AS Evaluation Question 7

To gain experience of working with the camera and tripod as well as the editing software we underwent a preliminary task in which we filmed a member of our group walking into a room exchanging some dialogue with another group member before leaving the room. This gave us knowledge on how to use the camera equipment and tripod to successfully use a variation of shots; it also furthered our knowledge of the editing software and how to cut different shots together to make a flowing scene. The increased knowledge of the camera equipment and tripod help us immensely throughout the whole filming process, as we knew how to easily manipulate the tripod into the appropriate position to capture a specific angled shot. We was also now aware of all the controls and features on the camera and could now easily use it and adjust certain settings such as brightness and contrast efficiently. As well as this knowledge on the camera equipment we now knew how to cut each frame to make it fit the one which follows it.

AS Evaluation Question 6

AS Evaluation Question 3

AS Evaluation Question 2

Our thriller opening sequence only consists of two focal characters. The first character the audience is introduced to is the protagonist; this victim is a female of the age of 18 who is being chased by the villain. This character is an accurate representation of young females of a similar age group as she is dressed casually in everyday clothes and she begins the sequence by getting out a car, which would be a realistic car for people of this age. All these elements make this character relatable to a large amount of our target audience as she will appear to be extremely similar to themselves therefore they imagine this character as themselves. This is why we chose this specific character as the audience will be more enticed in the narrative as they are concerned for that characters well being.

Within our thriller I believe gender is represented in an extremely stereotypical manner as within thriller films females are usually used as the victim as they appear more vulnerable and stereotypically an easier target due to their inferior size. The fact that our victim is young is also stereotypical, as she appears more naïve, which means she doesn’t know how to act in certain situations and panics which again makes her appear more vulnerable. The male antagonist is also a stereotypical representation of the male genre within thriller films as the vast majority of villains in thrillers are played by males, this is because of there stereotypically superior size and strength which makes them appear more intimidating to the audience. This stereotype means that the audience are immediately in fear when they see this character.

I believe that obviously the villain wouldn’t be particularly appealing to our audience as his character is not relatable and undergoing in crime and terrorizing an innocent young girl. Contrastingly I believe our protagonist is extremely appealing as she is presented with a innocent and timid characteristics which is endearing to the audience and they warm to her.

AS Evaluation Question 1

Within the thriller genre there are numerous elements, which are conventional to the thriller genre and make the genre unique and distinguishable from others as the consistently evoke similar emotions within the audience. One of the main conventions of the thriller genre is ‘low key lighting’; low key lighting is when the lighting used is very dark and doesn’t reveal much about the characters or setting. This lighting is extremely successful in creating enigma as it hides the identity of the antagonist which evokes fear as the audience don’t know what he’s capable of, it also hides the surroundings which means there could be anything there which could be a potential danger to the victim. This use of low key lighting is used within the thriller ‘Conjuring’ when the protagonist’s room is showed with very dark lighting, which hides numerous sections of the room. This makes the audience scared of what hides in these dark sections and in this particular scene this fear is immediately heightened as an antagonist eerily emerges. Another typical thriller convention, which regularly features within thriller films, is the handheld camera shot. This shot is presented to the audience as though the characters are filming the events occurring. This shot heavily features within the thriller series of films ‘Paranormal Activity’ the main goal for this shot is for the audience to form a bond with the character which is filming these events. They form a bond as it allows the audience to view the situation from their scenario and therefore emphasise the emotions the characters are feeling. This bond means that the audience are fearful for that characters safety and therefore are more enticed in the narrative.

Within our film we followed many of these codes and conventions to ensure that our opening thriller sequence fits the brief. Our narrative is conventional to the thriller genre as it follows a focal antagonist as a villain chases her. This chase sequence is very conventional to the thriller genre as many thriller films follow a victim being chased by an intimidating villain. We used this convention because it successfully keeps the audience incited in the narrative and successfully creates suspense and excitement. We also used the conventional low key lighting throughout our sequence as we used the natural dark lighting, this means that the villain is consistently hidden from the victim and therefore appears more powerful to the audience. This is conventional to the thriller genre as low key lighting is frequently used to hide specific identities and create suspense. We also used a conventional location of a forest, we used this convention because At the finale of our chase scene we use a handheld camera shot, this shot is regularly used within thriller films as it helps the characters and audience form a relationship. We used it to create a similar effect, as we wanted the audience to empathise with the emotions that the victim is feeling at this pivotal moment within our narrative.
CLOTHING
LOCATION
ICONOGRAPHY
FEMALE VICTIM 

