Media Project Evaluation – William Dixon

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product is a thriller film. More specifically it’s a Psychological Thriller. The main idea of a Psychological Thriller is to basically play with the viewers mind. For example with the film ‘Inception’, the whole film is based around dreams and then dreams within dreams and the film has a lot of playing with the mind, even at the end of the film you’re not entirely sure if what you just saw was actually real or a dream. This is what our main idea was in our product, to play with the mind. So we tried to do the same thing with our film. Being that we could only have a maximum of 3 minutes, we really tried to get that idea straight into our film. In this case, the Dark Figure. Our character get’s up and looks out the window for the first time and sees no figure. But the second time, there is. Already we have things going through the viewers mind. Why was the figure there? But also, that character took pills earlier so does that have a reason to why the figure was there? But this also brings on even more questions, why does him taking the pills mean that there is dark figure? Were they illegal drugs or is he hallucinating? But then, there is also the main character drawing pictures of dark figures. The viewer asks him/herself, why? All these questions are in your head while watching this clip and that is exactly what we aimed to do. Play with the mind. I believe we did this very well in our media clip considering it is less than 3 minutes.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our product represents the social group of teenagers. This would probably be the more rebellious teenagers who listen to rock music and heavy metal and do minor crimes such as underage drinking and smoking. We added lots of motives into our film which associate with representation of teenagers, such as the Xbox 360 Games on the shelf, the Xbox Controllers, the bottle of alcohol etc. These types of motives show the representation of teenagers. I suppose this represents teenagers in a negative way as it makes teenagers come across as lazy and rebellious which is also a stereotype towards the average school boy teenager.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The type of media institution that would distribute our media product would be Media shops such as HMV, Comet etc. These shops would distribute them in DVD format and Blu Ray format. Another place that would distribute our product would be the internet. This would be places such as Amazon and would also be in DVD and Blu Ray format. This would obviously only happen if we got publishing rights. Also, we would need good reception from critics and advertising would be key if we want to get any decent sales. This would also be the case if we ever wanted our film to be shown in the cinemas also.

Websites could also distribute our product, with websites such as YouTube, Mega Video etc. But this would be in digital video format. This would also be the case if we wanted to distribute our product on iTunes. Again, we would need publishing rights but not necessarily good reception because as long as it’s published, these sorts of online stores would probably distribute the film. Advertising however would again be needed if we wanted any decent sales.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience was teenagers between ages 15 – 18. This would be because our type of film follows the same rules and regulations of a 15 rated film. Certain aspect of our film that makes it a 15 is things such as: drug taking, swearing, violence, also horror is an aspect. Because of this the BBFC probably would rate this film as 15 so that is why we didn’t aim for anyone below the age of 15 because it is illegal for anyone under that age to watch a 15 rated film anyway. We believe that the limit age would be 18 because it’s based around someone the age of 15 – 18 so this obviously would be the suited age group. Though this is the target audience, I still believe that anyone between the ages of 15 to about 30 would enjoy the film, but still 15 – 18 is our main target audience because they are the audience that we aim to please.

How did you attract/address your target audience?

To attract/ address our audience we used a teenager as our main character so that the teenagers can relate to the film. We also made the actor have various teenage related motives such as a band poster on the wall and also the costume consisted of a band t shirt. Also, our setting was a bedroom which is generally a teenager’s secluded personal area. In the shots where the main character gets up to look the window, you can see bottle of alcohol on the shelf. This relates to our age group of 15 – 18 year olds as this is the age group where they are beginning to do certain rebellious things such as underage drinking, so by adding in the bottle of alcohol we related to this rebellious age group of underage drinking.

