Filming Risk Assesment. :(

Item	Level Of Risk	Methods of Avoidance
Chloe doesn’t arrive at location	2	We will text her or call her the night before we are due to film to make sure that she remembers and that she arrives on time.
Camera Doesn’t Work	3	We will take two cameras to the location to avoid the risk.
Camera Runs Out of Battery	4	We will fully charge the battery for the camera and take a second spare battery incase the first one runs out of charge.
Chloe drowns in the water	1	We will not allow her to be under the water for longer than necessary and we will check with her that she is able to breathe.
Unable to use the bathroom location at Alex’s house	2	Check with Alex and her family to assure that the location will be available for the entire filming time.
Chloe scared of being under the water	1	Check with Chloe that she does not have this fear and if she does, hire another actor.
Sam unable to join the group filming because of the location (girl’s toilets)	5	Film in the location after school times so that he will be able to join the group as everyone will have gone home.
Cameraman or actor becomes ill	2	Make sure that we have a backup camera man and actor to ensure that we can stick to the deadlines
People getting in the way of filming.	6	Film at a less busy time (e.g. after school)

What Happens in Media. xD xD xD

This video is why everyone should take media, its outakes from one of our tasks.

How to make a good Media Blog. :D

Good Times!

How will my Primary Research influence my Thriller Coursework? :S

Primary research is very important in influencing my Thriller Courswork. We are opening our eyes to the opinions of the public and also widening our knowledge of different thriller techniques. We used a range of primary research including making a group blog, questionnairre, interveiws, polls and camera technique research.

We presented our primary research using a powerpoint. We included videos of our findings, graphs to show our results, research of the top thrillers, the polls we used etc. I feel this helped with our research as it gave us structure to putting into word what we found. We were able to talk through our findings and show what was most useful and what we would change. This gave us all inspiration for our thriller coursework as we’d all found out thing we were not sure of before. Also, we had opinions from our target audience so we knew what kind of thing we were looking to do.

The first thing we did for research was create a questionnaire. We asked a different range of people so we not only had answers from our target audience but from different ages so we could compare answers. Some of the questions included the editing preference, whether the film to be in black or white, the events involved in the film whether they prefer a range of short happenings, or one big event, and finally the sub-genre of thrillers as this will give us a big clue into the idea of our own thriller.

Secondly, we created a group blog: ‘www.armsthriller.wordpress.com.’ The blog gave us a wider audience where we could update how our research was going and we were given a good range of preferences.

Next, we did an interveiw. We used similar questions to the ones from the questionairre, but we were hoping to get a more honest answer as the people were being put on the spot and were given more time to say their own opinions. We asked our target audience and many of the answers were very similar which help us create an immediate conclusion on what we should include in our own thriller. If we were to improve the interveiw, we would ask more people so that we have more reliable answers as we have a range of people.

Doing this research, we had all been getting ideas of what we wanted to include in our own thriller opening. So we decided to put our ideas to work and film them. We went to different locations around the school to see what works and what didn’t. We then edited our mini-film as a practice. This was the most beneficial and productive peice of research as we learnt alot from it and were able to see what our ideas looked like.

Finally, we researched the top 10 thrillers of all time. This helped alot as we looked at the trailers on the most popular ones and analyzed them. We compared each film and gave our own opinion on why they were so good. We found that the most popular film was psycho, personally i didn’t like the film and it was not suitable to us as it was not for our target audience. However, we watched the film and noticed certain things that would benefit us.

I think our presentation worked really well and we were very succesful. As a group, we all worked really hard on the research and were very pleased with our findings. We know how important research is and it helped alot and we feel already we are on our way to making our thriller opening. As a result of our hard work, we received full marks, 25/25, which we were all very pleased about.

Ideas For Thriller Opening. :@

After alot of discussion about our ideas for our Thriller opening sequence, we have come to a well adapted ideas that will keep the audience in suspense and wanting to watch more to resolve the plot shown from just a couple of minutes of the opening.

