Skills that we have developed

• The preliminary task has given us experience in filming and using equipment such as tripods and cameras.
• It has also helped us learn programs such as final cut express and garageband when editing and creating soundtracks.
• It has given us an insight into what makes a thriller and how we would use cinematography, editing, sound and mise-en-scene to create the conventions.
• When filming our preliminary task we learned to meet deadlines better and stick to our schedules.

My individual contribution so far

For our thriller opening work my individual contribution has involved coming up with the basis for our production logo with our production company name being "footprint productions" and also coming up with the footprint logo. Bryn was able to successfully edit this logo into one with a clouded background which we believe makes it more fitting to a thriller film.

I have also taken part in the decision making process on whether we should have the sub-conscious, who is the antagonist, being shown as being a different person or whether we should show them as being the same person to make it clearer to the audience that it is the protagonists sub-conscious. I suggested that we should show the sub-conscious as being the same person so the audience would understand what's happening. However, in the end we decided to show the sub-conscious as appearing to be an all together different person. My suggestion was a important part to the development of our film as it made us realize that we had a dilemma of making what's happening clear to the audience by clearly showing that the sub-conscious is not a different character or of making the sub-conscious appear to be a different character so that  there are no enigma's revealed in our opening sequence. 

Research of film detail page.

Here is a detail page of the film Snowtown from the IMDb website.
The page includes:
Title
Directors, Writers and a cast list.
Images of a poster and snapshots from the film.
Quick summary of the film, as well as links to related genres.
Information about when the film was made and how many awards it won.
Reviews from other viewers as well as ratings.
Extra technical notes explaining the films colour, frame size.
Trivia "The film is based on a true story"

Film Magazine Covers

Inception - Total Film

The front cover of this magazine contains a lot of variety of tones which makes it atmospheric. It stands out as it uses big fonts and uses a well know film to fill the cover. It also has interesting captions and slogans which promotes the films inside.

The Dark Knight - Empire Magazine

This is a very dark front cover and is abstract making it more original and stands out from the other film magazines. As a main element of the film 'The Dark Knight', it uses darkness to contribute to the effect of it standing out.

The film magazine that would be most likely to contain a review of our film is 'Total Film'. This magazine seems to contain thriller films that are original and unconventional such as 'Inception' and 'The Shining'. Our film can relate to these films and that's why we think our film would be suitable for a review for this magazine.

Thriller Conventions Analysis

Protagonist's weakness is exploited by the antagonist


We took an unconventional approach to this, as the protagonist in our sequence is the killer (but he does not want to kill). And the antagonist is his own mind, or in other words his subconscious that pushes and drives him towards wrong decisions and in the end leads him into killing a victim. The subconscious plays with the protagonist's mind as he reappears in certain places and makes harsh comments on him (or in this case, himself). Using editing, we wanted to not only let the protagonist experience this confusion but also the audience, cutting to different jump shots so that it would seem that the subconscious was something other than human (from one shot where he stands in one place, to the next shot when he isn't there anymore).

An Enigma


The enigma in this sequence revolves mainly around the subconscious. We intended to not reveal that he was the protagonist's own subconscious, but instead, we gave away hints so that the audience will have some grasp on the character.
We didn't want to use a voiceover for the subconscious as there wouldn't be much mystery to the enigma, and instead we used a 'split-personality' element to create the subconscious as a character.
Also, one of our ideas was that the protagonist was the only person who could see the subconscious, and to show this, we used Mise-en-scene (hood) and cinematography (long shots, mid-shots, jump shots etc) to conceal his true appearance. This way, it can make the audience be in that exact same situation of not being able to see his face.
We gave some hints, such as the clothing of the subconscious which was black. This colour can represent evil, or the darker side to the protagonist's mind. Another hint is the way he moves about. In editing, as said before, jump shots were used to show his movement, being in one place at one time and then gone in the next shot.

Challenges of the shoot.

One of our biggest challenges will be trying to partially conceal the identities of the characters using darkness but not making things too dark that it has conventions of a horror or that we are unable to clearly make out what is happening. Because of this how much lighting we use will have to be deeply considered when we arrive at the set of our film.

Also, we need to create an enigma of weather the subconscious is not not real

Review of Equipment

Software

We used garage band to create our soundtrack. It was hard to use because it needs to be created from scratch and express our ideas from only being able to use the limited samples available. In some ways it was helpful because we could listen back at our work.

To create our opening we would need to use final cut express. It was quite easy to learn how to use as we already had experience of using it. Also, we were able to watch our edited clips. The process of editing takes a long and learning how to do special effect often took extra time.

When creating our production logo, we needed to use photoshop. We had experience in this also but with a different version of photoshop so some of the our ideas did not look as we planned. Sadly we were not able to take our on photos so our images had to come from clip art.

A lot of times we need to upload pictures from a camera for things such as location checking. For this we used iphoto. this wasn't helpful because the photos would not come straight to the desktop. However we were able to just drag and drop them out of iphoto to anywhere and uploading pictures only took one click.

Blogger, the website we used to display our work was simple and easy to use but worryingly everyone else was able to get to our work and edit it as well, this felt unsafe.

Hardware

The cameras we used to film with were high definition. Also, they were small and light weight which meant it was easy for us to take them to filming locations. However, being small, they were hard to handle sometimes. They did unfortunately pick up a lot of background noise, this meant we weren't able to hear speech too well.

Because the cameras were sometimes hard to handle, we would often need to use tri-pods to steady our shot. It was able to change to many different heights and lengths but not enough for when we needed to do some high angled shot.

