2) fitted scenes well
2 bad points: A: 1) font timing/colour 2) Too small in places

4) Does the film build tensions/suspense?
A: 1) Yes the music really helps
A: 2) Yes the camera shots help
A: 3) The music does this well

5) Did the film have good continuity? (e.g. if a character had a scar on their cheek, it would need to be there every scene)
A: 1) yes
A: 2) yes
A: 3) yes

6) How smooth were the transitions between shots (Rating of 1-5)
(1- not smooth / 5 - very smooth)
Average score = 4.5

7) Did the film use a range of camera angles and camera shots?
A: 1) yes
A: 2)It did, but could definately included more
A: 3) yes it definately did

8) Was the lighting suitable throughout the film?
A: 1) yes, a bit dark in some places though
A: 2) yes
A: 3) yes, but some of the inside scenes were a bit dark

9) Were the props used suitable? (e.g clothing, knife, location)
A: 1) yes
A: 2) yes, but the cup and water at the start were a bit confusing
A: 3) Effective in building tension

10) Are there any improvement you would make to the film ?
A: 1) Add dialogue
A: 2) Better facial expressions
A: 3) Clearer storyline, difficult to understand whats happening at the start

AS Main Task - Suspicions

Checklist of props

Check List for Media studies Opening of Film

Crew

• Adam Sims-Soundman
  
• Ryan Avery-Cameraman
  
• Tim Elliott-Actor/Editing
  
• Alex Swain-Actor/Editing (titles)
  

Locations

• Alex's Kitchen
  
• Alex's Second Bedroom
  
• Alex's Stairway
  
• Churchill Alleyway
  

Equipment

• Camera
  
• Tripod
  
• Microphone
  
• Boom stick
  

Props

• Knife
  
• Old rag
  
• Plates
  
• Washing up things
  

Costumes

Alex

• Black hoody
  
• Black coat
  
• Black trousers
  
• Black trainers
  
• Leather Gloves (black)
  

  Tim
  

  • Grey hoody
    
  • White top
    
  • Jeans (blue denim)

Location shots

Questionnaire

This is a Questonnaire that we carried out in order to find out what our target audience want in a thriller film.



This questionnaire has shown us that the main age group we will be aiming at 15-20 year old males. Out of the 25 people we asked their favourite thriller was halloween, they would prefer a horror thriller shot at night, they said that it would create more tension being shot at night. We are dismissing these two last questions as it would be unable for us to carry out filming at night due to lighting problems.

Gantt Chart

This is our gantt chart to help us organise our time efficiently:

Storyboard

This is the storyboard that we made for our film opening:

Part 1:



Part 2:

Location Shots

Story

Initial story idea

Opening: Alex in his room
Tim in kitchen
Alex: Shuts his door and heads down the stairs, leaves the house.
Tim goes up the stairs into Alex’s room and starts looking for something. He opens a set of draws and finds lots of newspaper cuttings of recent murders in the area and a knife with blood on it.
Whilst the above is happening, Alex realises he’s forgotten his phone and heads back to the house. (This will be done by switching camera shots between Alex and Tim, to create more tension)
Tim hears the door opening and hears Alex start to climb the stairs. He forgets to shut the draw of newspaper cuttings and only just has time to hide in a cupboard.
Tim notices the open draw and then sees his cupboard slightly open.
Tim inside starts to panic as he sees Alex approaching the cupboard door (through the crack between the two doors)
Alex opens the doors and you see them opening from Tim’s perspective.

The film ends


Padded Version

Film starts with Tim washing up, with a shot of the front door behind him.

You see Alex walk out the front door without saying anything and shutting it behind him.

Tim waits a few seconds before heading up the stairs into Alex’s room and starts looking for something. He opens a set of draws and finds a knife.

(The film is going to be shot in two parts. One part following Tim, the other part following Alex)

Whilst Tim is searching Alex's room, Alex realises he’s forgotten his phone and heads back to the house. (This will be done by switching camera shots between Alex and Tim, to create more tension)
Tim is holding the knife in shock when he hears the front door opening and hears Alex starting to climb the stairs.

Tim panics looks around the room.

Alex opens the door and walks across the room noticing the knife, which has been left on the table.

He picks up the knife and starts searching his room for Tim. He heads towards the wardrobe (this is going to be shot, using a camera shot from inside the wardrobe)

The film ends with Alex heading towards the wardrobe, holding the knife. As soon as he opens the door the film ends.

David Fincher

David Andrew Leo Fincher (born August 28, 1962), is an Academy Award-nominated American filmmaker and music video director, he is most known for his dark and stylish thriller movies, such as Se7en (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), and Zodiac (2007).

One of the more renowned successes he directed was the film Se7en, based on a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker, told the story of two detectives (played in the movie by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) tracking down a serial killer (Kevin Spacey) who bases his killings on the seven deadly sins. The film grossed more than $100 million domestically (over $300 million internationally).[3] The chairman of New Line Cinema, Arnold Kopelson, originally refused to allow filming of the shocking climactic scene. With the aid of Brad Pitt, who stated that he would not be involved with the picture if its ending were changed, Fincher was allowed to film the original scene and use it in the final cut.

Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg

Spielberg at the Pentagon (August 11, 1999).
Born Steven Allan Spielberg
December 18, 1946 (1946-12-18) (age 63)
Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation Film director, producer, screenwriter
Years active 1964 – present

Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE (born December 18, 1946)[1] is a Jewish American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. In a career spanning over four decades, Spielberg's films have taken up many themes and genres. Spielberg's early sci-fiction and adventure films

After watching the unconventional, off-center camera techniques of Jaws, an aging Alfred Hitchcock praised "young Spielberg," saying "He's the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium arch." Or, to paraphrase, he was the first mainstream director to visually think outside the spatial dynamics of the theater.

