Finished Thriller film Opening

Here is the final cut of the film opening, the plot of the story so far consists of the Antagonist kidnapping the Protagonist and holding a ransom for him, the antagonist gets a phone call about the ransom only to find out the specific money required has not been met and has to keep the hostage for even longer than originally thought.  

Evaluation Question 7 - The film commentary and review

Evaluation Question 6

what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the process of creating this media product i have had to use many different types of technologies whether it be physical technology which we can hold, touch and use ourselves or if it is non-physical software such as adobe premiere or websites like the one i am using right now.

Hardware

The hardware which i have mostly used throughout the entire course are things such as the camera recorder, digital still camera, the tripod and the microphone.

I have extensively used the camera throughout the recording of the film and have used the camera as well in uploading the footage onto the computer in order to use it through other programs and software's such as premiere pro and sometimes even Photoshop especially when we had to use in order to create the ident and other aspects of the film.

The digital still camera was also used throughout the creation of the other blogs and even more so when it came to taking photos of the storyboard and shot list etc. so we have also use that quite a bit and used it in uploading the photos to the computer in order to be posted onto my blogs.

The tripod was used throughout the entire filming process, there were very few moments where we did not use the tripod for filming as the tripod really helps to keep the camera stable and stop it from wobbling or looking uneven in any kind of way.

The microphone was also used for the majority of it except for the mo
ments where the wind was so strong and relentless that we were just physically not able to use it otherwise it would end up sounding really bad and the audio of the actors would be indistinguishable, we used the microphone for everything else however as it just generally allowed for better and crisper quality than the cameras built in microphone and also allowed us to hear what everyone was saying or all of the ambient sounds even if they were pretty far away as the mic is that powerful it can even pick up footsteps from the other end of the road, this is why we decided to use it as the cameras microphone would just not be able to pick this kind of stuff up. 

Software

I have used many types of software extensively throughout the entire course and they mainly consisted of premiere pro, adobe after effects and adobe Photoshop. 

The main one which i used out of all of these was premiere pro and to some extent after effects and Photoshop, premiere pro was the software which we had use for the video editing and is the main reason as to why the finished product is how it is now, we used this software in order to put all of the footage together and edit in any sound effects or extra audio which we needed such as the door creak when Destiny opened the shed in order to see Sam and other sound effects such as the lock on the door once Destiny shuts it behind him and leaves Sam.

Photoshop was mainly used for the creation of the ident and the images which were part of it, i ad used Photoshop in order to edit the image of the moon above the ocean and to also edit the text onto it above the ocean but appearing in front of the moon. 

I had played around with adobe after effects at one point in an attempt to create a different version of the ident however we did not end up using it as the group decided that we could create an simpler but just as effective ident through using premiere pro and the effects option which that had. 

Internet sites

I have used many, many different types of websites through the creation of these blogs especially through the creation of these different kinds of evaluation questions, the main ones which i have used are blogger, padlet, wallwisher, spicynodes and slide share.

All of these have been used for the different evaluation questions and if you was to go back through my blogs and check all of them then you would see the examples of different types of websites which i have put together.

I mostly enjoyed using padlet and Spicynodes mainly due to the fact that they are vibrant, colorful and interactive which makes them much more easier to use and much nicer to look at than say just a blogger post or just a power point

Through this course i have learnt to use all of these different types of website and have learnt how to use all of the different software which i have listed above as well as learnt how to effectively use a camera, tripod and microphone and how to effectively use a digital camera as well, i have also gained many skills when it comes to the creation of videos and different types of presentation websites and have gained a lot of new skills with the usage of software and different types of programs especially with premiere pro, i have basically edited nearly all of our past works and when the group has a problem with editing they come to me for help sometimes so that is just proof that i have gained new knowledge, skills and have adapted to using them very well. 

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Created with Padlet

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

First day of filming

First day of filming 

The first day of filming our thriller opening was exceptionally good with us almost getting everything done within the first day alone the only reason why we had to go back to Sams house to continue shooting the next time we could was simply because it had gotten too late and far too dark for us to be bale to do the outdoor scenes so we had to wait until it had gotten light again. 

On the first day however we sat down and talked about what we were going to film and and we changed a couple of things such as the  order it was going to be filmed in and the rooms of the house it was going to be done in but we did get on with it and got everything almost done even the scene where Sam was tied to the chair however we did have to go back later on to re film as there was stuff that had to be redone and could be done better as well.

Treatment

Treatment 

Group roles:

Cinematography: *James 

Mise-en-scene: Destiny, Sam 

Sound: *Azimul

Editing: Jack, Destiny 

Title of movie:

Patience 

Movie synopsis:

The main back story of this short film opening is a young male has been kidnapped and is being held ransom by a criminal who is looking to make some quick cash, the criminal waits for the call from one of the boys friends about how much money they are able to get together for him only to find out that it is not enough, the criminal then goes out to the shed to let the boy know they could not get the correct amount of money and the boy will have to find out the consequences of failure later on. 

