Q8 Evaluation: progression from pre-lim.

If you look back at my group's 'pre-lim' movie, 'The Swap' where we exchanged bags in a thrilling way, it is easy to see our progression to the finished product.
For example, the first noticeable thing for me was the quality of the filming and camera angles. in our final film i think the shots were framed more professionally,and the tripod was used more effectively in steady shots and both pan and tilts.
The music was also very noticeable, as with the prelim, the music seemed out of time and slightly boring.
The final thriller which came a few weeks later took much more time and care to produce, and the time and care is something that came with added experience, which we gained from the preliminary.
Lighting was a constant issue throughout filming both movies, but i feel that in anxiety, the final edit had sufficient lighting, dealing with the mix of natural and unnatural light we had to deal with in our location.
Editing skills also greatly improved, although, i was very pleased with the scene of the bag swap as i thought the editing was tricky and precise, the anxiety movie came out with a much more professional feel, by trimming down the clips to the exact right amount it is easier to maintain the viewers interest.

If you view the question 8 group post that the whole group are tagged in, you will see the lengths we went to when recording- via the uploaded photos.

http://thriller11group22.blogspot.com/2011/03/anxiety-final.html

the film is viewable here, in comparison with the prelim i am sure most would agree a lot of progress has been made, in all aspects, music, title text, camera work, lighting, sound, mis en scene and all.

evaluation question 7: technology

The creation of our movie has been a voyage through technology. Both with hardware like the amazing cameras we used and the software, final cut pro, and soundtrack pro.

I chose not to use live type because i thought our film suited a simple title text.

but here is an example of what can be done with it:

final cut pro was new to me, i had previously used iMovie and windows movie maker quite a few times so i understood the general basics of video editing software, however i enjoyed final cut the most, it was a great program to learn as it is professional industry standard.

the arrange screen of final cut pro- clips easily dragged and cut.

fine tuning and cutting sound is made easy with the sound editing screen.

i found soundtrack pro easy to use, because i use the program logic which has some of the same effects and the same way of arranging the sounds.

this is a picture of the arrange screen zoomed in and also the 'space designer' reverb unit which i used to give the sound a roomier feel.

this is me using logic at home.

a closer look at space designer.

The hardware side of things was also fun, learning to effectively use the cameras and the tripods was also something i had touched on before, but still a new experience to be in charge and responsible for my own equipment, which we had to take care of.

The JVC 100 cameras we used were very high quality, as high as 1080p hd video recording.

Through blogger, i also learned more about blogging and decided to make my own blog for use in my free time. Throughout the project i found it was beneficial as i learned the use of new technologies.

question 4 and 5: evaluation: distribution

I think that my film, anxiety, would be distributed mainly through the use of the internet.

sites such as facebook, youtube, vimeo, twitter, tumblr, blogspot, and dailymotion are all examples of where media can be spread online. As this is an independent student movie it makes sense to spread the movie in a place where other student movies are likely to be spread.

This is a snap of me spreading my film via the tumblr blog system.

This advert for the university of lincoln was a task to present an advert for the university in a thrilling way.

As you can see, via youtube it has gained over half a million views.

you can watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5fzmmrk6kk 

This is an example of how succesful it is to spread media through sites such as facebook especially, as it is very public, some videos even go 'viral' which means they are spread constantly throughout blogs and obtain tens of millions of views.

other ways of distributing a film are entering it for film festivals such as the east london film festival.

http://www.eastendfilmfestival.com/

this would generate interest from more niche audiences who enjoy independent movies.

q2 evaluation: Social groups.

We chose our main character, the victim, to be a male. This challenged various stereotypes. Firstly: that the victim is a slightly more vulnerable young female character; and also, that the ruling audience for a psychological thriller is women. 

The typical female victim for a thriller was established partly in 1960's with Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho". This became a common standard for many thriller films for years to come and still today. Although, a few do challenege the stereotype which is what we set out to do.

I was slightly inspired by the Eli Roth movie, 'Hostel' where the women are the ones that trick the men and the men become victims.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi502530841/

The trailer can be seen here.

Keeping in slightly stereotypical form, our villain was also a male.

depicted in a black jacket as many films do. I do think however this is an effect method. 

The mis en scene of the facial expression, combined with the previously seen 'prison bars' behind adds the effect of danger and doom for our victim.

Evaluation Q3- audience

After some research i found that most thriller movies mainly targeted an audience ranging from their early 20's, to their late 30's. The thriller is a genre you can submerge in, usually with a twisted plot and jumpy moments. This means for your average adult full time worker that the thriller can be a form of escapism. Action thrillers are particularly prevalent among males, and psychological thrillers are slightly more popular among women.

Example thriller viewer:

Hi, my name is Daniel, i'm an IT technician for the offices of Autotrader magazine. I like to stay up to date with movies, especially the newest thrillers and horrors as well as old classics. I sometimes go to the cinema on thursday evening because it is more empty and relaxing. I usually watch action and thriller movies, because the excitement of an epic car chase can not be beaten. I like big budget films because special effects fascinate me, However, i find that low budget british thrillers are also very exciting; as they have a unique and un-cliched feel to them.

As you can see by this graph, thriller movies have a slightly more niche audience than many other genres. The most watch movie was an animated action/adventure/family movie.

Therefore my thriller, Anxiety, was produced for a niche audience.

Prt of Q8 Evaluation

Team work is very important, it helps when everyone works well together, adding idea's and helping each other.

Evaluation: Q1 thriller opening

∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆

A few words to describe what the opening of a thriller should be.

I feel that although my thriller opener contained some stereotypes of the genre, it challenged some too. Avoidance of stereotypes completely is both difficult and unsettling for the audience as it is the conventions of a genre that make it what it is.

Looking back on the opening to 'The Stepfather', it was branded as mediocre thriller as a whole, i thought the opening was both disturbing and successful. 

π

As with most thrillers ours started with the production company.

We decided to make our titles mostly on a black screen, or dark parts of the shot.

we also made the text wobble, in order to create the handheld effect. although we did not use the handheld effect much in our actual shots as we didn't think it suited. But adding the earthquake effect to our text made it stand out more and seem more professional.

here is a video i made outside of the project, for one of my songs, which uses the handheld effect in a dizzying way.

One thing that the stepfather did that we also did was use the misc-en-scene of normal everyday activities, in contrast with the aspects of a thriller.

For example in our movie, the scenes where the supposed couple are drinking wine at home, contrasts with most aspects of the trapped scenes (where the victim is tied). through the shots we used, as well as the lighting and effects. The trap scenes are clearer.