Question 7

Question 7

Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?

Camera:

After filming our preliminary we realised that using a simple handheld camera was not going to work for our main task. We wanted our video to be shot using an HD camera as it would look smarter than the handheld. With having a larger more professional camera we were able to use a camera stand, which avoided the shakiness that we had in our preliminary. We used a Nikon J2 as it was easy to carry around to the various locations and recorded in HD and strongly picked up the colours.

Mic:

In our preliminary we used the mic that was on the camera, this meant that audio was quite quiet and blotchy in places. To avoid this in our main task, we used a proper microphone which we attached to the camera. This picked up better sound and avoided distortions.

Editing:

To edit our preliminary we used iMovie, though it was good, it did not have the extent of features needed to make our main task video look professional. So we decided to use Final Cut Pro as we could use colour correction, sound correction and add many other useful effects. We had never used Final Cut Pro before so we had to learn how to use the new software which was interesting and in the end I believe it paid off.

Acting: 

The actors in our preliminary task were fellow class members with little acting experience. We didn't think it would make much of a difference, however after watching it we decided we didn't like how wooden it came across and decided to get people with acting experience. 

Planning:

In our preliminary task the only planning we did was a story board, which meant when we came to film it, we spent a lot of time messing around as we didn't know what exactly to film. However to avoid this in our main task we spent a lot more time perfecting the script's and knowing which shots we would involve. 

Question 6

Question 6

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

When starting to film our main task, I did not know much about filming or editing, my only previous experience being with the preliminary task. We had some with filming and editing which taught us a lot about softwares that we wouldn't normally use.

With the filming, we learned that keeping that planning is extremely important, and keeping the camera steady is a lot more important to the final product that you think. When we first filmed, a lot of our shots were shaky, so when we put them together it just looked messy and unprofessional. On top of this, we didn't get all the shots we needed, there were too many messy zooms which made it look like a home video rather than the more executed feel that we wanted, and there were little mistakes throughout our piece (such as the actors looking directly at the camera too often) that we needed to change. We ended up re-filming, but we planned out in detail beforehand, so we knew what shots we needed to have and what things to look out for. 

 In the last scene of our film, the kidnapper is seen to be wearing a shoulder bag which has not been present in any other scenes. We needed to remove the bag from the scene, but could not re-film again it as Oscar who played the kidnapper, had to go back to boarding school and was no longer available. 

        

So we had to experiment with different ways of editing. At first we tried covering the back through effects, by making the video really grainy, however this didn't match with the rest of our film and we decided against it. Later we found out you could Photoshop videos, so we spent three hours going frame by frame and editing the bag out. Unfortunately we couldn't find a way to upload the photoshopped video onto Final Cut Pro, which was the editing software we were using at the time. Despite seeking advice from multiple sources we just were unable to find a way, so had to leave the bag in. 

Through that we learned how to use Photoshop and Final Cut Pro for editing, however for next year we should make sure we find out if it's possible to put Photoshopped videos into Final Cut Pro as we could use it without wasting time. 

Question 5

Question 5

Question 5 

Having a female actor such as Frankie Reffel as our main character, attracts a female audience due to her being relatable to the viewers, and this plot 'could' happen to anyone. Our film attracts a teenage audience due to the age of our actors, who are in their teens. This appeals to the teenage sense of rebellion and adventure which is why teenagers would go to see our film. Although our audience is not explicitly limited to females due to Oscar Perriman playing the main villain which interests a male audience as it add's an air of masculinity. We would attract our male audience through the typical thriller genre and having lots of crime and action.  

Question 4

Question 4

Evaluation question 4 

Question 3 

                                              

Question 2 

Evaluation question 1

Question 1:

Question1 from beckiedonaldson

Redemption Feedback

What rating would you give our film out of 10?	What did you like about our film?	What didn’t you like about our film?
8/10	“It was interesting and I liked the plot twist!”	“N/A”
7/10	“Plot twist! The music went well with the action”	“The cuts could have been sharper”
8/10	“I thought it was accurate to its genre, and good camera shots”	“He would have felt her getting the knife out”
8/10	“I liked it a lot”	“N/A”
6/10	“The acting was good, the villain seemed scary”	“It didn’t vary in pace enough”
8/10	“The music created a good atmosphere for the movie”	“The bag”
7/10	“I thought plot was good”	“I didn’t like the effects at the end”

Media Main Task Video

Actors Costumes: Villain

Oscar Perriman (villain)


I've taken screenshots from our film where he is shown. You can clearly see that his outfit matches a villain type character. We told him in advance to bring a long black jacket and black trousers, by telling him in advance he way able to find the right look for what we wanted. The colour black portrays a very dark and mysterious look and with this it fitted perfectly with the theme of thriller.

