Feedback

These are the feedbacks from people around the school about our media product.

1. What do you think the basic plot of this thriller is?
2.What do you think the key strenghts of this thriller and why?
3. How do you think the thriller could be made more effective and why?

Chloe Cannon:

He is paranoid about something - maybe someone is cyter him.The set was really impressive and the sounds. The plot isn’t very clear.

Siene Nelson-Jaja:

Paranoid cause of the events in a club. The choice of sound was really good.

Vicky Cooper:

Guy in a night club that thinks someone is following him. I think the people in the club and the music are really effective and help it fit in. I don’t think it can be improved.

Ivan Govner:

I don’t now. The set was made well.

Lydia Wesley:

In a night club, getting away. Sound effects is a strength.

Charlotte Bitmead:

A man was in a club and was being paranoid. The atmosphere it created, lights, music etc. and the variety of shots is a strength. Could may include more people or more dialogue. 

Tom Simpson:

Man scared of the party. The lighting and setting are impressive.

So, basically, people liked our video and were intrigued by what is about to happen next, however some of them were confused about the plot, and said it wasn't made very clear. As well as, there were not a lot specific answers exactly like "the man is paranoid about people looking at him as he is on drugs". That was the main weakness of our
thriller. Nevertheless, a lot of people mentioned that the location , lighting and variety of shots was great. As well as excellent choice of the sound.
Additionally, there were some feedbacks saying we could have more people, and the corridor could be more rushing, crowdy and loud.

Task 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The difference between actual thriller and preliminary task is huge! Starting with the storyboard we didn't have much time to work on it in the beginning of the year, but intentionally we didn't do anything special on it. We were given a camera just after the 2nd lesson when some of us held the camera for he first time in their life, we had to film a video, and, moreover, follow the storyboard, and the rules we had just learned (shot/reverse shot; 180-degree rule). We were absolutely alone with no help, but nevertheless had to look at the location, think of the light, and don't forget to use all the options we had learned about so far. While before our thriller day shooting we had few months to prepare every single thing, because every piece of prop is very important.
We had to decide a story and create a storyboard, which was much longer and with bigger diversity of shots comparing to the prelim task, because we needed it to look like a real film, but not a work of a beginners. Also, we relied a lot on the knowledge we've learned during the year, about how to work with the camera, so it was much easier for us to film a real piece, especially as we received  help from Matt and Luke.
The location was one well, we had to print the posts of different sizes , put them all on the walls, invite people, arrange blue cards etc.
Additionally, with the knowledge we've learned we tried to express the paranoia thing with the help of different shot, cuts and angles to create a visual narrative within the sequence and to create an impact.
The prelim was based on the dialogue, whereas our piece was with no words, we made that intentionally
to create a creepy atmosphere and intrigue audience.
When we were doing editing the difference was also very big,  prelim task was done very quickly just in one lesson , while on our main thriller we spent at least 10 lessons, and worked not only in FinalCutPro, but also SoundCutPro, as well as we made a song specially for our thriller. We needed every shot to be in the right place, and all the sounds to be fluent and fit the picture.
In conclusion, we added the titles so that they won't distract audience, but only help us make the right influence on them.

Task 6. Annotations.

Here is our video with the annotations.

Task 5. How did you attract/adress your audience?

How Did You Attract

Task 4. Who would be the audience for our media product?

The main target audience of our film will be people from 14 to 25 years old, because the main issue of our thriller is drugs addiction, therefore particular this audience will be hugely interested in it, as it is somehow connected with them and has a great affect on their lives or lives of their generation. I would imagine our movie to be a commercial film, which will be shown in the cinemas, and our target audience is just in time as these are the people who are considered to be core cinema audience. 

However, secondary audience also can be involved (people from 30 to 55), as these are people who might have children of the age which is largely represented in our thriller, people who are taking drugs and going clubbing.

According to UK film council research people of age from 15 to 24 go to the cinema most frequently, and this is excellent for our thriller, as people of that age are shown in our piece, therefore our film is going to be popular.
Additionally, due to the Thriller genre it will be mainly popular among male audience, as film production experience shows. But as research data show there is no huge difference between male and female cinema attendance.

Task 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product adn why?

As a group we decided to choose Human Traffic as a film that has a simmilar polt to ours as it concentrates on club culture. Looking at the details of who made Human Traffic gave us an idea as to what kind of media institution would produce and distribute our media product. It is a low concept film made by a small British indepedant company called 'Fruit Salad Films'. On IMDb Fruit Salad Films was listed as the the production and distribution company however when I did some further research into the company it looks as if it may have gone bankcrupt as there are no new products listed on their websites -

http://www.fruitsaladfilms.20m.com/

However the producer of Human Traffic is Allan Niblo, who co-founded Vertigo Films around about the same time that Human Traffic was released. Vertigo Films have also made other films that link to our product such as 'The Business' as this is to do with the drug culture in Spain.

Task 2: How does your product represent particular social groups?

Our psychological thriller is about people who have drugs addiction. Audience can see that events take place in an underground nightclub, which looks dirty and cheap. People have alcogol, there is mess on the floor, the music is Drum&Bass and Dubstep. Therefore, the group our peice represents is so-called "club community", people who are hanging out there are taking drugs and drink a lot. Basically, their age is 17-25. Our opening title sequence also covers nowadays problems among young people which is drug addiction, therefore it is going to be interesting not only for teenagers who directly connected with that, but also their parents. It is a psychological thriller with social realism meaning behind. 





Task 1. In what ways does your media product use/develop/challenge forms and conventions of thriller?

In What Ways Your Media..

