Reflection - Final Piece

The following video is the final version for our coursework.

Below is a picture of a shot-by-shot relay of what happened. This makes up part of the post-production storyboard

How Did You Attract Your Audience? - Evaluation

In order to attract our target audience, we put up posters with a cool still from the film's opening sequence as an advert for those who would like to see this type of film. For those who weren't aware of the film's existence, we created a facebook page for the film and then sent invites to all our friends, and told them to do the same, so eventually lots of people would become aware of the film. As facebook is mainly used by teenagers and young adults, as well as a facebook page, we created a Twitter page to send alerts to anybody who wanted to know how the sequence was progressing. As many of the users of Twitter are within our target audience, we felt that this was a good way to reach a wider audience.

Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge the Genre's Conventions - Evaluation

Our title sequence does not try to challenge conventions in any way, as we use multiple generic triggers of the genre that are used to instill a sense of fear and increase the amount of tension in the scene, such as the mirror scene or the various POV shots.

Moreover, we use the conventional order of opening a scene, with an establishing shot opening up the entire piece, which then pans to a side alley.

Furthermore, the connotations of the dialogue intrinsically link with the thriller genre, as foreboding glimpses are given to the audience to reveal the eventual death of Tom. one example of this is given when Shira (Tom's girlfriend) is having an argument with Tom; "If you don't stop drinking like this you're going to die!" That phrase at the end is used only moments before Tom's death, showing that Shira almost knew that he was going to die and gave him a fair warning only seconds before his demise. This foreboding speech is only one of the many elements that are used in thrillers to show or foreshadow a person's accident or death.

In Addition, the black hooded jacket used by the killer is directly linked with the grim reaper and death. These two images embed a sense of fear within the audience, as death is seen as a frightening experience, and the image of a hooded black creature is often labeled as 'The Harbinger of death' which creates both suspense and fear whilst retaining all of the genre's conventions

Looking Back At The Preliminary - Evaluation

Looking back at the preliminary and comparing the work that we have done since then in the title sequence to the initial practice video we created, it is clear that my skills in both using the camera and the editing software have improved. Furthermore, not only has my ability to ensure that the 180 degree rule is not broken and that the editing maintains continuity and makes sense, but my organisational skills have also greatly improved since starting the initial planning stages. I feel this has happened because of the responsibilities that were put on me as voted by the group to be the organiser of meetings etc. In the final sequence, we felt that a shot-reverse-shot style of cutting would not have been as effective as the shot from the friend's POV that we used. The reason for this is the shot-reverse-shot method would require us to have filmed the argument from behind Ezra's back, but as this was not done easily, given the very small amount of space given behind him in the booth. This meant that the final quality of the shots of Shira on the S-R-S section were not very strong. Additionally, by doing it from 1st person, it allowed us to use the editing software to manually pixilate the picture to give the impression that they were drunk.

Although we planned ahead by creating a story board and having a shooting script, the actual story board was not accurate enough to fit the altered venue, meaning that we had to change the entire argument scene. The reason for this is that, if we had filmed in the abandoned house, the conversation sections would have been vastly different, as there would have had to have been far more people in the background, meaning we would have had to co-ordinate more people, and would have needed a different soundtrack to give the illusion of a party.

By changing these plans slightly when filming, the outcome was far better than we could have hoped. This is because the original idea would probably be too hard to coordinate and it was far more likely for people not to turn up, and that most of the people would have no acting experience.

At the start of the project, after our group had been established, there was a vote to see who would organise the meetings etc, and I was chosen. As a result I decided when and where to meet, ensuring that both I had to be organised and that I was clear in my instructions. This helped develop my organisational, leadership and verbal ability. Using this method, we managed our time so that we each completed certain pieces of paperwork by the deadlines I allocated, which meant that we had time for any missed deadlines too. Unfortunately, there were some points in which the organisation. As well as this, I also had to organise the time we were going to use the venue and then alert the actors and send them reminders.

In the preliminary, there were many mistakes made, such as not leaving enough time before or after we pressed record button on the camera, meaning there was not a lot of time between shots that we could edit out, making editing very hard, and the shots very short. Moreover, the actual quality of the shots were not greatly considered when shooting the preliminary, so only a few takes were filmed for each shot. This compromised the overall quality of the preliminary, but we learnt from this and decided that the same thing would not happen in the real thing, so we took multiple takes of every shot that we filmed in order to make sure we could find the one we wanted when editing. There were a few mistakes made during filming of the actual sequence, such as the takes that went wrong, and the dolly not fitting in where we would have liked, making the filming take far longer than it should have done, as many takes were not unusable due to the movement of the camera. Despite these problems we were able to cope with the issues and they did not have a great effect on the overall quality.

