Final Group Evaluation

Evaluation Process

Individual Evaluations:
At the beggining of the evaluation process each member of the group create their own individual evaluation. We answered 7 questions in detail and covered every area of creating our media product. We included strengths and weakenesses of the technologies involved, and our predictions on how successful our film would be if it were to be released as a proper movie.

Group Evaluation:
At the beggining of our group evalution process, we read over our individual evaluations and highlighted the examples used and areas and main points that were relevant and answered the questions.

We plan to use these points in our group evaluation to ensure that we use oppinions from each group member.

We want to be as creative as possible when making our group evaluation as we want to keep the reader interested.

Our unique idea consists of a cork board, post it notes, tac pins, A4 paper and photographs of the filming and editing process. The first thing we intend on doing is to hang the cork board on a white wall. We then want to film us sticking post its onto the board containing the questions that we need to answer for our evaluation. After peeling off the post it notes, we will then pin up the A4 paper containing our answers. As these points are being filmed, we will play a recording over the top, of a group member speaking the answers in more detail. In between each question we will zoom in to the pictures that are pinned around the edge of the filming and edditing process.

Individual Evaluation

Thriller Opening Sequence: Evaluation

1)      In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When comparing our product to professional examples like Shutter Island, it is clear to me that we haven’t challenged any psychological thriller conventions that are used in the majority of the films in this genre. Nor have we challenged any thriller conventions in general.

An example to support the idea that we have conformed to the general conventions would be the narrative which should revolve around crime, like murders, rape etc. In our opening sequence we present an abduction of a little girl. Another example is the involvement of an antagonist and protagonist. To expand, the little girl could be the protagonist of the opening sequence as she is seen as weak for her incapability to defend herself against the male character. Another way in which she is weak is her lack of knowledge about the possibilities of strangers (the unknown) possibly due to her age, and wouldn’t no to stay where she was instead go with the man. The antagonist is of course the man/paedophile who would end up making the little girl feel hopeless by the end of the film. A third general convention that our product conforms to is the importance of an enigma that is hinted at the beginning and resolved at the very end i.e. the opening sequence is actually a fake event that’s happening in the mothers mind, and we later find out that she has mental problems and has been scarred from a previous trauma.

Sub thriller genres also contain their own generic conventions, different from other sub genres. Our product is a psychological thriller and we conform to its conventions. Any conflict between characters is always emotional and mental, not so much physical. Our product, if it were a full film would contain emotional conflict between the mother and the paedophile/kidnapper. Another sub genre convention that we conform to is the suspense between each character, thinking about each other and playing on each others minds. This is true in our opening sequence when the mother first of all sees the ‘creepy man’ sat on the bench, and then comes back from the car, finds her daughter missing, and instantly would start thinking about man who’s the obvious abductor.

I believe that are use of conventions, which all conform to the generic ones of thrillers, portray our psychological genre. At the end of our opening sequence we see a flicker of expressions and finally show the mother and daughter walking into the park. This is confusing and shows that someone has made it up in their head. This would be the main example that represents our genre.

Lastly, to compare to other films, I would use the example Lovely Bones, which once again uses a paedophile and a little girl. So I think that it is clear by watching our product, that we have used professional films to inspire us.

2)      How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As our opening sequence only consists of three characters, there aren’t many social groups to analyse. Our first social group that is represented is children. The little girl is obviously female, and roughly 8 or 9 years old. She is middle class and English. Her gender and age are both represented in a stereotypical way. She is the character that gets abducted which shows children as being passive, weak and inferior to men. We all see young children as unable to defend them selves and perhaps hopeless in situations like kidnapping, this is another stereotype that we conform to in our opening sequence.

The male characters age and gender is also stereotypical in our opening sequence. In reality men can often be seen as dominant and superior, and can have a lot of power over women and children. Our male character is exactly this! He can control the little girl’s actions and take her away from her mother which is a realistic risk.

Our final character, the mother of the girl, conforms to the stereotype of ‘normal mothers.’ Although not many mothers would have left the child like our character in one of the early scenes, in a situation where your child is hurt, people don’t always think straight. A stereotype of everyday families is that the bond between mother and child is sometimes stronger than with the father, which is why we chose the mother to take her daughter the park, and find her missing by the end of the sequence.