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

Through the filming of our main product, we used Final Cut Express to do all of our editing. Through this process I learnt various techniques to use in Final Cut Express such as different transition types and putting text on the shots for credits. I learnt also to edit sound and also adjust certain settings such as brightness. Adjusting brightness was quite an important setting we needed as the shot where we filmed out the window to show the lamppost and also the shot with the lamppost and the Dark Figure, we had to turn it up reasonably high so you could see what was going on in the shot. Another technique I learnt through Final Cut Express was to edit sound as the original soundtrack I composed and recorded had the timings all in the wrong places, such as when the actor gets up to look out the window to see the Dark Figure and also when he falls over. So I learnt to cut down the soundtrack with the razor tool.

I learnt how to use a proper video camera in the process of filming. Before I’ve only ever used video cameras on digital cameras and mobile phones but now I can use the proper video camera. One of thing I learnt to use on the camera properly was to use the zoom. I learnt that you can zoom at different speeds depending on how much pressure you use on the zoom switch. Before on digital cameras and mobile phones, it’s just a button you press and the zoom goes at its own pace, which limits the shots to simple zoom rather than controlled zoom which can give a better effect. I also learnt to use the tripod properly, learning that I can adjust height and tilt the camera to give better camera shots and movement. This meant that I could have smooth movements without the camera jolting or shaking.

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

Looking back at the preliminary task I have learnt to be very careful when it comes to continuity errors. When we first filmed our preliminary tasks, there was a problem with the blind changing positions in the background. With our final filming of the preliminary task, we had a problem with which hand we used to pass the money across the table and we had to add another shot to fix the problem so we didn't have to film that shot again. Through these errors that we made with the preliminary task, we learnt to be extra careful with each shot leaving out any mistakes we might make. The main continuity error we worried about in our main task was the position of the props on the desk. We had to make sure that when our actor sharpened the pencil and put down the sharpener, we had to make sure that in the shots afterwards, the sharpener had to stay in the same position it was put down in. Same with the pills and the glass of water after the shot when he takes the pills, we had to make sure they were in the same position afterwards.

Another thing we learnt from our preliminary task was to extra careful when it comes to the 180 degree rule, as it was one of the first rules we knew we had broken when we first filmed our preliminary. It actually became one of the rules that we kept on talking about when planning the shots. To overcome this problem, we had a plan of the room in our heads so that when we did the planning of the shots, we could imagine where the 180 degree limit was.

The final thing we learnt about during the filming of the preliminary task was the lighting. When we first filmed, we had no lights on and a tiny phone torch to use as light. This turned out to be a bad idea as it was too dark to really see anything going on in the shot. So with our second filming of the preliminary task we had the lights on in the room. This was much better and you could see everything that went on. We didn't get the effect of a dark mysterious room but at least we could see the shots. We learnt from this that we had to get the lighting done well in order to see what went on in the shots. We also used my reading lamp for extra light so that there was less shadows on the actors face but also we could create shadows for effect.

Conclusion

Overall I am very proud of our media project. I enjoyed doing the project and I enjoy watching the project back. If I was to do it again, I would definitely try and be in a larger group. Working in a pair was ok but it did leave simple problems like having to discuss ideas with only one other person so Dan and I could only ever make decisions between ourselves rather than discussing ideas with a group of people. If I was to go back and film it again, I would try to do better job with the sound, as every now and again you can hear certain thing such as creaking and clicking which is not actually anything to do with the film. With regard to the blog, I would make sure that I planned the blog posts in more advance and also, put them in a more logical order as the posts are mixed up because we just did the blog posts and posted them rather than organising them. 

Project Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My media product uses, develops or challenges forms and conventions by sticking to a tight set of rules that most thriller style films should use to make an ominous, suspense-packed film. I think we achieved this in our film through music and how the shadowy figure was displayed.
For example we used crescendos in our non-diegetic music track to signify that something dangerous/mysterious was about to happen. This creates tension. A lot of films in the thriller style use this nowadays, a famous example is the movie "JAWS" in which before the shark is seen on camera it plays a deep bass track which shows something bad is close to happening. This scares the audience as the audience are left, with their mind trying to predict what is going to happen, and more important when it is about to happen. If this device is used correctly and for the right amount of time it can create a great amount of suspense.
We also used imagery, for example with a dark character being drawn to show the more alert viewers what figure/character could possibly appear later in the film. This is also shown in the film "JAWS", because the audience know there is a shark, but it is not seen. Giving the shark a omnipresence. Thus we developed this by showing the drawings of the "bad" Character.

