Evaluation – Question 6 – Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The preliminary task was to see if we could meet the brief given, learn how to use equipment in order to create a product, and learn filming techniques. The preliminary task helped our group to train to work effectively in a group. It gave us an insight into what our thriller opening will involve, for example working to a tight schedule.  The prelim task also taught me about filming techniques and continuity editing, such as the 180 degree rule and match-on-action. Continuity editing is very important in the film industry as it can make the film look professional and keep the audience entertained and appealed.

I was also encouraged to experiment with narratives and could use this task to think of possible plots and storylines for the thriller opening. The preliminary task also gave the inexperienced users of iMovie to learn how to edit in time for the real product, such as myself. I learnt how to create a detailed storyboard and how to work in an effective team. By learning how to use the equipment before our main product, it made our product better as we had learnt how to correctly plan, film and edit.

Evaluation – Question 5 – What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The technological equipment we used were:

• Digital camera’s to film our product
• Flip cameras to film any extra vox pops or small footage such as interviews
• Imac to edit our recorded pieces
• Imovie (programme/software) which was used to edit the thrillers
• Garage Band was used for any music or SFX
• Internet for research

There were advantages as well as disadvantages to using this equipment.

Digital cameras pros
-very simple to use

-portable so can film in many places

-small and easy to manouver from a wide variety of angles

-digital so can watch back footage and delete unwanted footage easily

Digital cameras cons
-not the best quality

-quality becomes grainy in the dark

-not all sound is recored properly – no actual microphone

-no special lighting

-limited battery life

Flip cameras pros
-very easy to use
-portable and handy for quick interview
-good for recording sound that was not recored proper due to bad mic in digital camera

Flip cameras cons
-limited battery life
-very low quality

Imovie pros
-Very easy and fast to use
– can easly acheive and edit what you want e.g cropping, split, cutting etc
-variety of effects and transiions you can use
-can experiment with footage

Imovie cons
-limited amount of titles and style of titles to choose from so it was difficult to pick a suitable

-limited sound, and sound had to be locked into place

Here are some shots of when we were editing:

This shows one of our team members editing our thriller opening, whilst we are all present ready to discuss the changes.

Other limitations

-no lighting equipment so it was hard to keep with continuity and hard to attain and lighting effects we wanted
-no recording equipment so it was hard to get some os the sound we wanted at the best of its quality

Overll i think that the technology we had was good and helped up achieve our thriller opening to a proffesional level. Also i learned a lot on how to use these pieces of technology properly which im sure is going to help me in the future. Personally i think they have helped us to be very creative as we had all of the resources ready and what we could do is quickly play around with what was available.

Evalutation – Question 4 – Who would be the audience for your media product? How did you attract/address your audience?

The entire point of creating a film is for the audience’s pleasure. The audience is important because they are important to the industry for making money. The first thing our group had to look at was the target audience of our thriller opening. From there, we could establish our certification from the material in the film. We checked the BBFC website for the guidelines and certification of films. Our film is a 15, due to mild language and mild horror. The demographic profile of our primary audience is 15 year olds to adults (young adults+). The secondary audience is thriller fans, and the tertiary audience is general film fans.

Films are definitely gendered in the film industry nowadays, for example chick flicks. However, we challenged that and had no specific gender for the film, however the ages may vary from 15-30, as thrillers are commonly watched by teenagers and adults. There is no social class or specific ethnicity to our film, unlike Bollywood films what has a strong popularity with Indian culture. ABC’s way of segmenting is also a way of categorizing audiences. Psycho-graphics are important too such as certain people’s life styles, moods, hobbies, interests, attitudes, aspirations, or opinions, this is another type of profiling audiences. . Some people do not like specific genres or even people starring in the film, which will result in a loss of customers. It also depends on where people live, as some customers may live further away from the cinema and may not want to travel a long distance in order to get to the cinema.