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

I don’t believe that our movie will be particularly mainstream and popular amongst the general public; I do however think it will still be distributed by a film company. But this would have to be a company that distributes/produces art films AKA art house films. This would mean our movie would be aimed at a niche market and contain a serious storyline. Another way of describing our movie would be Indie (an independent film) which would be produced and distributed by an independent entertainment company. A third way I would predict this film being produced and/or distributed is by a subsidiary of a major film studio. I don’t think, however, that this film would be produced by a Hollywood film studio.

There are similar products that have been released. Many professional psychological thriller movies contain mental illnesses and abductions/kidnapping. Coincidently, there is a new film currently being released called Gone starring Amanda Seyfried and produced by Lakeshore Entertainment. It is about a young woman called Jill whose sister gets kidnapped two years after her own abduction. But we later find out that Jill was sent to a mental institution after it was believed that she made her own kidnapping up in her head. To relate back to our product for comparison, we can see that our product also contains a kidnapping of a young that is made up in the head of her relative.

There are many film channels on television, some popular ones, and some not so popular ones. I presume that our film would be played on television but on an unpopular channel, simply because ours isn’t as professional as other films.

I think that our film would be appropriate for downloading off of the internet but I don’t think it will only be released on the internet- like I mentioned previously, I think it would be available to watch on television.

I think that this film does have the opportunity to be released and I think there are other opportunities that would open up if it were to be released e.g. a prequel or sequel. However in terms of merchandise, there are no specific characteristics that would be suitable to make figurines and bedroom accessories for.

4)      Who would be the audience for your media product?

From our research, our group found the gender, age and type of person that would be most interested in watching our film (or target audience). We realised that both males and females would enjoy our film. From experience and hearing from friends about other thriller movies, I would say that girls prefer to watch them for the thrill of being scared, however boys tend to put on a front to show that they are not scared of films and act very masculine. So I think that boys would be more interested in the plot and trying to figure the enigma of the film before the end resolution. We also decided on a range of ages that would enjoy our media product. We aim our film at people between 15 and 20 years old, however, after making the opening sequence, that I think people over the age of 20 would enjoy our film too. Perhaps those up to the age of 40 even!

Shutter Island is a similar film to ours, containing mentally disabled people and weak characters (protagonist). Shutter Island appeals to exactly the same age group 15 to 40. After gathering our research, asking people about how they feel about thrillers, most people who enjoyed them were students. Most of these people enjoyed being with friends, meeting new people, playing sports and the majority of them had a range of hobbies. Now knowing that most of the people enjoy being friends, it would persuade us to show this film in a cinema as most of them would go to watch it together.

5)      How did you attract/address your audience?

In terms of particular points in our film, there are specific scenes that would terrify/interest different age groups and genders, for example: Any young child who watches the film may feel frightened when the little girl (perhaps not to dissimilar to them) gets kidnapped. This may scare the young viewers as they realise how easily it could happen to them, and it might make them feel vulnerable. Another example scene that would attract older women (specifically mothers) who watch the older female character comes to the realisation of her missing daughter. I think this would definitely address/ get any mothers in an audience’s attention as they can relate to what it would feel like having their own child taken. The mothers and young children would put themselves in the position of the similar kind of people in the film as they are being allowed to witness the horrors of the event. The impact of this would keep the audiences attention, making sure they concentrate and carry on watching the film.

6)      What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

There were things our group struggled with during the making of this product, but we also had our strengths which improved the quality of it. One weakness we had during the filming of our opening sequence, is the struggle to keep any panning of the camera smooth and stop it from shaking. This was difficult as every small movement is visible. One area that technology that we found successful was the editing in Final Cut Pro. This was used to edit our opening sequence, cutting each scene and adding any effects. We worked well with this as some of us already had experience using it and we already new the basic techniques. A third technology would be Garage Band. This was used to make our sound track. I learnt about all the ranges of sound effects and baking tracks and how to put them all together. We struggled slightly with this as it was difficult to math it to the different scenes of our product, but we did learn, in the end, ho to match them up and keep it all to exactly the same length. Overall, I think I learnt a lot about how to use a few of the main technologies needed in this task. 

7) Look back at the preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt from the progression of the full project?

The preliminary was very useful in helping us create our final project. For example the camera and tripod: In the preliminary task we learnt about all the ways of handling the camera and how to record. We also learnt about the ways in which we could film each type of camera angle. We ended up using these angles in our real product, and on the filming day, we found it easy to work with the camera and also the tripod. From the preliminary task, learning how to attach and detach the camera from the tripod and how to raise, shorten and turn the tripod was very useful on the day of filming our actual opening sequence. 

