Our opening sequence will involve a large variation of cinematography, to create suspense and build tension with the audience which are convectional to thrillers. Cinematography is used to build a relationship between the audience and the characters through all of the different camera shots/angles used, which helps the audience gain an understanding of the film. We needed to plan the cinematography we wanted to use in a lot of detail, to make sure it created the effect we want the audience to feel. Without planning the cinematography, we would not be able to film the scenes efficiently as if we decided during the editing stage that we needed a different camera angle, we would not have the footage to change it. Cinematography is important in all film genres because the film wouldn't make sense without the use of different camera angles and the film wouldn't be exciting as camera angles create excitement for the audience. Especially in thrillers camera angles are so important as they create tension for the audience which is key for thrillers.
We want to use a high angled shot this shot is where the camera is positioned above the object, making it look smaller. We decided to use a high angle mainly when portraying the female victim because stereotypically in thrillers, high angles are used to portray a victim looking vulnerable. An example of a high angle we want to use in our thriller clip is when the female victim has just been possessed from drinking the water and starts walking towards the forest, this would show her to be struggling and seem in danger, giving the audience the impression that she is weak, which is a common feature in victims. I wanted to use high angles frequently when showing the blonde female, so viewers would associate high angles with the girl being the victim, and so would always focus and feel sorry for this character. High angled shots are conventional to thrillers because they are usually an immediate indicator to viewers that the character shown is the victim. The audience can then emotionally connect with this character as they know they should feel sorry for them.
Another shot I want to use in my thriller is the close up shot this shot is where the camera zooms in to a characters face and shows just their facial expressions, we are using this to show the emotion of the girl when she sees just been possessed, the shot emphasises the emotion of the character is going through and it shows how the character is feeling being in that situation. The close up is conventional my thriller film as it allows the audience to understand how the victim is feeling and what she must be going through at that moment of time. The target audience build a relationship as they feel from the emotion on the victims face what she is going through and they feel sorry for her as she is an innocent victim.
I want to use A POV shot this shot is used to show the audience the same image as a character within the footage. We have decided to use a POV shot when the female victim looks down to the glass of water by using this shot, it will help the viewers feel closer to the female victim as it emphasises the water is bad or and important factor in the thriller opening sequence this shows the audience that something bad will happen from the female victim drinking the water making them feel sorry for her and bring them closer to her as they see what has possessed her. POV shots are conventional to thrillers because they make the audience feel as if the events on screen are happening to them, which means more tension is built and so the effect of certain aspects in the clip will be even bigger.
Another shot I want to include into my thriller opening sequence is a mid shot this shot will be at the beginning of our thriller of the fuzzy television. We wanted to use a mid shot to show the audience the fuzzy television as this will creep the audience out and make them wary. The shot portrays a creepy house as the television will be all fuzzy and make sharp loud noises so the audience are nervous right from the beginning of the thriller. The shot is conventional to the thriller genre as the mid shot presents to the audience its set in a creepy place which is stereotypical place for thrillers to be set in. Its also conventional to thrillers because it makes the audience feel uncomfortable which is key in thrillers. The audience will feel sorry for the female victim as they can see already that something creepy is going to happen this will help the audience build a closer relationship to the female victim.
Planning the cinematography has helped me as it gave me a clear idea of the styles of cinematography I wanted to use when filming, and why I wanted to use them. It made me think about the response I am trying to get from the audience, instead of simply choosing the cinematography to ensure I had used a variety. It will help me when filming, as I now know what the audience should be feeling in every shot and so can help the actors portray a particular emotion that will help to provoke this response.
I believe I have created a successful thriller opening sequence as our group included the conventions we found in the other thriller films we had researched about. My group and I used a female victim who gets possessed after drinking water to kill herself, this follows the conventions of a thriller film as you normally find a blonde female victim in thriller films as these come across as vulnerable and weak. I also think my thriller opening sequence is successful as the conventions of shock and suspense(which is further deepened through the editing and sound added) helped create a successful thriller opening sequence, the elements of shock and suspense would help engage the audience as the audience would be left in suspense when the blonde female victim is walking from her house through the forest and they do not know what is going to happen and then we shocked the audience when the blonde female jumps in the water and kills herself.
The micro element which best shows my creativity and understanding of thriller conventions the most is by using a blonde female victim who is shown as weak and vulnerable this is commonly found in the thriller genre we also turn this on its head and shock the audience by making the girl possessed and then killing herself, generally in the thriller genre blonde female victims are killed by serial killers but we decided to challenge this by showing our creativity and making the innocent blonde female kill herself after being possessed. This makes our narrative different as we did not follow the typical thriller narrative this shows how creative we were as we have used one character to portray two characters: the victim and the killer which would engage the audience to watch the thriller. Our thriller opening scene can be compared to the successful thriller film the Exorcist. They are similar in the narrative, representation of characters, editing and sound. The narratives are both similar as both thrillers have a young girl who is possessed by an unseen villain, by using an unseen villain it builds up suspense and enigma for the audience. In both thrillers there is the use of a conventional character as there is a young female victim used who gets possessed; young females are stereotypically portrayed as weak and vulnerable and this is done in my thriller and the Exorcist as both girls get possessed showing them as weak this brings the audience closer to the victim and makes them sympathise with her, both thrillers also use the shock element, this is done when both female victims become possessed this shocks the audience as generally female victims are killed by serial killers. The Exorcist and my thriller both use a non diegetic sound track these sounds are very tense and jerky which both create an enigma and tense atmosphere for the viewers. The editing used is better in my film than the Exorcist this could be because the Exorcist was made in 1973 so we had better technology to use; the editing was vital to our thriller opening sequence as it turned a boring narrative into a fast paced, jerky and tense opening sequence which helped make our thriller successful.
