Director's Interview

The Observer Evaluation

Before we actually started planning our thriller, we watched some previous thrillers from the past years to get a feeling of what our thriller should be like. In addition to this, we also were told to go off and watch some thrillers of our own, just the first 5mins of those thrillers. At the start I was a bit skeptical about what a thriller was, I had it in my mind that it was similar to horror but I was told the difference and it’s now clearer in my mind, thrillers are more suspenseful and leave the audience asking questions, horrors are more intended to scare the audience.
One film, which really motivated the planning of my thriller, was a film called “Eagle Eye”; this film inspired me a lot because of the way the director was able to create such tension that would just leave the audience asking so many questions if truth be told, it amazed me. It puzzles me sometimes how directors can think of such things, the director of the film by the way was D.J. Caruso. The main emphasis of my thriller; was to leave the audience asking questions and create a lot of tension; I wanted to try to create, to my ability, an atmosphere as similar to that of “Eagle Eye”. Here’s the IMDB page to the film:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059786/ and here’s the official film website: http://www.eagleeyemovie.com/

The way I decided to incorporate this atmosphere into my thriller is by creating various shots, which didn’t really show everything to the audience, sothat they can be thinking more about what they think it is and what it could be, basically just makes them explore their minds about possibilities. We explored different kinds of shots to see what kind of atmosphere it creates, shots like the character point of view shots which really excludes the audience form the rest of the world, so the audience would be thinking what’s going on around them. Another shot was a surveillance shot, we didn’t know we had actually created a shot like this until it was pointed out by someone else; the shot seems like a camera is watching the person and makes the audience think who it might be, watching the main character. Other shot’s we used were panning shots, and tracking sots, the way we used these shots worked extremely well with what I was hoping to get out of them. When we used these shots we kind of limited what the audience could see, like if it was on a character it would show the front of the character only, or if it was a panning shot it would follow just the front of the character to exclude the space behind they character. One thing which really worked well with one of our shot’s was when the main character ran out through the hall and closed the last door, as that door closed it made a particular shut sound, that went extremely well with the soundtrack as instigation of the sound being cut off. At the end of all of that there we some amazing shots captured and all that was left was which shots were we going to be used. We actually ended up with almost an hour of filming, that left us with a lot of choosing to do and took time as well.

One challenge I had while trying to create this tense atmosphere, was trying to make the right music. I really needed inspiration for this part because I really wasn’t talented in creating music and I had never done it before, it really took a lot for me to do this part. I had a picture of what the sound would be like in my mind, but turning that into something feasible was the hardest part. Finding the right sounds that matched the mood of a certain scene of the thriller, and certain sound effects for the right moment like slow tempo orchestra beat in the background, some diegetic sounds like heart beats helped the mood as well. All of this was tricky to do but with a little time and effort, I really pulled it off. In the end, I ended up creating just the atmosphere I wanted, it didn’t quite meet the professional atmosphere of “Eagle Eye” but it met the standards of my ability and that’s what’s most important to me right now.

My thriller I would say was more representative of the teenage social group; mainly because there's only a use of teenage actors in the clip, and to me I don’t think adults would be too eager to go watch a film where it only included teenagers unless it’s very good. It would also appeal to both sexes because of the characters used and the situations the characters are placed in. Furthermore the situation used is also a representative of society, when there is a distressed situation between a man and women, the women is more likely to be in the distressed position and the man creating the distress because of how men are seen in a higher status than women, and men are judged to be stronger than women as well. Also the film wouldn’t’ be aimed at the higher social economic group of society, simply because of how the actors are dressed in th

e clip, the audience wouldn’t really associate that with high status, and the higher social economic group wouldn’t really be drawn to something not aimed towards them. I can’t really talk on the language because there wasn’t any talking involved.

The type of media institution that would distribute my film would

 be and indie type group or English production studios like Working Title, because the film wouldn’t be so big and wouldn’t need much funding, it would be a low budget film with not a lot of effects (CG). Since it’s bound to be a low budget film, the funds wouldn’t be hard to gather and the distribution is more likely to be within the UK, so advertising is low. Maybe it might be distributed in off sea locations in Europe.

The audience for my media product would be in-between the age of 14-24 (10 yr age gap), both male and female of the white, black and mixed race ethnicity, and with a mid-wage salary in the working class, student’s social background. The way that I would attract this audience is by using a type of language, which appeals to that group, since the group is the typical group of society (working class) and are young, then certain informal language can be used lenient towards slang. Even the dress sense would appeal more to the audience as it’s a casual wear and isn’t very hard to buy, so maybe if the audience were to watch the thriller they may be wearing some of the clothing seen in the thriller. Furthermore the location of the thriller, it’s based near computers and in a college (you can tell by the log-ins on the computer) this automatically directs it to a certain group, which are students, they would suddenly pick up on the fact that there’s a log in and say hey I do that as well.

