T1-27 THRILLER ROUGHCUT

Cristina's (:

I think we have worked really well on editing our shots on rough cut. We have made some good effects to our shots, that fits well with our sequence. For example, the 'cross dissolve' effect we used with a couple of shots that linked well together. The effect that changes speed and darkness, has worked particularly well. For example, we have a shot of my eye that we have made faster so my eye is flickering. Also, we have made the shot darker, to create a suspicious effect to our thriller sequence. Filming my eye was quite difficult to keep a straight face, which explains why my eye is slightly closed at times. But, when editing the shot, we realized that this worked quite well anyway with the effect we are trying to create. Overall, i feel that the speed of our shots has worked really well, because it creates tension and suspicion to our sequence, which was the effect we wanted.

I was quite pleased with a shot i filmed by myself. This one was a sort of birds eye shot, as i stood on a surface high up to film the shot directly facing down. Taking part in the shots, was quite enjoyable. Especially when typing and cutting out letters from magazines/newspapers for our title to come together.

First editing session

Today we started editing our footage. We began by selecting the footage we definately wanted to use, i.e. the more effective and professional shots. We then started to build up our timeline, adding shots that mainly went with what our storyboard instructed. However, we did make a few creative decisions about changes to our storyboard, such as the opening couple of shots. We had intended for our opening shot to be a sink overflowing, but when looking back at what we had captured of this, we decided that it would be more effective to begin with a shot of the moon, followed by a deserted street, and then a photograph being developed, before the fast-paced shots and music starts. We also included some of the shots we filmed but hadn't planned, which meant that original shots were shifted about a bit. When cutting our footage, and putting them on the timeline, we started to get ideas about different effects we might put on certain shots, and played around with the effects tool on Final Cut. We then noted our effects ideas on our storyboards for next week when we begin polishing our final product. We were happy to note that we had plenty of footage to choose from, thanks to our effective time management during filming week. Our preparation definately gave us an advantage, as because our sequence is mainly made up of lots of fast-paced shots, we needed to film a lot of different shots in the limited time we were given. We are definitly on schedule with our editing, and our rough cut will be posted tomorrow!

TITLE!

The mention of what we was going to call our film caused quite a debate in our group, and quite a few methods for selecting one were tried. Having thought up quite a few suitable names for our thriller the night before, i had a choice of names that i posed to the group. Some of these were....

- Target
- Flash
- Exposure
- Shutter
- Polaroid
- Invasion
- Capture

I particularly favoured the names that related to camera terms, (exposure, shutter, flash, polaroid), as i felt they didn't give too much of our plot away, but were appropriate and catchy. The rest of the group suggested a few other names that they liked, but we all stuck to our one favourite when it came down to choosing just one. My favourite name was exposure. This is because the three definitions of the term that relates to our film are...

- The amount of radiant energy needed to expose a photographic film. (a camera is vital to our plot as it is a stalkers favourite tool.)
- Revelation, especially of crime or guilt. (our film is about a crime)
- The condition of being subjected to a source of risk. (our main character is seriously at risk)

So, that is why i thought 'Exposure' was highly suitable for the title of our film. However, as we are working in groups, all other members are entitled to their say on such decisions and so we decided the fairest way of choosing our title, was for us each to write our chosen title on a piece of paper, and then to get someone to choose a one of the bits of paper, and see which is our title.
As it happens, Christina's choice of title was chosen. Her favourite was 'Capture', and i am happy with this choice as it does reflect some of the themes incorporated in our film.

Filming week

Having planned in advance what shots we were going to film when and what props we would need on certain days, we started our first session of filming knowing exactly what we wanted to achieve by the end of the lesson. Our first shot was of an overflowing sink, which as you can imagine, involved a lot of water, therefore was quite an eventful shoot. Hovever, we did manage to shoot all of the shots we had planned for that day, and even started on some of the shots we had planned to film next lesson. The next two lessons, we spent filming and achieved everything we had set out to do in each session, making us right on schedule. We also made sure we captured all our footage after each session, including the shots Aiko filmed when she took the camera home with her. As we finished filming our intended shots on the third and final lesson, we filmed a couple more shots that we spontaneously thought of, that fitted with the theme of our film.
At friday lunchtime, our group asked to use the photography dark room to film a couple more shots in. This turned out to be a great location for filming, as it has appopriate lighting for a thriller. Plus, as our film is about a stalker, it was very appropriate to be filming in a room for developing photographs as that is what our main character does.
Our preparation definately paid off, as when it came to editing our footage, we realised we had even more footage to work with than what we thought, giving us a lot more choice when it came to selecting the best shots to include in our thriller sequence.