Genres:

Thriller, Drama, Crime 

Initial ideas

Initial ideas:

For our media film which we produces we initially had a few ideas which we played around with until we finally settled on one idea indefinitely and went with that one.

One of the original ideas which we had consisted of a boy walking along the street and then being kidnapped by a mysterious assassin in a car and being forced in, where he would be held at gun/knife-point and questioned about drugs it would have then ended with a hand flopped outside of the car trunk and then a cut to black, although this was a pretty good idea to begin with we decided that it would be better to not go with it as it would be pretty hard to get someone to drive a car that we knew as all of our fathers would be working at the time of the recording and our mothers either looking after siblings or working as well. so we decided not to go with this idea and decided to rethink and come up with others, also the other main reason as to why we didn't decide to do this as it would be awkward to do the whole knife/gun-point without possibly getting into some kind of trouble.

The second idea which we had had come up with was an idea where a group of people would meet up within a park or a back alley and would be there for a deal of some kind with another group of people only for it to go wrong where someone would be killed by a gun or weapon of some kind and both groups would have to try and escape for their live, the main problem for this one was simply the lack of people to do it and we in no way had enough people to do this kind of project and we also had no idea how we would be able to do the murder scene either as we had no idea how we could make it a believable shock for both the groups of people. 

Eventually we gave up with both of these ideas and decided to settle on one which would go on to become our actual film and would consist of a kidnapping and a ransom  gone wrong. 

Introducing our group

Introducing our group

Above is the group that i am going to working with for media, it consists of me (middle), Sam Dell (right) and Destiny Ogbeide (left), originally we were part of a bigger group with two more people that are not shown in the picture and we are going to still be working with and helping them with their film however we do have to focus on our own and get ours done as well and it is us three that are going to be working together throughout the coursework.

How to film a thriller

How to film a thriller:

Thrillers have many aspects of cinematography,sound and other devices which make it a thriller and make it easily identifiable to be a thriller, these aspects are known as "thriller conventions" and the majority of them are all outlined within the film clip below. When we talk about filming a thriller and the key aspects which make up one we normally talk about a couple a couple of main features, we normally discuss the shot types, sound, mise en scene and editing as thrillers have a particular way of going about these features and i am going to be observing and talking about all of them within the thriller scene below.

Editing

During not even the first minute of this short movie there is some editing immediately thrown into it, we begin with a fade which is a classic thriller editing techniques used to show the passage of time and is mostly used during a longer driving/walking scene and is used to speed things up, throughout the film there are also many consecutive straight cuts which are mainly used to speed up the video as well and are the simplest but also arguably the most effective way of using transitions mainly due to the fact that  the cuts are "invisible", this means that we do no really point them out or dwell on them too much and that we just continue watching the movie as if it is just one continuous recording which is great for any film maker as this allows them to do multiple shots without bothering the audience too much, this type of transition is especially useful when it comes to thriller movies as there are so many shots that these types of movies use the best way to get between all of them is through straight cuts. 

Cinematography

 The cinematography for this clip is very good as it accurately portrays any and basically every thriller movie as the majority of them will have at least one of the shots which are present within this miniature film, the most obvious shot which is in the clip is the close up as many of them are used to prtray the main characters feelings at the time and to show that he feels he is in trouble without actually saying anything or doing anything outright the close up on the facial expression is more than enough to convey to the audience the feelings of the character and the fact that he feels as if he is in danger. The other shot which also conveys to us this sense of danger is the medium shot of the passageway which gives us this sense of somebody watching the man and what he is doing and making it very ominous, the final shot worth noting in my opinion is the steady-cam shot at the end of the film which is used in many other thriller films when following the main character as it makes you feel as if you are actually following them yourself and part of the action and great escape yourself.

Sound
Sound is also a major role within any thriller film and this short one portrays the correct use of it very effectively, at the beginning before any danger or worry is present there is just the happy sound of birds chirping and the outdoors however once the man enters the seemingly abandoned ruins all of this happy and upbeat audio immediately stops and is instead replaced by ominous diegetic sounds such as water dripping and footsteps and really gives off this sense of danger and worry which really works together well with the creepy surroundings. Once the man leaves the ruins again and his heavy breathing has slowed down it goes back to the happy sounds and the sounds of the birds again to show that everything has gone back to normal. 

3rd production meeting

Our third production meeting was very productive as this was the one where we had to decide what we actually wanted to re-shoot and what we thought could stay in the film so this was the one where we had to actually go over what was good throughout the whole film and what was bad and we also had to go over what editing was good or bad as well so we had to decide during this meeting what was going to be the whole outcome of the film and what was staying/going. 

So this meeting had taken place after the first draft had been completed and uploaded and was basically us reviewing everything and going back over it, we decided that in the end we had to reshoot the scenes outside, the scenes with Azimul and had to redo the scenes where Destiny was at the table taking the phone call and we had also decided that we would wait and do it a little bit earlier due to the fact that a lot of the footage was unseeable and had to be redone during daylight. 

^ This had to be redone as this was basically all we could se for half of the film. 

