AO4 - Thriller Opening: Evaluation

In the beginning of the production, I was set to be working with another group, however, after a number of changes, I decided to work with Sophie, who I produced my music video with, and Lucie. Due to the disastrous beginning to this unit, it meant our start date in this unit was around a month later, but I feel it was an obstacle we over come easily due to the effort we all put in collectively outside of lessons and in study leave.

As a group, we began the unit by completing some initial research into the history of the film industry and thrillers and it was helpful in the process of actually producing the thriller opener, allowing us to explore the use of shots, different roles and jobs on set, and the conventions of thrillers. Through our research, we were able to find a lot of inspiration for our piece, "The Sixth Sense", "Se7en", "North by North West", etc. We completed the initial research by using search engines, Wikipedia and websites of well known thrillers, whilst also referring to the IMDB, the internet movie database.

Our first stage in planning the production was organising meets where we could discuss our visions for our thriller opening, with the first taking place in early 2011, discussing our ideas and thoughts about what direction we wanted to take in this unit. In the beginning, we struggled to come up with a theme, but after an hour's session of brain storming, we came up with the concept we have finished with. We took our inspiration from the start of "Se7en" and "The Sixth Sense" and combined ideas and added our own to create our production. We loved the idea that the opening should be placed in an everyday setting so that when something dramatic or odd occurs, it captures the 'thrill' sensation a thriller should have. Having come up with the concept for our production, we began on our pre-production.

Firstly, we began by taking photographs of suitable locations for our thriller opening and found something suitable in the community. We used Wem Town Hall as our opening location as it has the perfect fixtures for a thrilling location. Empty, pale corridors that have the ability to look really 'creepy', given the perfect lighting and editing, empty class rooms which look eery without solid lighting and messy offices with old windows, perfect for helping in our tension build-up. We took the shots and were happy with what we had found, therefore, we had completed this section of our pre-production. We used a high quality camera in order to make the picture clear and to make the story concise with nothing that could be confused.

Following on from this, our next job was to story board and create an animatic so we could shoot our thriller with some kind of outline. If honest, as a group we found this the worst part of our production as we were all eager to being filming and producing, we considered it to be boring, but we couldn't be more wrong. The story boarding in fact helped us when it came down to the filming as without it, we would have lost ideas and how we wanted to shoot certain scenes along the way.

Our next step was filming, and it was by far the lengthiest section of the production, but by far, for me, the most enjoyable. We filmed our thriller opening three times to ensure that it was perfect in terms of continuity, ease to edit and was filmed to the a high level. We also had to make sure that the thriller had the perfect footage to ensure it captured the 'thrill' we wanted to give, and I'm glad that as a group, we put in the effort to do this. We used our first film as a 'continuity practice' in the end as it gave us a shock to see how much effort was needed in just the filming to keep cohesive. Filming never became tiresome for the group and we had many ideas from just filming the opening about how the film could continue after our opening.

By the time we had completed our filming, we had run out of time in the year to complete the unit due to the fact it was now May, and study leave for year 12 for a month. Despite the fact we hadn't finished due to our late start, at this point, most groups in the class had completed the production section of the unit. We were determined not to fall behind on our schedule and arranged to meet up in study leave at college to produce our thriller opening, and without all three of us remaining committed, we would not have finished the unit. Upon our meet up, we were able begin the editing and soundtrack process, which was enjoyable for us - we were able to see our work finally come together after the start troubles.

We completed our first edit and began creating a soundtrack around the edit so that the changes in pace, music and sound effects were in time with what we had edited. The film editing took place on Final Cut Pro, a programme I had already gained experience on through my GCSE media and music video in Unit 3. Sophie was also experienced in using this software. Final Cut was new to Lucie, and she picked up the software quickly which helped when she wanted to explain changes she'd like to implement. As a group, we preferred Final Cut Pro as a software to iMovie as it's more professional and in some aspects, easier to edit with more precise timing. We exported our beginning edit into Garageband, a programme I am familiar with, to create the soundtrack - which was my responsibility. I began by adding the diagetic noises we wanted to keep for fright; door closing/opening, lock noises - we purposely added no other sounds as we wanted the door to be the focus point in the thriller. Upon completing the sound FX, I moved on to the music backing, which was a simple pattern of bass and low-pitched strings to build tension, which crescendo when something dramatic is about to occur.

In terms of editing, I feel we were almost perfect in terms of continuity, the only thing I felt that let us down was the loss of some clips in transferring, but due to our late start, we didn't really have the time to go back and re-shoot scenes, it would have been a tremendous effort to maintain continuity - this would be something I'd change next time. I wish, looking back, I had gone back and found time to re-shoot the lost footage.

I felt I gained a lot of experience when it came to lighting in the piece. Taking inspiration from "French New Wave", we primarily used natural lighting, apart from the office scene as we used effect tools on Final Cut in order to create the desired feelings and themes.

We managed to produce the video in time for our return so we could gather feedback. After collecting feedback from peers about our 'rough cut' we were now able to make amendments to the production after collecting opinions from a focus group of a few students in class. This proved vital as I think the changes we made following from this improved our thriller. We removed cuts from lengthy shots which had already conveyed their purpose in a short amount of time so that we could get to the action more, and to make the 'thrill' seem more abrupt and disturbing. After editing the opening from the feedback we gathered, we once again came back to the focus group with our final result, and gained a generally positive response.

We decided to keep with the eery and weird feel of the production by using a black and white filter in the opening to emphasise the black ghoul's wickedness, I think with colour it would have made our production weaker than what it finished with and I'm glad we stuck with it.

We followed all the legal and ethical issues in the production by using risk assessments, being very aware of avoiding copyright issues and producing our own soundtrack, which can be heard on the clip.

Overall, I am happy with the finished product and I'm very happy with the results. I'm very happy with the effort we collectively put in and the work produced as a group. In fact, the only thing I would change would be to decide to work with Lucie and Sophie from the off as appose to joining together half way through the unit.