Justice

Preliminary Video

Our Preliminary Video:

I think that as our first attempt at filming and editing a short film sequence, this was reasonably good. We tried to experiment with some different types of camera angles. We began our film with a shot of Sean walking towards a door, followed by a match on action medium close-up of his hand pushing open the door, which could have been better framed; if we had spent more time ensuring that the shots would match and then perhaps spent longer editing we could have made it better.

I think we well matched the shot of Sean's hand on the door with the next shot as he walked into the room and then we tried to use an over the shoulder shot to establish that I was sat down and that Sean was walking towards me. We tried to experiment with a low angled shot to show Sean walking to the table past me, although we could have kept the camera straighter rather than shooting it at an angle. The same would apply to the shots of the conversation between myself and Sean, as we could have spent more time framing the shots and ensuring that they were well edited.

For our thriller coursework, we'll have to ensure that  we spend more time framing our shots and ensuring that we experiment with a range of camera angles whilst making sure that we have 'back-up' shots just in case. We will also need to make sure that we edit our film so that we have no continuity issues, as we had some during this Prelim film.

Evaluation

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



(0 minutes 0 seconds - 1 minute 6 seconds)

• Our media product is both similar and different to the media products we analysed in lesson
• We used a linear narrative in order to accurately portray our plot line, as we felt that using a circular or non-linear narrative would confuse our audience
• We used concealment and protraction to create tension and audience interest, particularly in the shots of the hero bursting into the room where he believes that the girl is being held

(1 minute 6 seconds - 3 minutes 6 seconds)

• We originally decided to make a psychological thriller, but wanted to also include elements of the action thriller sub-genre to make our thriller fast-paced
• Therefore we tried to incorporate elements of both sub genres when creating our thriller
• We tried to follow as many codes and conventions of the thriller genre as we could
• These included: concealment and protraction, the transformed city, mazes and labyrinths and heroic romance
• We broke the conventions of the thriller genre by using shots of the killer at the beginning of our film, as we wanted to add tension of mystery to our thriller
• We followed the convention of having a male killer, as we wanted to conform to the expectations of our target audience

(3 minutes 6 seconds - 3 minutes 48 seconds)

• We originally decided to film on three occasions: once in Warrington town centre, once inside Evans House and once outside of Evans House
• However, because of time restraints we filmed on more occasions
• We wanted to use high-angled shots of the girl in the room in order to make them look like CCTV footage, as if the killer was watching them
• We used canted angle shots to create and convey a sense of unease to our audience

(3 minutes 48 seconds - 4 minutes 48 seconds)

• I think that our opening sequence is successful
• We managed to create tension, and audience interest
• I think that we used the codes and conventions of the thriller genre to good effect

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question 2

View more presentations from rebeccajrowland.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that our film would be more likely to be shown in mainstream cinemas, as the thriller genre is a widely popular genre which benefits more and can be accessed better by its target audience through mainstream cinema as opposed to Art house cinemas, etc. I think that our film would work better being manually distributed in cinemas rather than being digitally distributed. This is because of the genre of film; thrillers are more effective and entertaining for the audience in a cinema because of the atmosphere. Therefore our film would be better received being distributed through cinemas rather than digitally.

 

A film distribution company is literally that; a company which distributes films to cinemas around the country, or even around the globe in order for them to reach their target audience. There are many examples of these companies: New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Orion Pictures are just three distribution companies. I think that, from these three examples, our film Justice would most likely be distributed by New Line Cinema. New Line Cinema distributed the Se7en which is also a thriller, and is the same kind of thriller as Justice as there are elements of both the psychological and action sub genres of thriller.

The Silence of the Lambs, a psychological thriller, which in our original target audience questionnaire (section 4) came out as the most popular thriller, was distributed by Orion Pictures. As our thriller has elements of the psychological sub genre, we could also use Orion Pictures to distribute our thriller. This would be useful as our target audience may associate Orion Pictures with thrillers such as The Silence of the Lambs, so we would have an advantage if we released our thriller through Orion Pictures.

