final group thriller- miss.gerogiou

w

West Hatch High school
168047

Mikaeel Khaliq - 9438

I also worked with Tyler Osman-9359

q7

The preliminary task acted as a learning process for my group in regards to using the camera and tripod, it was also a situation that many of us had  not been in so i was able to learn how to react on camera even though the scene we had produced was very short.

Personally this task helped with the thriller as like i have mentioned it allowed me to learn the functions of the camera and tripod, two pieces of equipment which i have not had a lot of experience with.Aside from the functions of the camera it allowed me to have a small insight as to how to direct a scene which was my role during the preliminary task, in order to direct the actors need a direction to follow in order for the scene to be filmed in the way that i wanted. Had i not had this task it would of been far more difficult to set up the camera and tripod on the first day of filming as they were a little more complicated then i thought, there were also functions like the zoom in and so forth which took a little time to properly used.

When creating my thriller i made sure to include more angles and different camera shots in order to show a wide range of them being used, in the correct context of course. The different camera shots were used according to what scene they fit best for example high angle to show that the victim was far more in superior in comparison to the antagonist. Apart from making sure that we used a wide variety of camera angles and shots there was not much else that we could try to incorporate from our preliminary task or do differently.

Q5

Before the opening sequence went into production I decided to conduct primary research which is first-hand information I have collected. The two methods i used was the questionnaire and the vox pops which both proved to be very useful. The questionnaire was based on 40 people who answer 12 questions which we had provided in order to get a better understanding of the general public views on thriller films and their most liked aspects which were important as we want to create an opening sequence that is attractive to the general public, it also gave us a better understanding of our target audience as the people who answered had to state their age. The vox pops also aided  in this as the same questionnaire was asked which added to the results and also gave us a visual representation of the people we asked. The feedback we received proved to be very helpful as it allowed us a greater insight Of the views of our potential target audience which can now possibly help us to decrease the amount of time we spend  planning the opening sequence.

To add to this a large amount of planning was done in the upcoming months on certain elements like Mis en scene, sound, cinematography and majority of the other components of a thriller film. These all helped tremendously when deciding on what narrative to produce as these elements that had to be formed could be referred back to my research and see how other films have used sound or cinematography in the films however these were not copied as there were only taken as inspiration for our own opening sequence.

As I mentioned I also found inspiration through films which i used as inspiration for my own opening sequence which I was able to analyse in great depth which helped me to broaden my knowledge on certain subjects like conventions and characters which ultimately help when producing my own opening sequence, as I could see what worked well in those and what I would have done differently based on my own opinion.However there were a few inspirations that were mainly taken from the two films Halloween and Scream 4 which were the male antagonist, blonde female victim, use of a mobile phone and the knife. 

When comparing both my primary secondary research I found them both to be  an extremely big help when it came to producing my own opening sequence as combined it allowed me to see how the thriller genre differed from other genres as well as making a lot of decisions easier.

From my primary and secondary there were no inspirations as such however we were able to spot trends in the answers that were given for example many of the individuals who fitted the target audience liked to see their thriller films with quite a large amount of gore.We also found that they preferred eerie settings like a dark forest or an abandoned house which i then went on to use in my own opening sequence.

q4

When creating an opening sequence the target audience has to be taken into account as this can be  restrictive when the content and also allow the production to head into a particular vision depending on the target audience.

There are also other factors when deciding the target audience for the chosen narrative which are the age ratings provided by the BBFC which can change depending on the criteria that they feel is suitable for certain ages, So if the narrative seems to be too violent we may have to increase the age of the tiny audience which is not necessarily a problem in most cases.

My target audience will be both genders from the age of fifteen and above as like mentioned i have looked at various things like the BBFC's guidelines for age ratings and have also used my own judgement. The factors that have influenced my judgement consist of various elements such as the narrative which in my opinion is not necessarily extremely violent or disturbing however it does have an alarming nature about it, there were other aspects such as the ideas that we had yet to include like the use of a knife and most probably some use of profanity which would most certainly be deemed as insensitive to anyone under the age of 15.













The opening sequence i have created will appeal to my audience as when i started planning my opening sequence almost every decision made was with the view of my target audience in mind. During my research into thriller films i also made sure that the films i was researching had a similar target audience which meant that i was able to pick out key elements of the films that the target audience liked and use for inspiration in my own opening sequence, for example the use of a knife was very popular as it seemed like the audience could relate to it and it also helped to make the scene a lot more gory and violent. The narrative I have produced should appeal to my target audience as I have included certain aspects like enigma and the general narrative does not reveal too much which should keep the audience interested throughout the film. The narrative is loosely based on other films like Halloween which seemed to be very popular, for example the unidentified antagonist, blonde female victim and certain iconography have all been inspired from that film.The characters were also roughly the same age as the target audience which again allow the audience to relate more as they may be able to see themselves in a similar situation. Apart from the conventions I have mentioned above there are others included such as the variable lighting from low key lighting to more normal lighting which make certain scenes seem more intense which should make the audience more intrigued.

q6

Q3

evaluation-Q2

The main characters in my opening sequence were of different social groups in terms of gender and age as the victim was female and the antagonist was male which through my research before planning for my opening sequence i found to stereotypical of the triller genre as many films such as scream and halloween. However the audience is not able to identify any characteristics such as age due to the hidden identity but they can see physical features which in our sequence makes the antagonist seem to appear more superior in terms of height and most probably strength.In terms of the audiences perception of the antagonist they will most likely see him to be a social outcast as he is clearly stalking the female victim of the production, this may lead to the audience thinking that he may be mentally unstable as the act of stalking is not seen as a normal action.The reason i have represented my antagonist this way in order to stay conventional as through my research the majority of other antagonists have behaved in a similar way.The female victim is represented as normal girl around the age of eighteen to about twenty five, she is relatively naive as she does not really notice that she has a stalker but apart from this she is just an average girl.The reason i have represented the female victim this way is so the audience can easily relate to her as through research it seems that the more relatable a character the stronger the relationship with the audience becomes which is a quality you want.

