Opening Post

Hello Examiner, this blog is to show the film process I have undertaken to complete my AS media studies. I will being showing you every little detail of information and research I have conducted in order to make this the best possible opening it could be. I have thoroughly enjoyed making this film and look forward to what my future could hold in media. Hope you enjoy this blog and I look forward to making another for A2 media!!!

Thanks and enjoy :)

Hidden

This is the final edition to our thriller opening, we have adapted based on feedback we have received and believe this is the best it can be.

Evaluation 1

Evalaution 2

Evaluation 3

This will be spoken in a video diary, however I haven't been able to create the video

What Media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 

Panic Production focusses entirely on the thriller genre. The perfect institution to distribute my film is Kaleidoscope film company they only distribute independent thriller films and our opening fits perfectly with their criteria however they haven’t produced any films that anyone has heard of and this means that are film wouldn’t be published on a grand scale. They do offer to enter your films into film festivals and that would be a great way to get our film an audience to watch it. If we didn’t use Kaleidoscope film company we would hopefully use Film4 because they have a larger budget that we allow us to have a proper marketing campaign like releasing it into film festivals and use social media as a way to promote the film but using a higher budget will allow us to team up and use synergy to attract older and younger audiences.

Evaluation 4

 

Evaluation 5

Evaluation 6

Evaluation 7

Video Diary

Video Diary 2

Video diary

Final Music

This is our final music used for the opening of our thriller film, we added a sound track over the original piece we made and this was called 'you're the one that I want' this made it seem as if the villain was trying to get the girl. The sounds of the piano are to create an eerie thriller link sound. The piece of music is allegorical to a fairytale because we are trying the relate this to a young girl and have done this through a stereotypical convention of a thriller. We believe this music is much more effective in making our audience believe that this is a thriller film.

Research for our music

The first piece of music really highlights on using piano to create an eerie atmosphere, the building of the music allows the audience to be captivated and drawn into what could happen in the film. This would be good to use in our thriller opening as it reminds you of young children and almost seems calming to hear but also quite spooky and it would entice the audience. The second piece of music again uses a piano but also very quietly uses drums to create a crashing sound, this crashing sound, sounds like something is breaking down and if you listen very closely it sounds like the keys of the piano aren't in tune and that immediately sounds if something bad is going to happen. This would be really good to use in our thriller opening because it sounds childlike but has more of this suspense feel that we are looking for, I really like how the piano would accompany out thriller because it sounds like a jewellery box and that is usually associated with young children. On this Youtube account they apologise for the bad quality but I really like how it sounds over the high pitch piano. at the start of this piece it has a high picture repetitive piano noise and this immediately makes me think of a music box, during the course of the music it changes and it gets quite low in pitch and reminds me of a storm as it uses drums to create the sound of thunder, but stills keeps the theme of this jewellery box. this would be great to use in our thriller opening because the rapid change in music will show this deep dark message that we have hidden in our thriller opening and would be able to help us uncover it quickly through the change in music.

Production Logo Research

My media group are edging ever closer too making our production logo. We have decided that it would be good if we looked at others production logos to gain inspiration from it and too see what their effect has on their audience members.

Whenever you see the Universal logo it is instantly recognisable and automatically associated with big name films. This would be good to use in a film that has the genre of sci-fi because of the globe in the middle. This type of  production logo wouldn't work for our media production because we are wanting to base ours on our thriller if its possible and this production logo is a bit too generic.

 

 

This production logo would really fit with our thriller film and we could definitely use this as inspiration when making ours. The dark background that looks like it has scratches on the background make it feel like it has an eerie feel about it and the plant pot could distract the audience into a false sense of security. I will definitely be keeping this production logo in mind when we make ours.

 

 

 

 

The Strada Film production logo is very simplistic but could have an impact on their audience, the logo looks like its a dark road and the blue and white colours are instantly recognisable with thriller films and I would associate this logo with the thriller genre. I really like how this logo is very simple but really set their audience up for knowing what the film could be about.