                   

I also explored independent and British film companies such as Lionsgate, Film 4 and Coffee Films when thinking about what film company would distribute our thriller. Coffee Films is an independent British film distributor which has been distributing films since 1996:
I considered Coffee Films as a possible distributor for our thriller, as it is a British Film company, and ours is a British film. Therefore, if our film was not popular enough to be distributed by Orion Pictures or New Line Cinemas a distribution company such as Coffee Films would be a good choice. Similarly, Lionsgate also distributes some independent thrillers, making this another option for a company to distribute our thriller Justice. Film 4 is another British film distributor that I could consider if I wanted our film to be distributed in the UK only. However, the obvious disadvantage to these companies is that they are smaller distributors, and therefore my thriller might not reach the majority of my target audience, as Justice may only by released in Britain or in certain cinemas.

However, I would not consider using a company such as Working Title films to distribute our film. This is because this company does not distribute thrillers generally, therefore making it less likely for our thriller to reach our target audience. Obviously, I would prefer for our thriller to be distributed by a bigger, more international film company such as Orion Pictures or New Line Cinema, as our film would reach more members of our target audience if distributed by this company.

I think that our film does not fully compare with professional films distributed by companies such as Orion Pictures or New Line Cinema, as it is not a professional film. However I do think that our film is as professional as we could make it with the equipment we used, and the previous experiences we had with filming and editing.

Who would be the audience for media product?

Our target audience is people aged 15-20 as they are the main body of people who took part in our audience questionnaire before we began to make our film. We took on board as much of the feedback that we received as we could, which helped us to choose what to put into our thriller. Although thrillers have a very broad audience, considering many people enjoy watching films from this genre, we received feedback mainly from people aged 15-20 so our results were biased towards that age group. We were already aware however that they thriller genre was very popular within this age group, meaning that we had already selected these as our target audience.


             (male/female)                                           (age ranges)

We chose to classify our film as a 15 because this would allow us the widest possible range all audiences and a 15 would ensure that our film would be able to reach our target audience of 15-20 year olds. It also means that we did not have to compromise the narrative of our thriller in any way, as we would have done if we had chosen a 12 certificate. This meant we could retain our narrative and reach our target audience.

As the thriller genre is a popular genre within all age ranges, I believe that it would appeal to people outside of our target audience. The narrative of our thriller (a young girl is abducted and her father must search through his past to find her and apprehend the villain) is not one which is particular to our target audience although we have created our thriller to aim at that age group. Therefore I think that people outside of our target audience would be interested in watching our thriller.   

Examples of what memembers outside of our target audience said about our film:

Section 4 - Audience Research of my blog contains the target audience feedback we received http://rebecca-mediacoursework.blogspot.com/2010/11/section-5.html

How did you attract/address your audience?

We decided to involve some shots at the beginning of our film that would show the killer, as we knew from our audience feedback that what scares our target audience most in a thriller film in the character of the killer:

Question 9 - What scares you?

                           

Out of the 30 people we asked, 8 replied that what scares them most about thriller films is the killer. This means that in creating our thriller, we need to ensure that we create the character of the killer so it lives up to the expectations of our target audience. Again, 13 people chose 'other' to answer this question, but as their answers were also specific to a particular thriller, we decided that the more generalized answer 'the killer' told us more about what our target audience expect from a thriller film.

Therefore, we knew that this would appeal to our target audience. Similarly, our target audience feedback told us that they preferred to see both younger and older characters in a thriller, so we knew the use of a younger victim, an older hero and an older killer would appeal:

We also chose to use a more claustrophobic location as one of the locations for our thriller because of the audience feedback we received; the room in which the girl is being kept hostage represents this claustrophobic location, although we also chose to use open locations, such as the building and the town centre where the hero runs through, as contrasts to the small room the victim is being kept in. I think that our completed production is suitable for our target audience in this way as we ensured that in making our thriller we went through our audience feedback, most of which was supplied by members of our target audience so our production meets these results.

When watching our film we wanted our target audience to feel sympathy for the victim in the room, as it becomes clear that she has been taken hostage and that the man running is trying to find her. We hoped to generate empathy and support for the man within our audience, as they would want him to find her whilst knowing that this was unlikely considering there must be some kind of narrative for the rest of the film.

