Finished Thriller Opening Sequence

My finished thriller 'Nostalgia' can be seen below;

 

Thriller comparison - Miss Georgiou

I think my group and I have created a successful thriller sequence because it fulfills what the brief asked of us. It is 2 minutes long and is conventional in many ways. It also confuses the audience, making them vulnerable to feeling any emotion, which will make them feel nervous and means we can fully manipulate their emotional state. For example:

• The use of low key lighting (See below).

• The setting of a forest, (See above), which is conventional as it creates the idea of the victim not being able to escape from the killer which builds tension. 
• The music we used added to the effect of the footage and matched the images on screen, building suspense. 
• The mysterious, childlike credits matched the narrative and built tension, (See below). 

• The sound scape built up into a crescendo during the blackout, before the underwater scene. - It made the audience wonder what was going on which made them feel nervous, creating suspense. 

I feel that the micro element which best shows my creativity and understanding of thriller conventions would be the use of a fade. This editing technique is used in my narrative to clearly show the change in time from the girl walking alone in the forest to her being with her older sister. It is also the change from low key lighting to high key lighting and this confusing the audience and makes them feel that things are forever changing. It gives my narrative a clear but creepy mood to it and the emotions the audience feel because of this is what makes it conventional. (See below for an example of a fade). 

· Compare your opening sequence to a successful thriller and explain how your thriller is conventional. Consider the narrative, representation of characters, sounds, editing, mise-en-scene





To show my understanding of the generic conventions and developing a real thriller, I have compared my thriller opening to the film ‘The Sixth Sense’.

The film is about a young boy who can communicate with spirits that don’t know they are dead, who seeks the help of a child psychologist, played by Bruce Willis. Just like most thrillers, the film uses low key lighting in certain scenes in the film; these scenes are usually when Cole (the little boy) is communicating with a dead person. For example, the scene where he shows Malcolm the dead people who hung themselves at his school and when he talks to a woman in the kitchen. It is in these scenes where the suspense is built, and so the low key lighting, tension building music, the use of montage to put the images together etc, are all used to show viewers how scared the little boy is and to help the audience feel scared too.

The clip below is from the Sixth Sense and shows one of the scary, tension building scenes in the film. It shows the innocence of the little boy bursting for the toilet but is too scared to go in the dark. This makes viewers connect and sympathise with him, associating him to be the victim. This is similar to my thriller as the scarf and pink dress the girl wears shows her youth and innocence. This clip is conventional mainly due to the sound added which makes the scene scary by building suspense. Viewers, having previously connected to the little boy, feel the emotions he does as it is clear the boy is frightened. The use of the shot showing the thermometer going down and the breath being visible in the air shows how cold it is in the house. This gives the scene a supernatural feel to it as we associate the cold with the supernatural, and dark, scary things. It also may make people shiver and feel paranoid which is very conventional in thriller films. There was also the use of low key lighting in the shot showing the length of the hallway (see below) and throughout the clip to add to everything mentioned above.

This film, like my thriller opening is not a very stereotypical thriller, as the sixth sense focuses on the journey of the boy and how Malcolm helps him deal with his ‘gift’. There is a fight scene, but instead of taking up the entire narrative of the film, happens at the beginning and is forgotten right until the end of the film. The film has various settings such as Cole’s house, school, local hospital and the area he lives in. These settings are not conventional as they do not make the audience feel nervous by the victim being trapped etc, but simply tell viewers more information. They also make the thriller more believable as these settings are easily accessible to the general public. This could make them think the scenario in the film could happen to them which will make viewers nervous, and this feeling is what is conventional. The fact that this is an entire film and not just a two minute opening means that the effects used are going to be better. Whereas my group and I allocated several different roles between us, there would have been a team of people on each job; they would’ve had a bigger budget etc, and so there are obviously some major differences between the two. Both thrillers do have a similar element, as both create the enigma of finding out the main character is dead; Malcolm finds out he died at the beginning of the film, right at the very end, and the entire film has been building up the tension so that the audience feel very shocked at the end of the film, which makes the film conventional as it had used the common 3S’s in it. However, in my thriller, I only had 2 minutes to create a similar effect. The main character, who is the victim, unlike in the sixth sense, finds out she is dead at the very end of the opening, which would also surprise the audience in the hope they will continue watching. I therefore had to build suspense in a different way as I didn’t have the length of an entire film. I therefore chose the stereotypical setting in a forest, with the victim dying at the end, as well as the conventional looking credits added in.