How does your media product represent particular social groups? Our media product represents social outcasts or people with mental problems/difficulties. Particularly schizophrenia. Our film is about a paranoid schizophrenic who imagines a dark figure haunting him. We represnt this through, most apparent, the dark figure outside his window. But we also slot it in by showing him drawing this dark figure he imagines. We think this represents this person with mental difficulties through erratic/out-of-the norm behaviour, such as drawing violently fast, but also through the use of medication.

This brings me to the title of our film "Clozapine" we took this name because, after research, we found out this was a medication for hallucinogenic schizophrenia which made it even more fitting as a film title. We also used a technique in our film, where he looks out side of the window, sees a figure, then he double takes and looks outside again, and the figure is there. I think that this challenges his perception of reality, as he has to double take what he's seen just to check if it was real or not. This also allows the audience to think if the figure in the dark was real or not.


What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 
I think a media institution such as a video hosting website would be the best for distributing my media product. I think this for several reasons:

• Video hosting websites such as YouTube allow you to present media in a professional way and host it for free. It also allows it to be viewed for free.
• It is not upto standard for any other distribution processes, such as TV or DVD because of lack of advertisement and production value.
• As video hosting is free, it's free publicity. Allowing my project (a 2-3 minute opening of a thriller movie) to gain viewers/interest which would overall gain interest for the finished product.

Alternatively, my media product could be used as a trailer for my full length film, this would be played before a movie in the cinemas, or before a movie on a dvd/video. This would gather interest for the film as a whole. And I believe that my 2-3 minute beginning of a thriller film would bring enough attention from the suspense/mystery created to have people interested in watching the full length film.

Who would be the audience for your media product? We aimed our Media product at people around the age range of 16-25. This was not set in stone and concrete as there could be certain exceptions to this. I felt that the fast pace at times and general characteristics of the main character fitted a younger audience more than an older. 

• We found out that many psychological thrillers were targeted towards people aged 18+, though we decided to target our film towards a slightly younger age of 16+
• The reason why our group decided to change our target audience was because we researched other successful psychological thrillers such as ‘Final Destination’ and realized that it attracted interesting commentary from the teenage society as young as 16.
• Furthermore, these films did not include any real explicit content in the film, it was largely based on violence, deception, betrayal. Such themes are typical of a psychological thriller movie. Because our film was based on a younger audience, violence was harder to show, and thus we cut it out from our film.

I also looked into the rating certificate rules for a 15+ film, our film follows these rules, and thus can be marketed to our target audience.

Discrimination:No endorsement of discriminatory language or behaviour will be present in the film.Drugs:In the film drugs are permitted to be viewed but in no way must they be promoted to the audience or make the audience want to experience the taking of these drugs. Also its unlikely to be acceptable to show dangerous substances that are accessible to the audience being used incorrectly, for example mis-use of aerosols or solvents.Horror:The audience are allowed to see strong threat and menace, however not if carried out in a sexualised or sadistic way.Imitable Behaviour:Any viewings of behaviour dangerous to the character (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) are not allowed to be shown in great detail to promote ideas to the audience of this behaviour.Language:Strong language is acceptable to be used frequently, (for example 'fuck') however the strongest terms (for example 'cunt') are only permitted to used if it fits the context and can be justified by this. However when the use of strong language is repeated in an aggressive way its unlikely to be acceptable for this certification.