Thriller films can seem stereotypical with the gender of certain characters which is the case in my opening sequence as well as other media products. The female victim is portrayed as weak and vulnerable in comparison to the superior male antagonist which is vastly stereotypical to thriller films however this also the general perception of the both genders in terms of strength and qualities similar to that. While doing my research i found it to be rare and almost impossible to find thriller films that had the genders reversed as it simply did not have the same effect.So in order for my opening sequence to be as conventional as possible I had to incorporate the stereotypical gender for each character.The age of certain characters can also be quite stereotypical, for example in the same movies i researched the age and there seemed to be a pattern in the age which was that the female victims were always in the age range of eighteen to late twenties. 

The target audience throughout the opening sequence will start to form relationships and opinions of the characters which in this case will be the victim and antagonist.Clearly the target audience is likely very different relationships with the two characters as they are on two opposite ends of the spectrum,per se.The relationship with the victim will be the strongest as it clear early on that she is very helpless and vulnerable to the situation so immediately the audience want the victim to be able to free herself from the situation which we know is not possible however they audience still end up having hope that the victim is able to escape. The relationship with the antagonist is of course very different as the audience tend to despise him throughout the whole opening sequence as he is trying to hurt in an innocent girl in the eyes of the audience, so the audience tend to have a weaker relationship with him as the vulnerable victim is constantly on their mind.

evaluation-Q1

The overall task was to create an opening sequence which adheres to the general conventions of a thriller film which in which i was given time to research.My group members are Samantha Apperley and Tyler Osman, we all has specific tasks that were defined later on, for example during the production one of my many roles was to find filling soundtracks for the opening sequence and to film majority of it as i had a small role in regards to the acting.As a group we worked relatively well as we were able to communicate in a sufficient manor and come to conclusions quickly as we all had a similar mindset for the opening sequence however certain elements like organisation need to be improved upon in the future.As a whole the opening sequence we produced was above par and contained many conventions which was one of my main aims.

As previously mentioned thriller films contain conventions which are elements of the film or certain objects which have become affiliated with the genre due to their fitting nature in terms of the thriller genre.So from this i was able to spot trends in thriller films, for example in halloween which contains a male antagonist and a female victim which seems to be a very popular convention among thriller films as if the antagonist is of a male gender it makes the scenes more intense especially if the victim is female as it reinforces how helpless and threatened the female victim is.

There were other conventions that were observed such as the use of iconography, specifically objects like knifes and mobile phones which were used in the film scream 4 very effectively as the use of the knife made the scene more intense and more violent. The audience are often able to relate more when objects that that see everyday used in eerie/alarming situations therefore making the scenes seem a lot more shocking. The use of a knife in itself is quite gruesome as the killing seems to be a lot more horrifying due to the blood shown and so forth.

Another convention which was noticed in my research of scream 4 was the variation between normal lighting and low key lighting which was used in scenes which were more dark in nature in terms of the actions such as a killing for example which low key lighting is associated with. The change in the lighting let the audience know that something terrifying was about to happen and the darker lighter also made the actions that were occurring seem far more scary as the audience are not completely sure of what they are seeing.In the same scenes the time of shots would also increase which proved be conventional in practically all thriller films as this created more excitement and added panic to the situation.

In order to create a successful thriller film i  had to create an opening sequence that contained a large amount go generic conventions which i did in the early stages of planning, as a group we all individually listed conventions of we needed to include , trying to cover every element of the four micro elements.The most obvious was to have a male antagonist and a female victim which was suitable to my group perfectly, however there were other sub conventions,per se, that also filled in well such as a blonde female victim to signify innocent which was again made easy as Samantha fitted the description well. I decided to include conventions like low key lighting , enigma, certain camera shots like the high angle and a hidden identity for the antagonist to be dressed in all black ,baggy clothes as well as a possible mask which would not let the audience know his true identity which should hopefully make the scenes more mysterious. The camera angles like the high angle will allow the audience to know in certain situations who is superior as the antagonist for example will be looking down on the victim, the angle works in the same way by letting the audience know that victim is clearly inferior. The idea of enigma is quite important in a thriller film as creates the mood of mystery in the film for example like with the antagonist which always has a concealed identity.
.In terms of picking the conventions i was relatively free as we were able to pick almost any convention to include as we had easy access to produce the film.

 As a result i decided to set a large proportion in a forest which was mostly used in thriller films due to it being considered man an eerie environment. Overall i would say my opening sequence sticks to a large majority of the conventions which are seen in thriller films which was my main ambition from the beginning of the planning stages as challenging the typical conventions of a thriller film would make it extremely hard and may in fact cause the film to be further from the thriller genre as after all it is the conventions and typical features that make the film more suited to a particular genre.

