Final Piece

This is our final cut of our Thriller movie opening, 'Manor Way'.

I hope you enjoy:

Feedback analysis

This is the opening we created:

And this is the feedback we received over multiple media platforms, such as: Facebook and Youtube:

 

Now that we've had our feedback we would go back to our work and edit the music more and make the music suit our opening better. This is what i would change: I would make the beginning music quieter and make it so that the music would slowly build up as the opening goes on. I would make the music less imposing by making the volume lower. I would do this because with the music so loud it distracts you from whats happening in the opening rather then contributing to the opening. I would also make the music fade to silence at key points in the opening so that it build more suspense.

Question 7

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

The preliminary task we shot back in January was our first time using cameras and filming techniques such as the 180° rule. In our preliminary task we used simple camera angles and acton shots, we did this as a introduction into filming. At this time we did not know about all the editing tools in Final cut pro or how to use Garageband, but we managed to piece together a short clip without music and simple transitions. This video ended up being a very simple one without any filters or much alteration to it. Our clip was of a boy walking into a school classroom full of people who bully him and a short conversation with his friend, where the only sounds produced were the diegetic sounds of him walking and talking. Our shot types consisted of: establishing shots, action shots, medium shots, close-ups, low angled shots and over the shoulder shots. Thanks to this clip we learnt the basics of film making and we used that experience as a stepping stone to move onto bigger projects, like out movie opening. we learnt about the rule of thirds - the spacing on the screen and where the character is positioned on screen. Also the 180° rule - where you must keep the same right to left relationship with two characters while they are on screen. The only time you don't need to follow this rule is when you 'Cross the line'. This is when a director challenges this rule in order to make a interesting clip or shot. We used the 180° rule when our two characters conversed. However, we did not know of rule of thirds until after our shoot. However we learnt from our mistake and used better spacing on later projects.

Before we shot our piriliminary task we went through sevral stages of planning such as a storyboard and animatic. When i first attempted to make a storyboard i found it surprisingly hard to emagin how to draw the angles of the shots. However after we made both the storyboard and the animatic we found them extremely useful when we begun shooting.

We learnt a lot of helpful information and skills after we finished our preliminary task, and since then we have improved significantly. Our camera angles have diversitied along with knowleage of different software and effects. As for equipment we have become more confident in using and experimenting with the cameras.

I believe our preliminary task was sucssesful because we learnt how to correct our mistakes and how to properly used the equiptment at our disposal.

Here is our preliminary task:

Question 6

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

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our main target audience would be middle/working class woman aged 15-35. We set this as our target audience because the genre is a thriller so we can't cater for any ages below 15. This age range would also be suitable for our movie because we found that people this age can easily enjoy the suspense filled movie without feeling scared or overly filled with adrenalin. We said that middle/working class woman are our target because we believe that our movie will better connect to that audience and make them feel more emotionally bonded to the movie. Also this audience will be able to easily emphasise with a fellow female. Since our thrillers main protagonist is female this would further make our target audience feel a sense of woman's pride because our protagonist faces many challenges throughout the movie. 

Many thriller movies have similarities to our movie. The one that is most like 'Manor Way' would be the movie 'The visit'. These two movies are alike in the way that they are both filled with suspense and both story lines are quite similar but still have there key differences. 'The visit' was released in 2015 with a genre of horror/thriller, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. 

In Abraham Maslow's 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" begun a theory called Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. On the website, 'Simply Psychology" it states, "Maslow said that people are motivated to achieve certain need and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behaviour. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on."

This theory links to my media product because our opening makes our views think about their own safety and security. This is because throughout our opening and our movie the protagonists safety is constantly being challenged and this in turn makes the views question their level of safety. In the movie our protagonist is faced with the murder of three family members and also the challenge to escape with her life. This would make the viewers feel uneasy and conscientious about losing their own family members. This opening would leave the views feeling panicked and also make them feel more lovingly towards their loved ones because of the fear of losing them.

Simply Psychology website:https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Question 3

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

4

Question 2

Question 1

After Effects

We used after effects to create our production logo and our movie title this is what we came up with:

We also added in movement so the logo and title will look more appealing and interesting to the views. We added in transitions and fades to the title and logo because we wanted them to look as realistic as possible.