How did you attract/address your audience? The Genre of our assignment we chose was a "Psychological Thriller", in order to portray our chosen Genre there was many aspects we had to take into consideration such as the use of music, similarities with other movies and we had to include a unique selling point of our film. Music has a massive impact on the genre of a film, without it, it would be much more difficult to set the mise en scene and build tension for the audience. The music we chose to incorporate into our film was an eerie sounding track which encompassed the silence and loneliness of our film.  We felt it had an awkward quality, and enlarged the tension of the drama we were trying to create.  There are many films that inspired us when planning our own film opening, and we tried to integrate several techniques and ideas we received from the research we carried out, such as Se7en, Final Destination series and Shutter Island. By making films in the style of these popular thrillers, thus attracting the audience.


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? From the start of making our preliminary and media product, I have learnt how to use film editing software (such as Final Cut Pro), Cameras and Lighting. From editing I learnt how to take footage straight from the video camera and transfer it to the computer via a FireWire, then learnt how to cut up seperate clips, render them, and then try a series of trial and error of each shot to make an overall good film from the clips, I also learnt how to render, compress and add text over the video which faded in/out.
For using the Cameras I learnt how to use zooms effectively to not look choppy and give a steady professional look to the footage. Lighting was also very important to our film and utilizing it gave it a professional look as well as using the cameras quality to its fullest.


Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? After watching my preliminary task once it was finished, my immediate first reaction was that we had to improve our full product above the standard of the preliminary to obtain a good mark. This was for varying reasons:

• Our preliminary was shot in dark lighting, from first impressions when we started filming it we thought this was a great idea because it would give a mysterious/shady look to it, on further revision after uploading it to edit it we decided it was a terrible idea. This was because it made the camera quality drop significantly, showing grainy footage and pulling the camera out of focus.
• The sound quality was very bad, and for some unknown reason (probably our fault) it unsync'd thus rendering it unusable. There was also some interference giving it a static underlay.

With this in our mind we set off to create our full 2-3 minute film with the aim of using much stronger lighting to create a higher quality shot, coupled with higher audio quality. We learnt also that filming requires time to set up, and that taking as many shots is invaluable to creating a diverse and interesting final product to view. Another important thing we learnt was making each shot a few seconds longer at the start and end, as in our preliminary we would cut our shots a little to early, thus making them unusable, where if you film a bit more on the start and end you will not have any problems with the clip ending too early.

Filming/Editing Process

Day 1

We arranged to film our Main Task on 30^th of March round Dan’s house with our actor Matthew Coates. We wanted to start filming as soon as it was dark or at least when the sun had set, as we needed it to be dark outside as that was our setting. Around 8pm it got dark so we began filming. We managed to get through a large part of our filming but it was around 10pm and it was too late for us to film any further that night.

Day 2

We aimed to film the second evening. However, that was a problem; our actor had to drop because of issues of his own concerning coursework. This meant that Daniel and I had to either find a new actor or one of us acts ourselves. Also during this day, we managed to get the original film up on Final Cut Express and found that we had made many mistakes anyway, concerning where the actor was in the shot.

Day 3

Daniel decided to take the role of being the actor and I would be the camera man. We also decided that we should film at the weekend so we had more time to organise and also more filming time.

Day 4

No events occurred

Day 5

This day was Saturday and again we had to wait until dark. When it got dark, we set up and managed to do all the filming within 2-3 hours.

Day 6

No events occurred

Day 7

We got all our filming on Final Cut Express and broke them up into separate clips. We began putting the clips together to make the film.

Day 8

No events occurred

Day 9

Finished putting all the clips together, we started working on transition effects and also adding the title and credits.

Day 10

We finished editing and adding credits. We also put the soundtrack on the final film and adjusted audio settings to get the right sound.

Day 11

Absolute final touches to the film and then we exported the film in a QuickTime Movie File.

