Reviewing Others Continuity Tasks

This is a link to another groups continuity task. Overall I think it is well produced and has a good story that I can follow along to, leaving it on a cliff hanger. However at times I believe it has been cut too quickly at 0.07 and the continuity to the sound has been broken in 0.07. At 0.24 there is a very wobbly shot and again the sound doesnt match the previous clip, but this is due to the camera quality. At 0.41 the dialogue "be here" is repeated because it hasn't been cut in the correct place. The zooms were well executed compared to our group, and the addition to music/diegetic sound at the end made it a good attempt and reasonably professional. However, I would advise them to really look closely as to where they are cutting their film together.

Continuity Task- Final Cut

This is our final cut to our continuity task. We have made a major improvement to our first cut because we have re-filmed a lot of our footage and also added titles which is important to our learning towards our real film. Our first clip of me walking through a corridoor and opening a door we decided to re-film from a different angle and track with the camera, rather than use cuts, this also gave us another technique which we have learnt that we can use in our project. We also decided to cut out the zoom when we tracked down to the bottom of the staircase, but keep the camera at a reasonable distance so we could show enough of the chracters actions and enough of the setting.
When I begin to run down the stairs we decided to change the angle of which we filmed it at to ensure that the sound and image of me running after the girls signified danger to them. The cut between me running through the door after the other actresses, to seeing the back of them running was a bit too late which makes the film slow down in pace when it should be fast because the scene is up pace. Also, the position of me running to the locker and getting to the locker changes which breaks the continuity of the film. At 00.53 there is also a person that begins to walk into the scene which you can see in the reflection of the display board, which I attempted to cut out, but only managed to achieve it like this because it cuts out the dialogue. Additionally at the end of the film, you can see the door close twice, which again breaks the continuity of the film.
Overally I think this is a major improvement from our first cut because camera work is much better with still shots and no zooms, however we still have made some errors in our work which we will need to improve and change when we make our real film, also we have a lot of background noise which sometimes ruins the dialogue and action, therefore we will ensure there is no movement in our real film and if necessary we will cut out the sound and add dialogue and sound effects over the top. We could have added some sound to our film to build tension or show vunerablity of the two girls which we will add in our next film. I believe our group worked really well together but we need to pay more attention to the work rather than distracting each other and going off task, therefore we will need to concentrate more on our work next time. 

Continuity Task- First Cut

This was our first cut to our continuity task. When we were filming this we initially thought we were doing really well and getting all the shots we needed to put our piece together, however when we uploaded them and began to put them into a sequence, we realised that the shots we were taking were very wobbly, unclear, and nearly breaking the 180 degree rule. I managed to edited and cut out most of the unsuitable clips and put this short film together, however we are going to go out and film this again, due to the poor quality and execution of it. At 00.06 we tried to perform an over the shoulder shot, but it was very shaky as we didn't have any way of holding the camera still, which we will have to perfect, and it the cut is too quick which looks too jumpy, however at 00.10 we thought the cut from inside of the door to outside of the door looked more professional, however it cuts off my head, therefore we are going to re film this part too. When the camera begins to move down, it is still unsteady, we wanted to include a zoom in our film, however as you can see it was very jumpy and completely ruins the beginning of the film. When I begin to run down the stairs is again very bad video quality and camera skills, due to the camera being hand held and there wasn't enough space behind the camera so it was too tight, therefore we will have to re-film this. From then on throughout the film, our shaky camera and wrongly positioned cuts, makes this look very amateur. Also on of the actresses begins to laugh which again makes it look unprofessional. When we re-film this we will need to ensure that our camera is still and we need to film more footage to work with so that we make sure we have enough to use if some isn't good enough.