Audience feedback - Miss Georgiou

Audience feedback is important to a production as it enables the producers to get an idea of what message is coming across to their audience and allows them to gain some positive and negative comments on the film so they can improve it. 

In order to improve our thriller opening sequence, my group and I wanted to get some feedback so that we could improve our thriller. We got this feedback by showing a small group of people, between the ages of 15 to 18 which is our target audience. We then asked them a short questionnaire, consisting of questions like 

• 'What was your first impression of our thriller sequence?'
• 'How did it make you feel?'
• 'Do you feel it was conventional to the thriller genre? If so how?'
• 'Is there anything you would change to make our thriller better?'

The feedback we gained would benefit our production of the thriller as we are now able to go back and improve certain elements to make it even better, potentially allowing us to get a better mark. However, if this was a real film produced in the industry, the audience feedback would also allow the film's production team to review certain parts of the film to make them better. These changes could potentially make the film more successful by making more money as it could appeal to a larger range of people. 

Some positive feedback my group received was:

1. We included a wide variety of cinematography which made the sequence interesting and effective. - I agree with this comment as this was something we tried to do. We wanted to show a range of shots but made sure they were consistently conventional. For example, we always used a high angled shot looking down at the little girl to portray her as the victim, (See below). 

     2. The idea and use of the underwater scene was unique and made it stand out compared to other thriller          opening sequences. - This comment also sums up another one of our aims as we had this underwater            scene idea right from the start. We wanted our thriller film to be different but by still being conventional.          Also we noticed that there wasn't a lot of other thriller films who have an underwater scene and so                thought if carried out correctly this would make our narrative really successful. 

     3. We were also told that our opening sequence was very conventional to the thriller genre, such as the              use of low key lighting, the characters of the protagonist and unknown antagonist, as well as the choice          of tension building music. - We wanted to try and make our opening sequence very conventional and            so did this through the examples listed above as well as many more. We also made the music match              the images and edits on the screen, so that it would build suspense and be even more effective. 

Some negative feedback my group received was;

1. The narrative was very confusing and some of my audience didn't understand it. - I think that by planning, researching and re-editing the film so many times, we understood the narrative and so assumed that our audience would too. 
2. They said that whilst our credits were good, they could be improved by making them look more conventional and more suited to the narrative of the little girl. 
3. The idea of the flashbacks was good, but we needed to make this clearer and easier to understand. 

To improve these points my group did the following:

• Whilst our narrative was confusing to viewers, my group and I were not too worried about this as this is what we were trying to do. By confusing your audience you make them vulnerable to feeling many different sorts of emotions, such as them feeling nervous or anxious to what is to happen next. This will allow the climax and ending of the opening sequence to have a bigger effect on the audience, and this is what we were trying to do. However, saying this, we did re-watch our thriller and got a second opinion and decided to take out a few of the shots in an attempt to make the narrative easier to understand. 
• We decided to follow the feedback about the credits and changed the style of our credits. We decided that as the narrative was about the little girl, the credits should look like a child wrote them, perhaps the little girl herself. We therefore chose a more childlike font style which gave the credits a more sinister feel and helped to build suspense, (See below). 

• We also decided to make the flashbacks clearer by changing the lighting to a brighter high-key light, as well as adding in the transition of a fade to emphasise the change in time, (See below an example of a fade). 
  