The preliminary task also provided us with the knowledge of the problems that we may come across when filming, such as the noise of airplanes people and wind. The other problems that it helped us come to the realization of would be the lighting; throughout filming our preliminary, the daylight changed, making it more difficult to edit into a flowing piece. This gave us the motivation to film our final product as quick as possible, without taking away its quality.

When editing the preliminary task, it helped us learn the basics of all the editing software, and also gave us an idea of where certain sounds and affects were. 

Overall, the filming of our real media opening sequence was very successful and I think it was influenced a lot by our preliminary task and I would advise anyone else to practice in the way that we did.

Individual Evaluation

Evaluation- Nellie Stevenson

1.      In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

Our media product is a psychological thriller opening sequence, from the conventions we researched before we made our opening sequence we think that our product conforms to the conventions we found in psychological thrillers.

 One of the main conventions we followed was that the main character endures conflict mentally and emotionally rather than physically. This was shown as our Antagonist, seen as the old man in the park, sits on the park bench hearing repetitive voices from the victim, having them play on his mind as he fights the urge to abducting the child while the mum is there. This convention we used can indicate what genre the movie is as we used effects and camera techniques to show it such as panning around the actor, slowing down the clip and echoing the sounds of laughing, this shows the audience that it was in the characters mind as its altered and specifically only showing him. From these conventions researched, we were very much influenced by many other psychological thrillers such as Shutter Island as the character in Shutter Island is very reliant on his mental strength which is shown in our movie as our Mother character makes no attempt to get her child after she has been abducted and is very composed in the final moments of our opening sequence. Another convention of opening sequence conforms to is the use of an enigma as out opening sequence ends with the audience not knowing whether the old man really took the young child, because the audience thinks it all in his head. This leaves the audience confused and  unsure of what really happened which in return makes them want to find out the truth of the story. We were not inspired by any movie that includes an engima however we thought it would be a good way to end our opening sequence as it further confuses the storyline to the audience which makes them more eager to find out the truth at the end, it also makes the audeicne guess to what they think happened.

2.      How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our opening sequence represents a range of ages and class. Our Antagonist is a middle aged old man of about 45-50 years old, our female Protagonist is roughly 19-20 years old and our final character in our opening sequence is our child Victim who is roughly 8-9 years old. This shows that a wide range of representations are shown in our opening sequence however our movie is targeted at 15 years + so people younger than that would not be able to watch it. Class is also represented in our opening sequence as our Mother Character and the child victim are both represented as working class citizens, this is shown through the costume as there clothes are very basic and slightly scruffy especially the Mother character as she wears jeans and a shirt over a white top. However our old man character is shown as a higher class citizen this is also shown through his costume and hair, showing him with a comb over and in a nice jumper with chinos and fairly ‘trendy’ shoes. We think that our characters in our opening sequence conform to the typical sterotypes of the people represented in our movie.

This links to our target audience as we found that mostly 15-20 year olds that are students would be interested in our movie, as found out from conducting primary research, so this would appeal to people in our target audience as our movie would represent various age ranges and class.

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

As our product is obviously a movie it would be distributed by a film company, however we have decided as a group our movie would be a Independent Art House movie (Indie). Although Art House movies usually only have a niche market our movie would slightly differ as it would have a larger audience than the regular art house movie as thrillers are very popular with different types people. If it was to be made fully it would probably be a small budget movie and possibly be released straight to DVD or an Indie movie channel such as Sky Movies Indie or Future Shorts, we think it might also be released on various movie sites online. We think that if our movie were to be released it unfortunately would not offer opportunities to turn into a franchise as our storyline is very set and it cannot be expanded much more, also as it is an Indie movie it probably wouldn’t have merchandise because our storyline does not have anything in particular that would stand out or be marketable because our audience wouldn’t be that large.

The Mise-En-Scene in our opening sequence is very basic with hardly any detail, our costume and makeup is very minimalist, with everyday clothes and natural makeup just to enhance features. Our lighting was ambient and needed nothing to enhance it further, our location/setting was a very open plan park so it allowed us to be flexible with filming and props again were kept simple just to justify our reasons for the plot, for example the Old man Character was in the park doing a crossword to make it seem like he was innocent and in the park to get some piece and quiet. Our mise-en-scene was kept extremely simple which shows that it would be a low budget movie and Indie because it’s not very elaborate and glamorized as a big Hollywood movie would be.