In comparison to other films such as halloween my opening sequence had definitely contained a wide variety of conventions just as halloween did which which became a large inspiration in certain aspects.There were various similarities such as the concealed identities of the killer as well as the female victim which i have just mentioned, the choice of weapon for our antagonist was also the same which was a knife as i found it to have a greater impact on the audience as well as making the production a lot easier as many other weapons would be hard to obtain.Although we made sure to include differences like the setting and the plot twist which my opening sequence did not contain.

planning cinematography- Miss.Miller

Cinematography is a key element in the production of a thriller of as it allows us to convey more emotions into a scene by using different camera angles for example using a higher angle allows us to make one of the characters seem vulnerable as they being looked down upon.Planning is required as in order to create excellent sequences we need to decide which angles will be most suited for certain scenes  so we are able to convey the three elements of a thriller further.

We plan on using a POV angle during the chase so the audience are able to see the situation from the female victims point of view. We've chosen to use this camera angle as it allows the audience to see exactly how the victim is reacting to the situation, so it will hopefully make the audience feel more sympathetic towards the female victim however they will also feel more shocked and on edge as they completely see how the feel victim is reacting.This camera technique is quite conventional to a thriller as it helps portray the scene further by showing the situation from the point of view of one the characters.

High angle will be used at the end of the scene when the antagonist is standing over the female victim, this specific camera technique will show that the victim is in fact very helpless as the antagonist now has her trapped. As stated before this camera angle will allow the audience to see that she is now helpless which is due to the fact that the camera is looking down at the victim also making her look inferior.This is conventional as it is a technique which often used in thriller films as it makes the relationship between the character and the audience stronger as they come to realize that the character is helpless.

An extreme long shot will be used during the car park scene when the two characters are having an argument, this type of camera shot allows the audience to see the body language of the characters and the whole enviroment. In this case this camera works perfectly as we want the audience to notice that the car park that the two characters are in is deserted and quite obscure this will make the audience a little more agitated. They should also be able to fully analyse the body language of both and see that the argument is relatively heated making the audience quite shocked.This camera shot is quite conventional as it used in many thriller films and helps convey the three elements of a thriller further. This camera style will not necessarily strengthen any of the relationships with the characters but will allow them to understand the situation more.

Close ups will be used in various situations throughout the whole scene so first of all it could be used when the female victim checks her phone and realizes there is no signal or during the end of the chase scene to show the facial expressions of the female victim.The reason we want to use this camera technique is to help create more shock and surprise so for example the close up on the phone makes the audience recognize that the female victim cannot use her phone and is now trapped in a deserted area with no contact. We also want to use it on the close ups of the female victims face so the audience are able to see how terrified the victim is which will make the viewers feel more compelled to feel sorry for her.This is conventional as it allows the audience to understand the situation further and it also helps the viewers notice specific things which may not be noticed if it is not highlighted.

Handheld camera techniques can also be used during the chase however we have not come to clear decision however it will only be used during the main chase scene rather then throughout the whole scene. The reason for the particular camera technique used is to show the audience the perspective of the female victim which will create more shock and surprise, it will also make the scene more realistic which again create more of the elements of thriller previously mentioned.This is conventional to thriller as it emphasizes how panicked and frightened the victim really is and will create more shock and surprise. The audience will also start to feel for the victim as shes helpless and has no way out of the situation she is in.

My sequence will be more effective throughout the use of cinematography as it will help us emphasize shock, surprise and suspense through the scenes, it will also help us create a relationship between the characters and the audience. 

rough cut- miss.georgiou

A rough cut is a film that has no been completely edited so that further feedback or criticism can be provided in order to produce a points that can continue to improve the film when it is returned to the editing stage.

The audience provided by the audience is important to the production as like previously mentioned it vastly improves the final cut for the film . The audience will be able to provide criticism that they feel is needed which helps the production immensely as ultimately we are aiming to satisfy our target audience by creating  certain elements which we feel will be most liked by our target audience. The feedback we then receive will then be taken in consideration and if we feel it is suitable for our film and does in fact improve the final outcome we will incorporate the suggestion.

We have received our feedback mainly from comments which have been left on youtube we uploaded it, the comments have come from various individuals around the target audience which is of our most concern. The use of a method like a focus group would be too time consuming and not needed as the comments that have been provided are of the quality that we need in order to start producing a final production. The same applies to the questionnaire which in fact would be worse then the focus group as this does not allow for the individuals to freely express their opinions of the film as they will have to conform to the questionnaires.

The benefits of the feedback are similar to what i have explained in the first paragraph. The feedback given will allow us to edit certain aspects more to the liking of the target audience which will subsequently cause more interest from our target audience, it will also allow us to see mistakes which may have not previously seen when editing which will continue to improve the production.

Positive feedback:

"the music within the opening sequence is conventional to the thriller genre and fits the settings and surrounding well."

The music was relatively hard to find as we had to ensure that it is was copyright free and fitted well with the tempo of our opening sequence while also being the type of music that would be associated with the thriller genre. It is clear from this comment that making sure we found the most suitable sound tracks for our opening sequence has played a big advantage for us as we have been able to enhance the experience that our opening sequence has provided.


"the opening sequence is realistic to real life equivalents and does actually look like an opening sequence, as the narrative flowed within the opening sequence.

Throughout the filming and during the development stage we were focused on creating an opening sequence as appose to creating something more like a trailer which would be far from the task that we were given.Creating real life equivalents was also important to include in the early stages of planning as if the audience are able to relate with the characters or the situation this should hopefully make the emotions that we have tried to create more apparent as the audience are able to see themselves in the same or similar situation. The narrative was also of a concern as we were only able to show a small segment as it was an opening sequence so making sure it flowed smoothly but also being interesting and also attractive to the audience proved to be quite difficult but judging by this comment it seems like we done well.