Where Would Your Product Be Shown? - Evaluation

A Film 4 production will generally be shown either at the cinema, or TV on Film 4 - the channel, or on some of the Channel 4 network's other channels, such as Channel 4, More 4, E4 etc. As a result, we were to decide what would be more appropriate for our film, the big screen or the small one.

Cinema:

Pros:

• The opportunity to go to have multiple viewing for increased revenue
• Large sales revenue if successful
• Merchandise possibilities if successful
• Greater awareness of release
• Ratings given to the film, and is seen as better than a 'straight to TV' film

Cons:

• Very expensive, and money not returned if unsuccessful
• Bad reviews will reduce income significantly

Television:

Pros:

• Bad reviews will not effect 1st time viewing figures, as very often ratings are given only after first showing.
• If unsuccessful, income is not affected as a flat fee per showing is given
• Less expensive than cinema

Cons:

• Fewer people will be able to watch it, as it may only have one showing
• Far lower potential income
• If successful, a high income is still not given.

As a result of looking through the lists and comparing the two options, we opted for a Cinema release.

"What type of cinema?" This was the next question we had to ask ourselves. Would it be a large chain cinema, such as an Odeon or Vue, or would it be a local, independent cinema such as the Phoenix in Barnet, London? A larger chain would offer a greater number of potential viewers, but would also be far more expensive. Independent cinemas have been a host to many of the great films of the past that have been largely unnoticed by the public eye. An example of this is Religulous (2008) which won multiple awards, but was still only showed in independent cinemas. After much deliberation, we decided that a large chain cinema would be more suited to the thriller genre than an independent cinema

A Vue Cinema:

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The Inside of "The Phoenix" cinema in London

After releasing the film into the cinema, it is usually shown for about 4 to 8 weeks depending on its success. After this time, Chloe felt that a relatively swift release of DVD/Bluray would be prudent, the sooner it comes out on DVD or Blueray, the sooner people can rent or buy a copy. Conversely, I felt that a quick release would lead to a lower amount in total sales, as if a slightly longer times was waited, such as 3 or 4 months after it has left the cinemas, people are more likely to buy the film, as they haven't seen it for a while, and may want to see it again.

Post Production Storyboard - Planning/Evaluation

If we then compare this to the pre-production storyboard, it is possible to see the extent at which things were changed during the process of finding a different venue for filming and creative decisions that we made during the actual filming and editing process.

Post Production Questionnaire - Research/ Evaluation

After finishing the filming and editing of the sequence, we had a small viewing, in which we gave out questionnaires in order to find out how people from our target audience felt about the film. It was my Job to get the film ready to play onto a DVD. This was done by going into Adobe Premiere, loading the file we had created, and then when it was open, exporting it to DVD.

After doing this, Chloe went about writing up the questionnaire and Johnny was responsible for publicising the showing, by putting up posters advertising when and where it would be.

Below is an example of one of the questionnaires we gave out (with responses)

After taking all of the questionnaires in, it was then my job to put together graphs and other information related to the questions.

Responses to each of the short answer questions can be seen below

From these responses, it is possible to see that our aim at creating a Murder mystery (or "Whodunit") was not as successful as we thought it would be. I feel that due to the use of both the classic mirror shock and the fast paced editing during the stabbing made the viewers believe it was a horror film. Although this may not have been our aim, it is still possible for the film to become a horror / murder mystery such as the famous "Scream", as the actual identity of the murderer is not revealed in this sequence, nor can we even see the person's face other than their eyes.

From these results, it is possible to see that there were quite a few people (40%) who would not continue to watch this film after seeing this opening. I feel the reasons for this large number is that not all of the people who came to watch the sequence were actually fans of the Thriller genre as they only came because their friends were also going, or for other similar reasons. Moreover, if they were fans of thrillers, the Horror / Murder Mystery as a combined genre is fairly niche as it only contains two of the sub-genres of the encompassing title of "Thriller" so they may not enjoy these types of films.