Our Thriller opening is going to be made up of two linked narratives. This will be made up of happenings in the character’s everyday life being affected by the feeling of being controlled by someone else. The main events of the sequence will be filmed in a bathroom, which is usually a private place which relates to the character’s problems with not being able to escape out of never feeling alone.

During the characters actions we will show 4 significant activities taken out while in the bathroom which will remind the character of things that have happened in the past. These will be shown in 4 different episodes following the activity by the character.

Firstly, the character is seen walking into the bathroom and switching on the light. This change in lighting reminds her of the time she was alone in her bedroom and the light went off on its own. The flashback shows her being in her room when the light goes out, she can hear the click of the light switch like someone had turned it off. She gets up and turns it on; it turns on fine, which makes her paranoid.

Secondly, the character is seen turning on the radio before getting into the bath, the song that comes on the radio will immediately remind her of something that happened in the past, the film will flashback to the action that happened which relates to the song. In this case we will explore the time she walked passed which looked like a deserted house playing the music. Alone she walks passed the house, however she hears breathing behind her. There is no one there.

Third, the character is seen turning the tap on of the bath, this will show a flashback of the character being at school, using the taps. The character looks in the mirror to find someone behind her in her reflection, as she turns round there is no one there again.

Finally the plan to kill herself is unveiled as she gets into the bath she puts some pills in her hand. The sound of the pills and placing in her hand flashbacks to the appointment she had with a Doctor when she was much younger with him quoting “you’re just going to have to live with this for the rest of your life.” The scene is back in the bathroom, showing her dropping her robe and getting into the bath.

Finally the scene will end on a shot of the character’s face slowly going under the water. As she is doing so her eyes will be closing which will be represented through a point of view shot. This will finish in a fade to black which will then fade into the title of the thriller film.

The use of the flashback seen in ‘Saw 3’. Here they use reference to colour and lighting to make it obvious the differences in time.

Furthermore, the film ‘What Lies Beneath’ shows reference to two of the activities we are going to include in our opening sequence. We can get ideas from this clip on how to represent the mise en scene to produce a realistic scene.

We believe this is a good idea as it follows on from our research that the most popular film sub-genre is psychological. Most modern thriller films have aspects of psychology in them. This is also going to be reflected in our opening sequence as our target audience are most interested in watching this.

Shot Order For Thriller Opening Storyboard, ¬.¬

1. Establishing shot of girl walking into bathroom.

2. Close up of hand turning on light to bathroom.

3. Flash back of medium shot sitting in her bedroom alone reading a book on her bed.

4. Lights go out.

5. Girl screaming as she heard someone turn the light off

6. Girl goes over to turn the light back on

7. Walk back to bed heavy breathing from shock

8. Flashback back long shot girl standing in the bathroom shaking her head trying to get the flashback out of her mind.

9. Close up to girl turning on the radio

10. Extreme close up of girls’ eyes when she hears the song that plays.

11. Flashback to her walking past the house with the same song playing.

12. Close up of girl doing the same expression as before.

13. Long shot of girl walking down the road.

14.  Mid shot of girl turning round to see if anyone is behind her.

15. Flashback back long shot girl standing in the bathroom shaking her head trying to get the flashback out of her mind.

16. Mid shot of girl walking over to the bath turning the tap on.

17. Flashback to girl turning the tap on in the school toilets.

18. Mid shot of girl looking up and seeing someone behind her.

19. Mid shot of girl putting her head down to get the image out of her head.

20. Flashback back long shot girl standing in the bathroom shaking her head trying to get the flashback out of her mind.

21. Mid shot of girl walking over to the bathroom cupboard.

22. Close up of hand getting out pills.

23. Extreme close up of putting pills in hand.

24. Close up of girls face taking a deep breathes.

25. Flashback to long shot of Doctor – “you’re just going to have to live with this for the rest of your life.”

26. Flashback back long shot girl standing in the bathroom shaking her head trying to get the flashback out of her mind.

27. Mid shot of girl dropping her robe from behind.

28. Close up of feet when the robe drops.

29. Fade into close up of girl’s face in the bath.

30. Close up of girl’s face slowly going under the water.

31. Point of view shot of girl closing her eyes – fade to black.

32. Title page – Mort de Conscience.

Thriller Soundtrack Research. :-|

We need to do some research into what different soundtracks are used in thrillers. This is because when we make our thriller opening sequence, we will be using a soundtrack at the beginning as this will make it much more professional and it will also create an effective mise en scene for the viewer. The soundtrack will create a mise en scene that denotes fear into the audience’s minds which will create suspense and tension as the action begins.

