Complete Thriller // BLOODSTAINED

Evaluation // Forms and Conventions // Task 1

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

Our media product takes the form of a opening title sequence that includes titles/credits. 
To get to the stage that we are at we had to research different opening sequences to get ideas of what our should look like. Some example we looked at were: 

We looked at Kill Bill because we liked the idea of being trapped in a small place, we also liked the use of the music and the sound effects. We also really liked the way they did they lighting as you can't really tell where she is until later on. This adds a sense of suspense and keeps the audience guessing.

We then looked at American Horror Story because we liked the idea of the scariness of it and the way the cuts are made in a static way. American Horror Story is a horror TV programme so this fits in with our thriller because our thriller has a subgenre of horror. We also really likes the used of natural sounds made into music and the way the cuts are a bit distorted. We wanted to try and do this in our thriller but in the end we decided that it didn't fit in to well with our idea. 

The conventions that we see in our thriller is a weak and helpless girl being the victim. This is a normal convention for some types of thrillers because it is very stereotypical. However, in our thriller we try and break away from the norm as their are other dead girls and only one of them has survived showing that not all girls are weak and the "damsel in distress".

Our titles are very plain because we didn't want them to distract the audiences attention. To help with this we didn't have them on the action but we had them on separate black screens. This made the atmosphere of the thriller really intense and added suspense. We chose a simple font to keep with the simplistic look of our thriller. 

Here are some examples:

When we were looking at ideas to help with our thriller we really liked the simple but effective ones. For example we looked at Se7ev's opening sequence and decided that we their opening sequence was a bit to complex so we made it more minimalistic. 

To get the final product we had to do a lot of research on thrillers and what opening sequence they have and what we need to do to make ours as good as it can be. We did this by planning and having discussions about what we wanted our final product to look like.

Our editing style is again quite simplistic as we didn't want to distract from the action. This is also seen in Kill Bill opening sequence.

Here I have linked both title sequences from Kill Bill and our thriller so you can compare them:

We decided that we should use diegetic sounds to make our thriller more atmospheric. We used gasps, creaks, sounds of the bag rolling over the floorboards and the sound of Rosie crawling on the floor. This added to the suspense of our thriller and made added more tension to it, we used silence in our thriller because we thought that it was a good way to added a eerie feel to our thriller which is what we were aiming for.

Our thriller sets up a narrative by keeping the audience guessing as to what is going on and what is going to happen. At the end our thriller we have the killer open the top of the floorboards however, we don't see the killer. This sets up a cliffhanger and gets the audience wondering what is going to happen next. Also, because our opening sequence has a cliffhanger in it this sets up expectations that the rest of our film will have cliffhangers within it so this will attract audiences and make them want to continue watching the whole film.

Evaluation // Social Groups // Task 2

 How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

Our media product represents mainly one particular social group; teenage girls. This is presented by the camera angles showing the girls and that fact that they are the ones dead. In our thriller Rosie, the main girl, is scared to be under the floorboards which shows that girls are more venerable.

The girls in our thriller are stereotypical because its showing that they are weak and can't defend themselves. However, Rosie challenges these stereotypes because she is alive which means the killer didn't do his job properly. Rosie also has the knowledge to not scream and call for help because she knows that this won't help her in any way so she is thinking in a non-stereotypical way. This can be seen in films such as Panic Room.

When you watch our thriller it is easy to assume that the killer is male so this may represent that men do have that superior power over women and therefore are stronger.

Evaluation // Institutions // Task 3

Evaluation // Target Audience // Task 4

Target Audience

I think that for our film we would have a secondary and primary audience. Our primary audience is teenagers/early twenties aged 16-20 and our secondary audience would be adults aged 25-30.

These are some of the films and TV shows we would expect our audience to be interested in aswell. 

However, our film is probably more aimed towards male viewers as it has the sub-genre of a horror so therefore the stereotypical females may be scared to watch it and so therefore we amy get more males watching our thriller.

They would typically watch films such as:

The Bourne Films: 

Matrix:

Fast and Furious:

We had to think about our target audience carefully because they could be into lot of different types of films and genres so we had to make sure our thriller got their attention.

Evaluation // Attracting Audiences // Task 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation // Attracting Audiences // Task 5 - Part 2

We sent out an email to people so we could get feedback on our thriller and so we can see if our target audience was the right one and if our thriller made them want to watch the rest of the film

This is the email we sent:

And this is the feedback we got back from them:

Doing this really helped because we could see that our target audience enjoyed our thriller and it showed that we were successful in making it.

Evaluation // Technologies // Task 6

Evaluation // Technologies // Task 6 - Part 2

How we added titles: 

First we went on to "Window" - "Project" this brought up the page that we needed.

 A side window then opened and we had to click on "New Item" - "Title"

 We then had to name our first title so we can keep things organised.

A text box frame will appear, this is where we can position and put text in. We can choose any font, alignment and positioning we wanted and that we would think would look best for our thriller.

When we made our opening sequence we had to consider what would attract audiences and what effects would look good on our final piece. We found that sometimes we would put a title in but it wouldn't look good when we played it in full so we had to change it to something more appropriate. 

Evaluation // Technologies // Task 6 - Part 3

We added annotations to our thriller so when you watch it we can explain what we did and how we used technologies:

From this we have learnt that we can edit footage and make a professional opening sequence using the technologies we have been given.