"The use of cinematography was very good, as a variational of shots were used, making the visuals more appealing as the same shots weren't repeated and multiple different ones were used during different segments"

During the planning of the opening sequence we were adamant on providing a wide range of camera angle and camera techniques as this allowed us to demonstrate that we were proficient in regards to the use of the camera, however we also needed to ensure that certain angles were used for certain situations for example using a high angle to show the character thats is lower is more inferior which we had learnt when we were researching cinematography in other films.


Negative feedback:

"some segments could be either removed and placed during other segments of the production, so that the narrative is clearer and easier to understand"

There were parts of the opening sequence that we felt that were a little too long and made the sequence more elongated then it needed to be so based on this comment it has confirmed that we should in fact shorten certain scene in our sequence in order for the overall quality to be improved. In regards to moving certain segments in another order, it simply does not make sense as it would make the narrative incomprehensible as the sequence of events have been placed in a fashion that progresses and makes the most sense, so we will not be paying attention to this part of the comment as it would affect the opening sequence in a negative light.

"The dialogue at the beginning of the sequence seems to be a little quiet in comparison to the sound track and some scenes seem to be a little too dark"

This comment has many fair points which we will definitely take into consideration however they are also very easily fixed, for example in regards to the sound of the dialogue it very easy to increase the sound of the dialogue in those certain scenes that require which i will most definitely fix as the dialogeu is relatively important as it increases the audiences knowledge of the narrative which is crtical for an opening sequence. The lighting in certain scenes however will be difficult to amend as the time that those scenes were created was very dark which was out of our control although we will be able to change the brightness and possibly add certain filter which will improve the lighting but this may not completley fix the problem.

"Certain aspects of the opening scene such as the jump from different settings make it little unclear for the audience"

As a group we spent a long period of time discussing on whether we should create more scenes showing the trasition from one setting to the other which would be the alleyways to the forest however we came to the conclusion that it was unnessary as it just prolonged the opneing sequnece as little to long and may make the opening to boring as the audience would mostly be watching the chase.So unfortunatley we will not be taking the comment into consideration as we feel that providing more scenes would actually decrease the quality of our opening sequence.

Based on the comments we have recieved we will take the comment which refers to the level of volume of the dialogue and the lighting of certain scenes as this is the only comment which we believe to be feasible.After reciving this comment we will go back to the editing software and replay the opening sequence and then make the changes to the volume of the dialogue as well as ensuring that we are able to increase the brightness to level that does make the scene look unaesthtically pleasing.

Individual narrative ideas- Miss.Georgiuo

The narrative

A narrative is important as it helps brings the audience to be more engaged with with film, the opening narrative scene being the most important. The narrative is also what keeps the audience keep interested thought the film as they are able to follow the story across the film and understand the various situations that occur and how the characters react to them, it also helps create the three most important elements which are shock, suspense and surprise. 

Mise en scene

• Forest
• low key lighting
• killer might have a mask
• urban myth that a killer lives in the forest
• group of teenagers
• wanting to explore the urban myth
• all sneak out of house at night 
• decide to meet at forest 
• all explore the forest
• they think its not true 
• they hear some rustling 
• start to get a little scared but brush it off
• then killer comes running out 
• briefly show him with the handheld camera
• they all start to run back 
• screaming and shouting
• end  

I will present this information to my group and then we will decide on which narrative we will use for our scene, we may decide to combine them or focus on one narrative. However it most likely that we will focus on one and develop it further making sure many conventions are present.

Questionnaire

Research was conducted as in order to create a film that the general public will like we needed to see there opinions on what creates a thriller that will become popular as it caters to the wants of the general public. We decided to ask 40 people as this allowed us to question a diverse range of people, this helped us make our decisions as we knew the answers that were given were of a broad audience.

PLEASE CIRCLE YOUR ANSWERS

1) Please specify your gender:

Male   

Female           

2) What is your age?

11-14            

15-17

18+

                       

3) Do you like the thriller genre?

Yes                 

No                  

Sometimes    

4) What type of thriller do you enjoy?

Psychological

Action            

Crime             

Other             

5) What type of settings/ environment do you prefer to see in a thriller film?

Forest

Deserted house/warehouse

Abandoned outside area, for example car park

Other

6) What gender protagonist do you prefer?

Male

Female

7) What type of weapons do you like to be seen & WHY?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

8) What type of soundtrack do you like to hear in thriller sequences and WHY?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

9) Do you like to see gore when watching thriller films?

Yes

No

Sometimes

10) Do you prefer your antagonist to have a hidden identity or to be seen throughout the film and WHY?

Hidden identity

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Seen throughout

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Research was conducted as in order to create a film that the general public will like, we needed to see their opinions on what creates a thriller that will become popular as it caters to the wants of the general public. We decided to ask 40 people as this allowed us to question a diverse range of people, helping us make our decisions as we knew the answers that were given were of a broad audience.

