Evaluation Of "Psycle" (Thriller Opening)

A thriller film creates a thrill for the audience, hence the name of the genre. Within the “thriller” genre, there are many sub-genres, such as crime, psychological, supernatural, etc. A good thriller film creates tension at all the right moments, by using a combination of sounds, lighting, mise-en-scene, location, and setting; and, of course, editing. This constitutes the thriller conventions. A classic thriller opens with the camera moving, panning and tilting around a building, according to a documentary on film openings that we watched, called “Watching”. The camera then focuses on a window, and the audience instantly know that this window will reveal an important character or scene. A thriller film titled “Arlington Road” uses these conventions very well, and immediately throws the audience into a sense of confusion, with wild camera movements swirling around a boy walking slowly along a road. We soon realise there is blood dripping onto his trainers; and as an ordinary man drives home from work, he is thrown into the middle of this event with the boy by nearly running him over. Our film opening (“Psycle”) challenged the forms and conventions of the classic thriller. Rather than opening on a building, out first shot faded into an image of feet, limply swinging in the breeze. We then moved up to the top half of the body, and finally to a shot of the whole body hanging from a branch of a tree. This jumps straight into the story with the “instant arousal” effect on the audience, and yet doesn’t reveal too much. This means the audience have only watched a few seconds of the film and are already asking questions, which is good, as it will make them watch the rest of the film. We also used a technique billed as a “favourite trick of film noir”, whereby we started our thriller with a flashback, rather than at the beginning of the film. This throws in slight clarity to the immediate question in the audience’s mind: What happened? Looking back at the preliminary match-cut task, I feel that both I personally and my group in general have come quite far in all aspects of the film-making process. I am definitely better at storyboarding than I was, and my editing has certainly improved. Having said this, we ran into a few more problems in the coursework than in the preliminary, such as lighting, as we filmed the match-cut exercise inside, and the thriller opening outside. Filming outside meant that some of our shots were in the sunlight, and some were when the sun was behind the clouds; so in one sequence of match cuts, we had two or three different levels of light. We also had to develop our skills in post-production sound as we went along in the thriller opening, as only Fatma and I had used Soundtrack Pro before, on a different exercise.
Our thriller opening “Psycle” was targeted mainly at fans of the thriller genre aged 18 and above, because of the complicated storyline; however, a 15 certificate is appropriate in terms of the violence/language content; though, if we’d made the entire film, it would be more likely to be an 18. In addition, it is wise not to underestimate your audience, as they are often smarter than we give them credit for. All this allows our film opening to attract a wider audience range, which can vary from 15-year-olds to people in their mid-20s or even 30s. It is targeted at both a male and female audience, though especially girls, as we have a female lead role, whereas the villainous psychopath currently remains anonymous. I think the audience will be able to empathise with the characters, as well as relate to them, partly because we’ve gone for a very general, well-known main character: the stereotypically vulnerable, but admirable, 20-year-old woman, probably in a lower section of middle class, but definitely a lot higher than working class. She’s your average woman, with interests in her work, maybe part-time studying, she socialises with her friends. Therefore, the audience is more likely to be a mainstream one, rather than niche, as this current main character is able to attract different ethnic groups as well as age, class and gender. I think the very typical audience member would be about 19-years-old, probably working but not very high up the ladder, maybe a store clerk. I think they probably go to the cinema once or twice a month, but own a lot of DVDs. I don’t think “thriller” would be their favourite genre, but they like the occasional exciting thrill. They’re more likely to be fans of action films, and films that make you think very carefully about the plotline and what’s happening to the characters. So maybe philosophical action films, with the occasional thriller and comedy thrown in, because everyone loves a good comedy. They could possibly even be horror fans.

I think we could market our film through trailers in cinemas, on TV and via the internet; we could also use viral marketing to our advantage, and maybe use film festivals to promote it. As for the actors, I’m not entirely sure who we would use if we were actually making this film, although I’d personally love to see someone like Bill Nighy (Underworld, Love Actually, Gideon’s Daughter) playing the villain, and maybe someone like Thandie Newton (Mission Impossible 2, The Pursuit Of Happiness, Norbit) as the lead roll (Nicole’s character). Of course, using these two would attract certain groups that may not immediately want to see the film, therefore widening our audience range. For example, people who have seen “Underworld” may not intrinsically want to see “Psycle”, but as Bill Nighy played such a good villainous role in “Underworld” they may decide to see “Psycle” due to Bill Nighy’s presence. Similarly, Thandie Newton is famous for her vulnerable female lead roles, so would attract the audience that have seen her play that sort of character before, and liked it.