In order to reassure ourselves that the audience we had shown the piece to realise who the film was aimed at, we put this question in. This question allows the audience to think "Who is this film actually for?" which is something anybody asks themselves when thinking about going to see a film in the Cinema or even to rent for DVD (or Bluray). If they don't feel that it is aimed at them, the person is far less likely to want to watch the film.

These results show us that the majority of the audience felt that the murder was sufficiently scary (3 or above), which adds to the feel of the horror element to our murder mystery.

This last short answer question I felt was one of the more important questions on the questionnaire, as in a thriller music means almost everything. Only 5% of people felt that the music didn't fit well with the scene, and of the 95% that did feel it fit, 50% suggested that it played a key role when answering one of the longer questions.

Under the long-answer question of "What aspects did you enjoy most?" most people talked about either the music or the camerawork/editing leading up to and during the stabbing, or how they worked well in conjunction with each other. This further emphasises the importance of non-diegetic sound in thrillers.

Sections of Editing - Evalutaion

The section of the sequence which I edited was also the section that I filmed, the murder scene. As well as this, I also dealt with all of the non-diegetic sound and sound effects. The editing of this section was more difficult than it could have been, as the software we were using to edit the film was slightly outdated, and I was used to the more recent software - Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. This older software had far fewer features, and was less user friendly, but my familiarity with the software's basic workings meant I was able to cope better than some.

The first bit of editing I did was putting in a title at the start of my section which shows the scriptwriter. This was done by using the "Title" menu, and a still title was chosen. Our group chose this as a standard for all our titles, as we felt a moving title looked novice. The title was used as an ellipsis as it bridges together the previous scene with this one without feeling a jarring effect of the gap of lost time. This effect is also used earlier on, between the establishing shots and the inside of the pub.

After this, I then went on to edit the murder scene. The entire murder scene had a visual effect on it named "Lighting Effects" which enabled me to make the section darker by having a subsection of the effect which allowed me to simulate no key lighting by setting it to "none" This was a little too dark, so I had to change the level of "opacity" from a low 20 (out of 100) to a slightly higher 30. This then changed the mood of the entire scene, as beforehand, the lightness made the eeriness that was wanted from the scene to be absent.

The first shot I edited was used to bring a continuity feel between the victim (Ezra) entering the Toilet and the tap being used. A straight cut was used for this, as no effects were needed. After this, a straight cut was used again to cut back to the over the shoulder shot of Ezra.

When Ezra sees the killer (Sam) in the mirror, there was no good take of him turning round to react to the shock. This meant that I had to try and transpose two shots over the top of one another, to try and make it so that Ezra was turning whilst Sam was still in the mirror. When doing this I tried to use a video effect that allowed me to lay two shots over one another called "transparent." As a result, the shot did have Sam in the mirror, but it meant that there were now two images of Ezra in the shot, one with him turning and one with him remaining still, giving it an after image which looks very poor. This could not be changed as if I lowered the transparency level, Sam would not be seen.

This problem was not resorted, so I tried to find another solution by using a take with the shot of when Ezra turns back towards the mirror and reversed the speed. This was done by right-clicking the clip after cutting it with the razor tool either side of the section needed and then clicking on "speed/duration." Under this menu, it was possible to not only reverse the clip (play the clip backwards) but also to alter its speed. In order to deal with the turning issue, both of these features were utilised. First reversing the clip, then speeding it up, to make the turn happen quicker, so that the absence of Sam's presence is not very noticeable. This took a large amount of time to find the correct speed, but after a large amount of trial and error, I used -133% the speed of the original clip in order to get the clip as it is now. After this there is a "dip to black" which leads to a new title. The dip to black is used very often throughout the sequence in order to bring in and remove titles.

Finally for visuals, at the end there was initially (in the rough cut version) a section at the end showing the wall behind Ezra, as if the killer was looking over him, but not looking down at him. Due to a problem in filming (a lack of a spreader or dolly) this shot was very wobbly. In editing, I tackled this by cutting a very short section, about one tenth of a second, which was still and then cut and paste about 20 times. This lead to the illusion that the camera was still, but in reality, the same shot is being played over and over again.