Camera Work in Thrillers

The camera work within thrillers is very different to camera work in other film genres. Alfred Hitchcock was a famous British film director who specialized in psychological thrillers. I decided to research his techniques in his fiml techniques for when we film our thriller. This website was very helpful: http://borgus.com/hitch/hitch2011.htm


1.) Audience - Make sure everything you do is done for the audience and how it will affect them. It must be engaging and keep them interested. People go and see thrillers for fun, so as directors we could give them suspense to keep them enthralled.
2.) Emotion - Ensure that the camera is positioned in the right place at the right time to allow the audience to experience the emotion the actors and actresses are going through. Focus on the eyes of the actors as they show most emotion.
3.) Camera - The camera should take on human qualities and roam around playfully looking for something suspicious in a room.  This allows the audience to feel like they are involved in uncovering the story.
 This goes back to Hitchcock's beginnings in silent film.  Without sound, filmmakers had to create ways to tell the story visually in a succession of images and ideas.
4.) Point Of View Editing - Putting an idea into the mind of the character without explaining it in dialogue is done by using a point-of-view shot sequence. (Start with a close-up of the actor, cut to a shot of what they're seeing, cut back to the actor to see his reaction)
5.) Keep the Story Simple - If your story is confusing or requires a lot of memorization, you're never going to get suspense out of it. Remove all extraneous material and keep it crisp for a dramatic effect. Each scene should include only those essential ingredients that make things gripping for the audience.
6.) Characters must break cliche - Make all of your characters the exact opposite of what the audience expects in a movie. They should have unexpected personalities, making decisions on a whim rather than what previous buildup would suggest. These sort of ironic characters make them more realistic to the audience, and much more ripe for something to happen to them.
7.) Use Humour to Add Tension - Hitchcock used humour in his film to add tension. Pretend you are playing a practical joke on the main character of your movie.  Give him the most ironic situations to deal with. It's the unexpected gag, the coincidence, the worst possible thing that can go wrong - all can be used to build tension.
8.) Two Things Happening at Once - Build tension into a scene by using contrasting situations.  Use two unrelated things happening at once.  The audience should be focused on the momentum of one, and be interrupted by the other.  Usually the second item should be a humorous distraction that means nothing (this can often be dialogue.)  It was put there by you only to get in the way.
9.) Suspense is Information - "Information" is essential to Hitchcock suspense; showing the audience what the characters don’t see. If something is about to harm the characters, show it at beginning of the scene and let the scene play out as normal.  Constant reminders of this looming danger will build suspense.  But remember - the suspense is not in the mind of the character.  They must be completely unaware of it.
10.) Surprise and Twist - Once you've built your audience into gripping suspense it must never end the way they expect.  The bomb must never go off, lead them in one direction and then pull the rug out from under them in a surprise twist.


If we can try to encorprate at least some of these ideas then our film will be better, I must keep referring back to this when making our storyboard and when filming to keep in mind these factors.

Thriller Questionnaire

I have created our Thriller Questionnaire after gathering information from our Audience Survey and given these out to twenty people, aged 15-19. This is our Questionnaire;

We found that our questionnaire gave us much better responses than our Audience Survey because there were more open questions, however some people were indecisive about their answers and often answered with ‘not sure’ or circled both. Some were also unsure of the difference between a ‘Crime Thriller’ and a ‘Psychological Thriller’ so we had to define this for them and they could have been influenced by us in their answers. Many said they preferred 18 rated films because it doesn’t restrict anything, however they said that 15 were just as good and more happy thrillers compared to horror thrillers. They said they do not expect to see blood and gore in the first two minutes of a Psychological Crime Thriller so we must build up the intensity of the thriller. They also said they prefer to have a female protagonist and a male antagonist which helps us decide our story line better. They prefer modern films in colour that are different and new, but they must include the classic themes of thrillers too.
They like thrillers to be set in a normal home where something happens that is unusual, not a woods which is normally associated with thrillers. Our audience also prefer films that get you thinking and have the end resolved because it is more entertaining. They associate suspense, twist and danger with a thriller and the opening should start with a flashback, so we need to include these points in our thriller to enthral our audience, and by starting our film with a flashback it opens up different paths to our ideas of thrillers. People don’t like the characters talking about their thoughts and feeling during the film and they associate the colours black, white and red in titles, this will help us make our titles sequence. Overall they said that their typical protagonist looks healthy, attractive and an everyday person, compared to the antagonist looking evil and scary or they could be anybody so you don’t suspect it.
The answers they gave us to their favourite thrillers and what the last watched means we can go away and look at what they enjoy to give us ideas to include in our thriller.
The bad points to our questionnaire were that we didn’t get full explanations to our questions so they were quite limiting but they were better questions than in our audience survey. We again could record a group discussion with 15 and 18 year olds and go into more depth.