In order to see how professional thrillers use soundtracks in their openings, we had to research and analyse different horrors to see what effect they had and how this aided their production. The first thriller that we looked at was ‘The Butterfly Effect’, here it is below; 

The sound for a soundtrack is non-diegetic as the characters in the shots cannot hear this type of music, it is purely for the benefit of the audience, this is because the soundtrack is there to add to the mise en scene. In the opening of ‘The Butterfly Effect’ the soundtrack begins with an ambient sound that changes in dynamics to create a crescendo that develops through the opening sequence. This type of music creates a sense of suspense for the audience. The soundtrack then gradually turns into a fast paced drum beat that mimics that of a heart beat denoting that central character/possible protagonist is tense about something, it also connotes to the audience that the character is experiencing fear. The sound matches the action on screen as the character is seen to be rushing around, the character then hastily scribbles a note which leaves the audience wondering what has happened. 

The soundtrack used in ‘The Butterfly Effect’ relates to our media project as we will probably be using some form of ambient sound during our editing process. This type of music creates the effective ‘horror’ mise en scene that we are trying to create with our opening sequence. The heartbeat is also extremely effective in the soundtrack, we could try to use this style of drumbeat in our editing to create tension for the audience.

Another thriller that we looked at while doing our research into thriller soundtracks was ‘Creep’. Here is the first 6 minutes of the opening sequence:

The first 2 minutes and 40 seconds play a non-diegetic soundtrack to accompany names of the people who made the film, including the directors and producers. As the titles play, the soundtrack is that of again an ambient sound. This sound however is combined with other sound motifs for example the sound of a train pulling into a station and the sound of a train’s breaks screeching as it comes to a standstill. These sounds have been added to the ‘Creep’ opening sequence as the setting of the film is an underground train station – I think that adding in these extra sounds creates an excellent mise en scene for the opening, it sets the scene while denoting the setting to the viewer in a subtle manor. 

The soundtrack for ‘Creep’ is very successful in creating the right atmosphere for the viewer and I think that when we come to edit our opening sequence, we will use some of the techniques that ‘Creep’ uses. An example of where we could use this would be to add things like running water into our soundtrack as parts of the opening for our thriller are set in a bathroom. 

Soundtracks are used in openings to films for many reasons, they help ease the audience until a film by adding non-diegetic sound into the mise en scene. For example, in a comedy the music would be light and cheerful with high pitched tones to add to the lighter side of the film whereas in a horror the music is likely to be more subdued and of a lower pitch – this represents a different tone of feeling for the viewer. A soundtrack could also be used to make the opening more enjoyable for the viewer as an opening needs to grab the audience’s attention right from the start – a soundtrack helps to achieve this. 

When we edit our thriller we will need a good soundtrack to accompany the footage on screen. We will be using different types of sound to create a soundtrack that is effective with our thriller opening, in order to do this we will be using sound effects and music in our soundtrack. I think that a sound that will definitely be used in our soundtrack that has been decided through analysing different thriller openings will be an ambient sound as this is used in lots of thrillers as it sets the correct mise en scene that he editors desire. Other sounds that we will probably add to our soundtrack will be the sound of a tap dripping, a heartbeat (in order to create tension), a light switch turning off, heavy breathing and screaming. These sound will either be made by my group, or taken from a database and added into our soundtrack. 

A further thing that we will have to consider when we make our soundtrack will be our target audience. From their views, we will make a soundtrack to see what they prefer in a horror soundtrack. This will assure that the soundtrack that we create will be popular with our target audience and therefore, they will enjoy the opening to our film.