Evaluation // Looking back at preliminary task // Task 7

Looking back at our preliminary task I feel that I have learnt a lot about filming and the process we have to go through. Our preliminary task was very basic and therefore didn't need a lot of planning but we did have a shot list of what we need to shoot. When we were planning our thriller our shot list was more complicated than the preliminary task shot list, which was only a page, and so we needed to have a lot more prep time to get everything sorted and ready so we could use our time to the best advantage. Being organised really helped us to have a filled and productive shooting day and we knew exactly what we wanted to get and we had planned to get the makeup and hair done before so we could start as close to 9am as possible.

When we shot the preliminary task we had to stick to the storyboard so this meant that we didn't really have any freedom with it. However, when we shot our thriller we were able to say what shots we wanted and how we wanted to shoot them so this gave us more freedom.

I have also learnt a lot about the cameras that we used, Sony NX5, by getting familiar with the camera during the preliminary task it enables us to be able to use them efficiently during our shoot day, this was good because it meant that we didn't have to spend ages fiddling around with the controls. However, we always had to remember to focus the camera because sometimes we would forget and therefore an unfocused shot.

Looking back at our preliminary task it is clear to see that we didn't know how to use Adobe Premiere properly as the cuts were very noticeable and it wasn't very smooth overall. However, we have got better at editing and realised that it is easier to cut on action which makes the cut look smooth.
I have alos learned about sound and titles, because for our prelim task this wasn't something that we focused on as we were more interested on actually shooting footage so in our thriller you can see how our use of sound has improved.

Overall I think that we have progressed a lot since our preliminary task in all aspects; filming, editing, pre/post production etc. I think that we have really developed as filmmakers and we feel confident that we did the best that we could have done on our thriller opening sequence. 

The preliminary task also helped us to consider continuity and realise how important it is to get right. When we shot our thriller we had to remember where everything was and the positioning of the girls so the continuity was correct. In our prelim task the continuity wasn't that great as you can see here with the paper and pencil:

We also used match match on action a lot in our thriller because Rosie looks at the dead bodies and so we had to show what she was looking at. We learnt this when we did the prelim task to show who what Christina was looking at:

This makes the action flow and makes sure the audience know what is happening.

When we shot our thriller we didn't have to consider the shot reverse shot because we didn't have two people talking at once, so this eliminated one thing for us to consider. 

We had to consider the 180 degree rule so the audience didn't get confused as to where the bodies are positioned. We had to be careful with this because some shots we got were just past the 180 line so we couldn't use them otherwise it became to confusing for the audience. 

Overall what I have learned from this process is how to successfully make a film and understand the need for capturing the correct shot selection and this enabled me to produce an edited final product.

Title Research

At the end of our editing we started to think about what titles we would want over our opening sequence. We were recommended to look at Art of the Title for inspiration and ideas. This really helped because it had lots of different title sequences that would look perfect for a thriller like ours.

The titles we wanted to include are: 

• Director
• Producer
• Cinematography 
• Makeup Artist
• Editor
• Actors
• Production Company

In the lesson we discussed when we want the titles to be, during the footage or at the end. We then spoke to Matt and he said that having credits over the top of the footage will detract from the action, we all agreed on this. So we decided that we might have the production company at the beginning and maybe one other title and then leave the rest until the end. 

Using the Art of the Title helped us to come up with a basic title idea. Sasha came up with the idea that the tile "Floorboards" could get carved into the surface with a messy handwriting font and this goes well with our thriller idea. We then agreed to use a normal font for the rest of the credits so people don't get to caught up in them. 


We liked the look of Sevens title sequence:

Mastering Continuity

To help out with continuity and making the sequence Matt had told us that it was a good technique to "cut on action" this makes the cuts less jumpy and makes the whole look of the thriller smooth. 

We did have a couple of problems with continuity because if the way Rosie would sit up and her leg positioning. However, after looking at the footage we had we were able to find a shot which worked well and when edited correctly it looked smooth. 

The continuity with sound was a problem because in lots of clips we got lots of extra noise such as; background talking, gasps that didn't fit, etc. This meant that we had to copy and paste the sound of a part we did like over the whole sequence. I then moved the sounds of a skateboard to different parts of the sequence because we thought that the sound was so dramatic that we had to use it but it didn't fit where it was originally so we moved it about to fit in a better place. 

This youtube clip is an example of what the skateboard sounded like, however in our thriller it sounds a bit louder and harsher which creates tension. 

Editing our Thriller

We started looking and editing the footage on Monday, however I wasn't in that lesson and neither was Sasha, so this left India to look thought the shots we took and organise them into the right order. India also got started on editing small sections so when Sasha and I were back in the lessons it was easy to know what footage we weren't using and what footage we were. It also made editing and cutting the clips easier and start to make a rough cut of our opening sequence.

When editing our clips we had to make sure that clips showed what we wanted to show. We did this by using the timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro, this made it easier to see what clips we have edited and what we still needed to do. 

While editing we found that it was important to know what clips were what so we did this by putting them into folders with subheadings. This made it easier to find clips and slot them in so we could edit them. We had to remember to keep saving our work because Adobe Premiere did crash a couple of times which made us have to get Matt or Paul to help us restart it and bring back what we were working on. 

When editing we would being clips forward to the section we were editing and then we would crop them to make them fit in with the rest of the sequence. This was quite hard at a few point because of the continuity however we managed to sort it out.  
We thought we had finished cropping the pieces all together however, we realised that it was to short so we went back and reviewed our footage so we could find something to put in, in the end we found close up of the makeup and we out these together with lots of other shots to make a short sequence of the cuts, doing this added more tension to the overall sequence.