Thriller research

Halloween (1978)

Above is the opening scene to the movie Halloween which is a classic thriller film from 1978. Halloween is a good inspiration for our thriller opening. This is because it creates suspense and tension very well using quite simple but very effective techniques that we would be able to use in our film opening, such as the simple point of view shot that is used nearly the whole opening scene of the film.

Se7en (1995)

Another film that we can take inspiration for our thriller opening from is Se7en. Throughout the film Se7en uses techniques to give an eerie feel that creates suspense and tension very well. One technique is the use of lighting in the film, to give an eerie feel, they use shadows and dull light, which makes it a grey and very washed out colour to create the eerie feel. An example of this is at the sloth murder scene. They also used techniques such as swapping to and from two camera shots to show what is happening in two places or what two characters are doing. This creates tension as it is very fast paced. This is shown in the last scene of the film where Morgan Freeman's character is running towards Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey's characters while they are talking.

We can also use the opening credits for Se7en as an inspiration for our credits as they are very effective and sets the scene for the movie as it is showing the typical obsessive killer. The actual credits add a very edgey feel as they a jerking around the screen.

Media Workshop - Preliminary task

In the workshop we learnt how to use different camera shots and how to cut the scene so that they appear to run smoothly and we also learnt how to edit all the video content with Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0 after we had filed all of the scenes. We also learnt all the small things that go into the filming of the scene such as; how to use and connect the microphone into the camera and what the 90 degree and 120 degree settings are on the microphone do and how to setup the tripod properly and accurately to reduce the camera shaking. We also learnt how to plan filming a scene using a storyboard, to help us plan what camera angles and shots we were going to use in the preliminary task. So we had to learn all of the different types of camera shots and angles and what mood they can create, for example a close up or an extreme close up of a characters face can show their emotion in much more detail and is a good way to show a reaction shot.

Overall I thought that the film was okay. I do feel that we could have improved on it if we had more than a day to work on it. Firstly I would have added some music or sound effects to the scenes to make them more suspensful and I also would have added text and titles. I also feel that some of the cuts have bad continuity, particularly the part where the character opens the door and when the camera is looking over his shoulder there is a chair next to the table and when he gets to the table the chair has gone. The last improvement that I would have made would be to make some of the cuts of the scenes a lot smoother instead of it seeming to jump from one place to another.

Film openings

Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now starts with the sound of a helicopter, the screen the fades in and there is a tropical forest. Then the helicopter drifts in and out of shot and music starts and explosions of napalm fill the forest. The helicopter blades then turn into a ceiling fan and Martin Sheen's face fills the left side of the screen. The Diagetic sounds within the film after the opening give a surreal feel, like he is still in a dream. The part where his head is upsidedown and on one side of the screen while the images of war and destruction are on the other half of the screen gives a feel that he is always thinking of war and it's always on his mind.

Blade Runner

Blade runner opens with a cityscape. It is dark and there are bursts of fire coming from some of the buildings. The camera then cut to a close up of a pupil with the reflection of the cityscape in it. The camera then slowly zooms throught city, with flying cars whizzing past, and finally come to a building where it looks through the window and the first scene begins. The emphasis on eyes in the opening scenes show that the film has a stron theme of eyes within the theme, however, you have to watch on to find out why. The titles before the cityscape appears are slow, simple and ordinary, which creates tension within the audience.

28 Days Later

The opening scene with the escaping monkey's creates lots of enigmas, these include; what is rage? Why is the doctor scared? Why are these monkeys in captivity? Why are the monkeys being forced to watch violent activity? This first scene also creates panic and tension within the audience, this is done by using loud noises, quick cuts and a shaking camera style.

The scene then changes to a man in a hospital and the mood is very calm as there is no sound what so ever, however there are more enigmas in the audiences mind, where has everyone gone? Why is he the only person that seems to be there? All of these techniques that have been used attract the audience's attention from the start and make them want to keep watching so there questions are answered.

Filming Techniques

180 degree rule - The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.
Example:

Shot reverse shot - Conventional technique of cinematography and editing for the filming of dialogue. In the classic shot/reverse shot sequence, the camera frames each speaker (usually 2-4) in medium close-up as he or she recites a line of dialogue. The shoulder or profile of the listener can often be seen, slightly out of focus on the edge of the frame, while the camera is focused on the face of the speaker.
Example:

Match on Action - A match on action, a technique used in film editing, is a cut that connects two different views of the same action at the same moment in the movement. By carefully matching the movement across the two shots, filmmakers make it seem that the motion continues uninterrupted. For a real match on action, the action should begin in the first shot and end in the second shot.
Example:

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitcock

We first looked at the 13 techniques that Alfred Hithcock uses to create tension and suspense. These 13 techniques are:

- The mind of the audience
- Frame for emotion
- Camera is not a camera
- Dialogue means nothing
- Point of view editing
- Montage gives control
- Keep the story simple
- Characters must break cliche
- Use humour to add tension
- Two things hapening at once
- Suspense is information
- Surprise and twist
- Warning: May cause Macguffin

Examples In Vertigo

• When Scotty is following Madeline and she walks into the art gallery to look at the painting of Carlotta and it looks from Scotty’s point of view.


• When Judie has a flashback of what happened at the bell tower with Madeline’s husband and how they set it up to make it look like she jumped off of the top.
  

Examples in Psycho

• Near the end, in the scene where Lila turns the mother’s skeleton around and Norman as his mother comes into the cellar. It’s all from Lila’s point of view.


• The shower scene where Marianne gets stabbed repeatedly in the back by Norman (as his mother); this is a montage as it shows his hand and then her back as a montage.