Overall, we followed the aims of the brief my creating a 2 minute opening sequence to a thriller. We kept to the time frame and also included many thriller conventions such as low key lighting, setting in a forest and tension building music etc to make our sequence as conventional as possible. We kept to the time frame by carefully planning and researching everything from mise-en-scene to character representations, as well as having a film schedule and time log sheets to ensure our progression each week. We stuck to the brief and have made a good thriller opening sequence that our target audience can relate to. 

AS Evaluation- Question 7

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

When looking back at my preliminary task, I feel I have definitely improved and progressed in the skills involved in filming. The purpose of the preliminary task was to show my understanding in what I had learnt from the research stage so far, mainly focusing on the cinematography and editing aspects.

Using the camera and tripod for the first time, we had to create a short clip, no longer than 1 minute in length, which we would then edit using the Final Cut pro X software available. During my preliminary task, I learnt how to carry out a high angled shot, a zooming in shot, an over the shoulder shot, a close up and a tracking shot.

                                 High Angles -

  

                   Over the shoulder shots - 
                                                      

Close up shots - 

 As well as getting familiar with the camera, tripod and editing software. I learnt how to upload my footage, preview it, select it etc, and then how to trim any unwanted parts. This helped me when completing the filming for my thriller, as it meant I had some experience with completing certain shots, meaning the filming didn’t take as long. Also, I felt that during my preliminary task, my knowledge on using the editing software was very limited to just trimming. However, now I have completed the editing stage of my thriller, my skills have developed as I used a lot more than a ‘trim’ in the finished product, and I feel that the preliminary task enabled this to happen. It gave me some experience on how to do the basic things on Final Cut Pro X, which I have been able to progress on. My preliminary task made me realise how important the planning stage was, and this helped me as we planned in detail, and so finished the thriller opening within the deadline. 

AS Evaluation- Question 6

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout the making of my thriller opening,I used a variety of technology to help me in the research, planning and evaluating stages. I mainly used ‘blogger’ to present and keep all my research and planning posts etc. I used ‘free sound’ to find copyright free sound effects etc, such as 'Girl laugh2' (0:37 in the clip), 'breathing sounds' (1:15 in the clip) and 'splash.wav' (1:22 in the clip), which I could then add into my thriller opening.
 I used Final Cut Pro X to edit my thriller footage, and add in transitions, such as the Gaussian effect used in the flashback scenes. I also used a camera and a tripod when filming. I learnt how to use the camera and tripod through the experience of the preliminary task. Before this task, we went through how to extend the tripod, how to pivot it, and how to attach the camera to it, as well as how to use the camera properly. However, most of this came with the practicing of the filming. When filming there were a few shots I struggled to film, such as the aerial shot we wanted to show the little girl dead at the end of the thriller. There was no way we could get carry out an aerial shot at our location, and I didn't realise this until the day of the filming. To overcome this problem, I improvised and chose to film it from a very high angle, with the tripod fully extended, looking down on the little girl. I think this worked better than the aerial shot as it portrayed her to be the victim one last time, and showed she was dead, building suspense. Other than this, we managed well when filming the other shots; it was simply a case of trial and error to see what worked, as we had never done this before.

The editing software I used (Final Cut Pro X), helped me in the editing stage of my thriller. It involved me uploading my footage onto the computer, and then selecting the best ones by being able to preview them first, before dragging those I wanted to include onto the timeline. Once this was done, I could put the clips in order and cut or trim any parts which I didn’t want to use. I then learnt how to add transitions into my footage, such as the Gaussian effect used in the flashback scenes, how to change the lighting to make it low-key, add sound from 'free-sound' and how to create and add credits etc. I would say that my strengths in editing my thriller are that I can trim and cut down the footage easily, to ensure it was under 2 minutes long, as well as adding transitions into the thriller and confidently un-matching the original sound from the footage, so that we could add a particular sound effect on top. For my weaknesses, I felt that as the software we were using was reasonably new, we couldn't use it to its full potential, such as making a particular edit the way we wanted to, because we were not experienced with the software.To create the credits for my thriller, we used Final Cut Pro X, and for the evaluation, we used Blogger, Prezi and videos to show a variety of technology.