Todorov's Narrative

Tzvetan Todorov was a massive contribution to literacy theory by defining ‘Fantastic’ the fantastic uncanny, and the fantastic marvelous. Todorov defines the fantastic as being an event that happens in our world that appears to be supernatural. So basically when you watch a film, you must decide whether it was real or an illusion. Upon choosing whether the event is real or imaginary, Todorov says that we enter into the ‘genres of uncanny and marvelous’.

Fantastic Uncanny is when the event is an illusion in the real world to make the event seem supernatural. Fantastic Uncanny can be seen as an illusion through drugs, dreams, alcohol etc. during the event.

Fantastic Marvelous is the other way round, where the illusion is actually real and all of it actually happened by breaking the ‘laws of reality’.

Todorov was also the person who came up with a structure that used in almost all films of today. This consists of.

• ·         Equilibrium
• ·         Disequilibrium
• ·         Realisation
• ·         Attempt to resolve
• ·         Resolution
• ·         Re-Equilibrium

Planning

Establishing mid-shot which pans to the left following the movement of the pan, diegetic sounds from the drawing and the wind being blown out from the fan is also heard. Soundtrack is quiet at the current moment.

Jump cuts to mid-close character drawing on paper. The drawing is partially covered by the characters hand but a black figure is shown. The sound of the fan can still be heard.


Further jump cuts into close range - a point of view shot, showing the drawing which is a black figure. Pencil snaps and the character has to sharpen the pencil, sounds are diegetic from the environment


Jump cuts to character taking the pill, Camera is stationary and still in a mid close position.

Jump cuts to side view of the character.




Close shot. Character looks back and forth, stands up, diegetic sound crescendos.




Mid shot. Sound finishes crescendo. Character looks out the window.




Jump cut, wide angle shot. Person is silhouetted by lamp post. Shadows are illuminated by the light also.

 Jump cuts to zoomed out point of interest. Character falls backwards out of the mid shot.



Jump cuts smoothly into character falling over bed, this is a close up shot.




Jump cuts again into the character landing on the bed, character grasps back of leg. Note: this has to be done smoothly.



Character grasps leg then sits up, then pushes himself along the bed. Close up shot, key to lighting up his leg to show that he's hurt himself.

 Character goes back to original window position, Character stands up then walks towards windows, close shot. wide angle.



Jump cuts into close up of the character. Character goes to open the curtains once again, diegetic sound crescendos.



Same scene as 1:47 but there is no shadowed figure. Diegetic sound needs to be as loud as possible now to break the suspense. Wide angle.



Slowly fades to black.

Soundtrack

I (Will) chose to be the person who writes the music. Simply because I am taking AS Music and I felt truly inspired to try and create music that was both tense and rich in sound and harmony. I used my home software ‘SONAR Home Studio 7XL’ to create the music. I wanted to use strings as the main theme to give that classic film music feel to the film. I also wanted to give it a deep bass sound throughout the piece to give that tension building effect. I actually included an electric bass guitar to give that extra deep bass sound. The music took me about 1 hour to write and record, about 20 minutes to mix, and then about 2 minutes to export as a WAVE audio file. 

Inspiration

Inspirations include all kinds of thriller’s, but primary ones are:

• ·         Dark Knight
• ·         Shutter Island
• ·         No Country For Old Men
• ·         Cape Fear
• ·         Big Lebowski
• ·         Final Destination

Our primary inspiration is probably Final Destination. Final Destination is considered a Horror but personally between me (Will) and Dan, we consider it a Thriller. This because there was no aspect of being scared within the film but it was still fantastic and thrilling. We incorporated an idea from Final Destination, something that is quite an obvious motif in our film, the fan. The fan is used in final destination as motif of blades and sawing and death. We included this to be a motif also, including the idea of hacking and sawing and blades. Also the sound of a fan can be considered intimidating.

Shutter Island is probably our second primary inspiration as it incorporates the idea of messing with people’s heads, which is what we are aiming to do with our thriller. Shutter Island ends with that final question. Was it all real? If we were to make a film out of our idea, we would probably end with that same question.