I think that our target audience enjoyed our thriller; the audience feedback we received indicated that they felt that our thriller was a good example of an opening sequence. They seemed to think that the music we chose and the lighting that we used was effective:

                      (music)                                                (lighting)

They also felt that our editing was reasonably successful:

Section 11: Audience Feedback of my blog shows all of the audience feedback that I received, including graphs for each question and a conclusion outlining what we understood from each question that we asked and the answers we were given.     http://rebecca-mediacoursework.blogspot.com/2011/01/section-11-audience-feedback.html          

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

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? on Prezi

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

                

I think that for our coursework film (right), the match on action shots worked better, partly because of the speed at which we edited them, and partly because we had more experience with filming and editing this type of shot.

                  

Similarly, I think that from our prelim video (left) our use of low angled shots improved within our coursework film (right). This is again because we had more experience in editing and filming these shots.

Section 12: Analysis of Completed Thriller

I analysed our completed thriller in the same way that I analysed four thrillers at the beginning of our coursework, using the headings: Narrative Structure; Camerawork; Mise-en-scene; Sound; Editing; Graphics.

• Narrative Structure - our thriller follows a linear narrative, as we begin at with shots of a man carrying a camera box into the building, which is explained later in the sequence as we see shots of the girl in the room are CCTV footage with 'camera 1', 'camera 2' and then one shot of our protagonist has 'camera 3' layered over the shot. We chose to begin with this as we felt that it would be easier to convey the narrative of our entire thriller by using a linear narrative rather than a non-linear or circular narrative. Ours is a restrictive narrative in that we hold back important information that you would need to fully understand the plot line; there are enigma codes, or unanswered questions that we leave to make to audience curious about the rest of the plot line. These are meant to help attract the audience and make them want to watch the rest of the film. There are many action codes which our target audiences may have before they watch our film, so that whilst watching our thriller they will draw on their past experiences of the conventions usually found in the thriller genre and this will make them expect certain conventions to exist in our thriller. These could include a killer, a victim, a hero, a dilemma or issue that needs to be solved and twists and turns in the narrative, all of which we believe we have portrayed in the structure of our narrative for the beginning of our thriller. Todorov's narrative theory states that the plot line begins with an equilibrium and balance within the narrative, which is then disrupted by some incident that causes an imbalance between powers in the narrative. The rest of the narrative is then centered around restoring balance within the 'story' world. Our narrative follows this in some ways, although we do not begin with an equilibrium; instead our film begins in the midst of the disruption, which is that the girl has been kidnapped. True to Todorov's theory however, the rest of the narrative resolves around the hero's attempt to restore the balance in the narrative. 
• Camerawork - our thriller begins with a canted angle shot showing a car pull up outside of a building. We chose the canted angle shot to immediately portray a sense of unease to the audience about what is happening, which is reinforced by the close-up shot of the wheel of the car, as this implies the importance of the car and the significance of this in the narrative, which is that the driver of the car is the 'killer' character in the narrative. The low angle shot of the man walking into the building carrying a camera box again shows the significance of this short sequence in our thriller film. The next shot on screen is another canted shot, this time showing a different man running down an alleyway towards the camera, continuing the sense of unease felt by the audience and they can use this to make links between the man running and the man in the previous shots walking towards the building. A static mid-shot shows the man jump over an abandoned trolley and out of the alleyway, followed by two more static shots of him running: the camera in front and then behind him as he runs through a town centre, showing his journey towards a currently unknown destination. The short sequence as he runs down the second alley was constructed so that his speed would be better portrayed to the audience. He runs into the alley way, hits an obstacle, and the runs past a wall, which is the key shot is showing his speed. The shot is taken from the side as the man runs past the camera quickly. These shots are followed by an establishing shot of the building designed to inform the audience where the man his running to, as previously they have not known his destination. The static shot as he runs past the mirrors we used to try and create a sense of depth for the audience and to attempt to portray the size of the building. The low angled shot of him running upstairs, followed by the hand held point of view shot and a high angled shot of him running upstairs were chosen to emphasize how far he has to run to reach his final destination, which is still unknown to us. Similar reasoning was used in choosing to use the low angled shot of him running down a corridor towards a set of doors, as the low angle implies that the corridor is very long and thus that he has a long way to run. We began to build more tension through the camerawork as the man ran through that