Section 12 Evaluation

During this project i learnt how to use premier pro to create my own thriller within a small group of class mates. The thriller we created forfills the nature of a thriller using the codes and conventions, for example in our thriller we can only see certain parts of what is going on, like bonitzer we used partial vision to keep something’s hidden which then made the audience question on why the 'postman' was been followed in the first place or why the postman was reading through other peoples mail, another good example of Noel Carrolls suggestions to the question and answer model was brought up in our audience feedback when the individual wanted to know more on what was going to happen next and in the rest of the short beginning of our film.
The other way our film forfills the nature of a thriller is that we used an ordinary man with an ordinary job of a post man and included a villain that makes the post man get dragged into a tough situation all because he didn’t post a certain letter to the woman the villain wanted it to go to, like Northrop Frye believes that men and women are presented in the same way in most horrors, with the woman been the weak victim, although we do not show the woman in the opening of our thriller, the idea of her receiving threatening letters suggests she is a weak character. We also played with the genre codes as we used music to build up tension and have certain camera views so the audience would think something bad was going to happen, when infact the short film ended at that moment, doing this was effective and it did what we wanted it to and put thoughts into the audiences heads.We filmed our thriller outside in a residential area, this gave the effect of normality, which matches with the codes and conventions of a thriller, as it is a normal place.
by using a man with a normal job who leads a normal life, the opening scene of him walking through the woods with a nervous look on his face made the audience feel sorry for him, this was what we as a group wanted to achieve, as later in the film he is seen opening other peoples mail, then changing the audiences mind on him and maybe even portrays him as a villain himself.
The media i would of thought to distribute our film would be Filmfour, as they are well known and released films such as enduring love, therefore people would hear about our film.


The audience we chose for our thriller was certificate 15, choosing this was good due to the class that reviewed it were all aged between 16-17. To address our audience and keep them wanting to know more we created drama and suspense by using things such as creepy music with a fast paste beat, and changing the colours from a range to black and white, sepia and normal and used different camera views to draw the audience in.. By doing simple things like that we gave our audience what they wanted to see, and got back the feedback we needed, which was mostly very positive.

'the sepia effect was very good as it gave an eerie view on the film'

‘using the sepia effect made the villain out to be some kind of monster not just a villain’

'using the black and white footage was effective and it helped make the scenes fit together'

'the bag was good for the postman, but it was hard to identify him as a post man at the start'

‘the mumbling the postman did was good because it made him seem more unusual’

'the mask was quite comical. but it also added to the effect of unusual and creepy'

‘the heavy breathing done by the villain was scary and made it interesting’

'the graphics were bold so they stood out making it seem they wanted to be noticed'

'the colour of the titles used was effective because the red made it seem more like a thriller'

‘the hand held camera movement was really good because it was like someone was been followed’

'at first I found it was confusing because it was hard to focus with the movement of the camera, but that made me want to see more'

“The shots used ran smoothly together and the match on action was pretty much perfect”

“The music was well used and really added to the element of threat that the character felt from the villain”

The reactions and feedback we got from the class was something that made us proud to have produced a film that made people question and be unsure of what will happen next. Where as some people in the group said the mask was comical, the other half said if however they were in the situation of been followed by someone wearing the mask then they would be very scared and uneasy, another thing was that our thriller contained no murder scene or death, this was different to the rest of the groups who had murder scenes, we liked the fact that without a death the audience would be left on a cliff-hanger and leave the audience in constant wonder.

When filming our thriller, we ended up filming twice as the first time caught the sun light making it seem less scary, where as on the second it was darker and was an icy day creating more of a scary atmosphere to connotates, evil, sadness to forfill the codes and conventions of a thriller .

During this project using premier pro, I learnt how to edit properly to make scenes fit together to make a whole sequence, also how to cut things down or make them slightly longer to suit the frame. The main thing I learnt from this was to keep all my separate frames together and organised to make it easier to choose which clip I want and which ones go in which order, using the digital technology makes things run at smoother for example all the data is in one place so it doesn’t go missing and making a film, you can always go back and re edit if needs be and also reorder things the way you want, on the other hand digital technology can always hamper you, whilst half way through work the system can crash or something can go wrong making you loose your data or if one thing goes wrong, most of the work has to be reordered and put into place.
Also with it been so hands on, its hard to get more than one person to do the editing so you have to take it in turns which can be difficult to see where the other person got up to and take off where they left. Also when editing, if something goes wrong and you save it, theres no going back to the point it was at before.