I believe our opening thriller sequence can be closely compared to the thriller ‘Strangers’. The most obvious conventional comparison between the two thrillers is that of the narrative; both thrillers show a young female being stalked and terrorised by a masked and armed villain before her pursues his victim in a fast paced chase scene. This narrative is often the backbone of many thriller story lines as it successfully creates immense suspense before a exciting fast paced chase scene which keeps the audience enticed as they don’t know what will happen next. As well as having the same focal convention, the micro-elements used to achieve this similar narrative are also similar within both thrillers. For example both thrillers follow the convention of a masked villain with a knife, this presentation of the villain is very common with the thriller genre as it creates enigma and evokes fear as the audience and characters are unaware of the antagonists identity therefore they don’t know what he is capable of. The antagonist which features within both films is also similar and conventional to the genre as both films use a young female victim, this use of a stereotypical victim immediately portrays her as vulnerable it also helps form a bond with the audience which are a similar age to her, this will keep them enticed. Another convention shared by both our opening sequence and Strangers is the use of low key lighting; low key lighting is used in extremely similar, specific situations as it is used in both to partially hide the antagonist as he loiters behind his victim with intent, without her knowledge. This convention is used to evoke fear within the audience as she is presented as extremely vulnerable as she doesn’t know he’s there.

Audience Feedback - Miss Georgiou

 Audience feedback is is extremely important to production as it gives us a understanding on whether our target audience our thriller appealed to our target audience and if it was conventional to the thriller genre. This information is key to production as it allows us to identify what areas need improving in order to make it a successful opening sequence and we can change these specific areas. 

To receive this audience feedback we underwent numerous methods which would give us a exact understanding of what specific elements we needed to improve. Firstly we composed questionnaires with open questions, this meant that we could ask the opinion of a large group of people and they could write exactly what we need to improve on and wouldn't be restricted by closed questions, making the results more specific. Following this we showed our opening thriller sequence to a focus group of people from within our target audience who gave us immediate feedback on what we need to improve on, following the improvements we made after our questionnaire feedback.

This feedback was extremely beneficial within the production process of our thriller as it meant that we could easily change any part of the thriller which our target audience thought we could improve on. This meant that our final product would hopefully would have no mistakes, all individual micro-elements within our thriller would be appealing to our target audience and it would be conventional to the thriller genre. 

Three positives comments from our audience:
Ellie Holt - Cinematography - "I believe the cinematography used within this clip is successful and conventional to the thriller genre as it kept me on the edge of my seat"
Shaun Mcfarlane - Setting - "The setting is very good as it is isolated and scary which makes it conventional to the thriller genre"
Tom Tovey - Characters - "The use of a young female victim was good as i could relate to that character"

Three negative comments from our audience:
Daniel Armstrong - Sound - "i thought the sound used wasn't very good as it was lacking in some parts and didn't have a impact"
Harry Fagan - Lighting - "Although i thought the low key lighting was good in certain areas it wasn't always necessary"
Joe Smith - Narrative - "the narrative was very basic and predictable"

Overall i believe myself and my group was successful in following our brief and creating a two minute opening thriller sequence as we acknowledged all our constructive criticism and adapted our thriller accordingly until all our feedback was positive and stated that we had created a conventional thriller sequence 

Rough Cut - Miss Miller

A rough cut is the first draft of what our final opening scene, it roughly resembles the final product but still is not properly edited meaning that it doesnt flow as well as the final product. Our rough cut included all the appropriate scenes which we plan to use in our final product but the editing of the sequence is not at the standard which we aim for in our final opening sequence. Our rough copy should that we need to improve the sound of our sequence to make it build suspense then emphasise shock, we also plan to add fast music during the chase scene to increase the audience's excitement. I also think we need to improve the editing between each frame to make it more conventional to the thriller genre.

I believe our rough cut was extremely important in creating a successful opening sequence as it gave us a clear idea of what specific elements we needed to improve about our opening thriller sequence, it also allowed us to understand if our thriller was successful in evoking emotions and if not how we could improve it to build relationships between the characters and audience.

After producing our rough cut we showed it to many people who are within our target audience category and they gave us feedback on how we could improve it to make a complete opening sequence. I believe this feedback was extremely beneficial towards making our final sequence as within our thriller we aimed to use many elements such as relatable characters and settings to help form a relationship between the characters and audience hoping that this would cause them to emphasise with the protagonists emotions and therefore be more engrossed within the narrative, and our feedback gave us a understanding of whether or not the audience formed this relationship with the characters.

To receive this feedback we presented our rough copy to 20 people of our target audience of 15-25 year olds. Within this presentation we created a powerpoint this powerpoint consisted of a brief outline of our narrative, a slide on how our opening sequence fits codes and conventions of the thriller genre and a couple of slides on how we created our thriller. We then played our thriller opening sequence and asked the audience to fill out a form which stated what they think went well within our thriller, what we could improve and the mark they believe we got out of 60.