building, particularly in the use of the match on action shot as he opens a door in the corridors, as this puts more emphasis on the fact that he has to go through these doors to find where he is heading for. We used the mid-length shot of him running towards the yellow door and then through the door to effect by then using a shot from the other side of the door as he entered the room, which allows the audience to see him enter the room and to see his reaction on entering the room, from which we can tell that he has not found what he was looking for. The mid-shot of him leaving the room and dropping a piece of paper on the floor just before the doors close we decided to use as it creates a lot of tension; the audience immediately want to know what is on the piece of paper. We than used a close up of the piece of paper to see it read 'one week' and used a pan upwards to allow the audience to see him running back through the corridors, as the audience can make the connection between the words on the paper and him running. Throughout the sequence there are intermittent shots of CCTV footage of a girl in the room that the man eventually runs into; we chose to make these shots look like CCTV footage as this implies that someone (presumably the killer) is watching her, and then watching the man when he reaches the room and finds the piece of paper.
• Mise-en-scene - the first four shots showing a car pulling up and a man taking a camera box into the building set the scene of the film as being in an urban environment, which ties in with the action codes audiences expect from a film in the thriller genre. The next shots of the second man running down the alley way confirm our suspicions that the film is set in a urban environment and the graffiti etc. and the dilapidated/abandoned trolley he jumps over could lead us to believe that it is a derelict area. We wanted to ensure that the audience were clear that our thriller is set in a city, so we filmed shots of him running through a town centre past shops and people to ensure that this came across. Further graffiti in the second alley way adds to our idea of this as perhaps a more derelict area. This is continued with the establishing shot of the building as it seems to be quite old and is a little run down. Inside, the walls which he runs past are mainly white, which can often suggest innocence/goodness, but the walls are also dirty and we can see marks on them, which in turn could suggest the loss of innocence or that something is going wrong. The colours in the building seem to become darker as he runs over a dark blue carpet and the white walls have black borders at the bottom which could carry darker connotations and implications of what may happen later in the narrative. The room that he runs into is empty except for a piece of paper on the floor; this shows us that someone must have been into the room before he arrived to place the paper there.
• Sound - the first sound that we hear is the diegetic sound of a car driving and parking, followed by the sound of a car door as the person gets out of the car and walks to the boot. We can hear his footsteps as he walks into the building when the diegetic sound of a police siren begins just before the non-diegetic sound track which begins as the camera cuts to shots of the man running. The diegetic sounds of a city eg. people talking, cars can be heard over the music which adds to the idea that the man is running through a city. The non-diegetic music continues over all shots of the girl in the room, but as it is CCTV footage, no diegetic sounds can be heard. We can hear the man's footsteps as he runs through the building and up the stairs which adds to the tension we feel and the music continues to build, implying to the audience that something big is about to happen in the narrative. The loud diegetic banging sound causes the music to end abruptly, and only diegetic sound can be heard as the an runs into the room. The non-diegetic sound track returns as he leaves the room, quietly at first and then becoming louder to increase the dramatic tension for the audience as he runs back through the corridors, and as the title of the film 'Justice' appears on screen. The music fades slowly as the title does.
• Editing - the screen is black at first, allowing the audience to absorb the sound of the car driving before the shot fades in and we can see the car. The shots simply cut until the end of the shot when the man walks into the building and it dissolves into the shot of the second man running down and alley way. The pace of editing increases as the film progresses and he runs further to imply his speed and again to emphasize the distance he has to run. Shots of the girl in the room are intermittent throughout the shots of him running which implies that he is running towards her and allows the audience to establish links between the two characters. We chose to end the music as he opened the yellow door into the room while we were editing as this informs the audience that something has gone wrong and that something bad either has or is about to happen. We also chose to place the end title over a black screen as this ensures the audience concentrate on only the title and are not distracted by action on screen.
• Graphics - all of the graphics are white and in official-looking fonts, which carry connotations of official documents, perhaps of the police force which is the affect I was trying to achieve in choosing the font (as the main characters in our film either are or were part of the police force). We placed the title 'Justice' at the end and over a black screen so that there would be emphasis on the title and it would standout on the screen. The other graphics with names and the production company we placed towards the beginning of our thriller so that the audience would see them straight away. These were placed over action shots of the man running down the alley way and through the town centre and came in quick succession, fast paced in order to imply the speed of the man running.