Like ‘Devil’, our genre is a mystery thriller. The audience that would watch this type of thriller is mystery fans that like paranormal activity and Saw.  The elements I included to appeal to that specific type of audience, was music that created suspense. We attracted our audience by including elements that they would enjoy and seek thrills from. Films seem to be gendered for example psychological thrillers are more commonly watched by women and crime thrillers are more likely to be watched by men.

After screening our thriller opening to the other class members, we received feedback from the peer assessment. The good points were that they liked the titles as they were simple and effective. They thought that it was very creative to pick the font of the titles and how they reflected the opening. Another thing a class member said about the titles was that she liked how the names in the titles didn’t specify their part in the film, therefore restricting the audience from information and creating suspense. Another good point was how the editing made the situation look realistic, for example the lights flickering on and off, which was one of our successes.From the audience feedback, we discovered that my character is just as frightening as a male villain would be, which means our groups choice to choose a me as a female villain has worked effectively. By keeping myself stood quietly but menacingly in the corner of the lift, it made the audience feel uncomfortable and tense, frightened of what’s going to happen. The audience liked the character’s acting and thought it was believable, due to the dramatic build up and reactions from Billie.

A change that the audience said, was to adjust the sound levels as sometimes they were much louder than they should have been, for example the phone ringing and one the dialogue taking place righ at the beginning of the thriller.

Evaluation – Question 3 – What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

‘Level 8’ will be a Hollywood mainstream film, as it will have special effects throughout and will need to be funded as there is a high budget. At school, we had no budget as we were using the school’s equipment and nothing had to be purchased. Films in Hollywood are generally always more successful than British Independent films.

I thought about the films that inspired us, which were ‘Devil’ and ‘Buried’ and their production companies. ‘Devil’ was produced by Universal Pictures, whereas ‘Buried’ was produced by ‘Lions gate’. ‘Buried’ is also similar to our thriller opening of being trapped in a confined place, so our group have decided that ‘Lions gate’ will produce our film.

‘Devil’ was distributed by Universal Pictures, whereas ‘Buried’ was distributed by ‘Lions gate’. ‘Lions gate’ is well-known for its popular series of the ‘Saw’ films. This would be good for promoting and marketing, as the fans would be interested in watching a new film that the makers of ‘Saw’ have made. ‘Lions gate’ distribute their films by advertising on radios, television, social networking sites and websites that are suitable to their target audience.

‘Lions gate’ also are a music company, which means it will be easier and cheaper to create and distribute a soundtrack for the film. To market, our film would be promoted and advertised on social networking sites such as ‘Facebook’ and video sites such as ‘Youtube’. There will be short radio adverts that run for 45 seconds and television trailers. By releasing radio adverts and television traliers, we have control on to what stations and time they will be shown and aired. Therefore gaining more control over where to advertise to our target audience.

Posters will be placed on billboards and at bus stops. Here is a poster that will be shown:

Here is a poster that was created in a film poster style and would be the main poster for the thriller.

By having ‘Lions gate’ for all of our production and distribution, we would not have to spend a lot of money. The budget for ‘Buried’ was £3,000,000 whereas ‘Devil’ was £10,000,000. ‘Devil’ had a higher budget as there were more filming locations than ‘Buried’ and special effects had to be put in, in post-production so we would have to carefully re-asses wether we would be willing to spend that much money.

The film will be released and screened in mid October to fit in with the ‘Halloween’ theme in a city suburban centre, for example ‘Odeon’, ‘Cineworld’ and ‘Vue’. These types of cinema are visited regularly as they are on high streets and near pubs, restaurant and homes and would most definitely attract our target audience. This type of cinema fits with the demo and psychographics of our target audience, as the cinemas are placed in popular areas where the teenagers and young adults will visit, for example, at a pub or on a high street. ‘Level 8’ is not a niche film as it is targeted at anyone 15 and over. There is no specific gender, race or ethnicity it is aimed at, and the cinemas it will be exhibited in reflect that perfectly as they are available for anyone to visit.