One area of my opening thriller film that reflects my editing skills are during the first flashback, shown between 0:25 to 0:33 seconds into my thriller. Firstly, I wanted to make the audience focus on the tree which was being zoomed in on and so changed the lighting and saturation etc, so the darks and mid tones were lower, which gave the tree a dark luminous effect, making it look intriguing, so the audience would wonder what would happen next. This is followed by the transition of a fade into the first flashback showing the two sisters playing around a tree. For this flashback, I changed the lighting and saturation's etc again, but this time increased the midtones and whites to make it look like high key lighting, so the audience would be able to distinguish between the flashbacks and normality in the clip. I added a Gaussian blur effect on top of this, and adjusted the levels of blurring, so that the audience could still determine what was happening, but it still minimised the detail, creating a sense of confusion which will build suspense. As well as this, we played around with the soundtrack, so that it matched to the images, building tension.

AS Evaluation- Question 5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The research helped me during the planning stages for my thriller opening such as planning mise-en-scene, characters, cinematography, sound, editing styles and opening credits, as it told me what my audience wanted to see. The various films I analysed to help me in my research inspired me; For mise-en-scene, I learnt that you don’t need a variety of settings or iconography as by keeping everything relatively simple, you can build the most suspense (Asylum clip). For cinematography, I learnt there are a variety of ways to portray a specific character, such as by using a high angled shot to present the killer, making him look weak (Red Eye clip). For editing, the jump cuts and slow editing used in the clip ‘Here’s Johnny’ from the film The shining, inspired me as to how effective and engaging they made the scene, as well as how nervous they made the audience feel from the build of tension. As well as this it helped me to decide on my target audience and age certificate; 15. It told me how important sound is to an audience as this is what adds meaning and suspense to a scene. and It also taught me the conventions my audience think are most important, such as using a canted angle or handheld footage to build suspense. This research was helpful as it allowed me and my group to gather our thoughts and decide on which elements worked best. It helped me to understand how to make my thriller opening more conventional and also unique. 

Overall, the primary research I carried out, such as the questionnaire results helped me to understand what my target audience wanted in a thriller opening sequence. The secondary research I carried out, such as the research into mise-en-scene etc, allowed me to understand the micro-elements better, which assisted me in the making of my thriller opening. 

AS Evaluation- Question 4

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

My thriller film appeals to my target audience in many different ways, mainly through it being relatable. The characters in my narrative are ordinary people, who are presented very naturally, such as through the everyday clothing of the two sisters, which allows the audience to see them as one of them and so can relate to them and believe their emotions etc.
The narrative unfortunately is also reasonably believable, due to stories of children being snatched etc. This may make the film quite personal to some viewers, meaning they will be able to relate and emphasise with the victim and what is going on truthfully. 
The different aspects of mise-en-scene such as the iconography used; the scarf and the rose, as well as the setting in a forest are all easily accessible, which makes them realistic and believable. This may make viewers feel that the scenario happening on screen can happen to them-self, and so will make them nervous for what may happen next and will also build suspense and help the audience feel the full effect of the thriller. 
The soundtrack and cinematography used will also appeal to my target audience as they help to build suspense, and will make the viewers feel something, which is the reason our audience are watching the film. For example, the use of the high angle continually used to portray the young girl shows her to be the victim as she looks vulnerable and smaller. Also, the non-diegetic soundtrack is quite eerie and also matches the images on screen, making the thriller have a bigger effect on viewers, through the tension built. 
The edits were completed so that it looked like the images on screen motivated the edit taking place, and specific camera angles such as a high angle, made it clearer to the audience who specific characters were.