I think our film would be somewhere between a big Hollywood blockbuster and a small independent film. It would be widely distributed, maybe as a Working Title/Working Title 2 film, so distributed by Universal and Studio Canal (Europe); but it would not go across the entire world. It would definitely be released in America and the UK, and probably most of Europe; other than that, I’m not really sure. I also think it would be in the cinemas for about a month, maybe two if we’re lucky, and then go to DVD, where it would be quite popular. Somehow, it would end up on YouTube, probably because of an illegal download and someone uploading the film in small 10-mintute sections.

From making this thriller opening, I’ve learnt how to use Final Cut Pro and Soundtrack Pro, neither of which I had used before. I also learnt how to use the cameras properly, and the Dictaphone/voice-recorder. I have also discovered that I much prefer PCs to Macs, as the inability to right-click really got on my nerves a lot during the editing process. In addition, I learnt a little more about blogging, as this is how the entire process was “captured” as it were, and particularly uploading videos onto not only the blog, but Vimeo as well, which I have never used before. Blogging involves the use of passwords to access specific pages of a blogging site on the internet, as does Vimeo. It can be quite a good way of collecting information from each student about the lessons, but since anyone with the password can access all of the groups’ blogs, you’ve got to be able to trust everyone not to delete all your work, or copy it. The opening to “Psycle” follows a quick recap of a girl/woman who has committed suicide. Through another woman finding a tape player near the hanging body, the audience find out that the dead woman is apparently victim number four of a psycho who “plays a game” with his victims. The recording makes it clear that this woman probably didn’t want to commit suicide initially, but was somehow tricked into it as part of the “game”. Now, this woman who’s found the body and recording has been chosen as the next “player”, giving the eerie feeling that the psycho can see her somehow. We used match-cuts during the running scenes to tell the whole story of the fear, and to portray some sense of urgency. We also used quick cuts and jump cuts throughout the flashback to show the whole story in a short amount of time. This also gave the feeling of speed, like the character wanted it over and done with as quickly as possible. We tried not to show the face of the “victim” to give an idea of anonymity, i.e. she could have been anyone, just some random person you see on the streets, no-one special. This throws the audience out of their normal routine comfort zone and into the world of “Psycle”. This is also quickly outlined in the voiceover during the flashback. We also dropped a hint as to what the film might be about just before starting the flashback, where the new victim (Nicole's character) finds the tape recorder, and first sees the label as saying "Psycle". She then blinks, and it says "Play". This has two effects: she is already experiencing the villain's game, and she's almost being forced to play it. Having the victim’s feet bare is supposed to represent the slight madness of this “game” that the villain was playing with her. However, I’m not sure how well that message got through to the audience. We chose a spot by the canal as it had the right kinds of trees, and looked a little eerie. It is also a rarely-used pathway, yet still public enough for it to be likely for the body to be found. This is so that the villain gets just one new victim with each “suicide case” found. As previously mentioned, we didn’t have much control over the lighting; the only thing we could do was try to film at roughly the same times; however, sound was very important. We used a piece of piano music twice, at the beginning and end of the opening, to represent the cycle story that this film tells: find a victim, toy with them, the victim commits suicide, someone finds the body, there’s the new victim; so having the same piece of music playing at the beginning and at the end almost runs parallel with the story being told just in the opening. Obviously, we had various sound effects, like heavy breathing and running footsteps that add to the confusion and panic of the characters. Also, having crows at the beginning gives a nice, creepy feel to it already, and lets us know that what we’re seeing as an audience is definitely a dead body. The creaking of the branches and rope also help to add to this effect. There is also a general monotone undertone running throughout most of the clip, this adds to the suspense factor, and gives the audience a chilling feeling.

I think we’ve been quite successful, judging by the audience’s reaction to our thriller opening (ours got the most cheers out of all the thriller openings). I heard people talking about our thriller opening on their way out, and trying to figure out how we’d done certain things; which means that although we can see several mistakes in it, the audience can’t, and at the end of the day, that’s what counts. We ran into a few problems along the way; the weather was certainly not on our side for a majority of the time, we didn’t film certain shots that we need had storyboarded, which meant that we had to adapt and change our timeline during the editing process to make up for the missing shots by using other ones. I think, as far as continuity goes, the match-cut exercise was a lot better, as we went a little over the top to make sure that we had really spot-on perfect continuity for that one; but with the coursework we physically couldn’t do that, so there are several continuity errors, which no-one seemed to notice until we pointed them out. There’s also a shot that my thumb appears in by mistake, but again no-one noticed until I pointed it out. I think, in comparison to real films, our film is definitely not as good, but having said that, we must remember that we had quite a short time-limit, and missed at least one, if not two lessons due to adverse weather conditions. We are also not a professional film-making team, we’re still just learning, therefore our film is very unlikely to be as good as a real film.