This pie chart shows us that the majority of people we asked questions to were female however we can also see that it quite an even number of male and females asked. This will not necessarily help us with the decisions what we make for our scene however it has helped us to understand that the rest of the questions asked are answered by both an almost equal amount of gender which will make our decisions appeal to both male and females.It also shows us that the male and female people who answered may have some sort of distinct difference in the answers that were provided for example the males may prefer more gore in the thriller films they watch which may not be the case with the females, ultimately this will help choose what type of gender our film is most likely going to be aimed to however in the perfect scenario we would hope that the opening sequence we have created will satisfy both genders.

This information allowed us to analyse the answers between different age group, this is critical as it will allow us to decide what age group we want our target audience, This pie chart tells us that majority of the people who were questioned are between the ages of 15 to 17 which indicates immediately that our scenes will most likely be tailored to the liking of audiences of those ages if we decide to use all of the answers on the questionnaire to base our film on.However when creating out film we must also bear in mind the age restrictions which certain films have based on the content so our target audience could change entirely if the films we produce is to violent or gory, although being of a similar age it is likely that the fllm we produce will cater to this age group providing we adhere to certain rules.

This piechart tells us that a large proportion of people do in fact like the thriller genre or at least occasionally, this informs us that it is obviously quite a popular genre which could potentially mean that our scene will be viewed a lot.There is nothing from this question that we can incorporate into our scene however it just proved that a lot of people enjoy the category of our scene and will hopefully watch it. When taking this answer into context there does seem to be more use to the question rather than it being an indication of how popular this genre is, as the people who answered that they do like thriller films or at least occasionally make the answers of the the questionnaire more valid and therefore more useful to us when creating our sequence as they have more knowledge on what creates a better thriller film then those who answered no.

This question shows us that people prefer many types of different setting so it will be hard to accommodate to every viewer. However in the question there is an answer with a majority which could possibly point us into the direction of using that setting but it does not necessarily mean we will use the answer when choosing the scene. When the question was asked practically every participant did not have a specific type of setting that they really enjoyed and in fact just settings that they may prefer to see which imply's that a certain type of setting may not be seen as too important, which may imply that is in fact up to the creators to choose the most effective settings as the setting allows the certain emotions to be explored more vastly for example a forest would allow us as film makers to create more mystery and suspense as it is a setting that is considered relatively unusual to people and is also associated with being quite eerie.

Based on the pie chart we can see that psychological thrillers are enjoyed the most however it is not a clear majority.This sort of information can be quite critical when making a successful scene as this definitely something the general public may look for in a thriller, so based on this information we will clearly have to pick a specific type of thriller we want to base our scene on. As psychological thrillers seem to be the most popular we will most likely decide to base out theme on this type of thriller as we want our scene to appeal to the majority.

Out of the 40 participants 57% of them preferred a male protagonist to be apart of the scene. This type of information will have a big impact on the gender of the protagonist that we will choose which based on this pie chart will be a male as it is clear a majority of people prefer to see a male be the hero of the film.It is also very conventional which one other reason as to why this seems to be a clear choice for us even before creating the questionnaire, a male antagonist seems to always create more shock and more unease in the audiences of thriller films.

This pie chart shows us that the majority prefer a gun to be used as the murder weapon in thriller films however it is not clear majority so there are still a lot of other people who prefer possibly an axe or knife to be used. These answers will be taken on board however it is unlikely that we use the majority answer in this case as it is difficult to make the murder look more realistic as we will need a prop gun, so instead we will most definitely use the knife as it is a lot easier to use and often more conventional to thriller films.

This pie chart shows us that majority of the people that we asked preferred a fast paced action soundtrack in the thrillers that they watched. This information is likely to be taken into use however the scene that we have narrated will not fit this style of sound so we are more likely to include the slow paced soundtrack as it will create more suspense and shock with fitting scenes. Although we are not using the majority answer we are however using the second most preferred answer which means that the slow paced soundtrack will still appeal to many of our audience.However there may be some use of variations between slow and face paced sound tracks as this seems to be a lot more effective then one continuous soundtrack, this technique is also used very often in thriller films as the sudden change in pace creates more shock to the audience during a significant scene. 

Based on the information on the pie-chart we can see that a majority prefer to see gore used within thriller films, many people also answered with "sometimes" which still suggests that they like to see in most likely more moderation.This information will definitely be taken into consideration as it seems a large majority like to see gore which can also be relatively easy to replicate. The scene we have created can also be easily altered to incorporate more gore with the use of possible fake blood or more visual killings. Although gore may be may be hard to use in an opening sequence but it does quite often play quite a big part in the majority of the film.Starting with a relative amount of gore could be technique used to shock the audience as it is not something they would expect at the beginning of them film as the audience are usually gradually brought into it.

The information in this pie chart shows us that a slight majority prefer the (Not finished as tyler did this one wrong)

The vox pop is a tool used in many forms of media to provide a snapshot of public opinion. Random members of public are asked to give their views on a particular topic and their responses are presented to the viewer/reader as a reflection of popular opinion.We specifically used them as we wanted to see what the general public thought about certain aspects of a thriller film so using the same questions in the questionnaire we asked random people to give their opinion on the questions, as previously mentioned the information that we collected will be treated as the opinions of most  people. To ensure that the results can be more accurately described as popular opinion we aimed to ask people of different backgrounds and cultures.The data we collected which is otherwise known as qualitative data due it being opinions of other people, is practically the same as the questionnaire that we previously asked however the use of vox pop may not necessarily be used just for creating films as it can be used to show others an example of general members of the public answering our questions on the thriller genre. So the vox pops still serve the same purpose as the questionnaire however they allow us to see a visual representation of the questions asked.