 

 

From the  research I have done on production logos I will be keeping in mind  Strada Films production logo and Grow Production because they really relate to what my thriller is about and give the genres of the films they produce to the audience and this makes them recognisable in certain  fields of media.

 

 

 

 

 

Shots we didn't include

In the video these are a variety of shots we didn't use because of reasons such as editing and lighting. In the night time shots it became hard to light the set as we didn't have the outdoor equipment that we needed. As a group we did try and use flashlights but it was very effective, however we did manage to get the lights reflect of the camera lense which added disorientation which we really liked and have kept in our final product. The reason most of the shots weren't effective is because we didn't have the equipment to follow the idea we wanted and didn't achieve the best possible look, the editing really hinder us as well with theses shots because they didn't follow a set pattern we needed.

Our thriller music(rough copy)

This is our thriller music on our opening, at the moment this isn't fully completed as we still need to add the soundtrack over the top of the base of opening music, adding the soundtrack of a slowed down version of "Your the one that I want" will added the thriller like sound to our thriller music.

Animatic

This is our animatic storyboard, each shot we have adapted when we were filming due to lighting restrictions.
 

Final Production Logo

This is our final production logo we decided to use this as we wanted to use a mysterious still to the logo this is shown to the colour red which connotes danger mystery and death. The picture behind the at production logo is what's going on in the actual scene behind, we were lucky enough to have a background at this time which was red, in one of our shots. We came up with the name Panic Production as we looked up words in a thesaurus that are associated with sinister, as a group we thought the alliteration of panic productions would stick in the minds of the audience through the P sounds. Although this is a simple production logo we thought we would stick with the natural idea as we didn't want the production logo to take away from the actual overall view of our thriller. I believe that this is an effective production logo as it clearly shows that we are only an independent film company that doesn't have the mainstream budget, but we could become well known through the use of a simple idea. 

Proof of making our thriller music

These are a few images of me making our thriller music and looking specifically at the different instruments that you can hear within the opening.

First look at our old filming.

Before we came up with our final idea for our thriller opening we didn't have a complete different storyline and a different approach on how to film it. We thought an abstract idea based around the hit show "Dexter" would be a really good way to approach this type of thriller. However it became very difficult because we didn't have any narrative and our storyboard wasn't really helping with what we were wanting to achieve, in the end we decided it would be best if we filmed a whole new thriller opening that took and naturalistic approach. In the clip below this is the beginning to the old thriller we were shooting, the editing for this thriller was a lot easier because we knew the direct effect we wanted it to have on our audience. This old thriller had a specific target audience of those who liked violence and crime and wouldn't appeal to our target audience of 16+

Thriller Questionnaire

As a group we decided to ask the following questions to get inspiration and feedback for our thriller opening.

1) What things would you have in a thriller opening? 

2) What stands out to you when watching thriller openings?

3) What would be the plot in your thriller film? 

4) What type of lighting would you use? 

5) What props and costume would you use? 

This also allows us to gain information on our target audience but we could ask further questions to lead us to more direct answers on our target audience.

Location analysis

Filming for our thriller has allowed us to use a variety of outside locations. The first place we used to start our filming was Kelsey Park, the issue we found with Kelsey Park was that it had very restricted lighting, because it is surrounded by trees but that is what we wanted, so we faced a major issue straight away. The good thing about using Kelsey Park one of the locations is we can use the facilities they have in our thriller opening. The bridge used in one shot was filmed in Kelsey Park, and we also managed to get enough light to shine on the trees around, which allowed us to create the perfect shot.

The other location we have used is Crystal Palace Park; we found that there is a remote area which resembles a woodland area.  As a group we thought that this would be good location to use, because it makes it look mysterious and empathises way would she go in there. We thought that this could link to her naïve behaviour thinking she is superior to everyone else.  The hardest part about filming in Crystal Palace Park was the filming inside the woodland area, which made it difficult for the tripod to stand, leaving us with shot that weren’t focussed.

As a group we wanted our thriller to be based outside because, it would be quite different to stereotypical thrillers that are usually set in the city.  However we couldn’t film in the countryside so we wanted our location to represent the countryside, to have a different take on thrillers. The best part about filming outside is we can create shadows from the lighting, so it looks like more than one person. However the lighting is the hardest part for us to cater to because there are limited times that we can film in, before it becomes too dark.

