Thriller Evaluation: Grove Park

For our own Thriller Opening, the ideas and conventions we used were from studies of the conventions of Thriller movie openings, ‘Watching’ film openings documentary, ‘28 Days later’, ‘What Lies Beneath’, ‘Collateral’ ‘Seven’ and ‘The Shining’. We used the idea of the book from the opening of ‘Seven’ and ‘The Shining’ was just a thriller full of suspense and a film which made me literally sit at the edge of my seat.

Se7en - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY
The Shining - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw23KM3-Ry8

When we were shown these openings, my group and I had instantly decided that we wanted a scene where the audience was shown no faces. This was because the opening of ‘Se7en’ was awesomely done without showing any faces but just by the use of mise-en-scene, the props and hands. We similarly used this convention in our stabbing scene, where the murderer’s face was not shown, also in the beginning the audience can only see a girl researching in the library.

The idea of the titles had also appeared from the film ‘Se7en’. Lipi had come up with his idea, and then we put it into action in our thriller opening. Also the quick effects and transitions were taken from the film ‘Se7en’. The way the film had quick shots had inspired us to keep our film opening short and snappy.

Another convention taken from the film of ‘Psycho’ was the relentless stabbing. We looked into this scene and decided that we were to just film shots, close ups of the knife constantly stabbing the victim, which I found worked effectively in our Thriller Opening. The fact that in the scene where the victim is killed, the face of the murderer is not shown works very effectively. I think this works as this shot and scene gets the audience to keep thinking ‘Who is the killer?’

If our product was to be distributed then it would’ve been for small Independent UK release. This is because the production is small and doesn’t require expensive sets or props or actors. It would’ve been released perhaps on TV and on Internet, Myspace, Youtube, Facebook, etc.

Our film would have been amongst the films such as ‘Hot Fuzz’, ‘Shaun of The Dead’, ‘London to Brighton’. These films have been a hit in the UK and the USA for the reason being that they were appealing to mostly UK, young audiences (12+). ‘London to Brighton’ is a film by Paul Andrew Williams, writer and director. It is a Steel Mill Pictures production. Paul had written the storyboard of this film over one weekend, it had been filmed in three weeks. As this was a small film, Paul got £60, 000 from a private investor. It had been film in Hackney and Brighton, UK. The cast of ‘London to Brighton’ was Johnny Harris, Georgia Groome, and Lorraine Stanley. The film had six wins and six nominations. It was distributed in 3 cinemas, in one week in the US box office and all over the UK. ‘London to Brighton’ was released on the 1st December 2006 and released on DVD on Monday 30th April 2007. Similarly our film would’ve been distributed in the cheapest possible ways and perhaps on DVD too.

Paul Andrew Williams

Our audience for our media product would’ve been for youngsters from the ages of 12+. Mostly mainstream audiences and ‘aspirers’ as I believe small films is a good beginning for film writers and directors. Our thriller may be shown to pupils for example who are studying Psychology and also it would be a good film to show to victims and youngsters who have experienced knife crime. This is because our thriller is based on a possessed girl and also we have the characters of a victim of knife crime and a murderer. These sort of issues relate to our younger generation more often.

To market and promote our film we would most likely advertise our film through firstly the genre, thriller and through billboards, posters, leaflets, magazines, trailers, e.g. T.V, Youtube and social sites e.g. Facebook. This way we would be attracting our audiences as youngsters are more likely to watch it as they are out and about and have their eyes peeled to upcoming films.

Throughout the entire journey of constructing this product from creating our preliminary thriller to our final product, I believe, personally I have learnt a lot. Before creating and performing tasks I hadn’t a clue of what Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro was, neither did I know the proper way of filming and editing professionally. Through filming I have found out things such as using a 5 second gap before starting to act and role camera, also logging and capturing, which was a mission and learning different shots and angles when filming. Using blogger has helped me to see how I have progressed throughout this process. Also, releasing our thriller onto Vimeo (a video-centric social network site) had given us the opportunity to watch our final product along with other thrillers created by the other media students.

