Evaluation - Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?

• we have learnt how to use the software correctly 
• we have developed our camera skills hugely 
• we learnt and developed new shots such as shot reverse shot, match on action and the 180 degree rule 

Evaluation - Question 6

What have you learn about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

• we have developed our camera skills and precision, editing skills, learnt about new software such as iMovie and Garange band as well as working on blogger

• we have improved immensely since working on our preliminary task and horror trailer at GCSE

Evaluation - Question 5

How do you attract/address your audience?

• We addressed our audience by using a similarly aged protagonist so the teenage viewers could relate to her character  
• We attracted our audience by using social networking sites which many of the viewers will recognise 

Evaluation - Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• Our target audience is set between 15-30 year olds
• We feel that the teenage age market will enjoy our product the mos as it is relateable to them
• We have rated our opening at the age certificate of 15 classified by the BBFC

Evaluation - Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

• we chose newline cinema to distrtibute our product because of its previous successful thriller films
• using newline cinema would also help with the distribution of our product to cinemas

Evaluation - Question 2

How does your media product represent a particular social group?

• We feel our product represents the teenage social group as vulnerable 
• It also represents males and dominant,over riding and dangerous

Evaluation - Question 1

In what way does your media product, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

• we have conformed to a typical narrative of a thriller film
• we have followed Todorov's narrative theory 

Camera angles and shots

We used a range of different camera angles and shots to portray characters from different perspectives, create different atmospheres and to enhance different scenes. 

1

Extreme close up of the villains hand to show a vast amount of detail but not too much to reveal the villains identity. 

2

Point of view shot from the villains perspective, the blurred reflection displayed on the computer screen comes across as chilling and creepy as well as suggesting a sense of  secrecy. This also allows the viewer to have a clearer idea of who the villain is.

3

A medium long shot of the female victim walking allows the viewer to see the majority of her body to catch all of her movement.

4

A close up of the male villains fist shows detail and draws the viewers attention to the hand. The clenching of the fist creates a chilling atmosphere and displays a sense of anger as well as the suggestion of plotting and planning something. 

5

A high angled close up shot was used when the villains hand if hovering over the time table he uses to see where and when the victim will be.  This high angled shot was used to present vulnerability not on his behalf but on the victim’s behalf as the timetable is representing her life routine, which would be personified and representing her.

6

A tracking shot was used as the villain’s hand running across the banister to allow the viewer to follow his movement. 

7

A low angled close up was used to not only focus on the movement of the villain but to show his dominance.

8

An over the shoulder from the villains perspective helps to establish the position of the villain and to show a suggestion of who the villain is but not revealing his whole identity. 

9

An establishing shot used to show the audience the main setting in the opening sequence, we have set the camera on a tripod and used a panning shot to show the main setting. 

Final cut

This is our final cut of our thriller opening; we have kept many of the original scenes from out rough but also added a range of new ones. we tried to keep as closely as we could to our rough cut but at the same time ensured we added more interesting and effective shots. We used our feedback sheet as a close guidance for our updated cut, we tried to adapt around if not change the points that we made to us which we were told would improve our opening further.

Audience Feedback

After viewing our opening scene, the audience said various good points and also things that could be changed or improved.

Positive comments:

• The reflexion of the villain in the computer has been mentioned a number of times by the audience, expressing that they thought this shot was effective and successful.  
• It was also said that the closing of the browser which lead to the name of the film appearing on screen was also a really successful shot and was a good end to the credits.
• A number of people said that it was clear what our story line was through the shots and scenes that we used, this was our main priority when filing so we are pleased that the audience picked this up easily.    
• Our use of the credits were commented on also, saying they looked really effective as they were actually being wrote on to the screen as the viewer is watching, which was said to be an interesting way to include the credits. 
• It as mentioned that the opening credits built tension.
• The first shot used (the extreme close up of the hand on the mouse) was said to be really effective.  

Negative comments:

• it was suggested that the credits could be speeded up a bit because they were a little slow and would come across better if they were quicker.
• One viewer said that we had used too many photos.
• It was said that the ending was too sudden and would be better if it was a little longer.
• It was suggested more than once that we could include more camera angles as all the ones we have used were quite similar or the same type of angle repeated.