4.      Who would be the audience for your product?

From the primary and secondary research we conducted to find out our target audience for our opening sequence would be, we got age, gender and occupation summary of who our product would be aimed at.

In our primary research most of the people we asked were aged about 15-20 years old, however there were a few 30-35 year old. We asked them questions like ‘What is your Occupation?’ and ‘Do you enjoy Thriller Movies?’, from this we found thriller movies are mostly popular with males as they have a lot of action and there much for enjoyable to watch. Females also liked thriller movies but not as much as the males, most of the people we asked, both male and female, said they were currently students in either college or university and the people that were older than 20 did low energy jobs such as office and filing occupations. We asked people in our primary research if they would be comfortable watching a movie with the theme of abduction or paedophilia in it, as this is what our film centres around, most  people said they would as although it is a horrible theme, most thrillers centre around a tragic or slightly unreal theme.

As conducted in our secondary research that most psychological thrillers are usually classified as a 15 by the BBFC because of the themes being disturbing or troubling to anyone under the age of 15.

Although it would be classified as a 15 by BBFC guidelines I would say any one above that age might enjoy our movie as it is aimed at a lot of different people and has a wide range of ages and genders throughout the movie that people can relate to.

5.      How did you attract your audience?

To attract our audience in our opening sequence we used many different techniques mostly including sound and camerawork. Our camerawork is very diverse and there are a lot of different shots in it for example, a pan around our old man character, a high angle shot of the park when the old man abducts the child and many various close ups and extreme close-ups. This keeps the audience hooked on the screen as we kept it quite diverse and different. Our use of sound was also a good way to attract our audience as we used tracks, that we had made in Garageband, that built up suspense so it made the audience think something bad was going to happen even though it doesn’t also we used loud bangs at the end of our opening sequence as images flashed on screen of the abductor as well as being mixed with images of the girl, this tends to make our audience jump as it is very loud and sudden so it is unexpected and could startle people.  As it may be quite startling it would not be advised for younger people which is again one of the reasons it would be classified as a 15.

In our opening sequence we have quite a lot of focus on the mother character through camera work, this makes people that watch our movie, particularly females who watch it, put themselves in the mothers position and makes them ask themselves “What if that was me?” which could attract females to this movie as it would be very touching to watch and could make them prevent things like this from happening in reality. Males will almost defiantly not put them in the position of the old man who is portrayed as an abductor/paedophile as that character is not how regular people think, it is a disturbed character and men would not be able to see themselves in that position because it is so morally wrong, however they might get a strong dislike to the character because of what he does in the movie, which could alter the way they feel towards other people at that moment in time.

6.      What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of filming?

From the beginning of the course I was very much clueless about all the filming, editing and sound equipment that we would be using to make our opening sequence.

All the equipment we used was relatively new to me except for the Canon Camera as it was pretty straight forward.

The filming process of our opening sequence was very straight forward as we had used the camera and tripod prior to filming properly on location. We all found it easy to use the tripod and the different elements of the camera for example the zoom. On the day of filming we did not have any problems with the actual filming however it was more on the continuity side, but overall our filming process was very successful.

Final Cut Pro was the software we used to edit our opening sequence. We had also got to learn about this and use it prior to editing our actual opening sequence. We learnt how to mark in/out the footage cut the footage and drag the chosen clips into place. We also learnt how too add effects and colour correction to make our movie seem more unrealistic which we used to go along with our storyline and we also learnt how to add sound, take it away and change the volume. During the actual editing of our opening sequence, we did not really encounter huge problems however we found some parts of it very time consuming, which was expected, but also we found it more difficult to keep the continuity in check within our opening sequence however the general editing process went well and we learnt how to use it very quickly and efficiently.

When using Garageband to create our soundtrack for our opening sequence we found the programme good however there was little choice in music to use as everyone was extremely up beat and there were only a few serious tracks to choose from. However the actual making of our soundtrack was very straight forward and just required laying certain tracks we wanted on top of each other. To get the echo in our music, when the man hears giggling etc in his head, we had to use Final Cut Pro as it was better for altering the effects in both the actual image and the sound.

Overall the different technologies were very straight forward and easy to get to grips with and we all found it very easy to use, especially because we occasionally each had an extra bit on knowledge on the programmes and equipment so we all helped each other to learn and become more experienced with these technologies.