Dark Knight is our last inspiration that we will include in our film. This film is great example of a film that builds up suspense and creates tension. We will try and incorporate an idea from this film to give that tension and suspense feel.

Thriller Genres

• ·         Conspiracy Thriller
• ·         Crime Thriller
• ·         Disaster Thriller
• ·         Legal Thriller
• ·         Medical Thriller
• ·         Mystery Thriller
• ·         Political Thriller
• ·         Psychological Thriller
• ·         Rape and Revenge thriller
• ·         Religious Thriller
• ·         Supernatural Thriller
• ·         Techno Thriller

Conspiracy Thriller

Conspiracy thriller would normally be around the idea of someone low down, such as a journalist, who discovers something about a group of people and is then chased down by this group of enemies. Examples are: Awake, In the Line of Fire, JFK.

Crime Thriller

Crime thriller normally is an account of someone who has committed a crime and is being chased. Generally the film will be based around the criminal rather than the police. Examples are: No Country for Old Men, Oceans 11, and The Killing

Disaster Thriller

Disaster Thriller is normally based around some kind of natural disaster such as an earthquake or a tornado. Examples of films are: The Day After Tomorrow, Dante’s Peak, 2012.

Legal Thriller

Legal Thriller consists of a layer hero/heroin confronted by enemies outside the courtroom. Examples are: The Client, A Time to Kill

Medical Thriller

The hero/heroine are medical doctors and hey try to solve a medical problem. Examples: The Hot Zone, Anatomy, the Experiment.

Mystery Thriller

Suspense film where characters are involved in a mystery. Examples are: Shutters Island, Unforgettable, Memento.

Political Thriller

Political Thriller is when a hero/heroine must keep the government that emplys him/her. The Ghost Winter, Topaz, The Interpreter.

Psychological Thriller

Psychological Thriller, which is the thriller genre we are doing, is based around the idea of a conflict between the main characters but is mental and emotional rather than physical, basically ideas that play with your mind. Examples of Psychological Thrillers are: Cape Fear, Phone Booth, and Psycho.

Religious Thriller

The plot is closely related to strong religious views with suspense issues, normally a question or a quest. Examples: Da Vinci Code, Angel Heart, Angels and Demons, Devil’s Advocate.

Supernatural Thriller

This sub-genre brings in otherworldly elements but trys to give the aspect of suspense and tension. Examples are: Signs, Dead Zone, and The Gift.

Techno Thriller

Suspense Films which mix in ideas of Sci Fi and Technology to great tension. Examples Include: Eagle Eye, Robot, Terminator.

Thriller Film Director - Alfred Hitchcock

Auteur theory was made in the 1950’s by French film critics, the best known, Francois Truffaut. The concept describes the visual imprint of a film director in terms of:

-          theme or stylistic consistencies

-          personal aesthetic vision

-          a well-established technique

-          recurring themes

-          a defined view of the world and a significant degree of control over production

The works of an auteur director are stamped by the personality and unique artistic vision of its creator, and are as recognizable and distinctive as the creators of any other work of art. In auteur films, it is the director who controls the artistic statement, takes credit for the film and is responsible for attracting the audience. This coined the experience of ‘artistic’ films and enjoying film for its artistic motifs as well as its themes.

Hitchcock's films are marked by his use of cinematic technique which is shown in his use of camera view points, exquisite editing and soundtrack to build suspense. All 3 of his technique are key to building a solid, tension building thriller film.

 

image used from: http://www.deadlinedames.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Psycho_Knife.jpg

30 Degree Rule

The 30 degree rule is similar to the 180 degree rule only in this rule, you need to make sure that in every change of shot, you should move the camera at least 30 degrees when the shot changes. This is because any shot change that is less than 30 degrees is considered to be pointless or unnecessary.