Final Cut Pro Soundtrack Pro

Looking back at our preliminary task and comparing it to our final product, there is a major difference. I believe our team skills has become more co-operative and reliable. Our filming and acting has improved, storyboarding has helped as we had planned every shot before filming. And also editing has improved a lot. I now know how to function Final cut and Soundtrack Pro fluently. This has helped me to understand how editing really works and how time consuming it may be but also the fact that the labor is worth it at the end. All our lessons, ‘Match Cut’ lessons and ‘Introduction to Sound’ have been put to test in our final product. Using mise-en-scene helped a lot too, as we used quite a few props in our thriller. Also, we have learnt to use the previous lessons effectively. I had used Windows Movie Maker which included effects and transitions, therefore understanding how to use effects and transitions to make shots sequential was quite straight forward. Credits and titles were new to me as previously I haven’t done any up to date editing on Windows Movie Maker. I enjoyed creating and editing the titles, moving them around the screen but I must say it was hard work!

Over all, after watching our thriller along with everyone else’s thrillers in the Vue cinema made me realise that there are many different ways to convey thriller films, whether it is through actors, props, camera work, editing or sound. I felt a relief after watching our thriller and receiving positive feedback from students, teachers and staff. On the whole, I am delighted that our hard work has paid off positively and that I can use the lessons and editing in the future!

Editing Our Final Thriller Opening

Lipi and Myself sat infront of the screen in the Mac suite for over seven hours editing our thriller. Susan and Elelta arrivied later on. Today we firstly finished cutting and keeping the correct shots needed to put the film in order. Keeping in mind that hte film is only to be two minutes we got down to using effects and transitions to make continuity in each scene.

We hadn't used much effects nor transitions. We thought it looked beeter simple. We used fade in and out transitions to keep continuity throughout. We had also used effects such as blur on the corners of the screen during the scenes when Susan was seeing the dream. Also slow motion towards the end when Susan was scribbling on the articles. This was done to create an effect of maddness of the character and her actions. The most difficult part in the entire editing was the titles. As we have made the titles appear and juggle around the screen the editing of that was very hard. We firstly made a black box then wrote names in the text box, we then cut the box in pieces. We then had to place each cut piece of text in the place within the screen of where it was to move about. Towards the end we realised we hadn't changed the font and size of the titles. This lead to further delay as we had to go back to each and every title which was cut up and had to change the font and font size.

We then created the soundtrack. Lipi had used the Soundtrack Pro software to come up with different background sound and also sound effects to match the titles whilst I had finished editing the titles quickly. We then had finalise the film and add the sound. We dimmed the sound when Mickey's news report came on, the sound later was rised after the news report ended. We had also used an effect which appears with the Title of our film towards the end. The sound effect starts off slow and expands with the exansion of our Title 'Grove Park' The title was also a last minute.com option as I decided on 'Psych' short for psycho, then some of the team members disagreed, we came up with 'Frenetic' and then finally agreed on 'Grove Park' as the killing was in a park. Literally 5-10 minutes towards our deadline time we put together the title, sound and film and blogged it just on time.

Stabbing Scene - Last Filming

The last scene was done quickly as we had less time. We decided to shoot in our college park which was the closest place to film this particular scene and also because we had used a real knife and a fake blood as a prop of mise-en-scene we needed Mary to supervise us. This scene was the girl (Susan) seeing the murderer stab the victim (Elelta) in her dream.

The first shot was a medium long shot of the victim walking past the camera and the murderer/possessed girl walking onto the camera from the left hand side of the camera. This was also the establishing shot as we had shown the park in the background while the victim walked past. The shot follows with a low angle shot of Susan killing Elelta, whilst Elelta screams. The shot continues with a match cut as we have a low angle shot of a tree in the back with Susan’s holding the knife still stabbing Elelta, although Elelta is not shown on camera. The shot follows with an over the shoulder shot of again Susan still stabbing Elelta in the stomach. The shot comes to the end as we see Elelta’s hand covered with blood and the bloody knife lying beside her. The shot finishes from the point of view of Elelta, the camera is used as Elelta’s eye, and the camera is tilted with Elelta’s hand in front of the camera whilst Susan walks away. The reason as to why we never showed a glimpse of Susan’s face in this scene is because Susan is seeing herself do all this but is unaware that it is her.

Filming The Bedroom Scene

Today was the shooting of the most important part of the opening for our film. We took the equipment to Lipi’s house. In this scene the girl (Susan) is in bed having flashbacks of the event taken place last night, which is the possessed girl stabbing another girl (Elelta).

According to the storyboard was shot was filmed. We set up the room and lights and also gathered the props needed for certain shots (mise-en-scene), we used blood, CDs, a CD player, pens, paper and the bed.
The first shot was a pan from Susan’s legs leading to her face in bed, in the background we have Mickey’s news report playing.