We have noted all of the positive and negative comments made; the negative comments have helped us immensely allowing us to recognize and change or improve that areas that need it. We plan to cut out the shadow that was noticed by  one of the viewers, speed up the credits, cut down the amount of photos we have used, use some more shots to make the opening longer and more in depth and use a larger range of of camera angles.  

Tittle ideas

We considered a range of other ideas that we could use for our tittle which would link to our chosen narrative and thriller genre, these included:

Lurking
Shadows
Stalked
Behind closed doors 

All of these names did link to our chosen theme, however after some consideration we felt The Pursuer worked best.

If a person is pursuing someone it means they are trying to overtake, chase or capture them, we felt this gave a clear impression of a stalking figure and felt it had a memorable ring to it. 

Soundtrack

Our opening will include both diegetic and non diegetic sound, the diegetic sound will be made by our various surroundings when we are filming, for example cars, dogs barking and footsteps. Our non-diegetic sound will be created on GarageBand which we planned to use in the very beginning of the opening credits and throughout. We aimed to create quite a fast pace, up tempo music piece to build up tension and anticipation. 

We feel we have created a unique, tension building soundtrack which compliments our opening sequence. We have combined a range of sound clips to create one continuous soundtrack, we feel incorporating a variety of clips to create one music piece is more effective as it gives it a more unique feel instead of using just one music piece which might sound quite boring.  

Editing

The editing process we used to edit our entire opening was the iMovie software available on the apple mac computers; we were new to this software and had never used it before, we were advised to use this software by our media teacher because of previous success with other students that have worked on it.

We chose to edit the majority of our shots clean cut to present realism and to make the scenes believable, we used a few fade to black shots and one dissolving shot at the very end of the opening sequence.

As well as using transitions we also edited some brightness, contrast and speed of our shots to enhance certain scenes and create a separate mood for each.

Shot list

Here is our chronological ordered list from the beginning to the end of shots we we have used within our opening sequence:

Extreme close up of a hand on a computer mouse
Point of view shot of the computer screen when the Facebook password is being entered 
Point of view shot of the credits being wrote onto the screen
Point of view shot of the computer screen as the user is logging in
Close up of the stalkers reflection in the computer screen
Point of view shot of the credits being wrote onto the screen
Point of view shot of the computer screen as the photo's are being searched through
Point of view shot of the credits being wrote onto the computer screen
Point of view shot of the computer screen as a photo is being saved
Point of view shot of the computer screen as 'Nottingham' is being searched into Google Maps
Point of view when searching for the area the victim lives in 
Extreme close up of the villains lips
Over the shoulder shot of a hand stroking the computer screen
Point of view shot of the computer screen as the film title appears 

Over the shoulder shot of the villain 
Establishing shot, panning across the garden to the shed 
Tracking shot of a hand running across banister 
Close up of the dripping padlock
Close up of the villain unlocking the door 
High angled shot of the villains timetable
Close up of walking feet
Medium long shot of the victim walking
High angled point of view shot of the grass being walked upon
Close up of a clenching fist
Medium long shot of the victim walking (shot from behind)
Mid shot of the villain (side profile)
Mid shot of the victim looking at her phone
Extreme close up of the phone with a text message reading "I'm watching you" 
Medium long shot of the victim turning her head to look behind her
High angled close up of the villains burning timetable    

Rough Cut

This is the rough cut of our thriller opening; we have tried our best to stick to our storyboards and shot list which we prepared before filming. over all we feel we have portrayed our story line clearly through the shots we have sued but we also know there are a a fair amount of things that we need to do on our final cut to improve the opening.

Mise-en-scene

We plan to use a small variety of props within it our narrative, including:

A set of keys, these keys are used to open the isolated room where the stalker keeps all his guarded information about the victim. 

A timetable, this scrappy timetable is significant because this where the stalker presents his information on where the victim is, when she's there and who she's with. This will be used a few times in the opening sequence. 