Cinema

We went to the cinema to watch ours, and everyone elses', thriller openings on the big screen. Out of all of them, our thriller opening got the loudest cheer from the other students, which put a huge grin on all of our faces, especially when we heard people wondering aloud how we'd managed to do certain things. Overall, I've gone through the whole film process, and am quite happy with the result, though as always there are some aspects that could have been better.

Psycle - Final Edit

Our final edit of our thriller film "Psycle"

Thursday 26/02/2009 and Friday 27/02/2009

During Thursday's lesson, we finished editing the clips onto the timeline. We had a minor complication due to the order of the clips, but once we realised that section would work better than it was if we swapped two of the clips around, we could finish it with relative ease. Adding the titles the hardest part of the editing process on Thursday morning, as Final Cut Pro didn't have the effect we wanted, so we had to use another program (Live Type possibly?). It then took us a long time to decide which of the effects on the new program was better for what we wanted, which font we should use, where the writing should be placed, etc. However, once we were all agreed on a font, placing, effect, etc it was a simple matter of writing the right titles and adding them to the timeline. We ran into a little trouble every now-and-then, as something would go slightly wrong with the title and we'd have to redo it, but it basically worked. Adding the main title of the film was the hardest part, although we did it first. It was more difficult than the other titles, because we added an effect to the background, as it wasn't going to be on top of a clip. This meant the extra added choice of what effect to use. Eventually, we agreed on a smokey "vapour" effect, to accentuate the chilling vibe of thrillers. Completing the editing and titles took us to the end of the lesson; however, we all agreed that we had to do more work on it before Friday in order to insure it's completion by the deadline. Each of us had things to do at lunchtime, so we packed up and left for lunch. After lunch, Fatma, Nicole and I met up again in the editing suite to do more work. Yarohey was in a lesson, so she couldn't join us. I arrived a little later than the others, as I had to talk to someone before joining them. By the time I got there (5-10 minutes after the end of lunch break) Nicole and Fatma were in Soundtrack Pro, and flicking through some of the sound effects. We spent about 30-45 minutes in the editing suite before we (amongst other groups) were asked to give up our computers to let some of the other groups have a chance to do some editing. During this time, we found a particularly good "bone cracking" sound, along with a couple of others. 30-45 minutes after we'd left, we were allowed back into the editing suite to continue; however, about 10 minutes in, Fatma and Nicole both realised they had to go to their lessons, so I was left to continue until 4pm, at which point I had to leave for a previous appointment. During my time in the editing suite, I found two eerie ambient sounds, a crow's call, a sound that was very much like the branch straining under the sudden weight being dropped, some rapid breathing, etc. When I finished at 4pm, it was sounding quite good, but still needed a bit of work.

On Friday, both Nicole and I had morning lessons, however Fatma and Yarohey did not, so they came into college in the morning to work on the sound some more while Nicole and I were in our lessons. I had to miss the lunch hour when they were editing the sound, as I had to attend a meeting of sorts to help orgainse something else; however, I went up as soon as I could and found Nicole, Fatma and Yarohey looking pleased with themselves, editing the sound. They'd added a little more to it, and it was sounding a lot better. Nicole and I stayed on while Fatma and Yarohey went to their afternoon lessons. During our 2-ish hours, Nicole and I added an extra sound effect at the end, a piano sound near the beginning and changed a little of Yarohey's voice-over (just the last line). We watched it through a few times, as we could still hear something "wrong" with it, and discovered that it was the "dreamy" effect that they'd added during the morning/lunch hour. It sounded a little odd because of the way it ended, so we faded it out instead and it sounded much better. By 2:25pm, we had finished it, and were almost glowing with pride. Our teacher, Mary, came to watch it, said it was really good, and told us to save it as a file with our names and "Final" in the title, without rendering it to a video file, as they would compress it and add it to our blog for us. So we saved it, ticked off our group on the "Finished" sheet, and left, having finally completed our coursework to the absolute best of all four of our abilities.

