Evaluation Presentation

We decided to present our evaluation to a group of our target audience, we did so by using a projector to project the presentation and from there we all roughly talked about each slide. At the end we showed the audience our thriller opening and got feedback from them. However the video was too big to upload to blogger and can be found on the disk.

All of our other videos can be found on youtube at: www.youtube.co.uk/calumandzoe



What have I learnt?

Throughout the months of creating our media product I have learnt many things, most importantly how important each production stage for filming is. I have learnt how to well work in a group and how to succesfully manage a filming shoot with actors and props. I have also learnt about many new technologies for editing and sound making (iMovie and Garageband), before I had no idea how to use these but I now know shortcuts on how to cut movies and where to find/how to create the best music on Garageband. All together this has been a very knowledgable few months in which I have gained vital experience with media equipment and functioning.

Evaluation - Powerpoint

Here is my groups evaluation which contains 7 questions explaining the making, useage, comparison and everything else about producing a thriller opening/film. Everyone did different sections and then Zoe and I 'fine tuned' the slides to make them easier to read for presenting and to add extra information.

Directors commentary

As part of our evaluation we have done a directors commentary over our video showing what we liked and what worked well with the thriller conventions.

I also posted our main task onto youtube and asked for feedback from other youtube users, two users commented useful posts which can be seen below showing what they liked about our thriller opening.

Main Task Finished!

After months of working we have finally completed our main task to a standard of which we are all happy with. Here is our finished thriller opening product:

Change of main task

After filming our main task we watched it back and though it lacked major aspects of a thriller, we spent weeks filming and editing it and we felt as though the shots weren't continuous, the sound (non-diagetic) was rubbish and the overall storyline failed to create suspense/tension and made little sense. As we were so unhappy with our thriller opening we decided to film it again at last minute, we quickly thought up ideas and by watching a few videos of thriller sections (which I will post below) we came up with an idea and even music.
Our new idea kept some scenes of the old shooting in so that made it even easier for us as nearly half of the filming was done already, however we still had to film over half of the opening. We chose my house as a setting as it is a typical household setting which we wanted for the scene.
The story of our new opening:
The scene will open with the shots of a dead girls eye and zoom out into her body, during this there will be flashes with the titles and credits in. During this scene there will be voices explaining the death and other voices explaining what has gone wrong in the dad of the dead girls life since the murder. The last flash will then fade out into a new scene opening with the dad waking up on what seems to be a typical day, (shown by how he gets up, listens to the radio and cooks breakfast) however he then recieves a phonecall which then reminds him to phone someone. As the phonecall ends the scene fades to black and then the title of the film fades in.

The main idea behind our new film was from the thriller 'Taken': www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y_Wu36wIEM

After watching this scene on youtube we had the idea for our storyline and also the phonecall at the end.

Another thriller we research was 'The Lovely Bones', we really liked the idea of a man trying to find the murderer of his daughter and becoming obsessed by it. This partly gave us inspiration for the story and some of the shots that we have used.

Actors

The protagonist in our film is the dad of the dead girl who is played by Jack Higgs. Although he isn't the ideal age that we were hoping for to play the dad, we thought he would do a good job as he has a serious posture about him.

The dead girl is played by Charlie Leslie who is the original actor from our old filming, we chose her because she is young and comes across as innocent and vunerable.

The main detective is played by Michael Scorer as he seems a lot more older and mature than other actors making him more fitted to the role of the main detective

Script:

Media Script and actors -

Voice over’s (beginning scene)

Distressed roommate, (played by Tilly Guess):
Please help, it’s my roommate, I don’t know what to do she’s not breathing
Policeman informed (played by George Nicholls):
I’m sorry to have to inform you but we’ve found a body, we believe it’s your daughter
Mum/Mrs Watson (played by Lauren Anthony):
Oh god, no (in tears)
Dad/Mr Watson (played by Jack Higgs):
Have you found out who did this to my daughter?
Policeman:
I’m sorry but we can’t find him, we’re going to have to drop the case
Dad/Mr Watson:
You can’t do this!
Boss of Dad (played by Calum Bowen):
I’m sorry Mr Watson I’m going to have to let you go.
Mum/Mrs Watson:
You’ve got to stop drinking Jack. I need you (saddened)
Dad/Mr Watson:
I will find who did this!
Mum/Mrs Watson:
Can’t you just let it go?!
Dad/Mr Watson:
How can you say that?!!
Mum/Mrs Watson:
I’m sorry Jack, I can’t do this anymore


Second scene (all played by the Dad)

Dad/Mr Watson (on phone to killer):
Is this Mr Hunt? 5 Years ago you were involved in the murder of my daughter. I will find you, and I will kill you.

Storyboards of added flashback scene

As mentioned in the previous post I said we were going to add a flashback of the girls death into the scene, here are the storyboards that Zoe and I have drawn up to help us on the day of filming.

First edit of our main task

Here is a clip of the begining edit of our main task, the idea behind this clip was to give us an idea of how the story was turning out and what else we needed to include into it. When this was edited we had not filmed the second part of the thriller in which the killer is watching through the computer camera.

Good points:

• The zoom out on the eye is effective and the white flashes with the camera click makes sense and works well with the credits.


• There is evidence of smooth and continuous editing allowing the story to be fully understood


• The sound is good and the speech can clearly be heard meaning we will not have to include subtitles like our preliminary


• The mise en scene works well with the detectives dressed formally giving an authoritive identity, the props such as the crime scene tape and camera also fit in with the police scene.

Bad points:

• Some shots are jumpy and shakey giving off an unprofessional feel


• The fonts in the titles need to be changed to suit the genre more


• Music/sound needs to be added to help create tension and suspense as without it the scene isnt very interesting


• A wider variety of shots need to be added and we now want to add a flashback of the girls death as at the moment the story is weak. The camera angles and flashback would engage the audience more and make the storyline more effective and also show that our group understands and can use more techniques in filming/editing.