7.      Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learnt from progression to the final product?

As a group and as individuals we have all, since our Preliminary Task, learnt a lot not only about filming, editing and making a soundtrack but also how to create efficient plans and how to conduct useful research. When planning our preliminary task we kept things very basic including the narrative, dialogue and the shots we decided to use. We had a guideline to follow saying what shots we should have in it, some of these shots were a two shot, long shot, over the shoulder shot, reaction shot and we had to follow the 180 degree rule. By using these shots it helped us to learn specific shots and then remember them, which helped when it came to creating the shot list for our opening sequence. When we story-boarded our preliminary task it was about the second time we had ever created a story board for a media project so we found it fairly confusing. However from creating the storyboard we realized that we would have to go into much more detail for our opening sequence to ensure that we would create a successful opening sequence. Although we did not do research for our preliminary task we did watch past students preliminary's to get ideas but also see how it should look, likewise we did this with our opening sequence by watching past students work. as well as conducting in depth research into our genre. When we filmed our preliminary task it was our first time ever using the filming equipment and editing software. We filmed our preliminary very quickly so did not get to explore the different techniques we could use for our opening sequence so we had to bear this in mind when creating our shot list for the opening sequence. However by learning the basics of the the camera it gave us a foundation to work on and gave us a flare for creativity. Much like the preliminary our filming went particularly well and helped rather a lot, this is because we learnt from our preliminary how to ensure our opening sequence ran smooth and efficiently. When using editing software we only used basic cuts for our preliminary, so like the filming we got to be a bit more creative. WE used more creative editing techniques such as blurring the edges of screen, fading, and adding text. We also got to be creative by creating a soundtrack as we did not do this for our preliminary task. Overall by doing a preliminary task personally feel it helped a great deal as we got to experiance equipment and software before we started creating our opening sequence and i think it helped to make it a great success!

Individual Evaluation

Evaluation.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?- We decided to make a psychological thriller and our film conforms a psychological thriller as usually the character doesn’t use there emotions physically but through the mind, and we done this by the camera movements such as close-ups and the echo’s in the soundtrack. In scene 3, where the camera pans around the man on the bench. You’re able to tell what sub-genre our film is as it makes you think twice about certain elements which is what a psychological thriller does. We used idea’s from films such as ‘the talented Mr Ripley’ as in that thy keep all emotions through the mind and use the technique of facial expressions and throughout camerawork by using the close-ups. The man who plays in it actually conforms to the stereotype. Other thrillers that helped us plot what a stereotypical elder man would look like were ‘the lovely bones’, which is a wealthy looking, friendly man who would be unsuspected, this is why we chose to use the man sitting on the bench doing a crossword so it could look like he’s just resting. We watched ‘flight plan’ as in the film the mother’s daughter goes missing and you see her panic in her face and the worry. This is where we got the idea of facial expressions from, at the scene before the end where the mum runs back into the park to find her daughters gone. The twist at the end of our scene when the mother and daughter walk back into the park as if nothings happened indicates the sub-genre as psychological as it plays with your imagination. In the editing process we used the use of the blur tool to make certain scenes seem more in someone mind or to make it look like it’s a dream. This is used in films to make the scene look surreal, so the audience get an idea that something isn’t right and gets the audience thinking.

How does your media project represent different social group?- The gender groups we represented was a male and two females, one of mid 20’s and one of a 10 year old girl. By using the mother and her being young her character isn’t stereotypical as the type to e irresponsible of leaving her child. On the other hand there could be a bunch of people who would think that this is stereotypical as being a young mother she’s naïve to think her child is ok being left, and didn’t use her initiative. We used a man as the antagonist which is stereotypical as in many movies men are used as the bad guys, such as ‘the lovely bones’ where a man is found to be paedophile, jut like in our opening sequence it seems like this is what’s happening. Our target audience was 15+ so any gender could have watched this, we suspected more woman than men would watch this so as a man being the antagonist the woman who watches this feel sympathy to the mother who has lost her child, and woman usually put themselves in the protagonist (the mums) shoes. This also gives some teenagers who are to watch the film an insight on some of the things that could happen to younger siblings or other people if left unattended, and to be aware of strangers. Social groups such as teenagers or woman from 20-50’s usually discuss what they thought of the film and if they understood. Our target audience was people in friendship groups who can discuss and share opinions, and the type of film that can be suggested to others to be watched. We investigated that teenagers like horrors and thrillers, which giving ours a twist makes people a little more confused which keeps people watching to see what happens in the story