Within my research i found many aspects to be of interest to our group, the questionnaire being the most interesting as it allowed it us to see the opinion of 40 people which could help us majorly as we were able to see the interests of a segment of the general population and incorporate it into out scenes.Although it will be difficult to incorporate every bit of information so we decided to analyse each questions and see which was the most feasible for our scenes so for example one of the questions indicated that the majority preferred a gun to be used as the murder weapon however once we analysed this we came to a conclusion that the better option would be using the second answer which was a knife as it would be a lot easier to use in your scenes and is often seen to be more of a conventional weapon.If i were to do the research again i might add more consideration when choosing participants in order for out results to be from more diverse people so that the out results could be based on a broader proportion of the population.

group planning

Risk Assessment

It is important to consider to risk as the group ultimately will want to have make sure that nothing goes wrong within the production phase so to ensure this we will ensure that we take precautions in regards to the risks that we have previously calculated.

The risk assessment that we have created will help us to avoid the risks that are possible for example we know that the area that we are filming in is very muddy therefore making it difficult to run on so we will have to ensure that the characters in this scene are wearing the correct foot wear and taking other precautionary measures.

Filming schedule

A filming schedule is important to have as it allows the group to keep track of the location, equipment and various other things that are happening on particular days of filming which can then be used as a way of checking progression.

We ended up making a few changes to the filming schedules as location had to be changed for various reasons such as not being suitable to film in however apart from this the rest of the filming schedule was kept the same

group meetings

Meetings and discussions are important to carry out as they allow the individual group members to discuss ideas with each other which can ultimately end up improving the final scene. These meeting also allow other members of the group to critique the ideas of other members which will make sure the idea satisfy all of the group members and also will also ensure that it fits the requirements need for the opening scene.

The group worked well in terms of creating the narrative and designing certain other elements of the opening scene however the group was let down in other crucial elements, for example in terms of organisation other members of the group did not conform to the bare minimum of expectations. They also delayed the film process by constantly decreasing the filming time in order to attend to other commitments which ultimately affected the rest of the group as this did not allow for a sufficient time of period which therefore had an negative impact on the quality of the opening scene. 

Roles- Miss.Miller

It is essential for roles to be allocated to individual members as it is not possible for directors to do every role especially in large films as there are many tasks to do which is only possible when located to different people.There are many roles within the production team for example there are producers,editors, sound producers, writers and many more which are all necessary for a film of any genre .

We decided on certain roles before the actual production of the film however our main criteria for allocating the roles was experience in the role or in a similar role, so for example i had experience with finding copyright free music in the past so i allocated myself to that role and was able to quiet easily find sounds that were adequate for our film as well as fitting the criteria for the music used. The roles allocated for each member were as follows:

• Producers (definition:"prepare and then supervise the making of a film before presenting the product to a financing entity or a film distributor")- Tyler Osman,  Mikaeel Khaliq
• Directors (definition: "a person who directs the making of a film")-Tyler Osman , Mikaeel Khaliq
• Actors (definition: "individuals that have the role of performing") - Mikaeel Khaliq, Tyler Osman and Samantha Apperly
• Director of Photography (definition: "The person who is in charge of the lighting and camera settings of the motion picture but who does not always control the camera itself")-  Mikaeel Khaliq
• Music producers (definition:" Those who have the role of either producing suitable music or being able to locate copyright free music")-  Mikaeel Khaliq, Samantha Apperly
• Screen Writers (definition:" an individual who creates an orginal narrative for a film or other media products") - Samantha Apperly
• Editors (definition: "works with the raw footage, selecting shots and combining them into sequences to create a finished motion picture")- Tyler Osman

Tyler Osman's roles are stated above. Tyler specifically did quite well when it came to directing the film as it seemed he had quite a clear vision as to what would look best on camera and was able to give good suggestions in terms of cinematography and how the scene should be filmed even when he was on camera which proved to very useful as a second opinion allows for reflection and can most certain prevent mistakes.He also had no problem during the role of his acting apart from being a little irresponsible in regards to the costume however we were able to over come the problem with a few adjustments.In regards to the editing he started off well as he claimed that he previous knowledge in editing film which is why we chose to let him do the task individually however his quality of work did not seem to be up to par so i decided to take it upon myself to continue with editing as i was more willing to put in the work which turned out to be for better.\\

Samantha Apperley's roles are also stated above in the list. Samantha's major role was the acting as she was a vital part of our opening sequence as she was the main character and had to be in every single role, this provided both negative and positive aspects. The role she played was up to a relatively high standard which i cannot fault her for however as she was such a key element to the filming she did prove to be quite difficult to in organising herself to meet at the arranged time of filming which was most probably her major downfall. There were other minor downfalls like refusing to do certain things during filming but they were amenable. However she did provide the narrative for the whole opening sequence which a quiet conventional to thriller films which made it a good choice of narrative.


Within their role the other members of the group have continued to do research on their specific roles in order to ensure that the final opening sequence is to the highest quality. We have tried to stick to the roles which have assigned to ourselves however in certain roles other other group members have had to take over in order to ensure that the task has been completed fully and to the highest degree of quality possible. By creating specific role for each group member it should have allowed us to focus solely on the roles which we had designated to ourselves, it should have also made the roles easier for each of the group members as we had less to concentrate on. The specific roles also should have assured that we were able to designate more time to the roles as we had a smaller burden, which ultimately should increase the quality of our opening sequence. 