After finishing off this section of editing, the visuals for the rough cut version were finished, so I then moved on to put on the extra audio tracks. First of all, I went online to a website called www.royaltyfreemusic.com which contains a substantial amount of music, some of which is free of charge, as long as the creator is credited. After finding this website, I downloaded some tracks for a thriller soundscape called "Ghostocalypse" by "Kevin MacLeod" these clips of music were very ambient and gave a good backing track to the sequence, but after putting it into the sequence; we all felt there was still something missing. After this, I then tried once again to look for a backing track, but couldn't find any that I thought we would use, so using my computer and my experience of music, I recorded and created my own eerie track using the programme "Logic Pro 9" (below is a screenshot of that track)

When I added this track to the mix, the subtle sounds had a large effect, which were then used throughout the piece, such as some small effects just before the killer lunges. Throughout the sequence, the volume of all the sound is plays an important role, as if the music is too overpowering, or something is too loud within the mix, then the diegesis is lost, or the sequence just suffers. The levels of each section of sound can be changed in two ways, but before changing the volume, it is important to cut the sound tracks into sections, using the razor tool, so that each section can be at a different volume, and each can be controlled independently.

The first method of changing the sound level is by going to the left-hand side of track-bar and clicking on the arrow next to the Audio track number that contains the clip. This widens the audio clip out, making a yellow line which controls the initial volume compared to the original in decibels. To change the volume one must left-click and hold the yellow bar and then drag the mouse up to increase the volume or down to decrease it.

The second method has two sections, both are simpler than method one, but have a level limit. This method is also a more accurate way to alter the volume. This method involves just right-clicking on the audio clip that needs the volume changing and then going to "Audio Gain" after this a small box appears with numbers in blue which start at 0.0 which show the changed decibel level. This is independent from the yellow bar, and the volume change is more subtle that the yellow bar method. By left-clicking and holding the mouse over the numbers, one can then drag the mouse up to increase the volume or down to decrease it, similar to that of the 1st method, but to a smaller scale. The more accurate section can be done by double-clicking the blue numbers and then inputting the exactly value of the volume change wanted, negative numbers being a lower level than the original clip volume.

Importantly, after each effect, or set of effects were added, or if parameters of any clips were altered, we had to render the film. This was done by pressing the "return" key on the keyboard. We knew when we had to render something when there was a red bar above the clip, after rendering, this bar changed to green.

Where and Why Did You Place Your Titles? - Planning/Evaluation

Title Name:

REFLECTION - The title of this film started off as a working title, as we were calling it that due to the murder scene being associated with a mirror and the killer's reflection. After a while, we thought that it would be appropriate to call the actual film Reflection as well, because the entire story would be based around the main murder, and the film would also reflect the views of a common day society and show people that sexism, racism and sexual abuse is still a part of our society even in 2010.

Title Font:

After using many different fonts to see which seem to look best, we had it come down to two:

Pussycat:

The interesting aesthetic of this font attracted our attention and we then liked how certain letters were always lower case, but when capitalised, were just in a slightly different font. We used this font initially as we felt that it would mirror the story of the film, as although two things may actually look the same, they were slightly different, but it would take someone with a keen eye to discover the differences. This font was used throughout the development of the project, but towards the end, we felt that there were certain letters that seemed indistinctive or just ugly, so we decided to use another font.

Mesquite Standard:

This font had a slightly different effect, as all the letters were capitalised. This lack of lower case made everything seem bigger and more outstanding than that of the "pussycat" font. This made the titles have more of a strong impact, which we felt made a big difference, so we switched to this for our final version.

Title Position:

All but 2 of our titles are positioned on the screen in exactly the same way; the top of the letters starting just above two thirds of the way up the screen. The reason for this is that people are said to may more attention to something that is in that area of the screen than to something that is dead in the centre. the stated reason for this is that as people, we often look for horizons to find distance, which is often found 2/3 up from our line of site. (source - wikipedia)

The 2 that we decided not to have in this position were the names of the actors. The reason for this was twofold, one is that we felt that their names should stand out and be different from the other titles' placement, and two, that it would look good if it faded from one name in the top left and the next name in the bottom right:

Title Placement:

We have placed our titles throughout the sequence so that the longest time between any two titles is 20 seconds, and this long gap only happens twice, other than that there is only about 5 seconds between each title. We have done this to ensure that we can place as many titles as possible without interrupting the narrative. This was very important, as a strong narrative is needed in almost any thriller, but a 'Whodunit' needs to have a very strong base, in order to build up the potential suspects. This spacing also allowed for the non-diegetic music to build up the suspense and tension whilst the visuals were limited by the black background. This building of tension is key, and it is very important that the placement of titles doesn't effect it, therefore, if they come too often, they will undoubtable ruin the sequence, but if they are too spread out, then not enough information about the film is revealed, making it a poor title sequence.