A phone, the phone is held by the girl being stalked, Lucy, and is used toward the end of the opening credits where she receives a text from an unknown number.  

The costume we plan to use is normal, casual clothes for the victim to allow the audience to relate to her and create a sense of realism.

The villain will not be shown completely in the opening sequence however parts of the villain will be shown; we aim to dress the villain in dark clothing to create a sense of mystery and to create a clear contrast between the victim (coloured, casual dress) and the villain (dark, obscure dress).

We have also created a contrast between the two protagonists by using a vary of lighting depending on which character is being shot; 

When the victim is being shot we have used bright, natural lighting to allow the viewer see and recognise her with ease, this sharp lighting doesn't give her any opportunity to hide away or blend in to the background of the shot. Giving the suggestion that if she cannot hide from the  viewer she definitely cannot hide from the stalker. 

Where as all shots of the villain are darker and clouded making it more difficult to see the villain, this links to his secretive persona and suggesting that if the viewer finds it difficult to see him and hardly know what he looks like the victim has no chance of suspecting that he is stalking her.    

Anamatic

We created a story board to display our camera shots we aim to use in our opening sequence; this enabled us to have a rough idea of what our final opening sequence will look like. We then took pictures of each box in the story boards and selected them all together, ran them on a loop, added zooms and fades  which eventually lead to us creating a short anamatic. Creating this anamatic gave us a clearer idea of what our rough cut will look like, helped us arrange the order of our shots and let us experiment with different angles that we could incorporate into our opening sequence.    

Narrative

Our narrative consists of a teenage girl called Lucy being stalked and molested by an anonymous character close to her, this person collects numerous photos, items and information about Lucy and builds up his own personal fact file about her and her life. In our narrative we have two main characters involved: 

• The Anonymous stalker - an anonymous character who we know is stalking Lucy, but we are unaware of who he/she is.
•  Lucy Jackson - Lucy is a middle class teenage girl attending college, who is the character being stalked. 

The reason we chose to base our storyline on a stalker is because its a typical thriller based type of narrative which we feel we could create successfully with the help of other previous and similar style stalked based films.

In our opening credits we plan to give the suggestion of there being a stalker by filming shots of someone gathering information and images of a teenage girl and working over them, we aim to include shots of him reading over previous recorded notes, forming new notes, scanning through written texts and flicking through images of this girl and others close to her. We then plan film the stalker watching Lucy walking home from college. We plan to show elements of the stalker including close ups of hands, feet and the side profile of the face/back of the head, we feel this would be effective as it gives an insight of the stalker but still allows this person to be an unknown figure, which creates mystery.

Credits

We originally planned to involve our credits by setting them on objects within the room at the begging of the opening, for example the directors names would be wrote in chalk on the wall of the stalkers isolated room, the actors starring within the sequence typed on a document, the film company spelt out in objects on the floor also within the room and the name of the film printed on the face of the scrapbook the stalker uses to collect his information.  

However we tried some of these methods of presenting our credits and didn't feel they looked professional enough, after some consideration and plenty of trial and error practice we found an effective way to display our credits. 

We used a text displaying application on windows paint to write the credits and filmed this from the computer screen as it was being written on to the black background, we purposely filmed these section of the sequence in a shaky, distorted manor to add to the creepy, chilling effect we aimed to create. 

Setting

For our location we aim to set the teenage girl, Lucy, in an ordinary house hold environment in an urban setting to create realism, but we plan for the stalker to be mostly shot in an old rustic shed in a rural setting to create the sense that he is isolated suggesting secrecy.

We have captured some images of some of the places we plan to use; we have chosen this dull, worn, eerie shed located at the bottom end of a long garden, we felt this was perfect for our stalkers base where he does all his secret work and keeps all his closely guarded information.

We also chose this long, thin pathway leading up to the shed to film the stalker when he is walking at the beginning of the credits.

     

We also plan to film the parts where the victim is being stalked in this park; we chose a park because we though it was would appear to be a natural environment which we felt would create verisimilitude. 