Traditional Film Noir

The term film noir describes a type of film that is often dark and shady in its outlook. The word 'noir' is french for 'black' which attests to the grainy black and white that was used in the film style. Film noir was a totally new idea, instead of cheery movies it visualized doomed heroes, manipulative people and hidden personal lives. The lighting used in film noir was very dark, creating long shadows and claustrophobic atmospheres that are stereotypical of the film genre. image used from: http://blog.ctnews.com/meyers/2010/07/18/rent-it-now-%E2%80%98film-noir-classic-collection-volume-five%E2%80%9D/ The pictures above show several very common shots used in Film Noir such as: - A silhoutted shady looking figure, smoking. Smoking was very popular back in the 1940's before the health risks had been set in concrete. Smoking gives an air of secrecy and criminality. The silhouette shows how this man is presumably up to something sinister. - A shadowed figure walking down a lit street. The use of shadows in dark films dates back to the first ever horror movie/thriller film, 'Nosferatu'. Crisp shadows were used so that you could clearly see the outline of the figure. To get a good crisp shadow, you need a small intense light. This is called hard lighting You can create hard lighting with a small, very intense lighting fixture. image used from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/NosferatuShadow.jpg

Decisions/Revisions

We encountered 4 problems when filming our Thriller introduction.

- Our actor had to drop out from our original filming schedule, I (Daniel) had to take up the role as an actor and thus we had to re-film, although this wasn't a bad decision because of...
- From our original film we found several mistakes in the first minute of what we had filmed, examples such as background static and small continuity errors like small objects being moved.
- Our lighting was sub-par as we had not employed the use of a lamp
- We had not finished filming in the first take,

 I'm quite happy that we decided to revise these parts of our film as our thriller movie looks far better. I think the main improvement with the lighting was key to creating a realistic and easy to follow storyline for our opening to our thriller.

During filming, we took the decision to take 3-4 of each shot, we did this so we could
A) Experiment with a use of camera angles and techniques, using low angle, high angle shots.
B) Toy around with lighting and effects, creating shadows.
C) Make sure that we got a perfect, smooth pan, with no camera jolts or imperfections such as a shaky camera hand or the lens coming out of focus in darker shots.

After filming our final thriller piece, we had found no continuity errors, good lighting had replaced the bad lighting and we had fully improved on those 4 problems we had encountered on our first take of our film.

Props, Costume, Setting, Equipment

Props

Pills

Pages of Drawings

Pencil

Glass of Water

Rubber

 Sharpener

Fan

Costumes

Main Character: Daniel Wignall

Band T Shirt

Jeans

Dark Figure: William Dixon

Black Coat

Black Hoody

Dark Trousers

Dark Shoes

Black Gloves 

Setting

House:

Bedroom

Outside:

Below Lampost

Equipment

Reading Light

Pillow

Canon 2000X Digital

Tripod

180 Degree Rule

This diagram shows the axis between two characters and the 180 degree curve in which cameras can be set up (green). When changing over the green line, the characters switch places on the screen, this disorients the audience. The 180 degree rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two objects, be them characters or items, in the same scene should always have the same left/right facing to each other. If the camera crosses over the imaginary line connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The next shot, from the opposite side, is also known as a reverse angle camera shot.

For example, cutting in two people sitting side-by-side in a moving car talking. To start, the backgrounds are going in opposite directions naturally for each person in the side angles, but you could also cut from looking through the front windshield to looking from the back seat (basically crossing the line) and no audience member is going to be confused as to who is talking to who.

As another example, in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, by Peter Jackson, Smeagle has a conversation with himself which is actually his other personality. Because the filmmakers use the 180 degree rule, and have the "good" Smeagle looking left as he speaks while the "evil" Smeagle looking right, the audience perceives Smeagle as two different characters talking to each other. This is a technique I'd be inspired to use in our thriller film as it's a very cunning way of showing binary opposition, good and evil, white and black.

Photo used from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:180_degree_rule.svg