We had directed her to turns and toss in bed to show disturbance. The shot continues to a high angle, medium close up of Susan dreaming. The shot flows into a slow zoom out capturing quick close up of Susan awaking looking into the camera. This shot was done to capture the expression of the girl waking up from a nightmare. The next shot is a close up side shot of Susan huffing and puffing taking deep breathes. We then take a shot of the radio to show where the news report is playing. We made use of diegetic sound by using the news report and radio. The shot follows into a medium shot side shot of Susan still in bed looking at her hands. The next shot is a high angle shot taken from above Susan’s head, focusing on only the blood on Susan’s hands. We then took a mid shot of Susan jumping in her bed kicking the duvet off to get out of bed. At this point the news report ends. We then have a high angle, medium long shot from one corner of the room; this shot also establishes the bedroom. The shot continues with Susan jumping out of bed, walking backwards towards her cupboard, whilst Susan leans against the cupboard and drops down the camera also pans down with Susan. We then capture an over the shoulder, close up of Susan pulling out a few articles. We then get a match cut, medium close up from a high angle of Susan still dragging the articles. We then took a close up from opposite Susan scribbling on an article named “Demon Possession is it real or just a mental disorder?” We use match cut again here but from a high angle, close up of her still scribbling out ‘”Mental Disorder?”

Evaluation: Grove Park

For ideas and conventions for our own Thriller openings, we studied a variety of thriller films. We started to watch the thriller film ‘The Shining’ in order to get an idea of what thriller films are and how they work. This was a nail biting experience for me as there were many scenes with suspense. We also looked at many other thriller film openings, such as ‘Arlington Road’, ’28 Days Later’, ‘Seven’, ‘What lies beneath’ ‘Collateral’. Watching these openings was also very helpful as we explored different types of thriller films and its conventions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY

The opening of ‘Seven’ fascinated me and my group as it contained very good editing. It gave the opening a sense of mystery as there were no faces shown. Even though only close-ups of hands and objects were shown, the audience still got a message across about the way the character is. There were blurry effects to reflect the mental state of the character. There were many other effective editing such short cuts in between the credits. What really inspired me was the way the credits were shown; the black screen with the credits slightly moving and flashing. Our group decided to use this on our opening as we thought it was very effective.

We watched a documentary called ‘Watching’ where big directors, producers and film critiques of the film industry had a say on Films and their conventions. They talked about conventions of film production such as, the mise en scene, acting, camera, lighting, sound and editing. In the documentary Thomas Sutcliffe says films want their audience to continue watching the film. While there are types of seduction and temptation and irresistible instant arousal that will hit the audience. The temptation is to go straight to the action.

The documentary also showed the opening of the film ‘Seven’ by Kyle Cooper. This is an effective opening as it shows the obsessive mad nature of the villain.
As a group, we researched ideas looking at thriller openings in depth. We looked at some of the scenes in the film ‘Psycho’. We thought the constant stabbing scene was very affected, therefore, we decided to use it on our thriller opening.
This convention is used in other thriller films; it is an effective way of shocking the audience and getting them on the edge of their seats. It is known as a popular scene from the ‘Psycho’ film, therefore many other films have used it. Hitchcock used 78 cuts in 45 seconds for this scene. The stabbing is slashing towards the screen from many angles. Before the stabbing, there is a slow entrance of the killer. This is done in order to give the audience shock when the sudden stabbing starts. Our own thriller opening consists of stabbing; we decided to use the stabbing idea off the movie. Our stabbing also includes a series of shots from many angles from high to low angles and many more. However, in our thriller the killers face isn’t shown in order to make our audience more curious about our main character.

In our thriller opening, the main character is a girl who is suffering from possession. She murders another girl but doesn’t know she’s done it. Our main actress is a young middle class female, therefore it represents the younger generation. The victim is also a 17 year old girl, representing the teenage group. One of our props is an article about demons, these might reflect religious audiences. Our main character is a victim of possession; she is also a villain in the film. This is an unusual way of choosing roles for characters as in normal films; there are separate characters for the ‘heroic’ role and the ‘villain’ role.