Diary of Filming and Editing

Sunday 5^th December 2010

We filmed for the first time, in Warrington town centre. Fin, Emily and I were filming the shots of the man running through the streets as if he was running towards the building which will feature later in the opening of our thriller.

It went quite well, as we were able to film quite a few of the shots we need, which means that we now have less to film. We managed to find some alleyways which fit quite well with the plot of our thriller and allowed us to film some effective shots. We could have started filming earlier in the day which would have allowed us to film more, or film more of each shot which would have meant we had more shots to choose from when editing and it would have been better if we had previously chosen the exact places within the town centre that we were going to film, but otherwise the session went well.

Monday 6^th/Tuesday 7^th December

We began to log the footage that we had filmed on Sunday. We also continued to work on our storyboards, which we had not quite finished.

Wednesday 8^th December

Emily and I filmed after college at Evans House. We had to film the shots of the man running through a building and into the empty room. We couldn’t film the shots of the girl in the room at the same time because the girl who was going to act in our film was not available.

We found a room which we could use for filming, and decided to work backwards: we filmed the shots of him in the room first and then went back through the corridors filming him running towards and away from the room as we went. This was because we thought that the shots in the room were most important, so it made sense to capture those first. This also meant that we could spend more time experimenting a little with camera angles and positions as we knew we had filmed the most important shots we needed.

Again, another problem was that we had to spend some time at the beginning of the session finding a room which we could use to film, which is time we could have saved and used to film more shots in. Also because it was dark we could not film the establishing shot of the building or any shots of him entering the building from outside.

Thursday 9^th/Friday 10^th December

We could not start to log the footage that we had filmed on the Wednesday as we had to continue with the paper work needed for our blogs. This included finishing the production schedule (which I did) and scanning the location sheets and story boards onto the computer so that we could add them to our blogs.

Monday 13^th December

We were going to continue logging the footage had film, but we could not find all of the logging sheets we had already filled out, which meant we had to re-log the footage from the previous week. This meant we were slightly behind in logging the footage.

Tuesday 14^th December

In lesson we continued to log the footage from the previous two times we had filmed. After the lesson was finished, James (who hadn’t been able to come to film before today) went to film the last shots we had left, which were the shots of the girl in the room.

We filmed in the same room of Evans House that we had filmed in before, which meant that we saved time by just going straight there. It did not take us long to film all that we needed, but we ensured that we had enough footage to use throughout our thriller. We also decided to film from two different angles as opposed to all from the same high angle, which will allow for some variety when we are editing.

Thursday 16^th/Friday 17^th December

Although we had not quite finished logging the footage, so couldn’t begin logging the footage that we had just filmed, we had some paperwork that we needed to finish for our blogs. We spent most of these two lessons doing this, which included finishing the character outlines and shooting script.

Tuesday 4^th January 2011

We began to capture the footage from the tape onto the computer in the editing suite. It took us a while to remember how to capture the footage properly, but by the end of the lesson we had captured most of the shots we had filmed; we captured those of the man running through the town centre and through Evans house.

Thursday 6^th January

When we got to the editing suite today, our project, on which we had saved the footage we had already captured, would not open. This meant that we spent a third of the lesson trying to find the footage somewhere on the computer, but eventually we decided it would be best just to re-capture the footage. I managed to re-capture almost all of the footage before the end of the lesson, and along with James managed to finish the logging sheets.

Friday 7^th January

I finished capturing the footage, and we began to edit the shots that we had. We edited about 20 seconds of our film, which was footage of the man running through the town centre. Fin mainly used the mouse but I pointed out which shot from the list of those that we had captured was to go next and we all had input as to which particular shot we would use each time (i.e. the second shot of the man running through the alley as opposed to the first, as it was a better shot).

