Feedback from finished project

- Hoody give a good sense of mystery
- Music helps add tension
- Subtitles matched to images
- Lighting effective and interesting
- Close up shows fear
- Titles quite dark
- Overall good
- Unrealistic slap
- Good camera shots
- Interesting storyline
- Sound suited genre
- Beginning creates suspense
- Lighting effecting for building mystery
- Mysterious character creates questions
- Good use of edited montage near end
- Music appropriate to titles

Feedback for Beth's Draft Evaluation

In question 1, try to be more precise about the way you have deployed these conventions in your thriller. In question 2, try to address the issue of gender via the different way that male and female characters are represented. In question 2, think a bit more about other possible reasons why Hollywood is the most likely institution to produce a feature film thriller. What are the factors involved with making thrillers, that mean it is best suited to Hollywood? Overall, the content of your answers is good, but you need to go into more detail in each one, because currently the word count is half what it should be in the final submission.

Feedback for Nicola's Draft Evaluation

The content of your answers is good so far, but more detail in the expression of each one is required throughout as so far the total word count is only half what it will need to be in the final submission. In question 2, try and address the different way that your thriller represents gender, based on the differences between the male and female characters. Also, you need to proof read for typos as I have spotted a few errors.

Draft Of Evaluation-Nicola Hartley

1) Whilst shooting our opening sequence we used the conventions of a thriller such as a

• Typical mise-en-scene such as a dark lighting, empty & dirty room and with no windows or very dirty ones.
• Characters like a mysterious person who is often hidden from the camera, people who are in danger.
• Questions being set up for the audience like in ours why are our main characters in the room.

Using these conventions it makes it more obvious to the audience about what genre they are watching.

2)In our Thriller opening sequence we only really have two types of groups. Such as our victims are from the same social group as they both wear similar clothing and our both in the same situation so this could hint to the audience about who they are. We also have our killer wearing dark clothing which is baggy & covers his face which keeps him mysterious this shows a different social group to our victims.

3)I think the place that would distribute our sequence would be somewhere like Hollywood as it would be the best place to deal with the intricacy of filming a thriller as a lot of time & money would need to be put into shooting one because costumes & other items would need more effort than other genres.

4)The audience would be people aged anywhere above 15. I feel that anyone under 15 wouldn't be suitable to watch this because of the violence involved in the film. I think it is aimed at both genders as we have both male & female victims so both genders can relate.

5)I think our thriller will attract audiences because we create a lot of questions such as "Why has the killer kidnapped our victims?" & "Who is the killer?".Also as we have both genders in our sequence both genders would like to watch it. I feel that also our sequence has more meaning to it, as its not all about the action of the kidnapping we also have the emotional side to kidnapping and the aftermath as well.

6)Throughout making our sequence the main programmes we used were Final Cut & Garageband.Each member of our group had basic skills with this programmes but we all added to them creating our sequence.

Using final cut we were showed how to use a "Day For Night" filter which gave our shots a blue tint which gave a overall darker look to our shots & fitted in better with the genre. We also learned how to slow down or speed up a shot, such as we wanted to slow down our female victim looking down at her wrist.

We created our soundtrack on Garageband, once we completed the soundtrack we had to make certain sounds longer or shorter to make it fit with the changing of the shots in final cut which took some time but worked well when finished.

7)The biggest progression from the preliminary task to our thriller task was that the quality of our work was a lot better. Because we had more time to shot & film our sequences so we could take more care & effort into getting the shots just how we wanted them to look. Our storyboard & shot lists were more detailed than before which made filming easier & more efficient. We also learned more technical skills when using final cut & other programmes for example the "Day For Night" filter.

Draft of evaluation - Beth Walsh

1: Our opening sequence uses many of the thriller conventions such as:
- typical characters (a protagonist and antagonist) for example, our protagonist is Ollie and the antagonists are Vincent and Beth.
- the use of typical mise-en-scene found in thriller films i.e. dark lighting, dirty setting, sealed rooms etc. We used dark lighting and an untidy room which consisted with the typical mise-en-scene needed.
- questions being set up in the audiences minds. For example, why Beth and Vince were in that situation in the first place.
- extraordinary events happening in ordinary situations i.e Beth and Vince getting kidnapped and beaten.

These conventions are used to make it obvious to the viewer what genre film they are watching and what kind of action to expect.

2: Our thriller only represents two social groups. Both victims are obviously from the same social group as they are wearing similar styles of clothing and are both in a similar situation within the sequence. The killer is wearing very dark clothing and as his face hidden which makes him mysterious and creepy which shows a different social group. With the exception of the male victim our sequence shows that females are vulnerable and males are the stronger gender.

3: Our thriller sequence would probably be distributed somewhere within the Hollywood industry because it is the type of media product they deal with. Thrillers also take more costume work, special effects and sound effects than most other genres therefore a lot of money would be needed. Hollywood would also be able to provide higher quality actors which are vital to the creation of atmosphere.

4: The audience of our thriller would probably be anywhere between 15 and 30. Its not suitable for under 15's so would have a 15 certificate. This is due to the violence that would be included in the film. Our title sequence shows some of this violence. It would be aimed at both genders because although the female is victimised in our sequence, a typical thriller would have the victim beat the killer in the end and this is what happens.

5: Our audience will be interested in our thriller because we create questions in the title sequence such as "Why is he tied to a chair" and "How did she escape" and "What happened to the killer if she is alive in the future". The audience will also want to know what the relationship between the two victims where due to the picture of us.

6: During the making of the title sequence we learnt how to use final cut and garageband.

We already knew the basics on final cut but we also used an extra called the 'day from night' filter. This tinted all the shots slightly blue and made them more suitable for the genre. Another thing we learnt in final cut was how to increase and decrease the speed of shots to make them fit in better with the sequence. We also used final cut to create the titles on black backgrounds. We then learnt to fade pictures in the second video line into the first.

We used garageband to create the sound track. This was done in a similar way to other tasks we had completed, however the timing of the sound track needed to fit with the shots in final cut so timing was important. The soundtrack also needed to be suitable for the action.

7: The biggest progression we made from the preliminary task and the final product was the quality of all of the work. For example, the storyboard was fully completed, the acting was better due to scripts and planning and the mise-en-scene was more suitable. Due to having more time to film and edit, we had more shots to work with and edit together to create a better sequence to the one we created for the preliminary task. We also used many more technical devices within final cut than we did with the preliminary task, for example the day for night filter and speeding up the shots.