If our product was to be made in real-life, it would be a cheap budget film as it doesn’t need exotic settings or glamorous costumes. Our film has real-life setting and generalises to real life situations. What makes it a thriller is the gruesome killings and the puzzling storyline.
The film ‘London to Brighton’ is a small budget British film by Paul Andrew Williams, £60,000 was use to make the film. He drew the story board in one weekend and it took 3 weeks to film it. It was filmed in the streets of Hackney and Brighton. Our film is similarly set in the streets of London. Our film would’ve been advertised on the internet where it is cheaper and accessible for everyone. We would release trailers on YouTube and would distribute it in cinemas all around the UK and 2 or 3 cinemas in America.

Our target audience would be mainstream people, from different ethnic groups. Preferably younger generation interested in Psychological situations. Jennifer studies Psychology in college and lives in London, enjoys going to the cinema with her friends in the evening. She’s interested in films with Psychological theories and ideas as she enjoys the subject in college. In class she can refer back to films and documentaries to dictate to the class about the ideas.
Our film is targeted to ‘aspirers’ as our film gives out messages to society. There is killing and murders involved in our film therefore; it can give out messages to stop such crimes like that to our target audience.

We would use many techniques to promote our film, as our film is a British movie, It would be advertised everywhere in the UK. It would have been advertised on billboards and posters. There would have been a small trailer shown on ITV1 and available for viewers on YouTube. There would have also been reviews of the film on the internet and magazines. There would be posters of the film in stores like Borders and WHSmiths, on the ‘Psychology’ sections of the stores. This would increase our customers as the target audience are more likely to see the posters.

From the process of constructing this product, I have learnt to use many technologies such as final cut pro, soundtrack and how to use a camera. I learnt how to film from many different angles and produce proper clips. I also learnt how to log and capture the film onto the Mac computers. Getting use to the Mac computers was quite difficult as they are very different from the normal Computers that I use. However it was great fun as we got to explore many things during the process of blogging and editing.
Final Cut pro, was a very complex editing software for me. As I only had the experience of using the Windows movie maker software. However, from our small tutorials we learnt how to use the software. We learnt how to use different effects such as fade in and fade out, Blurs, Colour change and video transitions.
We also used the software Soundtrack Pro, where we processed the music we used for our clips. We had to produce it on Soundtrack Pro by searching many different sounds and selecting it on our timeline. We then had to import it on to Final Cut pro where our edited clips were ready to have sound added on to them.
We also used the internet thoroughly to collect our ideas and plans for our thriller. Youtube was very useful as we looked at different examples for both the context of our film and the conventions used such as camera angles, music, edits and etc. This helped very much as I came across this clip on YouTube, where I spotted out a tilt shot of a dead person. We decided to use this shot on our own thriller opening. Where our main character walks off after the killing, it only shows the bloody hands of the victim and knife. We did this by placing the camera on the floor, slightly tilted.
As I have never blogged before, this production has given me the chance to blog the whole process of making our film on to ‘blogger’. This was, I think a better way of presenting our experiences of the whole process of our film making. This is because we can see how we develop our skills slowly and observe each others progress on teamwork and commitment.

Looking back at all the preliminary tasks, they have use prepare for the actual production as it has built up our organisation and team work skills. We have got to know our team quite well and practised with them, as we knew it would be useful. It also helped us with production skills such as, camera work, lighting and editing. We also learnt new skills such as ‘Match cut’, where we had a whole tutorial and produced our own clip using Match cuts. Using Match cuts is very effective as a clip looks sequential and professional.
I have learnt many things from Filming making; I have learnt to plan thoroughly as we produced schedules that we had to stick to. I have learnt to be organised, as we had to be on time for filming and needed the right props. I have also learnt to produce clear story boards with the right shots and the timing.
This production has taught me a lot of useful things and has given me ideas of how the media industry constructs their work and what equipment they use. The amount of work they do and how the work could be both difficult and enjoyable.

Shooting the Library Scene

After planning the storyboard of the library scene and getting permission from the librarians to allow us to film, quietly, we started shooting with Dan supervising and helping us too.

We had decided that the possessed girl would go to the library to do research on possession. Our first shot was a mid shot of the girl (Susan) walking towards the books. We then get a match cut from a high angle of her arriving to the book shelf. The shot is followed by an over the shoulder, mid shot of her pulling out a dictionary from the ‘Mental Processes’ shelf. The shot continues with a low angle, mid shot from behind a plant which covers her face of the girl sitting on the floor in a corner. We then capture a zoom in, into her looking up the definition of ‘Possession Trance.’ This helps to give a hint to the audience of what the film may be about.

After two hours of filming we managed to get the right shots and angles with the help of the storyboard, Dan and co-operation from the team members.