Finished question 7

Question 6 Finished

Camera work:

The thing that I have learnt the most when filming would be the importance of a tripod without one of these we would have been struggling.  As without a tripod you are not able to get a smooth flowing shot. With having a tripod you are able to give it more of a professional look to your media. Also other things you can do with a tripod are, for example when we needed the shot to follow me, as I went to interrogate Callum we flipped the camera upside down and tom held the tripod and used it as a steady cam which we felt was extremely effective.  Also when learning about camera shots framing and composition. I have found that you can do a lot to make a character seem to be shrouded in mystery just from either him or her wearing dark clothing. Or even not having shots of their face. Other things that I feel would have been help full would have been a high resolution camera due to the quality, also you are able so do fade in and out shots a lot easier.

Lighting was one of the key points of production. As if your location is not correctly lit then you may find you have dark spots during the editing process. Which makes your film look like it is a poor quality. When doing our filming we were quite fortunate to have good natural lighting. However filming some of our opening under a bridge I feel that it gave a gloomy effect, which worked well for building tension within our thriller opening. However through some parts we did have a lack of light but we were able to increase it when editing. When we found our desired light it gave our finished product a great look, it was good. Also to show that we had shots that were meant to be flash back when we were in the editing process we added he dream effect.

When filming we really wanted it to rain but as you cannot control the weather we were still quite lucky that it was still quite a gloomy day. Also our location was chosen well as it gave us the perfect amount of light.

Editing:

The continuity of editing I have found is one of the key things needed to make a good piece of media as selecting the correct footage is crucial as if you don’t you may find that you have characters jumping around which will not get you sufficient marks to get a high grade.

Our piece was centred on the protagonist having flashbacks. Which was to get the audience asking questions a classic convention of a thriller. Which meant in the editing period when we had a flash back shot we made shore that we added an effect that suited our thriller opening. It took us a while until we found our desired look the effect that we chose was dream just what was needed for a flashback scene.  The editing technique for these flash backs are called flash cuts these can last any where from two-ten second this we found was very useful in getting the audience to ask questions, key to a thriller. When filming the shot with Callum and the watch we use overlapping editing this repeat part or all of an action, or other shots thus expanding its viewing time and plot duration.

Sound was the other thing that was added to give an eerie effect, which is crucial to a thriller. However when filming there were periods when I felt that we should keep sound. This would be the shot when I cocked the gun before firing. One sound that we could not add which we wish we could of would have been the shot where my character punches Callum in the face.

We did look for a sound but the ones that we did fine we felt were too cartoony. However when editing the most effect sound that we added when editing would have been the paper burning this gave a great effect, it was almost spine chilling which is what we wanted for our thriller. The ways in which we used non- diegetic sound was when I cocked the gun next to Callums head. We weren’t sure whether it was going to work at the time but when it came to editing we found that the sound worked well and was rather effective almost sounding real. For diegetic sound we used the shot where we burnt paper we had to add this as you could not hear it burning on through the camera. This was the only diegetic sound that was added in our opening.

Things that I have learnt about IMovie. The first thing would be that if you want to make a decent piece it takes time there are no quick roots around it. For every shot you have to make sure your footage works. If someone walks into a room you have to have their feet line up this would lead to the audience becoming confused. Making sure that everything flows is also key so you only use jump shots when needed. As if they are not used correctly it can lead to your audience feeling confused. Which is not good if you want your film to have a professional film. Techniques that I have learnt would be adding effect at the correct time, as we were basing our film opening on flash backs we had to add the dream effect this gave us an eerie feeling which is something our target audience said was crucial to a good thriller opening. We also used transitions to make our piece flow this an example of this would be a close-up of the watch to Callum putting it on his hand.

Question 5 Finished

From my audience research the results gave me information on what my target audience likes and dislikes. There was a high percentage of 15 year old who liked the gangster narrative, I addressed my audience by making my film a gangster thriller, and this sub-genre will encourage  them watch my film. From my focus group I learnt boys of this age enjoyed fast pace action. I achieved this by having intense torcher scenes, for example when I punched Callum and then pulled a gun to his head.. This is how I will maintain their focus on the film.

Most teenagers around this age were engaged by a good storyline and music. The music I included various diegetic sounds like the paper burning which made the film more engaging. This will make them more interested in the film, thus they will continue to watch it.

 My target audience will continue to watch my film after the 2 minute opening as they were appealed by the suspense that was created within the film, the suspense was created by the low key lighting  and the flash backs of torcher and other flash backs. Also by the transitions from the different shot of the watch and then to see Callum wearing the bad guys watch holds the audience attention as they are surprised in the end, it would be boring if they could predict what would happen in the end. That Callum escapes from this predicament. This will maintain the audience’s attention and they will want to watch further on than the two-minute opening. I have fulfilled the desires of teenagers by including everything they want in the film. My product is visually entertaining which will address our audience by giving them the 'thrill' they long for. After all if a thriller is not thrilling you then it is not doing its job. Everything that is in my film addresses to my target audience, I have considered their favourite aspects of a thriller movie. Also the location is realistic and it will interest people more as my film is very realistic. But with it being unknown to many people we can get away with any link shots as people may question the continuity of editing.

As we can see from my opening shot we used this o grab the audience’s attention. The way in which it  there attention is by getting them to ask questions. This was one of the techniques we were taught. This makes the audience want to keep watching. However we also made sure that we weren’t getting the audience to ask to many questions as it can confuse them resulting in people turning the film off. 

With this last shot from our opening we tried to carry on with the theme of getting the audience to ask questions. We have done this by getting them to think how did the protagonist survive what did he do to be in that predicament in the first place.  Also we left our editing open to the next part of the film which I feel only a few other groups have done. 

Producing our media piece we worked hard with our camera work to conceal the protagonists face as we wanted add an air of mystery. This is something we felt worked well as it was another thing that kept the audience in suspense wanting to know who he is and so on.