Also we faced problems with age in our film as we wanted a old mysterious          man who is very intimidating. due to time constraints this was hard to achieve thus resorting to him wearing 'older' clothes to make him appear to be older.

We, as a group decided that he should wear black as in most thrillers such as "women in black" the main villains colour is dark and not easily recognisable.

Actors Costumes: Victim

Frankie Reffel (Victim)

Ive taken a screenshot of Frankie, the victim, firstly to show that she is high class which can be seen from her fur collar. also it shows that we wanted her to be dressed in a natural and very teenager suited outfit.

We asked her to wear this jacket firstly cause of in being a very in trend with 14-19 year olds and also because of the fur on her collar.

Moving on to her footwear, we told her that there would be a chase scene and we discussed that it maybe slippery due to the recent rain when filming. We agreed that she should wear these nike trainers which allowed her to run as if normal so that our film would be more natural rather than being very staged.

Our Final script (draft 5)

Our Final script (draft 5)

Final script 5

Communication

Since we needed to have ways to talk as a group, we created a Facebook group chat in which we talked about location, actors and timings. Here are a few screenshots of our discussions. 

Other actor auditions

We auditioned a few other males for the part of the villain, however we found they had a lack of experience. As they had both only acted in school productions. 

Oscar's interview

We struggled a bit finding someone to play our captor in our film. We had already decided that we wanted Frankie as our victim, as we knew it was a role she was fully suited for. However, we could not find someone who provided the intimidating air needed for our captor.  We knew that we wanted them to be tall, and have confidence when acting. We posted it around and my friend Oscar replied and when we asked him for an interview explaining what he had been in, he sent us this.   

 

After further questioning we found out he had played the bad or mean characters in these productions, with this information we decided he would be a good person for the part. There was a slight worry by the fact he went to boarding school as it would make filming hard, however luckily over half term he was free to film so we managed to get him to agree to be in our film.

Location Shots

Please hover over each image to see the tags with a description to why we chose that place. There are little tags in each picture and when you hover over them there will be an explanation to an appealing feature about the location:

EBM logo process

Script Draft 4

Script Draft 4

Music comes in.

She comes running through the woods

She stops and goes into the bushes and hides. 

Chaser comes running through the woods stops turns and sees her.

Then he goes towards her and captures her.

She screams.

Close up of her in shock.

Blackout

Fade In

Close up on Person A’s eyes opening.

Close up of Person A tied up.

Chaser enters slowly, has a knife. Long shot.

Chaser puts knife to neck of person tied up.

Put’s knife in pocket and takes phone out of pocket.

Looks at phone sends a text then tightens the rope around her hands.

As he sends a text she takes the knife out of his pocket.

Walks out not realizing knife has been taken out his pocket.

Close Up- Person A has knife hidden between her legs and takes it out when he leaves.

Person A is out of rope. Medium shot.

She then runs out.

Chaser comes in realizes she is gone and shouts “shit”.

Long shot of her running through an alley.

Long shot of him walking out at the end of the alley.

Guard comes out alley with knife in his hand.

Person A turns around slowly. Close up

Guard starts walking towards her.

Person A starts to run off.

Close up on Person A. Obviously conflicted. 

Media Main Task Planning

MAIN TASK SCRIPT - (DRAFT THREE)

MAIN TASK SCRIPT - (DRAFT THREE)

Music comes in.

She comes running through the woods

She stops and goes into the bushes and hides. 

Chaser comes running through the woods stops turns and sees her.

Then he goes towards her and captures her.

Close up of her in shock.

Blackout

Fade In

Close up on Person A’s eyes opening.

Close up of Person A tied up.

Chaser enters slowly, has a knife. Long shot.

Chaser puts knife to neck of person tied up.