Shot list

A variety of shots have been used, to create mystery and tension within the opening and the narrative being performed.

Rough Cut Feedback questionnaire

Props

Props

These balloons will be used to portray
her innocence and the colour red will
portray danger and death.

The pink headband is being used as
a costume and as a prop because it will be the clue they find.

    

The blue glove has been used so it can
represent a police officier looking for this
young girl.










 

Shoot Schedule

This is our second lot of filming for our thriller film, as we had trouble with the footage.

12th November 2014
We all met and will film for 2 hours to get the footage for the bridge and walking. However we filmed for longer than 2 hours and got a variety of shots that we wont be able to use in the thriller.

22nd December 2014
Me and Kirsty will meet to film all of the night shots, for the search party and will hopefully be able to film for 1hr and 30 mins. We actually filmed all of the night shots in an hour and recorded some sound effects we liked to encorpourate into our thriller opening.

4th January 2015
Myself, Oliver and Kirsty met and filmed the last remaining shots we needed after we started some of our editing.

4th January 2015 onwards
 We finally finished all of our filming and now completing the editing whiles working on our music.

Changing our thriller music

As a group we knew that our music wasn't quite right but we didn't know what. When we received various feedback sheets we found that people thought it sounded like three different pieces of music, rather than one piece, in the end we found the track of the well known song "You're the one that I want" that was slowed down by an artist named Lo Fang. We thought the literal words of wanting someone would symbolise the male characters voice as we only see him twice in the whole opening. This was successful because it was linking the male character with the female protagonist. The section where she is running we decided to take out the overlaying track to make it seem action like out because it have the audience the wrong impression the new music has an almost angelic feel, this is to play on the idea that the young girl is innocent and naive. Overall the reason the music changed was because it wasn't giving the audience the right impression and didn't link to any of the characters we have, these were two things we spoke about when deciding how we wanted the music to sound.

Feedback from Rough Cut Viewing

Rough Cut of Hidden

This is rough cut of our thriller, as you can see the music doesn't fit the whole piece at the moment, we decided to post it like this because we want to gain feedback like this before we finally finish it and then be told that people don't like this about it! Hopefully from posting this people will tell us what they like and dislike about what we have so far and the ways in which we can improve it.

Using Garage Band

This is how Garage band looks, you have a choice of the instrument you use and the tone in which you can play the instrument. I found using garage band quite difficult at the start as I didn't understand how to change the tempo, pace and rhythm. 

This is another image of garage band and how it works this image specifically looks at how we can change the pace of each note through looking at each bar of music.

These are the specific instruments we are using in our thriller opening. The piano sounds make the music seem eerie and using connotes to a young child playing/learning how the play the instrument.

In this image of GarageBand you can see how we have spilt up the drum beat which make the individual sounds that are meant to resemble running, the put another track over it to make the thriller seem more action like, however this was later changed as people didn't think it resembled a thriller at all and made it seem as if it was two different pieces of music. 

Overall using Garage Band has been successful, in total was spent about 2-3 weeks perfecting our music to really fit and sound that it was one piece of music not three by fade certain parts of the tracks or to cross them together. 

Lighting Analysis of Location

As we filmed outside for our entire thriller film, it became very difficult to have the right lighting and we relied on the weather being perfect to film otherwise it would be too dark to film. We were lucky in the sense that the weather was clear but it did then have an issue with it being too bright.
The way we overcame this in Location 1( Crystal Palace Park) was to surround ourselves by trees and that blocked out most unwanted light, the other way was by then adding effects on Final Cut just to make it less bright and more of the light that we wanted. 
In the second location(Kelsey Park) it was harder to disguise the light because we relied on the lighting for the bridge, we tried it being quite dark and we decided that this wasn't they way we wanted it, so we tried it with all light being displayed but drew the attention of the audience to a plant and that managed to work, so there wasn't too much light on the character in the scene then.