Half Term and Monday 23rd

Firstly: Apologies for my absence due to the college production (which went very well).

Fatma, Yarohey and I came in on the monday of half term, as we realised how much we still had to do, and the little amount of time we had to do it in. We started off by filming my feet running down the stairs. However, this was soon slowed to a run-like jog, as Fatma (filming) couldn't keep up with my speed if I ran. We filmed it a number of times to make sure we got the right shots, but were constantly interrupted by various members of the public and their dogs. Once this was done, we filmed my running sequence from a number of different angles, so that we would have more choice during the editing process for this short clip. In order to get a high-angle shot of me running, Fatma dedicatedly climbed a tree, as extending the tripod didn't seem to work properly, and the shot looked a little weird. Then I carried the camera on my shoulder to get a point of view shot, also of my running, and eventually stopping, and looking up at the tree as well. I then did some more POV footage walking around the tree and looking up at it, as if I were inspecting it. Once we had done all the filming, we went back to college to log, capture and edit. However, there were various complications with our log and capture process, during which time I was excused and allowed to go home, as I was sick, and had been in college every day of the week for two weeks straight due to the college production.

On Monday (23.02.2009) I found out that my group had managed to log and capture the remaining footage eventually, and had edited out short clip during my absence. So we set to work editing again, pulling in various sections of the new footage into gaps on the timeline. We also learned how to get the flashback effect we wanted, and how to steadily increase the level of saturation on the clips that we'd desaturated due to them being in the flashback. We also realised that, although they'd recorded Yarohey's voice, they hadn't uploaded it to the Macs, nor had we started thinking about the soundtrack.

05/02/2009 - Editing

In this lesson, we were originally going to film the rest of the shots we needed; however, due to the heavy snow, this would have made for very bad continuity, and would have been very difficult to get our various shots. So, instead, we began editing the footage that we did have. We followed the storyboard, mostly, however there were a few things we had not decided to do until today. For example, in the storyboard, we were going to use a clip of the tape recorder with the title "PSYCLE" on the postit note, and then Nicole blinking, and then another clip of the tape recorder, but this time with the title "PLAY"; however, we found a transition effect that made it look a lot better, and with Nicole's blinking as a translucent image overlayed on top, it looks much better than what we had initially decided on. In order to to this, we first needed to film Nicole blinking. While Yarohey and I continued editing, Fatma and Nicole filmed that part.
We also had a few other ideas about the editing, and a new clip we could add, once it has been filmed. This new clip would introduce our "villain" during the flashback and voice-over, to re-emphasise certain parts of the dialogue. While editing, we found that the continuity wasn't as good as it could have been, due to changes in the light. Since we were outside, we could not control this. It looked good at the beginning - very cold, grey and damp. However, for certain shots, it is very clear that the Sun had come out, which gave everything a golden glow - not the effect we were hoping for, really. Still, we've got a long way to go yet, and things may get better.

Thursday 29/01/2009 (Filming)

In this lesson, we spent the first hour searching for open shops that might be able to give or loan us a mannequin; however, this proved unsuccessful. Miserably defeated, we went back to college to get a tape recorder, postit notes, and rope. Whilst there, we ran into an art teacher, and Nicole asked again about borrowing a mannequin. He said yes (problem solved!) so we all went upstairs to get the various body parts. On our way back downstairs, we suddenly realised that I didn't have a change of clothes, and refused -point blank- to freeze to death while we filmed the mannequin; so we went to the props and costumes department to ask about using a costume to dress the mannequin in to make it look more like me, as I was to be the one filmed "hanging". Another problem solved, as we were allowed to use costumes. We didn't need to find a shirt, as we were going to use my long coat, zipped to the top, to hide the fact that the mannequin didn't attach properly, so all we needed was a pair of trousers that looked like the ones I was wearing. This was a lot more difficult than we'd thought; however, we found two identical pairs of trousers (much better), so I changed into one, and we put the other on the mannequin. We also found a wig that was almost my hair colour, so we borrowed that as well. Finally ready, after about an hour and a half, we left college to film.

The park we had originally planned to use, proved unsuitable, as -not only were the overhanging branches far too thin to support much weight- the trees had recently been fenced off, which meant we wouldn't be able to film there. This meant needing to look for a new location. Thankfully, Fatma had a good idea of where to go, so we went to have a look. It was a pathway running alongside a canal, and almost every tree had a good branch that leant out over the pathway. It was perfect, except for some of the canal boats that occasionally drove through our shots, ruining the sound.

