Thriller Evaluation

In video production we were set a project to create a thriller opening. The thriller had to be a minimum of two minutes and a maximum of three minutes. The class had to work in groups of two/three people. I worked with Charlie Batt and Lydia Hill. We studied different areas of thrillers and watched many openings to give us an idea of what we were going to create for this project. We also learnt how to use a camera, upload, deinterlace and export a video. We had six and a half weeks to complete it.

To shoot our thriller we used a Sony Z1 camera and a boom microphone. Referring back to my “blog of shoot” our first shoot was a complete failure. The actors weren’t very good at their roles, we used a restless baby and we had a small space to film in. After viewing our first upload we made a group decision to re-shoot. We chose new actors and a new location. Our actors were amazing; they didn’t fuss or argue with us instead they did whatever we asked of them and they did it really well. The make-up looked really real considering the female actress did it herself and clothing chosen was casual as this was the look we were going for. One problem my group had the day of filming was that we had forgotten tape and a base plate when collecting our camera. This was easily resolved, we went to Charlie’s house and got some tape but we had to film the whole video in handheld. Which to our astonishment still looked fantastic. While we were at Charlie’s he picked up a little handheld camera that he had spare. We used this camera to shoot some more different shots that we didn’t want the schools camera to do. I think we chose a variety of shots that were different but looked natural like the camera had always been in the house. Throughout the filming my group took turns with each job. One person would film while another checked for audio and another checked for things that weren’t suppose to be in shot. This worked better as we all got to take turns and learned from our first shoot.

The technology we used in this project was “Final Cut Pro” and “Sound Track Pro”. "Final Cut Pro" is a very easy piece of software to use once you get used to it. You upload and capture all of your footage and it also allows you to choose what pieces of certain scenes you want and cut them down to the right size. We each took turns in editing while the other two gave their advice and opinions on what to do. We used some effects such as cross dissolves, ghosting and freeze frames. We also added credits to the beginning of the video including the name of our thriller “Broken” but because we didn’t like the texts available on "Final Cut Pro" we downloaded our text called “Twenty eight days later” from the internet. We had one problem while editing though; my group didn’t know when filming that we were shooting in DV with the little camera while the school camera was in HD. This means that the footage from the smaller camera was a lot poorer quality compared to the HD footage. Once completed we exported our video and opened it in "Sound Track Pro". Again "Sound Track Pro" is so simple to use but only when you get used to it. You choose a track from a selected genre and drag it over a certain piece of your video to hear it; you can also cut the music down to size or duplicate it. My group struggled a lot with the soundtrack, going through hundreds of tracks to pick the right sound. We wanted a sad piece of music to match the devastation of domestic abuse but nothing too eerie as there are some love scenes in the video. Sadly as we had lost our MAC’s we couldn’t all edit together for our final two edits. But luckily Lydia and i finished our soundtrack in our morning lesson and put it on our video while Charlie and Lydia in our afternoon lesson edited the audio peaks of our video on "Final Cut Pro". I’m extremely happy with how the soundtrack sounds.

There are a few things i would have done differently for the filming of my thriller. Firstly, we could have focused more on what was in shot as we had crisp packets and shoes in some of the scenes.  I also personally think my group could have filmed more than one shoot of each scene so we had more of a variety to choose from during editing.

When my class watched our thrillers back my group received feedback that our thriller was “Disturbing” and “Shocking”. One classmate couldn’t even look at certain scenes because it was so disturbing. I’m really pleased with the feedback as this is what our group wanted and it shows the re-shoot really paid off. I think our thriller is conventional is some ways and isn’t in others. Firstly our thriller is conventional as it has little dialect, a black screen with white text and some unusual camera angles but it isn’t as it doesn’t have tension building music or dark lighting and shadowed areas. I had a lot of fun with this project. The filming showed me that it doesn’t hurt to take another go at it if it doesn’t go right the first time and i got to use some new editing software that I’ve never used before.