Monday 10^th January

As we needed to finish a rough cut of what our finished thriller opening by Wednesday we spent the lesson getting as much footage as we could onto the timeline and into the place we would want it for the finished film. We made sure to take time in choosing each shot and in cutting the footage so that it would flow when it was played on the timeline, but we knew that we could go back to it and improve it later. I used the mouse for some of the session and Fin used the mouse, but we all participated in choosing the shots.

Tuesday 11^th January

We finished our rough cut of the finished film. We then spent the rest of the lesson beginning to add graphics to the film, mainly over the shots of the girl in the room. We want these to look like CCTV footage, and so we had edited each shot so that it is in black and white. We used the ‘titles’ option to create a graphic to place over these shots which said either ‘camera 1’ or ‘camera 2’ and also ‘rec’ with a red dot to show that she is being recorded as she tries to escape from the room. We began to place these onto the timeline.

Thursday 13^th January

I continued to add the graphics onto the shots of the girl in the room, although I had some difficulty with this because I was not entirely sure how to use the ‘titles’ tool. I had to create a ‘camera 1’ ‘camera 2’ and ‘camera 3’ separately, which took longer than I had thought, but I managed to place the graphics over all of the shots that we needed the graphics for. I then began to look for a font which would be good for the title of the film ‘Justice’. While I was doing this, James was finishing the logging (as we could not find one of the logging sheets) and Fin and Emily created the Audience Research questionnaire (for section 11) and began to look for music for our film.

Friday 14^th January

I finished adding the graphics to our film. I had finished adding the ‘camera 1’ etc.  graphics yesterday, so I found a font to use for the title ‘Justice’ and created the graphic, and added it to the end of the film. I placed a cross dissolve at the beginning and the end of the graphic, which means it fades in and out rather than just staying stationary on the screen. I also created graphics with our names so that our names will be shown on screen during the finished film.

Fin and Emily found music for the backing track of our film, and Fin began to edit it onto the timeline.

Monday 17^th January

James and I spent the lesson trying to finish the log sheets. We found the log sheets from the last few times we’d filmed, which meant we didn’t have as much to log. We didn’t manage to finish all of the logging though as we kept pausing to look and listen to our film, which Fin was working on, editing sound. I played the film and stopped it at the beginning and end of each shot in order for James to write down the log number and short description of the shot.

Tuesday 18^th January

I finished logging the shots, and spent the majority of the lesson working out the lengths of each shot. I then began to look through each shot and tick or cross good and bad shots, so that tomorrow I can complete the edit decision list, and then scan all of them into the computer to add to my blog. Dawn, our teacher, thought that our thriller film needed something more, so we decided to film some shots of the killer driving towards the building, which will add to the tension in our thriller. We will film these shots tomorrow, and hopefully log and edit them tomorrow too.

Wednesday 19th January

Emily and I went to film the couple of shots with the car and the killer as Dawn thought those would make a good addition to our film. We took out a camera and tripod and went to Evans House to film. We filmed a shot of him driving up to the building and close up of one of the wheels as he parked and a shot of him parking. We also filmed a shot of him getting out of the car and picking up a camera box, then one of him walking into the building with the box. We wanted to imply that the killer/kidnapper had gone to the building and set up cameras in a room, which we see later on in our thriller.
However, when we took the footage to the editing suite in college, it appears that the shots we had just filmed had corrupted in some way. We can't use the shots that are corrupted, and as the deadline is very close, it is unlikely that we will be able to re-film those shots.

Thursday 20th January

In today’s lesson we continued to edit our film, adding finishing touches, such as a grain effect onto the CCTV footage shots which will make them look more authentic. Then I continued with the edit decision list, firstly ensuring than I had completely finished all of the log sheets. I didn’t manage to finish the edit decision list during the lesson.

I went to the editing suite during one of my free periods today, after our media lesson, and finished writing out the shots onto the edit decision list, although I needed to copy them out onto another sheet to make them neater.