First draft/evaluation

This is the very first draft of our film with many things wrong with it or that are present in this first draft but are not present in the final film such as the beginning scene with destiny on the phone we did re-shoot all of that in the end with different scenes due to the fact that those scenes in the first draft did not really make all that and could be a lot better than what they were, the scenes which were done outside in the garden as well had to be redone due to the fact that they were far too dark for us to actually see anything when it came to editing and uploading it so that was another thing which we had to redo.

And finally we had to reshoot and include the the scenes with azimul due to the fact that the phone conversation at the beginning did not make any sense at all as we could not see the person which destiny is talking to on the other side of the phone. 

audience Feedback

The audiences which i had shown the film to had all said that they had liked what had been done with it and my parents in particular had said that they both had liked the ominous and they had both liked the fact that the filming was done nearly at night-time so that it was pretty dark in the end footage however it was light enough for us to see everything that was happening without it being too dark, However my friend that goes to college did say that he thought it could be a bit better with the acting part and though we could have re-done those especially with the scene with azimul walking in the street, he did say that we could have either extended that a bit more or we could have made it seem a bit more believable with him panicking. 

Screening

Above is the finished film which i had shown to both relatives and friends, i had shown it to both my parents and my grandparents as well as some of my friends which are both not in sixth form and are not in my media lessons so it would have been the first time which any of them had seen it, i showed my nan and my friends through my smartphone and had let them know about it through word of mouth and by seeing them personally i also had shown my parents through the laptop when i was at home.  

Designing/Making: Title sequence

In our group destiny was in charge of producing the title sequence during the editing stage, this means that he was the one which had to decide which order to put everything in and also had to decide who got what role in the title's. 

After the ident this is the order which Destiny had decided to put everything in:

1. A film by (director)
2. starring(cast which feature in film)
3. music by(Destiny and me)
4. editing by(Destiny and me)
5. cinematography by
6. set design (Sam)
7. make-up and costume design (Sam)
8. Producer/producers
9. and lastly the director

In order to make the titles you have to do the following:

Once you have clicked on the following this menu will appear and if you want you can re-name the title:

Once you have clicked OK this window will appear where you can change the font, text size and the colours if you wish to then once everything is how you want it just click the close button at the top right of the window and the title should appear in the bottom left box of the screen where the rest of the clips are located:

From the box shown you can just drag it into the timeline where you want it to be:

You can also implement fades and other such transitions into the title in order to make it fit better into the film and not just jarringly appear out of nowhere which would just look bad anyway.:

Designing/Making: Ident

This is the ident which we had decided to use in the end with our full film, i had created it and i had decided to use destiny's name as part of the ident itself as he is the main antagonist in the film and we had decided to use the moonlight on the ocean as the background as the the entire opening is filmed at night-time with the moon out so this ident will greatly reflect the film itself. 

Editing 1

Our first day of editing was very successful, we managed to basically finish all of the editing off in the time period which we had allocated to it although some of the bits we had actually recorded were not all that good or were not as well done as they could have been so we did have to go back and re-film those parts and then we did have to go back and edit those in again. 

This is a screenshot of the finished video as it is now.

This is a screenshot of the timeline of the finished film in premiere pro and also shows us any edited fades, titles etc which we had implemented into the finished product.

This is a screen shot of a singular clip in the timeline and how we had to raise the volume on this one piece in order to hear it over everything else.

This screenshot is of the edited sound which we had put in and shows us how we had to align the sound effect perfectly with the action in the film to make it seem realistic. 

Thriller titles

Thriller titles:

This title opening is a great exam of a modern thriller opening as it is mysterious seemingly dark and does not tell you much about the actual film itself while giving you enough to keep you interested and want to continue watching the actual movie itself.
All we see during the opening really is a hand that is seemingly scraping dead skin off the fingertips or keeping them clean however the curious thing about the seemingly harmless activity is the fact that he/she is using a razor-blade of all the available tools to clean his hand with which is a bit suspicious as when we think about  razor blade we normally think about it cutting into something so this will motivate us to watch the movie as we will want to find out why that razor blade seems to be so significant during the opening scene.
The opening also seems to be mostly based around numbers and seemingly information such as in books and articles, we will also want to continue watching in order to find out what the big deal with all this information is as the man seems to be crossing out specific words and even roping together pieces of article.
The title sequence does a great job at keeping the audience wondering and watching without giving away too much or too little and risking driving away the audience from the movie and making people want to leave due to either boredom or knowing too much about the movie without actually watching it, 

Shooting schedule

Shooting Schedule

Day	Scene	Location	Equipment	Costumes	Props	Cast +Crew
1:  2:  3:	Opening scene with telephone conversation. Scene walking down the path and shed.  Reshooting of the scene where walking down the path.	Sams house. Sams house.  Sams house and garden path.	Camera, tripod, microphone. Camera, Tripod, Microphone.  Camera, Tripod, Microphone.	Destiny wearing generic clothing. Destiny in the same clothing, Sam in "rags".  Destiny in same generic clothing.	Newspaper.  Sam taped up in the chair, Torch. No props really.	Destiny and azimul.  Destiny and Sam.  Just Destiny.