Evaluation – Question 2 – How does your media product represent particular social groups?

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our group used the main social idea of good vs. bad, Billie being the victim and me being the threat, even though our gender is the same. There is no race relation or ethnicity in this thriller what so ever apart from the fact that we are both Caucasian. Class is visible in our thriller opening as the establishing shot shows a council estate. The lobby that Billie stands in isn’t decorated well and the lift is plain and small this immediately gives away all the information we need behind it. Our media product represented gender strongly as Billie stereotyped the typical girl whilst I was stereotyped the typical dominant and rebellious individual. This in a way sets out a message to the audience on who is which character. By doing this, it created a strong contrast between the character’s personalities. We tried to make Billie as typical but realistic as possible even though it may seem slightly stereotypical. For example, when Billie discovers the lift doors will not open, she says ‘these lifts are so shit!’ which any person would generally say in that given situation. Stereotypically, we made her apply lip-gloss whilst going up on the lift, but this linked into the idea of her discovering that she cannot see Dominika in the mirror.

From the audience feedback, we discovered that my character is just as frightening as a male villain would be, which means our groups choice to choose a me as a female villain has worked effectively. By keeping myself stood quietly but menacingly in the corner of the lift, it made the audience feel uncomfortable and tense, frightened of what’s going to happen. The audience liked the character’s acting and thought it was believable, due to the dramatic build up and reactions from Billie.

The influential films that we based our story on but obviously altered due to copyright status was a film called ‘Devil’ directed by  John Erick Dowdle that focuses on 5 people getting stuck in a  lift where as ours has only 2 females from what we see getting trapped in the elevator and a film called ‘Buried’ directed by Rodrigo Cortés which is based on a person being stuck in a coffin(confined space) in an unknown locatio, which relates to the elevator being one also. Here is a the trailer for the films ‘Devil’ and ‘Buried’ :

Evaluation – Question 1 – In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

I did some research earlier in the task about the typical conventions of a thriller film, helping me understand the needed elements  to make a thriller opening. These elements and typical conventions have been shown in previous planning work/research work.

The typical conventions of a thriller openings can generally show us the genre the film will be as well as always including a protagonist and antagonist, victim and villain, perpetrator and investigator. The lighting is always very limited and dark which makes it many ways effective also depending on your narrative, dis-allowing the audience from seeing things, creating more tension for the audience. The settings are always seem to be at a place of security and comfort such as a home, or in isolated places such as forests or empty factories, dark places/night time, compact spaces that could cause claustrophobia and that the victim cannot escape from. The editing is always fast paced and there are unusual angles which take on a new view point to the story which may sometimes be disorientating. There is also a series of transitions, juxtapositions (effects), parallel cutting or graphic matches  are most commonly used. There could be some symbolic images within the mise-en-scene and the style of the camera work/framing can pick up on that to create suspense and manipulating with the audience, withholding information from them and playing with their fear.  The way in which sound can be used in varies of different forms such as music, sound effects, SFX, voice overs e.t.c. The titles and key credits also have a huge impact on the way that they’re structured, sized and their font. Th narratives of these typical thrillers seem to be crime-based, supernatural, psychological, complex, structured mysteries, puzzles or flashbacks that are meant to cause a series of narrative enigmas which mean that they will ask questions about the film.

The typical conventions my thriller opening has, is a girl victim and villain. However we challenged the stereotypical male villain role, and had a female as the villain, which was me. We challenged the lighting by setting the thriller opening in daylight. The lighting then becomes limited and dingy in the lift, where the threat is and instead of making in typical at night we thought of trying something different. The setting of the thriller opening is a council estate, in which the victim is going home to change her set of clothes, before heading back to her friends. We did this as homes are seen as a place of comfort and security, but we broke that barrier when she is trapped in the lift going to her home on level 8. The opening is also set in daylight, which is very uncommon and we wanted to challenge the typical convention of thrillers always in the night. We felt that our storyline should create tension without having to ‘cheat’ and use dark sinister lighting. Our group did not want to create the typical ‘girl being stalked through a forest’ or a kidnapping plot as we felt that these were too common and no longer effective.