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?- This film could be distributed on the internet to psychological thriller fans, like a forum room. I think it would be on the television because many people find psychological thrillers interesting and keep them hooked, it would be on a non-popular station as the film isn’t a big award winning, lots of money made sort of film and wouldn’t go to the cinema. This film could be distributed to certain groups that wish to advice on how to keep their children safe or show the dangers of strange men alone in parks, why leaving your child is bad. Some psychologists may discuss about matters from the film to people that have had similar experiences. The film wouldn’t be big enough to lead to merchandise as it’s not that kind of film where there are heroes or idols. Psychological thrillers are popular it would be released as an indie film company such as ‘Pathe’ and ‘Universal studio’s’, as indie movies aren’t high budget movies and don’t lead to bigger opportunities and indie movies release different films all the time that usually appear on television once or twice, or on sky movies indie.

Who would be the audience for your profile?-Our general target audience is 15-20 year olds and we asked questionnaires about psychological thrillers to see how into these types of films people are. The people that we asked were sociable people, who spend time with friends, this was deliberate to the fact of friends can all discuss there opinions and thoughts on the film. Our film didn’t link to any age of such if anything it would relate to people 20-50 years of age, as it makes mothers who watch it put themselves in the mother in the films shoes and imagine what feelings she felt.. A film similar to ours is ‘the lovely bones’ as a young girl goes missing and you see the mother’s pain, this film appealed to adults. Men that watch this wont usually have any particular feeling, men in general prefer to watch thrillers, there more men surrounded, as men aren’t known to get scared. Man or woman I think that anyone would feel sympathy towards the mother and daughter and feel almost disgusted towards the man or even confused on the storyline as psychological thrillers are mind players. We made the style of our film to have a twist in the plot but at the opening scene you don’t see the twist, you only see the man being the bad guy, and towards the end of our scene you see the mother and daughter re-enter the park, as if nothing had happened and the little girl wasn’t abducted. Later in the story things unravel such as the mother is emotionally confused, and these are just her thoughts. People who watch such as teenagers and females will judge the man as horrific from what they first see of him. It’s usually men who don’t have thoughts until they understand the whole film.

How did you attract you audience?- We discussed who would be most interested in watching our film, and gathered that teenagers and males are the types to enjoy thrillers more as they enjoy the suspense. We made an ages range of 15+ as we feel somebody under 15 may not grasp the idea of what going on in the film and may find some of the scenes disturbing., such as the end scene when the mother returns confused to see her daughter missing and there are loud thumps and close-ups into the males face, which could make a younger person jump. We used many ranges of camerawork we used lots of close-ups to the antagonists face to show his age (his wrinkles, and the facial expression) we also used a pan around the antagonist and played children voices over some serious sounding music along with a blurred picture in the editing, we done this to show his thoughts in his head, and it sounds quite spooky and eary which again could upset someone who was frightened by the thought of this. When filming we had the sympathy for the opening scene on the mother, as she is clueless to the man sitting in the park, and see’s nothing wrong of leaving her daughter alone for 1 minute whilst getting a plaster. Mothers whoa re to watch this would put themselves in the other mothers position and imagine how they’d feel if it was there child. The effect we were aiming for was so that people would be sympathetic and at the same time interested in how the story ends

What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of the filming?- When doing the filming process I learnt a range of new techniques of filming, and how to do different shots, I learnt that putting the camera on a tripod; give you a steadier view of the camera so your hands aren’t holding it being shaky. There is also a handle on the tripod which gives you ability to move the camera slowly and steady. Using these techniques helped when I and my group used the effect ‘panning’ we were able to do it better with the tripod than handheld. Me and my group found filming really easy and enjoyed doing it together and taking in turns of using the camera. Being able to have the use of zooming in and out to make different effects and using the camera in different ways to create the elements of filming. We used a lot of close ups and long shot in our film we kept that part simple but used elements like panning across and panning around, in scenes 1 and 3. We used a high angle shot when looking down on the little girls cut hands, we done this by having someone with the camera on the climbing frame at the top, as we filmed in a park., and they simply zoomed in to a good enough view of he little girl on the floor. We used the new equipment which was the tripod as we hadn’t filmed before using a tripod, so this was new to us but we grasped the using of it quite easily. When it came to using the editing software, we were all kind of new to this, so at first it was a little struggle and took us a while to get grips of things but eventually we picked up what to do. We all helped with editing and when we weren’t editing it ourselves we were giving advice on where to put things and where to cut the scenes. We all got our ideas in our piece well enough we could point them out. I came up with the idea of blur in the scenes. Adding the blur effect showed that it was a dream and looked like imagination. The cutting of the video didn’t take us too much time as the opening sequence is only under 2 minuets, we cut the video until it all ran smoothly and we could add extra editing and sound into it.. When it came to trying to make a soundtrack this was amusing to do, we wanted an eary backing track something to make the hairs on your back stand up, as well as children’s laughter for scene 3. We tried searching for heartbeats but none of the ones on garage band sounded life-like. We also hoped to find a single heavy drum beat, but there were only club beats, we wanted to use this for effect on the last scene on the close-ups of the antagonists face. We found something similar but it wasn’t a drum beat, it still sounded effective.

Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel that you learnt from progression to full project?-When we were doing the preliminary task we had lots of different ideas and we had to think about all the possibilities behind them such as the lighting, setting, characters and the storyline. We knew that we wanted to do a psychological thriller but we weren’t sure how to go about one. We decided that we would research on the internet about psychological thrillers and even look at lots of different films and we decided to go away and watch some. We gathered a few films we would like to base ours around, or take certain ideas from what we’ve watched and thought we could put into our opening sequence, but again we had to also think about how limited we are. We decided we liked the plots of ‘The talented Mr Ripley’ ‘Flight plan’  ‘The lovely bones’.
These are all psychological thrillers and all have the plot of somebody who is being played around by the mind, paedophilia, abduction etc. We decided to make a storyboard of what we would imagine to happen and then after decide if its what we all want to do and if that’s do-able. When planning we got to go over every point from scene 1 to the end. We noted down on each scene we perfected the camera angles we could use, which gave us time to list different ones we are able to use, and what would suit best to each scene.  Before planning we hadn’t thought of an camera angles we just saw a vision of a opening sequence in our heads and after we discovered how could make it so much more effective with the right camera techniques. We were doing everything basic, so the planning and writing all our thoughts and ideas down on what we could do helped later on and gave us a direction to head towards. We had a list of shot types we could use and we even visited a few parks to use there was one near our school but the environment wasn’t very clear it was very noisy as it was near a road, and we wouldn’t have a lot of time to visit were the park wouldn’t be busy with other children. So there was a park near one of our houses which was near a woods so was silent except the aeroplanes that passed over, but we discussed we could wait for them to pass over, and it was rarely busy and had a good atmosphere and importantly it had a bench facing the park which is what we needed. After using the equipment once or twice I got a better feel of how to set it up and put it away and how to connect the camera to the tripod. Doing the preliminary task helped us get a feel of what the real filming will be like and how we can each take turns on filming and also what its like to take part in the film by acting.

Final Opening Sequence

Our Poster!

Even though we decided we could release our poster in conjunction with our Opening Sequence, we changed our minds and have now decided releasing it before would be the best idea especially because this is how it works in the movie industry. By releasing it before our opening sequence it would "market" our movie, however because it is not a full movie and will not be seen by many but it is still a way to market our movie but also gives other people an insight of what our opening sequence will be about but also how our full story line would be if we were to make the whole movie.


We have analysed the poster in the same way that we analysed other psychological thrillers, in terms of pictures used, font used, positioning choices, effects put on poster and tag line use.

Pictures Used:
We decided on using three different pictures to show the three different characters in the movie. The two main pictures are of our two main actors portraying there characters. The main top image is the main focus of our poster as it is the biggest picture and is also striking. It shows the actor in distress looking towards something which is obviously a key element in the movie. We adjusted the original picture to look like this which can be seen in a separate post explaining how we did this on photoshop. Our second main image is of our child actor, it is actually a screen grab used from our opening sequence we decided that if we stretched the image and changed some of the colouring it would look more surreal and unrealistic. Our final picture is of our 3rd most important actor, we decided to put this picture of to the side and to make it seem as if the picture isn't even there. This follows our storyline as this character doesn't actually exist and it all part of the main characters mind. This helps give the audience clues into what the movie is about and why the character is all faded into the background.
Although from following our research only two pictures were used we though that by adding the final picture and blurring it out a lot it didn't really count but also its not what we wanted as the main focus.






 font used, positioning choices, effects put on poster and tag line use.