Evaluation Question 7

We feel like throughout the steps of making the opening to our thriller we have progressed incredibly throughout. We have gained many skills that we did not have when starting. We have learnt and experimented with different shots which were used in our film and showed how different shots and lighting can create different moods and atmospheres. Also we have also gained group skills as working in a group constantly to make a big project is not something we have particularly had to do much before. We learnt that each section of making a film takes a lot of thinking even the things we thought would be easy and straight forward like costumes and props. As we progressed we learnt the importance of them and how simple things like different props can show a persons character and personality, but also helps explain the story more to the audience. Overall as a group we now understand much more the steps and how to make a film.

Our skills as a group in film making increased greatly. We had to learn from scratch how to use the software needed as none of us from the group had any experience with it before. We now know we must leave a lot of time when editing the film as it takes a lot of time to complete. We have realised how important sound is for a film as it completely sets the mood and genre. The added effect of putting a foley soundtrack over our thriller opening completes the whole thing by giving it the realistic values it has to withhold to look professional. When finding our main soundtracks for the opening we had trouble finding one that suited our film whilst also keeping the mood intact that we set out to achieve. Therefore we found that layering different soundtracks together worked better to create the eery intense mood we finally successfully did achieve. With the dialogue, we only had 3/4 lines in the whole opening and the way we filmed this meant that the character was not in shot so this made it easier for us to make the volume and pitch of the doctors voice high enough that you could clearly hear the dialogue that was intended at a reasonable level. 

After getting our idea for the film we then had to develop our skills in camerawork and the actual filming of it. We have learnt a lot about filmmaking and gained a lot more knowledge increasing our skills from doing our preliminary to final film. Although when coming to added our final edit to our production blog we had an unfortunate incident involving our clip being deleted by one of our team members losing the device. Although by then we had already gained the skills needed to be able to continue and produce our final opening as well as being able to edit some of the frames to work better in our opening to ensure that within the two minutes it made 100% sense. The skills developed in filming and practicing our editing techniques especially involved realising the different strengths that each member in our team withheld so this making the editing process faster knowing we could split the task accordingly. In our final edit each frame is heavily edited in either brightness, contrast, exposure, saturation etc to add to the mood that we set out the create.

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
 The technology we used to create our film was a camera and lighting. We also used software such as final cut and after affects to edit and put our thriller opening together. We also used internet sites such as youtube to get sound effects and the soundtrack but also to learn how to edit certain things a certain way.





Our whole group when originally starting did not have a clue how to use any of the above equipment as we had never used it before. We realised how important the lights are when filming as they create the effect for the mood you are trying to create. They created a weary serious mood for our film and allowed our actors to be seen in the dark lighting we decided to use. We had some problems with our camera as to begin with it did not work, we then charged it and played around with it and managed to make it work. We learnt the basic things like learning how to record steadily and stop the filming but also how to upload a tape to the computer to edit. We had never used Final Cut Pro or after effects before but now know how to use in in quite a bit of detail as it was an essential software when creating our film. Although rendering was quite time comsuming after learning how to add effects, slow down, crop or fasten sections of videos and lighting changes it was soon pretty simple and quite quick to use.

This is what the final cut looked like when we was half way throuh editing our thriller opening. It did take a long amount of time to edit our film and leaving it till late to finish it up was not a good idea as the ending of the editing was maybe more rushed than it could have been as we needed to ensure that we left more time to do it as the rendering did really take up a lot of our time after each little thing changed.

This is the software and internet sites used:

Evaluation Question 5

The ways we captured the viewers interest In the opening is we decided to use dislodge so the audience had something to listen to other than just the soundtrack music but also using the end piece of the story then going back in time to explain how they got there. This attracts the audience as it makes them want to find out more about why he is in their, what he has done and why the clip keeps referring back to a train. The song is loud and catchy drawing the viewer to see what is on the screen making them want to watch more. The opening does not give too much away but just enough to make the audience want to watch on to see what happens. There is an unnamed person in the opening and the viewers will most likely want to find out who it is as we made him as well as the main actor as mysterious as possible so the audience will want to know more about them.

As our thriller films target audience is of the male gender aged 16-30 we decided to have all male characters in the opening that the viewers can relate to. The main character looks like an everyday male person but with a twist making the audience want to find out more. The music is fast paced and creates suspense something the men love. The characters are in normal clothing that most men watching would be wearing and are of the similar age of the target audience. The film genre is a thriller which is more associated with a man compared to a girl which would be associated with romcoms. The thriller opening is very anticipated and action packed and that is something we found most men to look for when watching a film, so we ensured to include that.