At the beginning of the year we worked in groups of three and did a preliminary task on a continuity sequence with someone walking through a door, by doing this it was the first way to teach the group and myself how to use a camera properly. And how to use a camera with a stand and without a stand, we also used a microphone in the group I was in to add sound over the top of the short clip. The main thing we had a problem with as a group, was the space we needed to use was also been used by others in the group and as it was a corridor people walking past were caught in the shot, or the voices of others were recorded as well despite calling out ‘quiet on set’. if I were to do the preliminary task again I would first start off with making a better plan of where to film, and make sure it was a quiet area, I would also keep focused as I was easily distracted in the corridor. The other main thing to make sure off was that nothing was left on set for example a pen or white board in the background.
By doing the preliminary task it set me up for doing the thriller film as I took the things id learnt from the task and remembered them when doing my thriller.


At the start of making the thriller with my group, we ended up having a major problem. When filming, everything went as we wanted and we took the footage into college pleased with what we do, little did we know when shown on screen the footage looked as though it had a cloudy screen, we then realised the camera we filmed with had a finger print smudge on the lense, this was a big set back for the group as we had to go back and re film aswell as cast more people as the original characters were not in use. Fortunatly we resolved this issue, and refilled and got someone else to cast in our film, it turned out to be successful and although we lost time due to the incident we caught up and made the dealine for the media film to be finished.

Because of the setback it has also taught me to make sure before and during filming that there are no marks on the lense to prevent any further mistakes.

section 11 audience feedback

We watched our media films as a group and were given some audience feedback, we then had to record their feedback on the questions which were asked.

1: do you think that the effects we used help portray the characters?

'the sepia effect was very good as it gave an eeary view on the film'

' the black and white footage was effective and help make the scenes fit together'

2: Were the props appropriate for the audience to understand what was going on?

'the bag was good for the postman, but it was hard to identify him as a post man at the start'

'the mask was quite comical. but it also added to the effect of unusual and creepy'

3: Were the graphics used in the film suitable for this genre?

'the graphics were bold so they stood out making it seem they wanted to be noticed'

'the colour of the titles used was effective because the red made it seem more like a thriller'

4: Did the hand held camera work create tension for the audience?

'some of it did because it suggested someone was been followed'

'at first it was confusing because it was hard to focus, but that made me want to see more'

Section 10 logging sheets

Counter number shot decription shot length good take yes/no edit
..............................................................................................................................................................................
00:00:00 pan right to follow 10 sec no no
simon

00:00:10 TAKE 2 11 sec no no

00:00:21 TAKE 3 9 sec yes yes
...............................................................................................................................................................................

00:00:30 long shot of simon 5 sec yes yes
walking

00:00:35 hand held shot mr A 10 sec no no
point of view

00:00:45 TAKE 2 10 sec no no


00:00:55 TAKE 3 10 sec yes yes
................................................................................................................................................................................

00:01:05 Hand held following 5 sec yes yes
Simon
................................................................................................................................................................................

00:01:10 Hand held Mr A 5 sec yes yes
point of view
.................................................................................................................................................................................

00:01:15 long shot right 5 sec yes yes
side of simon
................................................................................................................................................................................

00:01:20 midshot of front 5 sec no no
of simon

00:01:25 TAKE 2 5 sec yes yes
..................................................................................................................................................................................

00:01:30 long shot behind 10 sec no no
simon

00:01:40 TAKE 2 10 sec yes yes
....................................................................................................................................................................................

00:01:50 long shot right of 5 sec no no
simon

00:01:55 TAKE 2 5 sec yes yes
....................................................................................................................................................................................

00:02:00 close up of feet 2 sec no no
on drive

00:02:02 TAKE 2 2 sec yes yes
.....................................................................................................................................................................................

00:02:04 full body shot 5 sec yes yes
of simon
......................................................................................................................................................................................

00:02:09 mid shot behind simon 10 sec no no

00:02:19 TAKE 2 (changed to 10 sec yes yes
right side of simon)
.........................................................................................................................................................................................

00:02:29 hand held MR A view 10 sec yes yes
...........................................................................................................................................................................................

00:02:39 Long pan of simon following 10 sec no no
right

00:02:49 TAKE 2 11 sec no no

00:03:00 TAKE 3 10 sec yes yes
.............................................................................................................................................................................................

00: 03: 10 Hande held MR A view 10 sec yes yes
..................................................................................