Production companies

The production company we have chosen to represent our film is New line cinema; 

we have chosen this company because it has produced many other successful thriller films such as the Final Destination series, the Rush hour series and Se7en. All of which are on going successes so we feel it would be a suitable production company to use for our thriller.

instead of typically using the original new line cinema anamatic we have created our own to use to stick to the consistent theme we have created for our opening sequence:

We used a text displaying application on windows paint to write the text and filmed from the computer screen as it was being written on to the black background, we purposely filmed this section of the credits in a shaky, distorted manor to add to the creepy, chilling effect we aimed to create.  

Target audience

We decided our  target audience should be aimed at people aged  over 15, we chose this age market because we feel the narrative would appeal to a teenage audience  the most and would play on their mind as the girl being stalked in our opening is a teenager herself. We have rated our film at age 15 because the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), an independent, non-governmental body which has classified cinema films for a number of years, states that for 

a film that contains:

• frequent strong language

• portrayals any sexual activity
• strong violence
• discriminative language or behaviour

Should be rated at age 15, we feel our narrative may include some of these factors so we think it would be suitable to rate it at this specific age group. 

Filming schedule

We decided to film the majority of our footage in February as we had a holiday from sixth from within that month; we planned to use Paige's garden to film some of the scenes in as she had a garden shed that worked well for our stalkers isolated room. We planned to film the other shots in a large grass area next to a local park near Leah's house which was convenient to us as it wasn't very far away from where Leah lived.

February 15th - on this day we decided to film the parts in Paige's garden; we started filming at around 4 pm because we though the lighting outside wouldn't be too bright but also not too dark by this point, we needed a source of natural but not too harsh lighting. We filmed Joe (playing the villain) walking through Paige's garden, running his hand across the banister leading up to the shed in the garden, opening the shed door, looking over the stalking timetable and all the other shots that he was included in. We successfully filmed all the right footage with Joe in that we needed on this day.

February 17th - on this day we went to the local park near Leah's house to film the footage of Leah (as she playing the role of the victim). We started filming at the park at around 2 pm, we chose this time as we needed brighter, harsher lighting on so it was clear to see her on camera. However because of the intense brightness on this day, the shot of the phone with the text reading "I'm watching you" couldn't be read clearly by the camera as the light was reflecting on to the screen meaning you see the camera through it and could hardly read the text message. We realised we had to re-schedule a time to film this shot.

February 18th - on this day the weather wasn't suitable for filming outdoors so we decided to film the footage from the computer of the stalker on Leah's Facebook page; these shots took a lot of time accuracy and plenty of trial and error shots as it was difficult to film from the computer screen with out catching the cameras reflection. eventually we secured all the right shots that we needed and had completed another section of our filming. Later on on this day we filmed the shots of our friend Joe (playing the villain) sitting by the computer screen including his hand resting on the mouse and him pressing his lips together.

February 23nd - on this day we filmed all the remaining filler shots that we needed including the padlock, the burning timetable and re-filming of the phone, the lighting was darker on this day so it was clear for the camera to pick up the writing on the text message.

When returned back from the holiday we uploaded and edited all of our footage, but because we had filmed some shots horizontally they didn't look right once they had been uploaded, for this reason we had to re-do some filming over the a few weekends in order to get the best shots that we could.

We had finished the majority of our filming by mid March, but still had to change and develop some scenes which we were pointed out through our feedback.

Discarded Ideas

When we first started this project our initial ideas were not completely planned out; we knew that it had to be an opening sequence for a thriller film however we did not know exactly what plot and narrative we were going to follow which would enable our product to fall into this specific genre.


We had various ideas at first about what storyline we were going to follow; one of the ideas we discussed was based around a detective who was investigating a serial killer (similar to the narrative in Se7ev) although we thought this was a effective and interesting narrative we didn't really feel comfortable with this specific storyline as we thought it might be quite hard to give the suggestion of a serial killer and we believed we could adapt more to a storyline easier to portray.


We chose to base our opening sequence on a stalker. We believed the storyline we have chose now fits us perfectly as we could experiment with different camera positions much more effectively and could really adapt with it and develop on the idea of a stalker.