After college I went to re-film the shots from Wednesday, as I managed to find some time. I filmed the same shots as yesterday, only from slightly different angles. I then returned to college to capture, log and edit the shots into our film. Again, the first shot I filmed appeared to have corrupted, but the other shots were fine, so I used them to make a short sequence at the beginning of our film. Before I left, I began to go through our film and ensure that all of the shots are cut correctly, and that none are too long. I am going into college early tomorrow morning to continue editing before our last lesson on this project.

Friday 21st January

I came into college early to continue editing our project. I fixed the titles that would go over the CCTV footage so that the words 'camera 1' etc would remain constant but the 'record' titles would flash on and off, which makes the footage look more realistic. I then scanned the edit decision lists into the computer to add to section 10.
We went to our lesson half an hour earlier than usual in order to finish our editing. We found that we didn't have that much left to do, only making small changes to the lengths of some of the shots and the sound. I helped Emily with her blog for a while, before we uploaded our finished film onto YouTube. I had to wait after the lesson had finished to upload my Prelim video and my animatic storyboard as they were saved on a different computer, which another group was using. After uploading these and analysing my Prelim video, I've fully completed up to section 10 of my blog and begun section 11. This means I only need to complete the audience feedback, thriller analysis and evaluation of my thriller before my coursework is completed.

Section 11: Audience Feedback

Audience Feedback Questionnaire

1.       On a scale of 1 to 5 how would you rate the quality of acting?

2.       On a scale of 1 to 5 how effective do you think the location was? 

3.       On a scale of 1 to 5 how well do you think tension is built?

4.       On a scale of 1 to 5 how effective do you think the music was?  

5.       On a scale of 1 to 5 how engaged in the storyline were you?

6.       On a scale of 1 to 5 how professional was the editing?

7.       On a scale of 1 to 5 how good was the continuity of the clip?

8.       On a scale of 1 to 5 how effective were the title graphics?

9.       On a scale of 1 to 5 how effective was the lighting?

10.     On a scale of 1 to 5 how diverse were the camera shots?

11.     On a scale of 1 to 5 how well was the convention of partial vision portrayed?

12.     On a scale of 1 to 5 how well was the convention of mazes and labyrinths portrayed?

13.     On a scale of 1 to 5 how well did the clip build a sense of suspense?

14.     On a scale of 1 to 5 how well did you understand the narrative?

15.     On a scale of 1 to 5 how well did you relate to the characters onscreen?

In order to gather feedback about our thriller from our target audience we formed a questionnaire. We wanted to ask for feedback on the key elements of our thriller, such as the conventions of the thriller genre, lighting, sound and narrative. We asked 20 members of our target audience to fill in our questionnaire.

Question 1 - On a scale of one to five, how would you rate the quality of acting?

We asked 20 members of our target how they would rate the quality of acting in our thriller. We felt this was important as good acting is what many members of our target audience look for in a thriller. 8 people chose '3' and 8 people chose '4' which tells us that the majority of people in our target audience thought that the acting in our thriller was good; this tells us that we choose the right actors for our thriller.

Question 2 - On a scale of one to five, how effective do you think the location was?

We thought that it was important for us to ask our target audience whether or not they thought we had chosen an effective location for our thriller, as the location is a significant part of the film. Therefore it was important to us that we chose the right location. 7 people chose '3', which we felt meant that our location was reasonably effective, particularly as the majority of people chose '3' or higher to answer this question.

Question 3 - On a scale of one to five, how well do you think tension was built?

Tension is an important part of any thriller, so we decided to involve a question about tension when gaining audience feedback. 9 people chose '3' to answer this question, and the majority of people chose '3' or higher. This tells us that we successfully managed to build tension within our thriller opening.

Question 4 - On a scale of one to five, how effective do you think the music was?

The music, or non-diegetic soundtrack, used in a thriller film is very important as it creates tension and the right atmosphere for the audience. We decided to include this question in our audience feedback questionnaire to learn if our target audience felt that our choice of music was as effective as we thought it was. As 10 people chose '3' and a further 9 people chose either '4' or '5' to answer this question, we felt that we had made the right choice in music for our thriller.

Question 5 - On a scale of one to five, how engaged in the storyline were you?

