evaluation: question 5

question 4

question 3

evaluation Q2

evaluation: question 1

We like the idea of having blood in our opening as it represents guilt. Our inspiration for this was Macbeth as she has the famous line ‘out damned spot’. So we used fake blood and added some shots of me washing blood off of my hands to represent guilt and intrigue the audience as to where the blood has come from.

 For our music, we were inspired by the Jaws theme tune as the simple piano notes created an increasing amount of tension. On the left is a picture of our music on garage band. It contained long low piano notes to create tension.

In the ‘True Detective title sequence there is a shot of the setting. The outside, spacious environment makes the audience feel isolated. We wanted to create the effect in our opening that the character is isolated. This would also build tension as she is vulnerable. We made sure we included shots of the trees bearing down on her to signify to the audience that the character was isolated and vulnerable.

We have a close up of a character carving an X into a log. We used inspiration from’ Seven’s’ title sequence as there are a lot of close ups. These close-ups give the audience a sense of wonder and mystery as to who the character is and what they are doing. More explanation here using the term connote

We wanted our font to be simple but effective. In the ‘Seven’ title sequence their font is in white over a black background. The white connotes innocence and purity whereas the black connotes death and evil; we wanted this kind of contrast to come across in our opening. Also, the font is like scrawled writing, we weren't sure about this as we didn't know whether it would fit in our opening as it could look unprofessional but we like the ‘edited by’ font as we believe it is clear, simple and effective so we decided to use something similar In our opening.

There is a scene in ‘A Tale of Two Sisters, a Korean horror film, of a bloody bag being dragged through a hallway. We took inspiration from this and decided to do something similar but apply it to the thriller genre. So we decided to drag a bag through the mud. The bag creates a sense of mystery as the audience will want to know what is in there.

In ‘Memento they created a successful effect by putting some shots backwards. This creates a feel of disorientation and confusion and gets the audience asking questions such as, is she going back in time? We decided to put some of our shots backwards to also get this effect.

In ‘Leon’ one of the main characters is an innocent young girl. We wanted an innocent girl in our thriller to create tension as the audience automatically assume she is the victim. Also, an audience are more likely to feel sympathy for a young female as stereo typically speaking; women are seen as less capable of defending themselves.

The 1975s music video ‘Robbers’ is a short film in itself, in it, a character leaves a bloody hand print on a white background. We took inspiration from this and decided to incorporate a similar shot into our thriller opening as it creates a shock factor and enhances the seriousness of the danger the character is in.

We believe our opening is conventional as we incorporate conventions of the thriller genre for example, the black bag, the character and the blood. We used the black bag to create mystery and suspense. There is lots of suspense and unanswered questions in thrillers so this is why we did this. We picked our location to be unique as there aren't many thrillers set in woods, so this was unconventional of a thriller film. The character was used to create tension as she is alone in the woods this is common in thrillers, to have a vulnerable character, so this is conventional of thrillers. We used the blood to add more of a dramatic feel to the opening. We put some shots in reverse so or opening wouldn't have a clear narrative to intrigue audiences and to make it more interesting to watch. 

preliminary task

music analysis

Our thriller music includes piano and violin. The piano has low key notes played at a slow pace, which builds the tension. This goes into high key violin at a slow pace which gives the atmosphere a creepy feel. The slow pace and  tension suggests that something bad is going to happen. The piano notes last for a long time, this is to create an mysterious feeling for the audience so they second guess what is going to happen. The high pitch of the violin is similar to the violin screeches in the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which suggests to the audience that our character is in danger.

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production log

Our setting could relate to the audience as we believe most people will be familiar with a forest. We picked this  location as it is isolated an it helps build the tension as the character is alone. However, we are filming in a public place so we need to be aware of pedestrians and other ambient sound. Our character will be in dressed in a school uniform style, which contrasts with our setting as uniforms connote order and our natural setting suggests the opposite. 

gender representation

We have no male characters in our opening, we did this as we wanted the lead to be female to oppose the traditional stereotype of having male leads in thrillers. Woman are commonly portrayed as being dependent on men in thrillers, we wanted to change this. Lead female characters in thrillers often have masculine traits, we oppose this in our opening. In thrillers younger female characters are often portrayed as being weak and vulnerable, this is no different from our thriller .
Mathilda in Leon opposes the traditional stereotype of female representation in thrillers.