We appealed to the age group aimed at for our thriller by using young actors who also suited the role. The soundtrack chosen is quite a modern soundtrack as we were targeting the younger generation of 16-30 year olds. We created a lot of suspense in our opening through the dark lighting gaining tension and the mysterious expression in the actors faces. We used quick transitions from setting to setting to make the opening fast paced and action packed something the younger generation look for and using fashionable clothing makes them see it as in trend and cool.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience we decided to aim our media product towards was men aged 16-30. We made it a typical thriller film that most stereotypical men enjoy watching as it has a lot of suspense and action involved. The thriller opening is aimed towards a working class man. To get our target audience we did some research into thriller films like our own such as limitless and found out the target audience of them. The films had a more adult story line and plot something that not necessarily a child will understand and as ours had a similar storyline we thought 16 would be a good age to start at. The violence suspense and action of the chase make our thriller film a film aimed more towards the male gender.

This is a typical person who would watch our thriller a normal, regular male:


Our target audience is likely to shop in a wide variety of shops but dress smart when needed as they are most likely a working business man. Shops such as River Island, Topman, House Of Fraiser, Gant, Zara or online shops such as Asos and Size. These shops are the new in fashion clothes and sell casual but also smart clothing and tend to go along with the current trends. The characters in our film dress also smart casual so it shows some similarities towards our target audience to make them feel more realistic and natural. This makes the characters seem more believable.

These are some of the types of clothing you would find in the above stores, RIver Island and Topman both providing smart and casual clothing which our target audience would be wearing.

The music taste of my target audience is typically whatever is popular and in the charts at the time. Hip Hop, R&B, Pop, Rap, but then also music like dance, house, electro and maybe even rock. Being young men they typically just follow the trends of music and like a variety of music not just one genre. If a song is in the charts that they like or is popular at the time they are more than likely to like it as well. The rap music is more of a manly type music with most rap artists being male such as Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West and Jay Z. This is why we decided to use Kanye West's song as our soundtrack to appeal to the male audience.

The favourite Tv shows for our target audience would be programmes like The Walking Dead, Top Gear and Two and a Half Men. All of these programs have adult humour, violence and suspense or fast cars something that typically men of the age group enjoy and is it a masculine program. Films our target audience are likely to watch are Thrillers which typically have the fast cars, suspense and violence. Films like James Bond, Inception, Batman and Fight Club. We have a lot of aspects throughout our film that our target audience would be interested and enjoy watching. Although they might watch the popular films with good reviews they also would watch the films they actually enjoy, which is typical to be the thriller genre, like our own one.

Although mainstream films will be watched by our target audience because they will be the films promoted at the time, they will also watch independent films that they are interested in, that keep the suspense and actually enjoy watching.

Evaluation Question 3

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 3

About our Production Company:
Our production company makes openings for films in the genre of thrillers. We decided to call it Intensity Productions because the films we make are intense so we thought that it would be a suitable but also professional name for out company. The logo we designed for our film has lines in the background to represent the tracks on the train.We then added a train and the name of the film and this was to promote the film.

What your film is similar to 'institutionally' (name some films which would be released in a similar way)
A production company helps to create the film. It looks over the film from when its just an idea to completion. They are responsible if anything were to go wrong on the film. A film distributor is a company/ individual responsible for marketing of the film. They set the release date and and the method of which the film is available for viewing and also make sure that the film becomes appealing to the target audience and therefor sells. The money for our film intellectual would have come from the production company Intensity Productions, if it would have been a real company. We made it look as professional as we could because of this.

 Although our company would not be a major and have loads of money to produce the film there would be enough to make a good film and hopefully gain a great profit from it, to then produce new better higher quality films. Our title sequence worked in a specific order, people that done the major work for the thriller opening get more screen time of their names and are shown first. The actors are also shown as they are inoled in the film and we wanted the audience to know if they liked the actors or not for future films, but also for their own recognition. We then put the name of other people who helped make the film possible as there are many different roles all important to make the final piece. 

Evaluation Question 2

The actor we decided to use from our thriller opening Intellectual was Dan Hughes who played Doug. We then decided to pick the actor from Limitless, Bradley Cooper as that is the thriller we got inspiration from when deciding our plot. Although the actors do not necessarily look alike, they both just have dark long hair. The actor Bradley Cooper has facial hair that makes him look a lot older but ours does not. The costume is very similar with plain white/ black clothing which is quite casual, everyday clothing. Although the actor in limitless is much older than ours we wanted to make our actor look older than he is so decided to pick mature clothing like the suit and shirts. They both had a vital role within the films they was in, Both being the main characters, without them there would be no film. They both develop as a person throughout the films, going from being run down and not much going for them to actually getting motivated to do something, although it is not a good thing our actor is aiming towards. Our thriller is more aimed towards the male audience with only having male actors in, it would attract them more.

The costume of both the actors shows the power and superiority they have within their films being dressed smartly in suits and shirts. Our thriller is an action thriller and the personality of our character shows this through being suspicious and mysterious not really giving a lot to the audience about himself which is the same this Bradley Cooper from Limitless. The actors are very similar with similar locations in built up areas, costume and personality and i think the way they are gains a great deal of suspense towards the audience. Throughout they both have serious facial expressions, our actor doesn't smile at all during the opening and are stereotypical characters for an action thriller with similar story lines.

Evaluation Question 1