Put’s knife in pocket and takes phone out of pocket.

Looks at phone sends a text then tightens the rope around her hands.

As he sends a text she takes the knife out of his pocket.

Walks out not realizing knife has been taken out his pocket.

Close Up- Person A has knife hidden between her legs and takes it out when he leaves.

Person A is out of rope. Medium shot.

She then runs out.

Chaser comes in realizes she is gone and panicks.

Long shot of her running through an alley.

Long shot of him walking out at the end of the alley.

“STOP” – Guard yells.  Close up.

Person A turns around slowly. Close up

Guard is pointing a gun at her. Long shot

“Come back or I shoot”. Medium shot

Close up on Person A. Obviously conflicted. 

Blackout

As a group we came up with a shortlist of six titles that we liked. Then we decided to go through them and critique them, giving them a rating out of 5.

 Main task planning:

Target Audience Questionnaire:

How old are you?
"16"
"16"
"14"

What is your favourite film and why?
"Pitch Perfect, it's just so funny, even though i've seen it so many times"
"It has to be shawshank redemption, it's just a great movie"
"Kick Ass, because it's not like normal superhero films" 

What do you want to see in a thriller?
"plot twists, I don't like being able to guess what's going to happen next"
"Action, car chase's, danger and suspense"
"Chase scenes, a unique idea, action and a good villain"

What don't you like in a thriller?
"Romance, sometimes too much time is spent on romance and the actual thriller storyline get's lost"
"When they become too predictable"
"If they are really futuristic or with weapons that don't exist"

Do you prefer to watch films at home or in the cinema?
"Probably at home though it can be social to do with friends"
"I used to go to the cinema, but now I prefer it at home"
"When you are at the cinema you can watch it with friends and it's just more enjoyable"

Does the title affect your view on the film?
"Not really, it's mainly the trailer"
"Yes, long titles are usually for boring films."
"Sometimes, but it depends on what type of film it is"

Script draft 2

Three thriller film titles:

Taken:

The tile Taken is short and immidiately the audience knows it's about something being stolen or someone being kidnapped. This is good as it shows the audience what kind of film it is which help's them choose if it's the type of film they would want to watch.
             Because it's a short title, it leaves the audience excited and intrigued, which makes them want to know what the film is about, and gives them more a reason why they should go and see it.

Silence of the Lambs:

The title is quite weird, and misleads the audience into what it is about. With this title and the contrast to what it is about which is shown in the trailer, it would make the audience want to watch the film to see what other unexpected things might be involved in it.
                    It makes the audience feel intrigued as it is an unusual title which influences them to see the movie to see what it's really about.

 Black Swan:

The title Black Swan is interesting as swans are usually white and pure. This unnusual description makes the audience interested as they understand that it will be quite psychological. As it is quite short it sticks in your mind, which is good for a film as it means it's more likely to draw in an audience.
               This title influences the audience to see the film due to the unnuasual nature of the title. It makes the audience feel intrigued and therefore more likely to see the film.

Overall Thrillers have quite short catchy titles, to draw the audience in. The title doesn't give too much away and is quite vague, but should give enough away that the audience have a slight idea what to expect. We will consider this when it comes to giving a title to our main task.

Main task script draft 1

Main Task Script - (Draft One)

A tracking shot following Person A. We see the phone in there hand as they try and call 999.

Voice over “They’ve taken my sister and now they’re after me. Help me please, oh god, please help me”

Blackout

Close up on Person A’s eyes opening.

Slow motion of phone being dropped.

Two shot of Person A and Person B tied up.

Guard enters slowly, has a knife. Long shot.

Put’s knife down and picks up the phone.

Pick’s up phone and laughs then tightens the ropes tying the hands together.

Walks out leaving knife on the floor.

Two shot – Person B tells (or indicates) for Person A to use the knife to break rope.

Person A is out of rope and helps Person B out. Medium shot.

Guard enters to get knife. Medium shot.

Victims pretend to still be tied up. Two- shot.

Person A punches Guard.  Medium shot.

They stand up and run out the garage. – Medium/long shot.

“STOP” – Guard yells.  Close up.

Person A turns around slowly. Close up

Guard is holding person B captive. Long shot

“Come back or they die”. Medium shot

Close up on Person A. Obviously conflicted.

END