Camera

When we film our continuity task and Thriller opening we must include a variety of shots to engage with the audience and show interaction, place, and scene. The main camera shots are;

This has given me a good idea of what different effects different distances and angles can give. For example, a low angle shot will make a subject look bigger and strong, whereas a high angle shot will make the subject look small and weak.
We must use our camera wisely in our task to show meaning.

Previous Students Work

On the 3rd of November we began to watch previous students thriller films. We had to rate them on a scale of 1-4, 1 being the weakest. We saw some poor work and some outstanding work, but what really stood out for me was that it doesnt really matter too much about the story line, its about the execution of our work. Even if our story line is poor, as long as we have a variety of shot distances, shot angles, clear and still camera work, paired with good sound and good titles, we are able to get good grades. The poor work we saw always focused on the story line and making the audience interested, however the camera and sound was weak. However we do still need to keep our story line interesting and not stereotypical of thrillers.

Continuity Editing Task

This is what we had to do in our continuity task, this helped us prepare for our actual filming of the task and editing. It also gave us an insight on how we need to prepare before our real Thriller task.

Audience Survey Research

We are going to create a questionaire for our thriller research, but before we create the survey, we had a group discussion with 5-10 people to find out what questions we could include in our questionnaire and to find out to what depth we needed to go into, these questions were ;

1. What do you expect in a 15/18 film? 
2. What is your favourite type of thriller film- horror, crime, psychological, drama, romance etc? 
3. What do you like your film to be set? 
4. Do you get bored of watching the same thing? 
5. Do you prefer black and white films or colour? 
6. What type of music do you like in thriller films? 
7. Do you like films to have a slow introduction, quick introduction or a film that unravels throughout?

These questions briefly gave us an idea that our thriller was to be a crime or psychological thriller because this was the most popular in out target audience. We also discovered that the 15 or 18 age rating was very similar to our audience, so we need to go into more depth in out questionnaire to get a solid answer. The locations to a thriller were very broad and got different answers, so we may have to restrict this when writing out questionnaire. Most people prefer colour films and tense music so we need to stick to the traditions of thriller movies, however people did answer question 4 saying that they got bored of the same thing and prefer new material. Our particpants also said they preferred a film that unravels, so in our opening we musn't give too much away, but be able to grip the audience into wanting to watch more.
By completing this survey, it showed us that we need to go into much more depth with our questions so we can get some clear, precise answers that will really help us with making the movie and coming up with ideas because the answers we got were too limiting. We could also film a group discussion to be able to record every detail said.

Research into Sub-Genres

Action thriller – This sub-genre features a race against time which includes violence, explosions, guns and a main hero. Examples of action thrillers are The Terminator and James Bond. Action thrillers may have elements of mystery and crime.

Conspiracy thriller – This sub-genre includes a hero or heroine confronts a large, powerful group of enemies who only he/she recognizes.

Crime thriller - This particular genre is a hybrid type of both crime films and thrillers that offers a suspense and tension. Central topics of these films include murders, robberies, chases, shootouts, and double-crosses.

Disaster thriller - In which the main conflict is due to some sort of natural or artificial disaster, such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc., or nuclear disasters as an artificial disaster. 

Detective-Mystery- This sub-genre is considered a sub-genre of crime, suspense or thriller films that focus on an unsolved crime. This can be a murder or a disappearance which includes a central character – typically the hero- a detective. In this genre the detective meets adventures and challenges to solve the mystery.

Drama thriller – This sub-genre consists of the elements of a thriller and drama which is usually slower paced. It involves character development along with plot twists.

Film-noir- Some may argue that Film Noir is not a genre as it is more of a style that has evolved since the 1940’s. Noirs are usually black and white films with moods of melancholy, alienation, isolation, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt and paranoia

Romance- This sub-genre includes features of romantic dramas, romantic comedies, and sexual films. These may be love stories that focus around passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters. This makes the film connect with the audience. Romance films make the love story the main plot focus which usually involves a male and female character.

Suspense Thriller- Thrillers have many sub-genres like action-thrillers, crime thrillers, western-thrillers, film-noir thrillers, etc. The thriller genre can be recognized with the horror genre as they both produce an intense exciting atmosphere. The high level of anticipation and suspense makes the audience anxious and nervous. Alfred Hitchcock has made many suspense thriller films that have captivated audiences. Spy films may be considered a type of thriller/suspense film also.