Music creation: Garage Band

We used Garage Band to create our thriller moving opening music. We wanted to make our own music because we wanted our music to perfectly match our opening. Since our opening doesn't included any dialogue or much diegetic sound we decided to keep our music simplistic but still have a eery and unsettling element to it. This music was made along side the opening clip so that the timings would match up.

Editing on Final Cut Pro

These are some screen shots of our thriller movie opening, Manor Way. We used Final Cut Pro to edit and piece together our work because we found it enabled us to create a movie opening that matched our vision of what wanted to create.

We used some simple effects throughout our movie opening such as: fades, flashes, slow motion and filters. We used fades to make the transitions from different shots smoother and more fluent. We used a flash transition at the end of our opening, we did this because it worked well with the plot and the camera angles. We used a slow motion effect on the scissors so that it would look dramatic, and we used a colour changing filter on all of our shots to make the tone even and look more mysterious. We kept our editing minimalistic and simple so that it doesn't look overdone or confusing to the viewers.

In this screenshot you can see some text saying,"Seven days before...". This is placed at the end of our opening because our opening its self is the ending of our movie. We found that this would be a creative and effective way to create suspense at the beginning of our movie.  We added in the text by using the text tool in Final Cut Pro, we used a font that suited our opening and we also used an effect that matched our wants. We wanted to stick to a simplistic opening so we followed suit by making our font simple.

Lighting and Film Technique

Costume Analysis/movie comparison

The thriller movie called, It Follows shares many similarities in the costume design and location of our movie. however there are still some key differences that separate the two movies. However the effect given from It Follows is quite close to the effect given from Manor Way (our thriller movie). 

Throughout this clip form It Follows you can see a character wearing a white pyjama top and

shorts. This costume design was worn so that the audience will believe the character is innocent and also seen as vulnerable. In It Follows the character is seen wearing heels also. This would show a stereotype of her being feminine and with that weak.

As seen in my First attempt post there is some similarities in the way that they are dressed. Out protagonist is seen wearing a white pyjama top with pink pyjama bottoms. We dressed our character in pink because pink is seen to be girly and associated with being weak or feminine. We did this so that she would seem to be a 'Girly-girl' and to later eradicate the stereotype that 'girly-girls' are weak or that the colour pink should indicate anything.

The character in It Follows is also wearing heals, this would make the audience feel uncomfortable and make them wonder why she is dressed in the way she is, and doing what she is doing in the way she is dressed. In our opening the costume picked would also create a unsettling feeling because a young girl is covered in blood, and this image is unnatural because this isn't normally seen.

The location that It Follows is set is outside on a main street with houses surrounding the road. Our opening is set as seen in my post, thriller opening location, has the the same surroundings however we plan to film at night when it is dark, whereas It Follows has some natural lighting. 

First attempt

We had many complications while trying to set up for our opening however we still managed to have fun. We also had some complications while filming, such as: trying to make the camera work and trying to make the flash on our phones to come on. But this is a little clip from behind the scenes:

Group decisions

Actions to be agreed on:

- I think that it s necessary to have more meetings based around shooting in order to give all group members a clearer understanding of what we are doing. On Friday the 4th filming shoot take place at Kent house station. Meeting at about 4:00so that its slightly dark.

- We also need to decide on the music used within the short clip, as well as any added sound affects, all group members should begin to research pieces of music and affects that could be used in order to have a clearer understanding of what is already available.

Motions taken or rejected:

- As a group we have decided that each of the shots should be very slightly longer, to both create tension as well as enable our short clip to meet the required length of two minutes. We have agreed to film the opening scene on Friday the 6th of January at Kent house station at 4:00.

Next steps:

- Steps should be followed as shown on the shooting schedule, all filming should be complete by Friday the 6th in order to enable us to be ready to edit the following week. Camera person will be Lara and Ellie. The director to the short clip will be Lara, Ellie will be doing makeup and special affects on Rediola, who is acting within the short clip.