In the thriller genre it is vital that your target audience is engaged in the narrative of the film, so we chose to include this question. The majority of people (8) chose '3' to answer this question, but the rest of the feedback is spread evenly between '1' & '2' and '4' & '5'. This shows us that we could have perhaps made our narrative more engaging in some way, but that we still succeeded in this aspect.

Question 6 - On a scale of one to five, how professional was the editing?

How professional the editing of our thriller was is obviously an important aspect of the opening sequence we created. 8 people chose '4' as their answer to this question, which to us means that we managed to edit our thriller sequence effectively and that we achieved a reasonably professional look to our thriller.

Question 7 - On a scale of one to five, how good was the continuity of the clip?

The continuity of our sequence is something that we struggled with at times, so it was important for us to find out whether our target audience felt that the continuity of our film was good or not. Although 8 people chose '3' as their answer to this question, showing that the continuity of our film was reasonably good, again the rest of the feedback is spread equally between '1' & '2' and '4' & '5' which suggests that the continuity could have been better.

Question 8 - On a scale of one to five, how effective were the title graphics?

We thought that the title graphics of our thriller were an important part of our thriller and we wanted to ensure these were as effective as possible, therefore choosing to include a question about the graphics in our feedback questionnaire. The response was positive, as 9 people chose '3' as their answer to this, and a further 9 people chose either '4' or '5' as their answer. This shows us that the graphics we chose were effective.

Question 9 - On a scale of one to five, how effective was the lighting?

The lighting is another important factor in creating thrillers. We tried to use the lighting to the greatest effect during the creation of our thriller opening, so we chose to include this in our audience feedback questionnaire. 7 people chose '3' and 7 people chose '4' as their answers to this question, which is very positive feedback telling us that our lighting choices were effective.

Question 10 - On a scale of one to five, how diverse were the camera shots?

We felt that we tried to use a range of camera shots when filming and editing our thriller, as a diverse range is more effective. We therefore wanted to know whether or not our target audience felt the same way as we did. As 8 people who filled in our questionnaire answered '4' to this question, we felt that this meant that our target audience thought that we had used a diverse range of camera shots in our thriller.

Question 11 - On a scale of one to five, how well was the convention of Partial Vision portrayed?

Partial Vision is one of the most important conventions of the thriller genre that we wanted to include in our opening sequence, as it is very important for our narrative. Judging by the feedback we received, which was that 8 people chose '3' as their answer and 6 people chose '4', we felt that we had managed to portray the convention of Partial Vision effectively.

Question 12 - On a scale of one to five, how well was the convention of Mazes and Labyrinths portrayed?

Another important convention that we wanted to include within our thriller was the Mazes and Labyrinths convention. We felt that this would fit in with our narrative of our thriller. 7 people chose '3' as their answer to this question and 7 people chose '4' which tells us that we succeeded in using the Mazes and Labyrinths convention to good effect. 

Question 13 - On a scale of one to five, how well did the clip build a sense of suspense?

Suspense is an important part of any thriller, so we included this question in our audience feedback questionnaire. 8 people answered '3' to this question, which tells us that we managed to create suspense throughout our thriller, obviously making it a better opening.

Question 14 - On a scale of one to five, how well did you understand the narrative?

Another important factor in knowing if our opening is a good example of the opening of a thriller is whether or not our target audience understood the narrative of our thriller. However, as 7 people answered '2' to this question, this implies that our narrative was not very clear. The majority of people chose higher than '2', but our feedback implies that we could have made the narrative of our film clearer in creating it.

Question 15 - On a scale of one to five, how well did you relate to the characters on screen?

That the audience are able to relate to the characters on screen when watching a thriller is very important, so we understood that we needed to try to make the characters as relatable as possible when creating our thriller. As 8 people chose '3' as their answer to this question and the majority chose '3' or higher, this shows us that our characters were relatable.

Section 10: Video Log Sheets

Tape Log Sheets:

We used these to log every shot that we had filmed with a counter number and to chose which were shots that we would be able to use in our thriller.

                          

 

Edit Decision Lists:



On these we wrote down every shot that we would use in our thriller film with its counter number, in the order that they would come in the sequence.