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

Thriller Conventions

• black background with white writing - these are dark boring colours to set the beginning mood of the thriller
• very little dialect - used to make the film more mysterious and to make the audience think harder about what is going on.
• dark shadows and little lighting - sets the atmosphere of a thriller 
• weird and unusual camera angles - to show the different sides of the characters
• tension building music - to create an uneasy feel for the audience

Camera Test

1. What are the 2 effects of increasing video gain?

To let more light in but makes the shot look grainy.

2. What should the shutter speed usually be set to?

50

3. When should you increase shutter speed and what is a side effect of doing this?

The side effect is that it needs more light but s perfect for slow motion shots

4. What is the purpose of doing a white balance?

To set the colour balance right

5. What is the effect of increasing the audio gain?

Ups the volume

6. Describe the stages of focusing a camera.

Press the focus button

Zoom in

Use expended focus to check

7. Why would you use the ND filter?

For shooting in bright conditions

8. If you are shooting in a dark location, would the exposure be better at F1 or F8?

F1 - opens the iris and makes it alot more brighter.

Internet TV Presentation

Internet TV Speech

Digital Telsvision Signals

Digital television has changed the way we watch tv dramatically. digital television provides you with more channels to suit you e.g. drama channels, horror channels, reality tv. it has a cleaer pictureand better quality and is also available in HD this is because of the way the signal is transmitted. you can pause, stop, rewind and record live tv. this is useful becuase if your out one night or have to answer the telephone while your tv programme is on you can just record or pause it. on demand is also available. if you miss a seris of your favouite shows or missed a programme from the other night you can just go on demand and watch them again. you can also store digital tv on your small devices like a mobile or IPOD so you can watch them again and again.

UK Broadcasting Systems

Broadcasting is a process by which audio and video signals are sent to an audience for example terrestrial, satellite, cable and internet protocol television (IPTV).

Digital broadcasting such as Freeview is a way of transmitting audio and video information through an encoded signal that is made up of 1s and 0s. A multiplex a single broadcast frequency that contains multiple channels) allows us to broadcast several channels together on one bandwidth. The advantages of digital broadcasting are: it has a greater variety of channels, HD channels and it also caters more to what you want on TV. The disadvantages for broadcasters are channels one to five have to compete with all the other channels because they’re losing viewers.

Terrestrial broadcasting is called DVB-T (digital or analogue which is the old system, video broadcasting terrestrial). Analogue signal can lose quality when transmitted and they also need a large bandwidth. Digital takes up less bandwidth; you receive more channels and better quality. It basically means on the ground broadcasting as it is located on the ground and not in space/air like a satellite. Terrestrial broadcasting doesn’t use cables or satellites to work instead it uses radio waves sent from TV antennas e.g. Crystal Palace. This kind of broadcasting has many advantages such as; usage of radio frequency spectrum, better sound and picture quality and wide screen picture format. The down side to using terrestrial broadcasting is the limited range of signal, losing the signal depending on where you are e.g. if you’re driving through a tunnel. Weather can also ruin your signal and radio wave antennas can’t transmit that far.

Satellite TV broadcasting works by broadcasting audio and video signals from satellites located in space to satellites on Earth. They used to transmit analogue signals but are not digital. The disadvantages of satellite TV are: he receiver and satellite dish can be expensive, multiple TV sets require multiple receivers, a different receiver for each TV is needed, making it very expensive if you have (like many people) more than one TV in your home. The satellite TV can malfunction in bad weather because the satellite dish is located outdoors, it can very easy to malfunction as a result of weather conditions like snow, very strong winds and lightning. The advantages of satellite TV are: as they are located in space it doesn’t matter where you live you can always receive satellite TV signal because the satellites move with the earth in orbit, they have interactive TV so you can choose from a huge selection of channels, satellites provide a lot of high definition which means better quality viewing because of digital signal. If you live at the side of a hill it would benefit you more if you had satellite TV as you can receive the signal anywhere, if you had terrestrial it would be a lot more difficult to receive the signal as it can’t pass through the hill to get to your house making it harder for you to watch TV. The UK mostly uses the Astra satellite group (4 or 5 satellites) – used by SKY, BBC and Freesat. Sky offers something called skyfreesat.Freesat from Sky. 240 digital TV channels for a cost of £147. Sky will install the satellite dish and digibox with there's no ongoing subscription.

Cable TV works by laying down a line of cable from the existing cable company network into your street. The TV signal is then sent directly through the line and into your TV. The cable company have an advantage of receiving more viewers if they put their cable lines in a street which means no other cable companies can. For example if Virgin put their cable lines down in Rockwell Road another cable company cannot put theirs in as Virgin have already too much disruption. Which means Virgin receives all viewers from that street. The disadvantage is that the people living in that street can only have Virgin, they can’t choose another cable company. The advantages when compared to digital broadcast TV are that there's no pixilation of the signal and the image is clear (but satellite TV can match it for clarity), cable doesn't involve the use of a dish. That means there's no messing around with equipment up on the roof. Some people can have serious problems with satellite dishes in their homes especially when weather can block a satellite's signal. Cable TV avoids those problems. The disadvantage of cable TV depends on individual areas and the needs of the customer. A cable company may not have a greater service then their satellite competitors and many satellite problems can be fixed easily by repositioning the dish whereas a break in the cable line could take days even weeks to repair properly. Cable is also very hard to get in country areas as they can't put a line of cable out to remote houses however satellite is available to anyone anywhere provided you have a view of the sky. Also Satellite has been able to provide HDTV more effortlessly than cable TV, producing a clearer picture than cable TV.

Internet television (otherwise known as Internet TV, iTV or Online TV) is a television service distributed through the Internet e.g. 4oD and iplayer which is provided by broadband which is a fast, lasting internet connection which can also be delivered by satellite, cable and mobile. Some advantages of internet TV are: you can watch your favourite TV shows even if you’re away on holiday or out of the country, so you can stay updated with your favourite TV shows. Some internet TV websites have free streaming which means you can watch your shows for free, with the benefit that you don’t have to subscribe to cable or satellite. The disadvantages of internet TV are hard to think of, I personally don’t think it is as comfortable as sitting down and turning on a regular TV set, also you have to watch the advert breaks.

In future years to come I believe that internet TV will have wiped out most broadcasting systems like satellite and cable as technology enhances. As internet TV is mostly free and easy to access why would people bother paying expensive packages to watch their favourite shows? Also as the younger teenage generation are more likely to use the internet to watch TV I believe that in years soon to come even younger people will be into using the internet in this way. I think by the year 2040 or so most broadcasting systems could be seeing their last days and more useful, exciting technology will have been made to watch TV.

TV motion and your Brain

TV pixels

Pictures are made up of 1000’s of pixels, the more pixels in the picture the better quality the picture is. This is called resolution.

TV motion

All TV are made up of still images these are called frames. There are 25 frames in a second of film in the UK. This goes very fast so our brain assumes it’s a moving image.

The TV screen

TV screen are made up of 100’s of lines, these are called scan lines which make up every frame. Each line is made up of pixels. In the UK there are 525 lines but it’s different in other countries.

Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio
4:3 – old fashion small screened TV
16:9 – wide screen TV gives you a better viewing experience
pan and scan – cropping a shot
pillarboxing - a 4:3 shot onto a 16:9 shot the picture would be stretched.
letterboxing - a 16:9 shot onto a 4:3 shot you are left with 2 black lines on the bottom and top if your television.
When you pan and scan a wide screen shot suitable for a wide screen television (16:9) to a 4:3 television you lose a lot of the essence in the shot. E.g. action films, musicals.
Many films filmed today are shot in wide screen.