To help us with ideas for our thriller we watched some scenes from other thrillers in class for example ‘what lies beneath and ‘se7en’ and we took notes on which techniques worked well and why it worked so well. In ‘what lies beneath’ we watched the bathtub scene and they used emphasized sound really well because every single thing they done was loud e.g. when she was taking out the plug and her scream.
In the opening of Se7en they edited it really well using creepy writing and used extreme-close-ups on the person’s hands well also because you don’t ever see the persons face which makes it freakier.
In our thriller we used techniques from the films we watched:
we used emphasised sound like in the scene where Kassi (actor) locks the door to show that she is scared of something and is locking the door to prevent anyone or anything from getting in, close-ups like the shot of someone sharpening a knife, the shadow of someone holding a knife which is similar to the one in the Alfred Hitchcock film ‘psycho’
and a weird font for the title of the thriller and the credits. We also used a technique which is to film what will happen at the end of the film and put it right at the beginning and then show/ tell what happened and give hints so in the end it will make sense – this is like going back in time and having flashbacks, this will then make the watcher/ audience ask questions about the storyline.
The famous picture from the 1980s film psycho.
Our thriller’s knife shot.
Like most other thriller we used we used a 17 year old teenager as the main actor who gets stalked and then killed. We used a 39 year old man as the stalker/ killer.
I think if our opening was a complete film it would be released by film4 because as they promote English/ UK films and we are based in the UK.
We would not try and go for a Hollywood distribution because it most likely would not be a success because we do not have any famous actors but I think it would have the potential to make the top 20 films of the year, but another path is that we could be exhibited in an art house cinema due to very little funding and that we are a independent British film. Our film might be tested in a few cinemas across London to see the reaction of the public and if positive then we would talk about the possibility of releasing it in Europe and America.
Our thriller would then be released on DVD and played on film4 possibly, it should not be on the internet but this is inevitable as DVD piracy is a major loss in a film company’s profit because people could just download it on the internet and watch it for free instead of going to the cinema and paying to watch the film.
Due to our target audience would be teenagers of both male and female aged 15 to 30; it would likely be certified as a 15, as I think most movies that are certified 18 are mostly horrors. Throughout the film you would see other female characters being shown as weaker and the male characters would be more dominant which may not appeal to the female audiences.
We would target the normal audience as well, the type of people who enjoy shows such as CSI Miami and other detective shows.
We would also attract fans of the directors Alfred Hitchcock or Steven Spielberg for Jaws and Duel because I think that our film would be similar in terms of creating tension and suspense such as ‘What lies beneath’. Many thrillers revolve around investigation e.g. Saw audiences of this film should like our thriller as well as I think they are quite similar by the fact that you know what has happened but you don’t know who done it or how it happened until the end.
To attract our target audience we would use media techniques to intensify our film’s interest and appeal. We could sell things such as a similar knife to the one in our thriller in shops which would advertise in the form of merchandise and would also generate some form of income. We could sponsor a McDonald’s burger to advertise as well e.g. Dark Knight and Burger King. Advertise on billboards; advertise trailers on the internet and during TV adverts. Methods we could use to draw an audience into the opening of a film are:
• Excitement
• Action packed
• Introduce characters
• Sound
• Establishing shot
• Dramatic
• Tone/ mood
• Raise questions
Before this task I had only used a video camera two or three times while on holiday and all times they were only handheld amateur shots.
So I did learn quite a lot about technology and cameras. I knew how to do the easiest thing which was how to actually record, all you had to do is set up the camera facing which ever way you want to shoot and press record to record and then press the same button to stop recording. We had to turn the camera off whenever we weren’t recording because the battery would drain quickly. I learnt how to lock the camera onto the tripod so it would not fall off however we did not use the tripod a lot because our film is about a stalker so if we wanted it to look realistic then we had to use a lot of handheld shot which worked well e.g. running up the stairs, which obviously would have been incredibly difficult if we used a tripod.
In editing I learnt many things like how to use the editing programmes such as Final cut pro and Live Type which was extremely important for making the opening of our thriller that much better; these programmes were completely new to me so it was good we got to practise on our first piece of film in the preliminary task, otherwise I would have not gotten to grips with the programme and would therefore have not finished out thriller in time to hand in before the deadline.
Internet has also helped us finish our thriller; we researched and watched other thrillers to get ideas for our own thriller. We also had to blog about everything we had done in the build up to the finished thriller, basically like keeping a written journal on the filming process, for example like what we done in editing and how we made the music.
We also uploaded both our preliminary task and our thriller opening on Vimeo which is also on blogger, which means the internet has widened the potential audience for our thriller.
From looking at our preliminary task I have learned that planning is a vital part in film making; you can’t just dive straight in and start filming when you have not planned because you will eventually run out of steam and get stuck which will then slow you down. You will have to have a detailed and well-thought out plan on from the start of your filming, till the end. I have also realised that shooting takes a lot longer that I expected because you need around 3hours of film for a 3 min clip which means a whole movie would take a few years, this is because of editing and sound. We filmed around 15 minutes of film for a 2 minute opening, although we did film a few shots twice but it without a doubt is better to have too much than to have too little.
In our preliminary task we didn’t plan in enough detail so we got stuck quite a lot, taking that into account we knew we had to have the most detailed plan we could so that we knew exactly what we was doing every lesson. We also learned which shots looked good e.g. the reflection shot, in the bathroom when kassi walks in and the point of view shot where it seems like the person is running up the stairs and you could hear them breathing heavily. This time round when filming the thriller I felt more confident with the equipment and what I was doing. We was told not to tell a story in the opening 2 minutes because a lot of people have done that, and that was not what was asked, we was asked to film only the opening 2 minutes.
- Reflection shot in bathtub mirror.
- Point of view shot running up stairs.
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