We were inspired by films such as the Stalker, Fatal Attraction and One Hour Photo. We gained ideas from watching these movies, to then develop onto our own, to create our opening sequence 'The Pursuer'. 

Inspirations

After watching and analysing many other thriller based films that appealed to us we have found many inspirations, including; Seven and Memento for their interesting narratives and opening credits, but particularly Notes on a scandal which inspired us the most as its also a stalker based film which involves characters in a similar age group and situation to ours. 

A directors that has mainly influenced us is Christopher Nolan; a British-American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Most known for working on The Dark Knight Trilogy, the science fiction/heist film inception and (the ones that inspired us the most) psychological thrillers Memento and The Prestige. In Memento constant use of photos inspired us to incorporate photo's into our opening sequence, in our opening we have used photos took from a social networking site to bring it more up to date and to link to our target audience (teenagers).  

Another influence to us was Alfred Hitchcock; probably one of the most famous thriller directors. His style of work is very unique and recognisable. He was known to be the master of suspense, we wanted to create the same high levels of suspension within our opening sequence with the tension building soundtrack, quick and snappy shots, and no real reveal of the villain involved. 
We tried to create a similar feel to our villain as he did in his hit film, Psycho. In Psycho the protagonist didn't speak much which created high suspension and tension, in our opening sequence the villain doesn't speak at all; giving it the same apprehensive feel. 

A final highly influential director we found was David Fincher; an American film and music video director who is known for his dark thrillers, such as Seven, The Game, Fight Club, and Panic Room. the opening sequence for his thriller Seven inspired us immensely. We took many ideas from the opening of seven but tried to put our own twist on it; we used a similar stalker based opening involving collection things to do with the victim but instead of presenting them in books and on printed photo's we showed it all through a computer to appeal to our target audience.
    

Preliminary task

In our preliminary task we filmed a scene with a teacher and a student discussing coursework that has been handed in late, we used a variety of shots to create the appearance of realism and continuity.

These include:

The 180 degree rule
The 180 degree rule is a basic movement that states that two character in the same scene should have to same right or left relationship with each other. this type of angel is used to create continuity between shots, reversing the angle would appear odd looking. For example if an over the shoulder shot was being filmed, it should be filmed over the right shoulder of the character to make the scene look ordinary and normal.

Match on action
This shot if a more difficult shot to film because of the precise timing that needs to be considered; the shot is used to connect the shots together. an example would
First shot - a close up of the door handle being turned.
Second shot - a mid shot of that person walking through the door.

Shot/reverse shot
This shot alternates two shots to show a conversation between the characters in each shot; for example 
First shot - one character is speaking.
Second shot - shows the person who he/she is speaking to.

Overall we feel we have completed our preliminary task successfully with a correct and effective usage of all the required shots; we are most pleased with out shot reverse shot editing as these shots appear very clean cut, realistic and have a good sense of continuity.

Analysis of the opening sequence in Memento

 The titles in this clip are very simplistic; the light blue serif font stands out against the reds and whites in the shot of the Polaroid picture, this blue text links with the melancholy soundtrack as it connotes sadness. Over the course of the opening the instruments build up and gradually get higher in pitch which increases which heightens the emotion, builds tension and creates a sense of expectation. The string instruments create a melancholy feel to the clip, contrasting the violent imagery being shown in the shot. 

The diegetic synchronous sounds used throughout the clip of the Polaroid being shaken, the camera noises, the grabbing of the gun, the bullet rattling across the floor and the man shouting "What?" are all utilised to create an unsettling atmosphere and builds tension in the opening sequence.