 

exporting a video

self contained - biggest file but the quickest way to export a video
quick time conversion - this will make your video play on any computer
compressor - this will convert your video into anything

when your video is finish:
- mark the in and our points of your video
-check for audio peaks
-check the lighting of your video
-apply deinterlace but only if your sure you have finished your video then;

select the clip in browser - file - export - quick time
or
select clip in browser - file - export - quick time compressor

Synopsis

Opening scene shows a light bulb flickering, which creates tension. We are shown a pair of hands washed and blood going down the sinkhole. Which gives a question to the audience of ‘what has this person done?’ As he person walks through a hallway and disappears into a room we notice that he is a man. There is then a tracking shot going up a dead woman’s body which shows the audience this man has a connection with this woman. The man walks into the room where this woman is and picks up the baby that is next to her from a point of view shot from the man. He kisses the child and places him back on the floor.  A sudden rush of panic shown through the actor and music happens as the woman’s phone begins to ring. A close up shot of the caller id shows the audience it’s her mother as it goes to voicemail. The man still panicked begins to pack his bag in a hurry, exits the house and walks up the road with his hood up to keep his identity. While he does all this all the audience can hear is the voicemail-dialled tone repeating over and over again from the woman’s phone to show the panic of the man.

Blogging our Shoot

Our shoot for our thriller opening didn't go as well as my group had hoped. we all arrived at the location for our shoot around 10.30 including our male actor Jake. we picked up our baby actor Luke but we had to wait for the arrival of our female actress Georgia. while waiting we began to set up the lighting for our bedroom scenes. once set we shot our opening scene - the light bulb flickering.


our female actress still hadn't arrived so we began to film our bathroom scenes. our male actor did a extremely well and the scene looked like it was a success.


our female actress finally arrived and we put her bloody make up on and shot her dead on the floor. As the time had dragged on to 12.30 our baby actor was getting restless and we were all getting extremely annoyed. we did attempt filming the baby scenes but it sadly failed as he was too tired.
we finished shooting the bedroom scenes and our male actors dramatic exit which seemed to have successfully.


when looking over our footage we were very disappointed  with ourselves. we had shot  our scenes  but hadn't look at what was in our shots. we had feet and hands from people who were not suppose to be there. we will be re-filming our thriller and take a lot more care in shooting it.

my role in filming the thriller was some camera work and looking at what was in shot on the camera. these jobs just werent mine though as my whole group took turns in doing these.

I personally think we used all the equipment we rented out to the full. there wasnt a scene were we didnt use the tripod or the mic on the cameras. i think i would have pefered a boom mic rather than the mic on the camera though but we did capture the sound fine. 


I would have liked everyone in my group to have properly looked at what was in shot while filming and taken extra care and a lot more time while shooting so we wouldnt have made as many mistakes as we did.

Story Board

Stort Board

Filming Shedule

Who	What/What’s needed	Where	When
Jake Georgia Sam Lydia Charlie Luke Sasha	Everything	Family Home Street outside home	Monday 11th October 2010 1000 – 1500

Shooting Order

1.       All the bathroom shots

2.       All of the body shots

3.       Shots of baby

4.       Shots of baby getting picked up

5.       Shot of the cat

6.       Killer walking from bathroom to bedroom

7.       Mobile phone

8.       Shots of killer packing bags

9.       Killer leaving house

10.   Killer walking down the street

11.   Record voice mail messages

12.   Light flickering

Equipment, Cast and Location

Equipment

·         Camera

·         Tripod

·         Boom Mic

·         Fake Blood/Blood capsules

·         Mobile Phone

·         Rucksack/Bag

·         Baby Toys

·         Blood Stained T-Shirt

·         Black cat

·         Hoodie

·         Baby

·         Male actor

·         Female actor

·         Female v/o (different to female actor)

 

Cast

·         Female Victim - Georgia O’Keefe

·         Male Attacker - Jake Woods

·         Baby - Luke Powell

·         Female V/O – Sasha Powell

 

Location

• ·         Family House

Bathroom
Childs Bedroom
Adults Bedroom
Hall way
Stairs
Kitchen
Dining room
Front room

• ·         Street outside house