Account of Editing Process

We all were very excited when the day of starting editing process has come, (in few days after a shooting day) because every person in our team wanted to take a look at what we've filmed and managed to represent in our piece.
First of all, we learned how to sign in in Final Cut Pro which is an amazing program for good quality editing. Then we watch through all the clips and labeled them as BEST TAKE, GOOD TAKE and ALTERNATE SHOT  to arrange shots in very clear and convenient way for further use, without wasting time.

Second of all, we dragged down the clips we'd chosen to the timeline of FinalCut Pro using IN and OUT keys to determine the lengths of every clip. Then we started to work on a structure of the thriller because we made some changes on the storyboard during the shooting day we couldn't follow it, and we needed to work on every piece of clip again to rearrange them as good as possible to create the right picture and tension we wanted to get previously. 

We started with the corridor scene and as far as we began to see clear image of our story we added everything else.

The next stage of our work was refining the audio and transitions between cuts, that took a long time, however needed to be done because of importance. We also used SoundTrackPro to add all the sound effects to create a thriller feeling and make all the actions natural with the help of the sounds, like door closing/opening, crowd voices. 

In conclusion, as we finished all our piece, we started to work on the titles, this process was very easy, and after all the hard work didn't take a lot of time to do, and gave us a nice feeling that there is not much staff to do before we can relax and present our thriller. We had to make sure that the texts were perfect size and all in the same style. Then our thriller was ready to be exported through Apple Compressor in HD and after to be uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo.

It was very time-consuming, however exciting and interesting time, when I've learned a lot and now when feel quite confident in editing I'm looking forward to apply all my knowledge I've gained so far on my AS music video.

Shooting day account

At the very beginning of the shooting day, which started at 9 o’clock, we, first of all, printed off last posters we needed, found all the props and brought them down to the location(corridor) to organize everything for the event. We also found all the people(actors) and told them when are they necessarily needed. we sticked the posters all over the walls, put the black curtain on the back of the corridor, and arranged the lighting. It started just as we were planning. 

Our locations were corridor and boys loo, that helped us to reflect men night club toilet and created the atmosphere of not the luxurious but the underground kind of club. 

We didn’t have loads of props, because we wanted the mise-en-scene to look as close to the real as possible: just a few glasses, bottles, rubbish, and posters on the walls and floor. Actors were wearing usual clothes that they would wear in the club, girls had their evening make up on. Intentionally, we didn’t make an accent on people, but only on the main character , eyes and facial expressions to show the audience paranoia/drug addiction of the main man. Important role in our thriller will play the music and sounds we are going to add during editing, because they are going to create tension. 

We tried to follow the storyboard as much as possible, but everything was actually going by itself, as soon as we started filming, ideas went out of us, and we changed almost every shot, just thinking about the conclusion we would like to receive after all. 

It wasn’t easy to work with so many people (we had 12 actors) but we tried our best to cope with all the process problems and get ourselves organized.  

Firstly, we’ve done the corridor bit, and after 3 o’clock approximately went to the loo, where we didn’t need to have all the people, but only 3.

Cast choice: Adam - main character, and our teacher fitted his role perfectly, as he was working with us through the whole process of inventing the story, from first ideas till the day of the shooting, he perfectly knew every detail about his character, that is why we choose him, because it wasn’t easy to manage to play it great without knowing what you have to do. We didn’t only need a good camera work and editing but also a good play of actors’ facial expressions. That is why every body in our piece has a legible face and eyes expressions. 

We didn’t have a lot of girls, as the actions take part near and in the boys loo. 

The most difficult part was to film Adam walking into the loo and seeing his reflection in the mirror, we hardly manage to film it with the least quantity of camera in the shot, so we will be able to crop it later on during the editing. 

Lighting: we didn’t start our shooting just from the very beginning of the school day because we had a lot of lighting to put in, so they will be looking suitable and not to overfilling the shot. We used UV lights, which we put on the floor and sticked on the walls because it it where they usually located in the night clubs, and also had few colorchanging lamps that are also very popular in clubs to create the atmosphere, however it was very difficult to mix FLO lights with UV lights because one FLO lights destroyed the effect of UV lights, whereas it wouldn’t have been enough light if we’d used only UVs. So, we’ve spend a lot of time setting all off them and changing almost in every shot we were doing. 

 However, we don’t have any dialogs in our extract(as it makes it more creepy) we are going to add sound effects and music that will help to make it look and sound more like thriller, so the audience will be intrigued and excited. We also filmed sound of the loo, that we are going to add while editing the thriller.

It was very difficult and time-consuming work, we’ve finished it at 5 o’clock , so we were working for 8 hours, and everybody who took part in our production were tired and done up, we nevertheless enjoyed it and had a very good experience, which is difficult to get into. So I’m proud of myself and all my group that we’ve managed and impossibly thankful for an enormous help to Luke, who suffered from our inexperience, opened for us the doors to the media sphere and explained and showed how it works. 

Shooting Schedule

 9:00-10:30 – Shot No.

6,8,41,9,10,11,12,36,40,41.


10:30-12:00 – Shot No.
16,17,18,20,22,25,33,34,37,32,38,35,36.


12:00-13:00 – Shot No.
21,23,24,19,28,26,27,29,30,31,32.


2:00-4:00 – Shot No.
1,2,3,4,5,7,13,14,15,42.

Cast

We've looked at all the people from our school, trying to find guys and girls who look older than they are, and are able to represent "clubs and drugs generaton". We chose Adam as a main character as he knew well what exactly we are trying to show because he is our teacher, as well as being a good actor.

STORYBOARD

A time-consumig, however very creative and funny part of our whole work. We all enjoyed it much!