character inspiration

We wanted to use uniform style dress to suggest that the girl is young and innocent. We want the audience to automatically assume that the girl is the victim.
In the film Leon, a young girl is one of the main characters although she opposes the traditional stereotype as she doesn't play the typical victim, but the audience assumes she is as she is young. We want our audience to assume this of our character to add to the  interest when some of the shots portray our character not to be the victim.

production log

We have decided we are going to have a lead character in our opening, so we will have more of a narrative to it. We have looked up thriller opening and have found that women usually play the victim. We are going along with this stereotype to appeal to a wide range of audience. We have also decide on our title 'natural instinct' we decided on this as our opening is set in a forest and the word 'instinct' suggests survival which means that there will be some sort of danger in our opening. We have yet to complete all of our filming.

initial ideas

This was our first planning session for our opening. We wanted a range of shots and we knew we wanted the setting to be in a forest so we thought of ideas for shots and wrote them down. We could have improved in this by putting them more in an order and adding more of a narrative.

production log

ideas
We had a range of ideas for our opening. I suggested we had no dialogue to keep the tension and I was afraid dialogue would ruin the tense atmosphere of the opening. We wanted a collaboration of shots, like something similar to the Dexter opening. We wanted something simple, but creepy.

production log

Our preliminary task was very beneficial to do as it got us working the cameras and experimenting with different shots as we had to do a range of shots in it. So, when we went out to film we had some knowledge of working the camera and using a range of shots.

filming

At first we were filming during school hours so we didn't have any props, but when we first had the camera for the weekend we brought our props and got a lot done. Me and Rhiana both had a go at filming and  Rhiana's shots were better, so we decided that I was to be the actor. the first couple of times we went filming we got distracted and filmed random things that wouldn't fit in our thriller, we soon realised that we needed more of a story line so it was then that we started to film our match-on-action shots. 

An improvement we could make would be to know what shots we would film before we went out,  as we wasted time coming up with ideas. Also, we should have used the tripod more as a couple of our shots were shaking and unprofessional.

production log

On one of the first days we started filming we got a couple of decent shots, although, we were doing it in a free period so we didn't have long to film before we had to go back to school. We had started filming in a random order starting with the simpler shots first, this was good as we had time to learn how the camera worked and improve on the more complex shots, although, when it got round to adding our shots onto final cut pro it was more difficult. So, maybe next time we will do our shots in order and work on our time keeping.

behind the scenes

This is Rhiana when we first got to look at the cameras. We were put up the tripod and learned how the camera worked. Which helped us when it came to filming.

This is us making the music for our opening. it didn't take us long an we were pleased with the outcome.

This is me editing our opening this was when we had nearly finished.

filming

We are yet to film some of our opening, as we believe it can be improved to get to the next grade, but we are nearly finished. We do not have much more to add,just a few shots.  We want to make our opening the best it can be. 

filming log

We have nearly got everything filmed for our opening, we still have ideas we would like to add as we think our opening can be improved to get a better grade, so we are going to have to work fast on editing as we are coming up to deadlines. We still need to get a final cut of our film.

setting analysis

Our location was convenient as it was near the school and was a forestry setting. this setting was perfect for our thriller as it fitted our plan of having nature in our opening.


Although the limitations of our setting were that many dog walkers pass through, interrupting our filming and as we decided to film outside, rainy days and days with minimal lighting prevented us from filming, nut on a couple of days we were lucky with the lighting as we managed to get some nice light rays.

filming log

Our first day of filming didn't go well because at first we couldn't find our location, then we realised we hadn't pout film in our camera, so the next time we went out we made sure we were fully prepared. We didn't have much time so we only filmed a few shots. The next time we went filming was very successful as we got a lot more done, we continued at this pace, filming then reviewing our film and seeing what needed to be added.


old footage

We filmed this piece at the beginning of filming our thriller, so everything was rough.  here is  a high angle shot and was meant to show leaves falling to the river, gracefully. We filmed this on a cold day, where it was quite windy so the leaves weren't traveling in the directions we wanted them to. We decided not to include this in our thriller as we didn't think it was professional enough and we already had enough footage showing natural imagery. Also, the footage isn't really relevant to the rest of our thriller as we felt it held no deeper meaning.