Research into Different Types of Genre

I have looked at all the different types of genre including sub-genre and hybrids. This will make our group understand what type of thriller we can produce when it comes to making our film.

Action- I learnt that this type of genre tends to have high energy throughout the film that includes things like: stunts, fights, explosions and a destructive crisis. Sub genre’s in this category is a spy movie or a disaster film. I then looked at adventure. This genre is similar to action as it also has exciting plots.

Adventure- Adventure films also tend to have exotic locations (eg- Pirates of the Caribbean set in the Caribbean), action and treasure hunts. Even though this sounds like an interesting genre to base our short film on, it comes across as a difficult genre to shot.  After this I looked at comedy; however our group has decided that this is a bad idea as comedy is a hard genre to focus on.

Crime- I then went on to look at crime. I feel this is a good genre to work around on as it includes themes or murder and robbery that are developed around sinister actions. Detective mystery can be sub genre into crime as both include similar conventions.

Drama-I then focused on drama which uses serious plots and life situations that can shock our audience. The genre drama portrays realistic characters, settings including intense character development. The sub genres in this category are melodramas, epics and romantics.

Horror- I then looked at the genre horror. This genre is designed to frighten, captivate and entertain an audience that summon our hidden fears. Horrors include a shocking finale with monsters and deranged humans. This genre can be compared to the science-fiction genre as the corruption could relate to technology such as aliens. The sub-genres of horror are: slasher, teen terror, serial killers, satanic, Dracula and Frankenstein.

Overall I studied the main genres in which our group want to develop on. We’re not interested in making neither a science-fiction nor a fantasy film so we decided to base our research on genres that appeal to us.

The Auteur System 
Throughout my research into genres I also looked at the auteur system. This is when films are made based on the expression of one person, which is usually the director. This makes the film become their style which is shown through the personality, look, and feel of the film. For example: Alfred Hitchcock is well known for his suspense thrillers. Here is a link to his famous movie Psycho

What is a Thriller?

A genuine thriller is a film that provides thrills and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats as the plot builds towards climax. Tension usually arises when the character/s are placed in a difficult situation, a mystery or trap from which escaping seems impossible. Life is threatened usually because the principal character is unsuspectingly or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. The themes of thrillers frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder.

Conventions- setting, characters and story
 Thrillers are usually set in a creepy atmosphere in with sudden violence, crime and murder. Thrillers mostly take place in ordinary suburbs/cities, however, sometimes they may take place completely or partly in exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, Polar Regions, or the high seas. The heroes in most thrillers are frequently ordinary citizens who are not used to danger. However, more common in crime thrillers, they may also police officers or detectives. While such heroes have traditionally been men, women lead characters have become increasingly common.

Thrillers are fast-paced that often present the world and society as dark, corrupt and dangerous. Characters in thrillers include criminals, stalkers, assassins, innocent victims (often on the run), menaced women, characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, private eyes, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more. The themes of thrillers frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder.

Thriller and mystery

Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories but are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller, the hero must stop the plans of an enemy rather than uncover a crime that has already happened. While a murder mystery would be spoiled by a premature disclosure of the murderer's identity, in a thriller the identity of a murderer is typically known all along. Thrillers also occur on a much grander scale: the crimes that must be prevented are serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or the overthrow of governments. Jeopardy and violent confrontations are standard plot elements in the genre. While a mystery climaxes when the mystery is solved, a thriller climaxes when the hero finally defeating the villain, saving his own life and often the lives of others. In thrillers influenced by film noir and tragedy, the compromised hero is often killed in the process. However, there are thriller films that have the characteristics of a mystery, such as the climax of a mystery being solved and the defeating of the villain seem to be common.

Alfred Hitchcock

The master of the thriller or suspense genre, Hitchcock manipulated his audience's fears and desires, taking viewers into a state of association with the representation of reality facing the character. Hitchcock's films often place an innocent victim into a strange, life-threatening or terrorizing situation, in a case of mistaken identity, identification or wrongful accusation.

BBFC Target Audience Research

I have started to research into the difference between a '15' and '18' rating movie. I explored the British Board of Film Classification website (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/) and evaulated the main points.