In conclusion, the roles allocated to each member did not necessarily prevent other members from not doing other tasks, the editing task eventually became a shared task between myself and another group member. However as a whole each group member did reasonably well in their allocated role although there were a few roles which were shared among the group. I would make sure that the roles of each group members were not shared as this would have made the process a lot quicker.

Opening scene narrative- Miss.Miller

The scene starts wit the two characters which are supposed to be portrayed as a couple, they're situated in a deserted car park at  the time of dusk. The setting was specified within the miss-en-scene ensuring that it was conventional as possible. We carried on the conventions this scene/setting as we made sure that low key lighting was present the whole scene as this created more suspense throughout the scene. The scene then goes on to show the two characters in a heated argument which should hopeful shock the audience straight away as the opening scene does not ease the audience into the theme of the thriller, the low key lighting is key here as we want the audience to feel more tense.The argument carries on for a short period of time before the male character storms of to his cars and leaves the female stranded in the dark car park with no way of getting home, ideally we are going to create a close-up at this point so the audience are able to see the facial expressions of the female character.

 Soon after the stalker will be shown however before this we want the audience to come to a realisation that the female character is in fact alone in the car which should hopefully build a sense of suspense in the audience we may do this by incorporating a long shot which is designed to show the environment in which the character is in which fits the purpose here.When the stalker is shown in the camera shot there should be some sort of non-digetic sound which will show the audience that this character is the antagonist as it will make the situation suddenly seem more eerie.The costume of the antagonist will first be revealed to the audience here, which is dark clothing that hides the identity of the antagonist in order to create more mystery about the character.The main focus during this part of the scene is making sure that the female is to convey emotions of panic to the audience to make them realise that the character in the distance is in fact something to be afraid of.

The scene then goes on to the show the female character panic even further as she frantically to get her phone out however to her dismay the phone has no signal, here there will be a combination of a mid shot and a close of up of the phone , the mid shot will be used to show he body language of the female character and of the phone to emphasise that there is no signal which makes the character stranded in the car park.The style of editing will most likely be fast paced here as we want the audience to really feel that the situation is in a state of dismay, this type of editing is achieved by changing the camera angle several times.
After this scene the antagonist will slowly come to a realisation that the girl is on her phone and most likely trying to call for help so he makes his move and walks toward the female character, naturally she becomes hysterical and decides to brisk walk towards any type of exit from this car park no matter where it leads too.

 The female character ends up walking to an alleyway where a panning shot will be used in order to show the audience the environment as well as showing that the speed that the characters are running at which is important as this show how much the female character wants to get away front the antagonist. As the characters run out of the alleyway the female character sees a forest and decides to run into it as she sees it as a way out. A POV is used in the chase scene as it shows the audience what the antagonists point of view is hopefully create more shock as the audience and can experience the situation from a first person view. The chase scene carries on deep into the forest as know the female character slowly starts to become more and more helpless, eventually she evades for him for a while but she falls over a branch which looses her critical time as the antagonist is not far behind holding a knife which adds more shock and surprise to the audience as there is the presence of death constantly through the chase scene.When the female character falls there is no longer enough time for her to escape as the killer is now running up to her, he bends over her and and the lifts the knife up, the scene then ends her in order to add more enigma to the scene as the audience are kept guessing as to what will happen next.

The opening scene we have created is conventional in many ways for example the characters, iconography, lighting, editing and sounds are all inspired from other thriller films which ensures that our opening scene is relative to other thriller films which ultimately is what makes the various elements and the film as a whole conventional 

Group storyboard- miss.miller

The purpose of a group storyboard is for all of the group members to combine their interpretations from the individual storyboards and all come to an agreement as to what the final opening scene should be like in the form of a storyboard however here we can also focus on the types of camera angles, iconography and the types of editing styles that we want to use.So once we had all created our own storyboards we scheduled a group meeting and proceeded to compare all of our storyboards evaluating each section and coming to a conclusion as to which one is most suitable for the final opening scene or alternatively we could have decided to combine two different into one if they both add value to the scene.

As i previously mentioned we created a group storyboard so we could all combine the ideas of the individual group members into one final story which will would be the most conventional in relation to thriller films as all 3 of the individuals storyboards were critiqued in order to be most conventional and suitable for our end opening scene due to the scrutiny. There were certain element in group members storyboards that we decided to include for example one of the group members had incorporated varying timing of shots which allowed us to portray more emotions to the audience through a change in editing style for example using slow editing in the scenes we want to emphasise the emotion of suspense and fast editing in the scenes where we would like to emphasise the emotion of panic.There were also certain elements that we all had included in our own individual storyboard which were low key lighting so of course this type of lighting was used in scene as it was clear that it was something that we all agreed on. There were also new ideas from certain group members like including the sound of a heartbeat or heavy breathing in certain scene in order to stress the emotions of the characters so during the chase scene in our opening scene we would use a faster heart beat to show the audience that the victim is extremely frightening and clearly fighting to escape the antagonist , the heavy breathing would also further strengthen this as the audience can relate heavy breathing to a state of panic, these types of sounds are often used in thriller films which is one of the main reasons we have used them as it further conveys emotions as well as making certain elements more conventional.Many of the elements used have been inspired from other films , for example the use of slow and fast editing was inspired from the human centipede as there is a scene that uses theses editing styles very effectively. The use of a heartbeat was quite clearly used in shutter island which one of my other groups must have used previously for inspiration on sound or other elements however for the use of this sound to be effective the sound must be edited in correctly and fit the images of the scene.We incorporated all of these ideas by creating a group meeting and discussing ideas that we had previously come up with in our own story boards, during the meeting we all looked at other group members storyboards and noted which ideas we liked. After we noted the ideas we liked we then discussed which would be best for our opening scene and collectively created a group storyboard and incorporated the most suitable ideas.