By creating a simple everyday storyline of being trapped in a lift, it creates tension for the audience as this can in fact happen to them in real life. We put Billie in stereotypical female clothing for example Ugg boots and a scarf. Her clothing is very neutral using colours such cream and pale pinks to represent her innocence and youth, this strongly contrasts with my male-dominated clothing.I was wearing black clothes, with a bright red top that is very visible. We chose to that as red foreshadows danger and death. The style of our camerawork is very bizarre, playing with views and unusual angles. Our camerawork is very limited, withholding information to the audience and not letting know where i am, for example when Billie is looking into her mirror. The two main camera angles that are very specific, is the high-angle shot and framing. We framed the numbers coming down from level 8 to create tension for the audience, show significance to level 8, and create a dramatic build up as to what will happen when it reaches the ground floor. The high-angle shot of the CCTV camera creates suspense as the audience can see Billie as very vulnerable. This goes to show that we tried to challenge most of the conventions because we wanted to show the ability of creating a thriller by breaking them and by being unique.

Filming

We did not film in chronological order as mentioned before as some shots were easier to shoot at the end of the day instead of the beginning. For example, the outside establishing shot of the camera slowly panning from the bottom to the top of the council estate flats and the sign of the lift being on level ’8′, as we had to send me up in the lift to press level 8, which could be done at the very end of filming as we wanted to get the most important parts of the filming done first.

After lesson 1 of editing, our group found that some shots were out of focus and were unstable. The group went out and re-shot some shots that were bad, and also filmed a few more scenes from different angles that we later used to our advantage.

The group re-filmed the establishing shot again, as it tilted too fast on the original, and it was also shaky and unstable. We also filmed Billie applying her lip-gloss on again as it was out of focus. Another shot we re-filmed was Billie squinting her eyes, as they camera was once again out of focus and unstable. After watching the opening roughly edited together, we all decided that Billie did not look vulnerable enough. To create that extra vulnerability, we could film a high-angle shot inside the lift. This creates tension as the audience can see that I am in control as im standing behind Billie, who cannot see me and this also shows in what a compact space she is in with me. It puts the audience at an advantage of knowing everything that is going on- like Alfred Hitchcock’s Bomb Theory.

Here is an interview with the cast and crew to show our understandment and personal interpretations of our thriller opening. We included any difficulties we came across- especially during filming, how we edited each section separately and how we thought of using element/ symbols to create a thriller atmosphere, such as costume and make-up.

Editing

Our group decided to edit parts of our thriller opening in sections depending on how much experience each person has had before. Sapphire Sherbird was our main editor as she has had the most experience with iMacs and the iMovie programme.

I have edited the introduction up to when the lift doors open, as it is slow paced and doesn’t include a lot of cuts as i was only introduced to all of these technical programmes and equipment right before we started editing, which was done in the preliminary task where i got a small tutorial of how roughly things function and come together.

Billie edited the first-half of the elevator scene, up until Billie’s character pushes the ‘open doors’ button. This scene is more fast-paced than the introduction and Billie has had more experience with iMovie.

Sapphire’s was to edit the second-half of the elevator scene, which is also the ending. She has had the most experience on iMovie and handled the more complicated editing. To give the effect of a light flickering on and off, she cropped a frame and darkened it. To create more of an effect,  she cropped more of the shots in random places and darkened them, making them flicker on and off randomly. When played back, it looks like the lights are flickering on and off looking realistic, we were all present when this was taking place so we learnt as well as getting our end needed result.

Klaudia’s job was to edit the sound and handle the sound effects, voice-overs and music.

The editing and effects of our thriller opening is clear to the audience. For example, match-on-action is used throughout the thriller opening and especially the lights flickering on and off.

The print screens here, show a match-on-action edit. It shows Billie pushing a button, and as she pulls away, there is a middle shot.