Audience feedback is important as it helps you create the best thriller film you can using the feedback given as you know where to improve on to aim the thriller film at the target audience, this will help the final cut of our thriller to be as successful as it can be. The feedback was not biased as we got it from our peers in class and they gave us criticism which aided us to create our final opening sequence to the best we could. We received audience feedback for our thriller film from our media class and teachers, this was good for us as our target audience was 16 years old and this was the average age of our media class this helped us aim our thriller film at them by using their criticism to change our final product. We first showed our media class a PowerPoint presentation about our thriller product and then went on to show the class our scene. During and after the viewing the audience were asked questions about the strengths and weaknesses of our thriller opening sequence. This allowed us focus on the negatives and try to improve our thriller opening sequence based on these results.
The feedback from most of the class and teachers was they thought we had a good use of camera angles, successful low key lighting, and used conventions found in the thriller genre by using a blonde female victim and including the setting in a forest. The criticism we received was we should include more sound effects to create a larger impact on the audience and the editing used should be faster to build up the suspense. To include what the feedback said we didn't have in our thriller opening sequence we added fast paced and jerky effects; which was aided by the projector effect this made the opening sequence have a more suspenseful feel about it and we also included more sound effects like a distorted radio and devilish whispers into our opening sequence which improved our final product a lot.
This feedback helped us resolve the problems with our thriller and helped make our final opening scene better for the viewing of our target audience. We kept everything the class said was good about the rough cut and included the things the class said we should have included to hopefully make our final opening sequence successful.
As a group we created a rough copy of our thriller opening sequence and then presented it to the class and teachers, this was important as it allowed us to be able to receive feedback from the class and teachers; which would help us improve our final thriller opening sequence. We got positive and negative feedback which was all vital to know where we had to improve on to make our thriller opening sequence the best it could be. Our rough cut was very far from the final product but this helped us know what we had to do to our thriller opening sequence right from the beginning of the editing stage. The feedback helped my group and I see what we needed to improve in our opening sequence to obtain a higher grade and for it to be more successful.
We got our feedback by showing the class and teachers first the rough cut then after our PowerPoint had been presented the class had been given a form to review our rough cut. These forms gave the chance for the class to give our rough cut a mark out of 60. Also these forms gave the class a chance to say what went well and what could be improved in our rough cut. These were given to the all the groups in our class and they were collected and given to us to read over and take into account how we could improve our final opening sequence.
The suggestions and criticisms we received were very constructive and helpful. Out of 60 our average mark was 40. The feedback from most of the class and teachers was they thought we had a good use of camera angles, successful low key lighting, and used conventions found in the thriller genre by using a blonde female victim and including the setting in a forest. The criticism we received was we should include more sound effects to create a larger impact on the audience and the editing used should be faster to build up the suspense.
This feedback will help us resolve the problems with our rough cut to make our final opening scene better for the viewing of our target audience. We kept everything the class said was good about the rough cut and included the things the class said we included to hopefully make out final opening sequence successful.
The purpose of the preliminary task was to help me understand how to use a camera, to get use to the different camera angles that can be used and also how to upload our clip onto the computer and use the editing software. It allowed me to understand what I would have to do in my thriller film to put it all together using the editing software that is provided, this preliminary task was vital to me understanding the editing software because the software was alien to me and it gave me a chance to play around with the tools and get used to it which helped as when it was needed to edit my thriller opening sequence I was familiar to the software. It also allowed me to learn how to apply the different camera angles by using the camera for example my group thought a close up would work well when we left the hall but found out the mid shot was the best to show the facial expression. We learnt that we would have to have the location of our thriller film in a quiet place because we filmed ours in the hall when people were walking past you could hear them in the background, as you can hear slight sound that was unwanted in our thriller film. In the preliminary task I learnt how to use the camera and tripod which helped in our thriller clip this was vital as it helped me to get straight into filming our thriller clip as I was already use to the complicated camera and tripod. In conclusion I think that I was able to take some essential pointers from the preliminary task. By the end of the preliminary task we were familiar with the equipment that we were going to be using when filming our final thriller clip. The preliminary task also helped my group with our thriller film we learnt how long it would take to film our thriller film because it took us about 30 minutes to film a 1 minute clip, we had learnt various strengths from this task one of them being the first shot we chose to use may not always be the best and we did have difficulties when doing the preliminary task that we will did not do in the actual filming of our thriller film for example one of them being the noise in the background.