The storyboard we have created fits the purpose as it has done exactly what we wanted which was to incorporate all the best and most relevant ideas from different group members.As previously mentioned we managed to incorporate others ideas by having a group meeting and discussing the elements we had used in each others storyboards.No compromises had to be made as my group generally had a similar concept of how we wanted the final storyboard so we knew what elements we wanted to include.I did not necessarily have to make any compromises however i should added more editing styles in the storyboard which will most likely be used when we get to the editing stage apart from this i have nothing else i wish to change.

Group planning

My group members are Samantha Apperley and Tyler Osman, group meetings are essential as they allow all the group members to exchange ideas with each other which will make the narrative and general concepts improve.

In our first meeting we discussed the fundamentals of our task which was the narratives, we initially produced our own narrative so we had something to discuss in our meeting. We then analysed each narrative and came to a conclusion that Samantha's was the most suitable to our task however we felt that some elements needed changing such as the end scene where she had planned a torture seen however  thought this would be too had create as we do not have the means to make it look realistic, it also made the opening scene seem more like a scene that would occur in the middle of a film. So we then changed the ending to a chase scene which we had seen in mant thriller filsm before hand while doing out reasearch tasks, we felt that this was more appropriate then the torture scene and at the same time made our scene more conventioanl as through this we could add many more conventions such as slow editing.

We planned the type of facial expressions and body language that needed to be used within our thriller scene for example the victim needed to have a scared expression on her face throughout the chase scene and closed body language throughout the arguement to show some fear.The costume were also decided upon as this showed the audience what type of people the characters are, myself and samantha are wearing casual clothes whereas tyler who will be the anatagonist will be wearing all black clothes to try and hide his identity and the pyhsical charactersistics to create more enigma in relation to the characters. We planned on using low key lighting throughout the scene as when we looked at many other thriller films this seemed to be the main type of lighting as it made it harder for the audience to see certain things therefore creating more suspense and mystery.As mentioned previously we had planned on using an abandonmed car park and and obscure forest as these both make the settings of the scene more conventional to thriller films.

Inspirations - Miss.Georgiou

We need inspiration before we can create our thriller process as in order to produce a film that is appealing and engages the audience. We can take inspiration from other films as we are able to see what techniques have been used in order to create suspense, surprise and shock. i have taken inspiration from various films like scream, sin city, the conjuring and Halloween as they all use many different techniques to engage the audience with the three elements that i previously mentioned.

 In this scene there were many inspirations that i took and then incorporated into my actual thriller sequence for example there was a vast amount of slow editing as well as fast timing of shots which are essential in every thriller film.This type of editing inspired me as it allowed the director of this film to portray the emotions of suspense and panic with simple editing techniques which can easily be incorporated into any film.I will try to incorporate these techniques into my opening scene during the whole chase scene as this is the type of situations that these type of editing scenes are used in as suspense and shock is always present in these scenes.It is difficult to make the use of these editing styles completely different as it is similar situation used in "The human centipede"however during the editing stage i will make sure that the use of these techniques is not exactly the same.

Previously i had looked at the conventions used in the film "scream 4" there many conventions used that were actually used in many films such as the sealed identity of the killer, use of knife and blonde female victim. These were all relatively inspiring as they were conventions that seemed to be used in many successful thriller films and also added more suspense, shock and surprise to many of the scenes filmed. It evident from many of my more recent posts that i have decided to use all three of these conventions as it fit the narrative so well,  however i have tried making sealed identity of the antagonist a little different as usually many of the antagonists film wear masks however ours does not yet the killers identity is not revealed. Unfortunately i was not able to make the the use of the knife and the female blonde victim unique as it they are conventions that are not able to be altered and tend to be similar in many thriller films.

In this post i researched the cinematography used in the film sin city and there were many types of camera angles and shots that were of interest me as they showed me different how characters can be portrayed differently depending on the camera angle or shot.In the scene they used close ups and high angle shots which showed emphasised the the expression on the characters face and  the high angle showed me that if you manipulate the camera angle to make certain characters seem either more inferior or less inferior. I plan on incorporating both types of camera angles/shots and many more throughout my opening scene however i will try to make them a little different but these types of shot/angles are quite conventional so they represent the same idea in most films.For example i will a high angle to make the victim seem more inferior which is done in many other thriller films making it quite conventional to a thriller.

In this film there are many aspects of sound which are of interest to me like the use of screaming and heavy breathing both of which added more suspense and shock to the scene.These two particular styles of sound have provided me with inspiration to use them in my opening scene as the screams showed the audience how scared or panicked the victim was and the heavy breathing depending on which character it comes from also adds suspense to the scene as it adds a sense of doubt to the audience.These two particular aspects of sound are going to be used within my scene during the chase scene to show that the victim is extremely scared and the heavy breathing will show that she is starting to become helpless, this has become different to the film above as it is used in different situations and used in a different concept.

My research was helpful as it allowed me to see many other conventional techniques in other films which i could use and adapt into my style to fit the narrative.These techniques have made my sequence better as using the techniques from other films i can now emphasise the three elements of shock,surprise and suspense in a better manor.