How the filming went

For an effect we wanted to have a sink flooding with water; but since with the circumstances we had, we had to use the toilets in our school. Since we wanted to flood the sink we made a lot of mess, so we made sure we cleared up afterwards by mopping the floor. It was hard to block the sink, because we did not have a plug; We had to use apples to block the sink. Also for better effects we made the water overflow ourselves to make it look like the water was overflowing; By using our hands and pushing the water out.
We filmed everything we wanted to film; So we are on schedule

aiko's

When I took the camcorder out I had to do a couple of shots that were in different places such as cambridge town which involved public vehicles and the public, this was difficult because it started raining meaning I could not shoot the scene for the good of the burrowed cam corder. The other place I had to shoot at was at my house as I had the props that I needed. This was a success! My shooting at my own home was a succes because not only I had the props my uncle was happy to prticipate and be the mystery stalker of our thriller opening, as we did not have to see his face.
However, it could've been better if I had a much older looking table but apart from that what I had in mind I got to do. The scenes that I have shot may look confusing as the mystery guy was reading a book, I thought that this was a good idea because it gives the character more personality and it makes it more realistic so that its not all the same, like the guy works in the day time as a 'stalker' then at night at a certain time he reads a book. My favourite bit of the shots that i have made are the lighting, you can't see the mystery guy and you can only see the book and everything else is dark.
Moving on to the other shots I have done, I struggled shooting the digital clock as I was thinking of the numbers to be in red LED light, and the one I had at home was a circle clock that had the digits in black which didn't show in the dark, also I wanted it the clock to say the time on an hour but my one you have to push the green button for it to speak out. Although it wasn't a success I still shot that bit, also the street outside my house at night with some of the lamp post on as if the guy was looking out his window. To understand the shots I have made you will have to watch untraceable which is about people watching this guy kill people over the net and the more people watched the more he'd kill, and this guy was a real nutcase as you can tell but the fact was that he lived in a normal house, in a normal village.

Filming plan.

Locations:
Toilets - shots... 1, 2, 29,
Photography roomP - shots... 31, 32, 24,
Media Room - Shots... 3, 6, 5, 4, 10, 17, 27, 30,
Cambridge city centre - Shots... 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 25,
House - shots... 19, 21, 22,
Classroom - shots... 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 26, 28,
Final cut - shots... 37, 7, 12, 15, 18, 20, 23,

Dates:
Tuesday: 19, 21, 22, 25, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39,
Wednesday: 1, 2, 29, 3, 6, 5, 4, 10, 17, 27, 30
Thursday: 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 26, 28, 24, 31, 32,
While editing: 37, 7, 12, 15, 18, 20, 23

Props needed:
Tuesday: alarm clock, lamp, book, table, newspaper, car, cigarette, lighter.
Wednesday: keyboard, polaroids, computer, polaroid camera, headphones, computer mouse, wire.
Thursday: drawer, scissors, pretend gun, gloves, wires, computer chip, cd's, newspapers, polaroids, bottle, dark room light, developing tray, camera.

