Problems we needed to improve and how we overcame them.

Our negative feedback was-

Lack of camera angles- We only really had 4 different camera shots, one of the police officer entering the interregation room, one over the shoulder shot from barneys view, one over the shoulder shot from mr goulds view then one close up shot of barneys face. We realised that it would of been so much of an improvement if we maybe added point of view shots of the photographs of victims and a cctv high angle shot of the room.

Framing- We realised last minute that we could of cropped down the shot to focus more on the actors then the surroundings as we had shelves sticking out alot of the plain wall which we did not need.

Cutting- When we watched the clip in front of the class we realised alot of errors with the cutting as some parts did not flow nicely. This is something we definetly need to make sure is improved on for next time.

Costume on Barney- Some of the feedback was commenting on how Barney had alot of coloured wristbands that did not look right for his part of a murderer.

No flashback- Orignally, the plot was that Barney had a flashback of getting bullied when there is a close up of his face, but we did not have time to fit this in. It would have made it so much exciting but it still worked well.

So, next time we are going to ensure that all camera angles are used and we make more accurate cutting for the main task.

What we succeeded in

From general class feedback and our groups point of view, the parts we succeeded in were-

Actors- Thankfully we had brilliant actors who have had experience in acting and made the atmosphere very suspense. If we did not have these actors, we probably wouldn't have succeeded as well.

Script- We throughly thought through the plot and made the script as realistic as we could to a police interregation interview.

Props- For our props we had exactly what we needed-a tape recorder, a telephone, a folder, evidence, photographs, small table and chairs.

Music- We knew that an interregation room would be quite suspense so we decided not to add music (which worked very effectively) but for the beginning section of mr gould walking into the interregation room we added a delicate piano tune from garage band with police sirens in the background to add a bit of tension to the atmosphere and then once the police officer entered the interregation room the door slammed the music stopped.

Preliminary Exercise

This is our Preliminary Exercise. We feel that it went successful in the end after alot of organisation. We suceeded in many parts but obviously found out we needed improvements. We got feedback from the rest of our class and the negative feedback helped us understand what to improve next time, which will be the main task. It took us approxmatly four hours to shoot and organise.

Production of Preliminary Exercise

For the production of our preliminary exercise we brainstormed some ideas of what would make a good thriller. As a group, We came up with 8 different story boards and decided on which ones we liked best to link with our main project. We explored Themes, Locations, sub-genres, Characters and plots.

Eventually we came up with an idea of a murderer when he was student and was being badly bullied and came to see his teacher to complain about him being bullied. This idea was meant to fit in with our main project of being a flashback. We then started to think of location- we wanted to look at a classroom which looks quite old fashioned (something in the 90s) and which isn't too small or too big. In our school we have porta cabin classrooms which was perfect to work in and around as it looked typically boring and dull. After that, we took some photographs of different camera angles in the classroom and out the class room e.g. High angle shots, tracking shots etc...

We then had to sort out our actors, so we decided to use our friend from college, Barney Smith to be the murderer as he is very good at acting and has been on several stage performances and also does A level Drama.

We also used Mr gould as the teacher. Then our two friends Kerry Jones and Sam Cheasley as the bullies.

As further development progressed, we felt that the plot line didn't have any thriller aspects in it and wasn't very catchy or gripping as we hoped it could be. We thought that if we added some tension and suspense, it won't only look good but would also help us towards the main project and would also be easier to script convincingly. So, we decided to change the plot line to be in a interrogation room where the murderer in present day is being questioned by a police officer about past murders of several of his ex school friends who were actually bullies. The murderer will then have about a 10 second flashback of back in the days of when he got bullied by the school kids.
By doing this plot line instead of the other one will make it more interesting and add some suspense to the plot. It also relates to our main task idea and fits better with the preliminary brief.

From changing the idea, we had to start planning out our locations, actors, scripts and props again. We thought carefully of where our location should be and we found a little office in our school which is the perfect size of an interrogation room. It also looked very convincing as it was quite small and plain.

This a copy of our script we gave to our actors to learn but they improvised most of it very well.

We also sorted out a shooting timeline of what days and times we are shooting, which actors, props and location. It worked out very well apart from some days the actors could not make it last minute and one of the days of shooting was at a lunch break which was half an hour so in the end we did not have enough time and had to cancel.

In the end, we did not have enough time to add the flashback bullying scene and thought it wasn't that neccesary. So, we did not use Kerry Jones and Sam Cheasley as our bullies in the end.

Preparation for Preliminary Exercise.

We then had to start preparing for our Preliminary Exercise which the brief stated to....

-Involve filming and editing a character opening a door and crossing the room
-Sitting on a chair opposite another character
-Exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue.
-The task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

So Our group decided to brainstorm some ideas and make storyboards of what we thought were good ideas. We ended up picking out the best one out of five and made a main storyboard which showed the plotline of the task.

After this, we started by experimenting with music on Garage band of what we thought sounded good to fit in with our plot. We found this hard as we didn't want to make a sound that was to drastic for what it actually is. Eventually, We ended up by finding a sound of a delicate piano which we thought was really effective because it created a eery and suspense atmosphere.

Looking into Hollywood Thrillers

We then started to watch openings and specific scenes of many classic thriller films by film directors such as Hitchcock and Fincher.
We started by watching a clip from 'Psycho' which is directed by Alfred Hitcock. It was made in the 1960s but it was actually Hitchcocks most famous thrillers. The scene we analysed was when a woman was taking a shower and a man comes in the bathroom and stabs her. We analysed parts such as the Camera angles, mise-en-scene, music and how it all creates tension and atmosphere. We realised that because it was made in 1960, the technology wasn't so good but it helped us compare to what type of thrillers we have present.

'The birds' was another thriller that we watched and it was another one of Hitchcocks famous thrillers. It was about a small village in which had vicious birds that started attacking people. Hitchcock incorporated a CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) into the film, to make the flock of birds comuter generated.
After looking at the old thrillers, we looked at David fincher's 'Panic room' which is more modern then the old hitchcock films that was done around the 60's. It was set in New york city around the year 2002, so the location has not changed much since then. It was about a woman and her teenage daughter who were imprisoned within a panic room with criminals breaking in their house. It was interesting comparing how updated technology and class has changed and how much difference it makes in tension and how a thriller should be. Although the technology was not up to date in Hitchcocks thrillers, it still created atmosphere.

After looking at proffesional thriller films we started by looking at opening thrillers created by students our age, and surprisingly they are very well done and looked proffesional. It gave inspiration to all of us and also ideas of how we can set up our main task and preliminary.

AS Level Media Research and Preparation

For our AS level Media Project, Our Main task is to create a 2 minute opening of a Thriller. So...From the beginning of September, We started our research by discussing 'What is a thriller'

A thriller is a type of genre which is portrayed mainly through movies, programmes and books. They are fast paced, gripping and exciting and are made to create suspense and tension towards the audience. Thrillers can be put into sub genres such as Action thrillers, Crime, Drama and Psychological. There are many Techniques used to create tension in thriller movies but Techniques like Suspense, Red herring and cliffhangers are extensively used.

We explored ideas of what a thriller is by doing spider diagrams for brainstorming and this helped us get a right idea on what we will be doing. We then looked at different camera angles so we are familiar on what type of shots are used on films and how it will help us for our project. We looked at High angle shots, close up shots, panning, aerial shots, long shots and more.