What really made the thriller great was the technology available to make such perfect work. With the availability of the Mac’s, is what made working on these thrillers easy, editing was so swift and straightforward after we were taught how to use the software which was final cut pro. Over time editing clips couldn’t be any easier, Fin

al Cut Pro really stretched the possibilities of things, which can be done to videos, with the aid of Soundtrack I was able to make the great audio. What also made this thriller practical an ease, was the equipment available as well, the camera’s worked great with the Mac’s and are very easy to use and set up, with a little imagination while using the camera and its stand great things can be made.

Looking back at my preliminary task, I can see that I have truly advanced through the stages. My skills on editing have drastically improved, I have reduced the continuity errors to a minimum or nothing at all, even certain rules that had to be followed like the gap over the head rule, and all other rules were followed. In terms of planning, I think we were more organised than before but I can’t really judge on that because before; we had a shorter time to film in, and for this task I can say our planning skills weren’t of the best; we could have got it finished a lot earlier. The group I was in I can truly say was the perfect group for me, but it’s just the lack of focus that sometimes gets to me and not being able to sacrifice some time to help film, but I can honestly say there wasn’t a better group for me. The main thing we lacked in the group was imagination, we weren’t as creative as we wanted to be with our thriller, and we could have produced something a lot more creative only if we had adventured long enough in our minds just to find the right ideas.

The Observer

Thriller Editing Day 2

Well for me this was actually a two day editing, because the day before the deadline I spent my free time to come in and do some editing, we needed to create the sound. I came in at lunch and the Mac’s were all used up so I had to wait a while, but it wasn’t long before I got a Mac to use. It took me a while to actually figure out what it is that I would use to create the sound, as you see we had a vast majority of tools and instruments which we could have chosen from, so that even made the task harder.

Finding the right type of mood for the sound was the trickiest part, I had to decide how it would run throughout the whole clip. At first I wanted it to be calm at the start and the gradually speed up the tempo to increase the tension, but that got scrapped as I had realised that creating a soundtrack that was mysterious at start and then slowly increasing the tempo would be much more effective. So I spent time fiddling with the tools and instruments, and I had finally created a soundtrack which I was pleased with, it still needed some tweaking to It but I had decided to leave that for the tomorrow, because everyone in the group would be in and then we can decide on whether the soundtrack is good or not, or whether there’s anything else that needs to be added on.

So tomorrow came and everyone was in as expected, we divided the groups into two, me and Rebecca done the sound and some finishing touches to the clip, Ava & Annie went off to finish the credits. The editing wasn’t really tricky at all, we just had to distort some images and slow down a couple of scenes wasn’t no big. The soundtrack also got tweaked a bit just to improve the tension. Ava & Annie came back but had a problem with the credits, so we had to re-create the credits again which didn’t take very long. We got that done quickly and compiled the whole clip and we were done, the end product was made. All the hard work paid off.

Thriller Editing Day 1

Today the whole group was in as expected, we straight away got started with our editing, and all we had to do is compile the whole thriller together. We had to go through all the clips we had filmed and pic the ones we thought was best, after doing all of that we had to construct the story line. We decided which clip we wanted to go where and depending on where the clip was based a different story would be, told but all leading to the same ending. So it took a while for us to decide which order the clips would go in for the best possible storyline we could present. One major problem we had while trying to compile the clips, was setting the in-points and outpoints because you see as we were filming, the actor would sometimes laugh or go out of role and all of that was caught on tape and even messed up some of the clips. However we were somehow able to set the in-points and outpoints correctly so that it didn’t really affect the whole thriller.

Since not everyone was engaged in the work we were doing, we decided to split the group into two so that everyone has work to do. Me and Rebecca stayed editing while Annie and Ava went off to start the credits, shortly after that we had finally constructed a clip which me and Rebecca was pleased with, we would show the others later because lesson had now finished. All that was left to do now was the sound and some tweaks to the clip, so stay tuned for Thriller Editing Day 2 the final stand point. See Ya

Thriller Filming Day 5

Today we didn’t have a full group because Ava couldn’t make it; she had to attend a funeral. Well the really wasn’t much too do today but just fix up all of the continuity errors I found. It actually to a while to film everything, because we couldn’t figure out what to do for the last scene, it took a while but we got it done in the end, and it actually came out good. What also slowed us down was trying to reproduced the scenes which had continuity errors, the actor Annie was getting frustrated by having to repeat the same thing over and over again.

In the end, we got everything that we needed done, done so we completed all of the filming today, that’s our millstone. So I guess you’ll have to stay tuned for what’s next up: Thriller Editing Day 1

Thriller Filming Day 2

Today there was no filming or editing done, because of the bad weather. College was closed down because it was snowing and transport was closed, that shows how heavy the rain was. So no filming today but stay tuned for filming day 3

Thriller Filming Day 4

Today not very much got done because of the time limit we had, also some of our group members were late so that slowed us down as well. What slowed us down the most was the continuity errors I found, which meant we had to re-shoot some scenes, so I had to go check which scenes we had to re-film, which took some time as well and since today we only had 1:45 mins to film in, it was very limited.