The compact cameras we used to take pictures of our work on paper and our location searching, were very useful because they only took 2 minutes to upload to the blog. 

Pros and Cons of using the equipment/software

Software - Pros


- GarageBand has a variety of sound effects to use for the thriller, not just different instruments for a soundtrack.
- Final Cut Express lets us edit and rearrange clips into a sequence with ease.
- Photoshop lets us use a variety of techniques to enhance a production logo to a professional extent.

Cons


- GarageBand can sometimes be limited to what you want for a soundtrack.
- Final Cut Express can sometimes have difficulty in rendering and converting a film.
- Photoshop can be difficult to work with first-hand and can take some time to learn.

Equipment - Pros


- Camcorder is in HD quality so we can get a good quality for when we upload it to YouTube.
- Tripod is steady and professional-like.
- Filters can help enhance a shot for a certain purpose.

Cons


- Camcorder can pick up unwanted background noise - wind, airplane noises etc.
- Tripod can be take us space and it can ruin a shot if not used properly e.g not set up properly.
- Filters may not fit camcorder and may not be of correct use.

New skills that we've learnt

- We've learnt how to create enigmas which giving too much information away, to make the audience more immersed in the narrative.

-  Learnt how to create an interesting character - 'Achilles Heel'

- How to use a camera in different ways with different effects to give the atmosphere we want.

- Using Final Cut Express to edit clips and use transitions.

- Using GarageBand to create different uses of sound - ambience and tempo to build up tension and suspense.

Our target audience

Audience

- The target audience we are aiming for is the young adults

- Those who are interested in psychological thriller films are targeted in particular

Directors

Richard Kelly - 'Donnie Darko' - This film compares well with our thriller as they are in a similar sort of narrative. The plot shows a man who has a mental delusion which no one else but him can see.

Christopher Nolan - 'Inception' - This film revolves around the subconscious which is a crucial element in our thriller.

Martin Scorcese - 'Shutter Island' - This film has madness and insanity as its enigma as well as the element that pushes the narrative forward.

Possible challenges for shoot

• The weather could affect the atmosphere of the setting, for example, if it is a sunny day it could ruin the mood and tone of the thriller.
• The space in the carpet shop could be difficult to work in as it can be limited and small.
• It is difficult for some members of our group to travel and find the location which we are shooting in.
• In some shots we may accidently film pedestrians walking past the location which could affect the realism of the situation.

Review of Equipment

Software


Iphoto - To upload photos from camera to blog (Storyboards and location research)
GarageBand - To create music for thriller
Final Cut Express - To edit and rearrange different clips from camcorder to the software
Photoshop - To create the group's production logo

Film Equipment


Camcorder - Records footage
Tripod - Steadies shooting - professional. Useful for shooting different angles.
Filters (Optional) - To makes shot seem dark/light or different colour.

Storyboard

Soundtrack Research

Inception - Dream Is Collapsing


- Repetitive building up to create tension
- Builds up into crescendo
- Ambient
- Moderate tempo

The Prestige - Are You Watching Closely?


- Slow tempo
- Orchestral (Violins)
- Low octave
- Low drums
- Dark tone/atmosphere
- Holds long notes (Continuous)

The Taking Of Pelham 123 - It's Me, Man!


- Synthetic sounds
- Moderately slow tempo
- Somewhat ambient
- Classical intruments (Pianos, Violins) mixed with electronic sounds
- Builds up tension and suspense
- Long decaying sounds (Crescendos and Diminuendos)

Film Schedule

Sunday - Carpet shop INT - Daylight
2pm - 4pm

Tuesday - Carpet shop INT - Daylight
2pm - 4pm

We are filming at this this time as the sun sets behind the carpet shop and it will create a dark setting and atmosphere. These days are also the days that the shop closes. 

Shot list

• Mid shot of back of victim sitting in chair
• Extreme close-up of victims dangling hand
• Canted shot showing protagonist walking towards victim
• POV shot showing subconscious interacting with victim
• Close-up of protagonists face
• POV shot of victim in chair without the subconscious
• Close-up two-shot showing subconscious shouting into protagonists ear
• Close-up (slightly further away than previous shot) of protagonists reaction
• Mid-shot showing protagonist startled and looking around
• POV shot showing protagonists view as he looks around
• Long-shot of subconscious in the background whilst the protagonist frames the shot
• Mid-shot of the victim in the background whilst the protagonist turns his head to frame the shot
• Long-shot of previous shot
• POV shot as the protagonist slowly walks towards the victim
• Extreme close-up of the protagonists feet hesitantly walking
• Long-shot of subconscious interacting with victim whilst the protagonist frames the shot
• Close-up of protagonists face (faced towards window)
• Mid-shot of subconscious and protagonist talking whilst looking out the window
• Long-shot showing protagonist walking towards the camera causing a blackout

Test footage - Thriller

Thriller conventions and camera techniques (test footage)

Thriller conventions

• Un-reliable narrator - the audience will not trust the narrator as he will manipulate us into thinking he is the protagonist.
• The narrative presents ordinary situations in which extraordinary things happen- the setting is in a carpet shop.
• The protagonists weakness is his subconscious which is also the antagonist.

Camera techniques

• Canted angle- we could use this technique to create suspense in the narrative and show the protagonists delusions.
• Low angle- As a point of view shot of the tied up person to show his weakness.
•  Over shoulder shot- to block some of the frame and make the narrative subtle.