Our idea

The idea

As our animatic was described as unclear, i thought i should explain what our film is about and the relevance of the shots in our opening sequence.
The main theme of our film is stalking. It will have the basic plot of man stalking a range of girls, embellished with a series of twists to make the film more interesting. Ambiguity is a key factor in our film, we want to keep the audience guessing throughout the main duration of the film, whilst still keeping them hooked and wanting to know more. Hopefully, our opening title sequence to demonstrate this as we are using a montage of clips to reveal a little of the plot, creating suspense, without giving away too much. We've used the thriller 'Se7en' as our predominant inspiration, as we felt the title sequence for that particualar film was similar to what we wish to achieve in our own. We liked the fast pace of it and the ability it has to keep the audience gripped and in suspense.
In our own opening sequence, we decided to start it off slow, with a wide shot of a leaking tap. We then agreed to put a red tint over this particular shot to make the genre of the film more apparant at the start. After another shot of the leak, this time flowing towards a foot, we then decided to make it more racy and add a series of fast shots of different objects. The music we had made on Garage band reflected the pace of the sequence well. We decided to use objects such as polaroids, a computer and gloves, as they are all things that a stalker may use when watching his prey. Written titles will be incorporated into our sequence in between the different shots of objects. To accentuate the theme of stalking into our opening sequence, i came up with the idea of filming different clips of someone cutting out letters from a newspaper/magazine. At first it wont be entirely obvious what is happening, but the last shot in our sequence will be of all the letters the person has cut out, spelling out the title of our film.
We decided to use only non-digetic sound in our sequence as we thought it would look more professional this way. The main sound will obviously be the soundtrack we have created on Garageband.
So basically, that is our idea.

Animatic Feedback

after showing our class our animatic, we received both positive and negative feedback on it...

- "good, eerie music... but a little out of time in some places."
- "need to clean up frames."
- "good selection of shot types."
- "Good link from music to shots."
- "Music was very good."
- "didn't really understand the story."
- "It looks like you ran out of time to re-size your frames but...
- "it's edited really quickly, so much so that some of the frames go by too quickly to be able to see what is in them (especially the written titles)".
- "the mise-en-scene seems clear and appropriate, and the music is suitably eerie for a thriller."
- "some of the frames could use a little bit more detail for clarification."
- "good selection of shots."
- "music went with the theme of the pictures."
- "the storyboard was good."

Overall, we were fairly happy with the feedback as it was relatively positive, and the negative comments will help when improving our thriller. Faults in our animatic such as frames not being re-seized, are mainly due to the fact that we were last to take pictures of our storyboard. This meant that we had the least time to construct our animatic on final cut and edit it to look more presentable. As our thriller opening sequence is very fast-paced, we had a lot of shots to storyboard and eventually film. We are prepared to alter things such as the length of some shots that go too quickly and making some of the shots clearer so the plot is more understandable. Making the animatic has shown us that we need to plan our time better in order to film all our shots acurately and have time to edit it well.

THRILLER ANIMATIC

Credits List - thriller opening sequence

A Newbie Production presents

A Black door film

James McAvoy

Scarlett Johansson

Paul Walker

Costume design by Joanna Johnston

Art Direction by David Lubin

Production design by J.Dennis Washington

Casting by Mindy Marin

Film editing by Neil Travis

Cinematography by Oliver Wood

Original music by Mark Isham

Produced by Frank Marshall

Directed by Baz Luhrmann

Title -

analysis of conventions of a thriller in Seven

The opening title sequence of Seven is very mysterious and ambiguous. The actions and the setting of the place lead the audience to believe that we are watching a criminal at work. The images the clips show such as the guy with metal stuck through his head, give you an idea of what will be in the film. Furthermore the flashes of the film in between certain parts of the titles keeps the audience hooked and wanting to know more. Unlike in the opening sequence of Memento, seven is fast paced and contains a lot more variation in footage, keeping the audience entertained and knowing more about the film, while withholding the plot. The eerie music that accompanies the opening, adds suspense and thrill and emphasises the content of the film. The music is fast-paced which goes very well with the footage. the font of the title credits looks handwritten which makes the whole opening sequence look mysterious and connects to the genre of the film. the opening uses a lot of sound effects to go with what the man is doing. The sound effects are quite creepy in places, which has an effect on the audience, startling them and making them apprehensive about the rest of the film. the footage at the start shows a lot of gadgets and tools, the music goes with these as it is almost sci-fi like in places and almost paints an image of someone working in a place like a mental institution. overall, the opening sequence of Seven is very eye-catching and fast-paced. this persuades the audience to watch more. In particular, we thought the music and the editing was the best part as it is unique and it holds your attention, making you want to find out what happens next.