We finally got to filming and re-filmed the scenes which was needed to re re-filmed, then we had to complete the last two scenes which we still haven’t done yet, we were actually meant to film one of those scenes today but ended up forgetting to do that. So we have decided to get it all done on Monday, let’s hope we don’t forget anything this time, fingers crossed.

We’ve also come up with various ideas for the last scene which we keep on changing, I guess we have to film all the ideas and see how it goes that's the best way for now because time is limited. So stay tuned for filming day 4, see ya.

Thriller Filming Day 3

Today not very much got done because we couldn’t book the room we needed, so we couldn’t do any filming at all. So we had to spend this day blogging and logging what we had on tape. It was quite upsetting that we didn’t get no filming in as we have so little time to do it in, since we have no college on Friday we have one more filming session to get all the filming in, and there’s also a one day session for us to come in the holiday, to film and edit. So that’s good we have two more filming sessions to get all the filming in. So that’s all the blogging for today stay tuned for filming day 3

Thriller Filming Day 1

Today was a very hectic day, we done a lot of filming using a vast shot of camera angles. Today we had to go and book the library room which ended up not getting, so instead we had to improvise and use a different room similar to the one in the library, and we found the best solution. It mean that we had to lose some camera shots like the bookshelf shot we wanted to include, it’s still in our plan in case we ever do choose to re-film in the library. We also change our main character, as the character we intended to get we couldn’t because they couldn’t fit the hours.

Today we got a lot of the filming in which I am very proud of, everyone contributed to the types of shots we should include, so we started experimenting and created some nice shot angles. There were some shots which we couldn’t get in today because we didn’t have enough of the equipment needed, like the computer scene when the character receives an email, we couldn’t do that because the email hadn’t been made yet. So we have to re-film that on another day, which is a good thing cause we get to see if there are any other kinds of shots we could and should include, it also gives us some more practicing and time to go over what we’ve filmed, to see if there were any continuity errors.

So that’s the wrap of the first day, really pleased of what we done cause I was also directing the film as well. Everyone contributed but not sure if everyone done enough work needed, that’s what we need to improve on, so that's it until filming day 2, see Ya.

A Thrilling Read

In this task we were told to create a short thriller clip from a person reading a newspaper. To me this task was tricky, because reading a newspaper isn't very thrilling at all. So we had to come up with a thrilling idea, which didn't take as long as we expected, shows what four concentrated minds can do.

In our short clip we included various shots, which I think is good because we got to explore different camera angles and create different atmospheres from those angles. There was a particular shot which included me and the second character, what happened in this scene is that the second character was staring at me and I didn’t notice it, the clothing of the character made this scene even better because it created a dark atmosphere, which is what we tried to create, with the added lighting it even made the atmosphere more tense. There were some shots which didn’t work, like the tracking shot of me there were some continuity errors in that scene and the one before that.

The continuity editing didn't work as well as we expected, there were certain scenes which we just couldn't edit to change or make more effective or even remove these errors, but overall it worked well. So i was very pleased with what we created, there are some tips to pick up from it which is a good thing it can allow us to improve on the next time we’re filming.

Pre-Lim Thriller

Pre-Lim Thriller

Our task was to create a short clip consisting of certain types of shots and rules, our clips had to have a match cut, shot-reverse-shot and follow the 180-degree rule, our clip also had to have two characters engaged in a conversation together.

As this was only our group’s second edit, I felt that we grasped the task very well. The camera work to me was very good, we included different types of shots in a short clip, which I felt worked very well. The shots I thought that were the best the shot-reverse because it showed the seriousness of the characters faces, and really brought out the point we tried to convey when making our short clip. In addition, the medium long shot at the end showing the transaction between the two characters was good as well, because since you couldn’t see what was in the bag, this raises questions for the audience making them ask questions like what’s in the bag, is it that important that money had to be traded for it.

Our editing ended up pretty well; we did have some continuity errors, which we quickly got over with our great editing. However there where some continuity errors which we couldn’t evade, like the amount of space left over the characters head in the panning shot. The clip overall was very clear, it clearly shows what the whole point of the clip is, which as in exchange between two characters.

Well our mise en scene wasn’t of the best as you can see in our last scene there were students bags & coats left around the scene which didn’t really help us with what we were trying to bring out of the clip. So if there's anything I learned about mise en scene is that its best to clear the area before filming.

Yes I felt that we created an element of suspense with our music especially. When I watch the film with the music added to it creates a feeling that something’s going to happen, and to me I think it’s great that we added that audio to the clip.

The only thing we forgot was about the camera height rule, as we forgot to make sure that there's not so much space above the characters head.