          15

• No one younger tham 15 may watch a 15 in a cinema. They cannot buy or rent any 15 rated video work
• The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour
• Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (aerosols or solvents etc.) is unlikely to be acceptable.
• Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised
• Dangerous behaviour (hanging, suicide and self-harming etc.) should not dwell on detail which could be copied
• Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised
• There may be frequent use of strong language, the very strongest language may be justified if used in an acceptable context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable
• Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context
• Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable
• No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds
• Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification

          18

• No one younger than 18 may watch a 18 in a cinema. They cannot buy or rent any 18 rated video work.
• Most adults are able to choose what they want to watch but there are some constraints
• The material must not be in breach of the criminal law, or must not be created through the commission of a criminal offence
• Material or treatment must not appear to the BBFC to risk harm to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society – for example, any detailed portrayal of violent or dangerous acts, or of illegal drug use, which may cause harm to public health or morals. This may include portrayals of sexual or sexualised violence which might, for example, eroticise or endorse sexual assault
• Must not include explicit images of sexual activity which cannot be justified by context. Such images may be appropriate in ‘R18’ works, and in ‘sex works’ 

This research is going to help us decide whether we choose a 15 or 18 rating film, using a 15 doesnt seem to be limiting as we initially thought, but if we were going to make a very violent thriller, then we would have to make an 18 where there not really any restrictions. With the research we have completed so far, we are considering a 'Crime Thriller' however this is not final, and if we were to go ahead with this, it would most likely to be a 15. We need to possibly find out our basic storyline of our thriller first, and then decide whether to make a 15 or 18 rated film.

Initial Research

We have been put into our groups for our Media filming and to begin our general research, I investigated the final questions that we are going to be asked at the end of our coursework to evaluate our film. The most important question i came across that is relevant to the work and research we are doing now is;
"In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"
By exploring this question intially when we do our research, means that we can take it into consideration when making the film and make sure we include certain aspects in our film to allow us to answer the question later. this question means we need to look at other openings to thrillers and keep a familiarity yet something new, original, and possible with a twist to the story. We need to explore in depth the thriller genre and everything that is included in a classic thriller opening.

Evaluating Genre

This is our video presention to our teamwork film. We were asked to create a new film to go out into the market and sell. We decided on our genre as a 'Lovestory-Psycho-Drama' however this proved as a problem because we were then told that 'psychological-horror-drama' was dead in the market, so we then had to re-market and regenrefy our film as a 'lovestory-thriller' to fit into the current trends in the market. We decided on this genre after carrying out a survey which told us that people preferred Romance and Thrillers. We had to keep the film familiar yet original to attract viewers and keep them watching.
However, the downfall to our film was that we did not do enough background research into genres, audiences etc. we focused more on the characters and story line of the film which was not needed at this stage of production. I learnt that genre is always changing and we have to make it fit into the current market, also when we start making our real thrillers, we need to complete thorough research beforehand to ensure we know where are film is going.

Genre

From my first few lessons of Media so far I have learnt about categorizing genres. Films can be put into many different genres because there are so many different interpretations to what genre a movie should be put into, therefore films can be 'hybrids', where a film is two genres. For example a Romantic Comedy, further abbreviated to ‘Rom-Com’, which then allows films to have a wider audience, rather than just ‘Romance’ or ‘Comedy’, this is the most limiting way of understanding genres because you can only introduce two genres, not many.
However films can be further categorised into ‘sub-genres’ where films are categorised within a genre itself. For example, a Science Fiction (or Sci-Fi) can then have a sub genre like ‘Monster Invasion’


Films build upon other previous films, for example horror films need to be evolved because eventually viewers get ‘desensitised’ to certain ‘monsters’ or the ‘killer’, so film makers need to event new ‘baddies’ or bring back one from a long time ago that people vaguely remember. So in other words, genre is constantly renegotiated between industry and audience to bring a combination of familiar reassurance (the victim always lives) and new twists. Social, cultural, economic and political changes all affected the studio system which then have brought about the development of genre


When you begin to make a movie, you must always start with Genre, because it then brings about a list of conventions to work from like the plot, type of characters, music, stars and iconography. So when I begin to make my thriller, I need to make it clear that my film is a thriller by keeping the sense familiarity, but I need to include a new twist to my story which keep the audience interests and want to watch more.