The most advanced edit that had to be done was the flickering of the lights. This was done using an effect called ‘exposure adjust’. It allows the user to adjust the amount of exposure of the clip, giving a dark effect as if the lights are dim. Instead of editing the lights to be completely dark, sapphire dimmed it so the audience could still see what was happening. This way, the audience have even more of a shock when the lights turn off completely.

The order at which we worked at through the ‘editing’ stages in our group.

Lesson 1

• Uploading the footage
• Putting it in chronological order
• Watching over clips to ensure they do not need to be re-recorded.

Lesson 2

• Uploading the footage that was re-shot, and replacing it with the bad version.
• Trimming and splitting clips where necessary.
• Trimming to create match-on-action shots.

Lesson 3

• Adjusting the sound in necessary places to get rid of sound that isn’t needed in the scene, for example people talking in the background.
• Watching the opening back to see where voice overs and sound effects need to be put in.

Lesson 4

• Adding non-diagetic music to create more tension and atmosphere.
• Adding diagetic sound and sound effects to the thriller opening, such as any voice overs, lip-gloss noise etc.
• Adding titles

Sound

In most films, sound effects are added to emphasize realism and we proceeded to do just that. After watching the rough edit of the thriller opening, I was the one that wrote down a list of sound effects and voice overs that need to be put in and if they can be recorded if we need them from the internet, knowing we can only use copy-right free material.

• Dial tone for when Billie is calling her friend (record it)
• A man’s voice over for the elevator technician (record it – I will use a classmates deep voice)
• Breathing/panting from Billie for when the lights go out (record it)
• Clicking for when Dominika clicks her neck (internet)
• Scream for when Billie screams at the end (record it)

A problem occurred when trying to record Billie’s scream on the Mac, as it came out distorted and too high pitched due to the loudness of it. Our group decided to film Billie’s scream and all other sounds that need to be recorded on a flip-cam as it’s microphone is a higher quality than a Mac’s.

For the cracking of the neck, Sapphire browsed various copy-right free sound effect websites to search for the sound. She found a website called http://soundbible.com/ , which had a lot of sound effects that I could use. There, she  found two sounds that worked well, so download them both.

http://soundbible.com/408-Velcro-Rip.html In the film industry, sounds aren’t what they all appear. So my neck cracking isn’t actually the sound of a neck cracking, it could be Velcro ripping, as it sounds the same all that we have to do is adjust its pitch and length in order to let it what we need.

http://soundbible.com/925-Bone-Crushing.html This sound is very short and quick, whereas I crack her neck slowly.

Production schedule/equipment booking

A production schedule allows the team to plan and film in an effective and organised way, not always necessarily in a chronological order however. It is quite vital to have one accessible at all times in order for the camera crew and the director to plan what exactly is being shot on which day in order for them to make the most of that day and bring any necessary equipment for that given time.

Issues in having  to create our schedule is the weather, as it may be harder to film in windy conditions as it may effect the microphone on the video camera as well as the camera being unstable or “shaky” if any given shots are filmed on that day, therefore the schedule needs to be thought out well. Another issue is that a person in our group may be absent or unable to attend on specific dates so we would have to re-arrange the already narrow filming dates.

We have already reserved and booked any equipment needed on each of the days that we are filming.

Here is the production schedule:

Foundation Production Planning: Legal/ethical,health and safety

Legal considerations

Film rights: We are taking no film rights from already existing ideas.

Copyright: We are using only copy-right free material in our opening, such as music that are already on the MAC’s, or changing songs in garage band.

Permissions to film: We are filming in public elevators in a council flat which does not need permission requirements seeing as it’s a public place

Certification: The certification of our opening is a 15, due to the mild language and mild horror.

Ethical Issues

There are no ethical issues in the opening.

Health and Safety issues

There is a very unlikely risk of the elevator accidentaly getting stuck.

We are also filming during so the day, so it is safer than if we were to film during  nighttime.