The feedback we received from showing our target audience our opening sequence was consistent in the fact that they believed that the overall narrative of our opening sequence was successful and the specific cinematography we used was appropriate and affective but the editing of our clip could be improved to enhance the emotions evoked by characters and narrative. Our feedback gave us a clear understanding that we had to improve the sound within our opening sequence to make our clip more conventional to the thriller genre.

Opening Sceneration - Miss Miller

The first scene within our opening thriller sequence sets the scene with a long shot of the tower and the surrounding forests and roads, during this scene no sound was used as we was only trying to set the scene and not evoke any specific emotions. This scene will then be followed by a young lady getting out of her car in a dark isolated car park after driving down the road seen in the first scene. Once again only the diagetic sound of the car door opening and closing was used as we want to make this first part realistic so the character becomes more relatable and no sound needs to be used to evoke emotions as it is a not relevant part of the narrative. The young lady then walks away from the car and leaves the car park with yet again no sound, as she does so, she is then followed by a masked antagonist who's is carrying a knife. As he closely follows her through the car park and out the exit the non-diegetic sound of suspense music is used to create enigma as the hidden identity of the antagonist leaves the audience wondering who he is and what his intentions are. We use a tracking shot to track both of them walking through the car park as it unsuccessfully shows how quick he was walking and suggested he was chasing her with intent yet she didn't know. Following this we use a long shot which shows the victim walking down a dark isolated path and then with no editing or cut scenes she is followed by the antagonist. We used a long shot as it successfully shows both characters and can successfully show the narrative. The non-diegetic suspense music continues over this frame as it creates suspense and makes the character appear more vulnerable as it suggests that he is going to do something bad to her. We then used a similar long shot to show the victim go through a gate

Filming Schedule - Miss Georgiou

As a group we created a schedule which would guide us on what time we would film each scene. This helped the group remain organised and film the opening sequence as efficiently as possible. The time we film each scene is significant as we had to coonsider numerous factors such as the natural lighting. We decided that we would begin filming at 4:00 as the natural lighting would be dark enough to create a eery atmosphere and enigma within the audience but light enough for the characters, setting and iconography to be seen. We also used the same location which we had planned as we was extremely confident  and in the locations we planned as it had a eery isolated atmosphere as well as suitable settings for our narrative, such as car park and forest, it also was convenient for all group members and had lots of low key lighting which added to the mysterious scenes and created suspense within the audience. The costume/hair and make up we used was also as planned as we felt that the protagonist had to be in clothing which is relatable to the audience as they can form a relationship with this character meaning that they empathised with the emotions they feel and are more engrossed in the narrative. We also used the dark casual clothing we planned to use for the antagonist as the mask was essential in hiding his identity and therefore creating suspense as they don't know who he is, the dark clothing was also needed as it meant that he was remained mysterious in low key lighting, it also connotes evil. We felt that these elements had to be as planned to ensure that our thriller was successfully in meeting the genre's codes and conventions.

On the other hand the code/action and shot type and duration we used was not all how we initially planned. We kept the key scenes the same as planned as we wanted to keep the same narrative as planned but we slightly altered the less significant scenes to ensure that the miss-en-scene elements was as suitable as possible and evoked suitable emotions within the audience.

Shot	Date & Time	Location	Conduct/ Action	Shot type and duration	Costume/hair, make up	Iconography	Personal	Equipment
1	1.12.2013 4:00	Repton Park. Road.	The camera follows the car down an isolated road.	Establishing shot. Panning shot.	Formal wear with everyday make-up.	Car.	Husband/ Editor/ Director? Hair and Make	Digital camera Batterys Memory card tripod
2	1.12.2013 4:10	Repton Park. Car park.	The women parks the car and villain is see in background.	Extreme long shot.	All black casual clothing with mask.	Car. Mask. Knife.	None/ Editor/ Director? Hair and Make	Digital camera Batterys Memory card tripod
3	1.12.2013 4:30	Repton Park. Forest.	The victim is chased by the villain out of the carpark into a forest.		Formal wear normal make-up . Black casual clothing with mask.	Knife. Mask.	Husband / Editor/ Director? Hair and Make	Digital camera Batterys Memory card tripod
4					None	Knife Chopping B Hob Cupboards	Editor/ Director? Hair and Make	Digital camera Batterys Memory card
4	1.12.2013 4:45	Repton Park. Forest.	The victim continues to be chased by the antagonist.	POV	Formal wear normal make-up. Black casual clothing with mask.	Knife. Mask.	Husband / Editor/ Director? Hair and Make	Digital camera Batterys Memory card tripod
5	1.12.2013 5:00	Repton Park. Forest.	The victim falls over.	Aerial shot.	Formal wear normal make-up.		Husband / Editor/ Director? Hair and Make	Digital camera Batterys Memory card tripod