Half of the clip is an extreme close up of a hand holding a Polaroid picture of a man lying dead on the ground with blood surrounding him; the extreme close up creates an intimacy with the picture and blocks the view of anything else in the shot making the viewer focus solely upon the picture. The still shot of the Polaroid picture shows it is relevant and important to the plot, it makes sure that the audience will recognise the motif of the Polaroids in later scenes. This furthers the idea of the audience’s intimacy in the murder and allows them to have a clear and detailed understanding of the murder. The key piece of editing in this clip is the fact that the entire opening is in reverse; this creates a rather surreal experience for the audience but it makes them think and forces them to focus on what is happening so that they can understand it. Every single cut is clean and quickly cut, building on tension, the simplicity of the cuts appears rather brutal; adding to the brutality of the scene.


The key prop in the sequence is the Polaroid picture, by focusing on the picture for such a long time it is clear that the picture and its contents; a dead man, something incredibly important to the plot. The picture relates to the title of 'Memento' as pictures are usually seen as mementos of events and the dead man is clearly a very important character in the narrative as well as is the holder of the photograph. The glasses of the dead man stand out against the blood spattered tiles in the location which could connotation intelligence but also of a naive innocence; this makes it appear to the audience as if the man was an innocent victim, contrasting the youthful murderer.

Memento opening sequence:

Analysis of the opening title sequence of Inception

We chose to watch and analyse the film Inception, inception is a film within the thriller genre and caught our attention within the opening sequence because of its interesting use of moving shapes and images creating the titles.



The first shot we see is a black screen with clear white writing showing the production company 'Warner bros. Pictures' straight away this gives the audience an insight of what the film may be like if they have seen previous films made by this production company and are familiar with it.


The obvious contrast between the background and the witting is effective as it allows the writing to stand out but it also useful because it means the text is clear and easy to read; suggestion the sentence given is significant, important, and also that they don't want you to miss it.

A puzzle type of effect if then created though out the next few scenes of the opening. Lines, curves and boxes are traced on to the screen which create a patterns which move throughout the rest of the credits. the credits continue in this way throughout, the puzzled effect creates a sense of conclusion, which is carried out in the opening sequence of the film.


The film starts with dramatic, tension building music which creates confusion for the viewers, it then immediately cuts to the protagonist lying face down on the shore of a beach but before hand having a strong establishing shots of the rough and noisy sea.


The first close up of the protagonists face is shown and is a low angle shot. In the distance there are small children playing in the sand, this creates confusion for the viewer as the two things don’t go together. The Protagonist then blacks out and the scene then continues to show a random unknown character finding him on the beach. The Protagonist is shown in dull, rough looking clothes in contrast to the high class soldier that greets. A low angle shot is evident to show to the viewers that the soldier has a high status.

The scene is then cut showing the protagonist being dragged into the room, this creates stress for the viewers as they still don’t actually know who or what the protagonist is trying to do or his aim. The location is also a mystery so this allows the viewers to ask questions and slowly feel further into the storyline. The low level non diegetic music is still being played while the close up of the protagonist eating, the character is hunched over the bowl as though he has not eaten for awhile, which builds more mystery. The room in which the protagonist and the new and another unknown character is released is dull but because of the low lighting with a large, grand table in the middle, this shows that who ever owns the house could be a higher class than the protagonist. There is then a close up of the spinning top which builds tension as the viewers waits for the moment in which it topples over, but never does so. 

The next scene takes place, and it shows the protagonist in another scene but the same location. He is with two new completely different characters, and all the characters in this scene are wearing smart suits all showing they are they same status. The protagonist then starts to talk, and the cuts and speed of the cuts grow faster. Over the shoulder and conversation shots are used effectively to make the viewers feel more comfortable which also makes it more natural to watch, a high angle shot is also used in this scene to show that the protagonist is more in control than any other character in the scene, the room then starts shaking which builds tension for the viewers and makes the two main characters look as though they are involved. There is then a close up of the protagonists ticking watch where time is slowed down, also creating tension the scene then changes dramatically again into a different location but with all the same characters as before. The Location is in a random hotel room/flat where another random character is released, there are diegetic sound effects used to create the bombing and shot gun noises, the music then becomes more dramatic as the unknown characters seek the main characters around the room. 

The first part of the film is very confusing and jumbled up which makes the viewer ask so many questions and are then immediately made to want to carry on watching the film and the Microelements are used to create this interesting and tension building confusion.