Our next problem was actually stringing up the mannequin. We decided to film all the parts we needed the mannquin for first, as this would mean not having to borrow it again. First, I threw the rope over an overhanging branch, and we looped it around the mannequin's neck to give the actual hanging effect. Then, using the rope as a pulley, we hauled up the mannequin's top half, and attached the bottom half, wrapping the rope around it, and then tying it to the knot at the neck, to make it look like a whole person. Then we put my coat on the mannequin, covering up the second layer of rope keeping it all together, and zipped it up to hide the fact that the mannequin wasn't wearing a shirt. The mannequin didn't have any arms, but that didn't matter, as my coat was thick enough to make it seem as though there were arms in the sleeves. We added the wig -as a final touch- and put the tape player -with a blank postit note- on the ground beside the tree we were using, and we were finally ready.

We then filmed the mannequin, and Nicole's reaction to the "dead body" swinging from a tree, several times from varying angles, so that we could do match cuts in editing. We got a lot of strange looks, as many people passing by thought the mannequin looked very real (which can only be a good thing). Nicole then had to pick up the tape player, and pretend to read the note, which we also filmed from several angles, including one from between the mannequin's ankles. We also shot a close up of the tape recorder, so that we could add titles to the postit note in editing. Once we'd filmed everything we needed with the mannequin, we had the difficult job of actually taking it down, and making it look like I was the one hanging. The first shot in sequence for our film is a close up of my bare feet dangling. This was not easy to film, as it was extremely cold, and I couldn't quite get high enough to hold onto the branch. So we found a different tree with a similar background that I could climb a little way up, and sit on to dangle my feet down. We filmed it from one angle, to make it look most like how it would have if I'd been in the right place. Whilst there, we filmed a shot from later on, when I'm actually in the process of "hanging" myself. For this, we had to make it look like I'd dropped down, and was struggling and jerking before going still and lifeless. After this, we went back to our original tree to film my top half doing exactly the same as my feet - first swinging, and then dropping down and jerking. We were a little worried about this bit, as it meant having the rope around my neck. However, we did not tie the rope to the tree, as this would have been a serious safety hazzard had I slipped off the ledge I was standing on. Instead, Fatma held the rope behind the camera, and gave me some slack at the approriate moments. Each time we reshot that section of film, I had to adjust the knot in the rope, as it was slowly getting tighter; however, it was all perfectly safe in the end. I never slipped off the ledge, and Fatma never let the rope get tight enough to actually touch my neck. Once all of this was out of the way, we filmed a section of me running up the path to the tree. Originally, this was supposed to be bare-footed as well, but I didn't get half-way down the path before my feet were far too cold for me to be able to physically run, so I had to put my shoes and socks back on. We only managed to get this from one angle, as we ran out of time. We packed up, and hobbled back to college, very cold, and a little in pain. Once there, we took eveything back to the appropriate departments. With what we filmed today, hopefully we won't need most of the props next time.

Monday 26/01/2009 and Tuesday 27/01/2009

In this lesson (Monday), my group spent a while explaining the previous lesson to me, and what our idea finally was. Once I was -mostly- up to speed, we began storyboarding each shot properly, to get a better sense of what was achievable, and what we wanted it all to look like. While Nicole and Yarohey drew the storyboards, Fatma wrote down what effects/sounds/etc would be in each scene, and I wrote it all in more detail (with actions, etc). We then ran into a problem when Nicole and Fatma went to the art department to ask about borrowing a mannequin, which we're not allowed to do. After the lesson, Fatma and I went to the drama and props departments to see if they had any there, and it turned out that art took the ones from the props cupboard, and we already knew we weren't allowed to use them. Our next idea is to ask around at some of the clothes shops, and see if they have any damaged ones spare; if not, we'll have to find an alternative.

Today (Tuesday) I wrote up a rough draft of a proper script of the shots we're going to use, various editing notes (e.g. "desaturate the flashback"), and the dialogue for the voice-over in the flashback.

Pitch

I was unable to attend this lesson due to various complications which have been explained; however, from what I've heard it went alright.

Editing/Pitch Brief

In todays lesson, we finished editing out short film from last week, except for the soundtrack. The main thing is we finally got it finished. It took a few minutes to remember what we were going to do as a carry-on from last time, but we got back into it fairly swiftly. There were several instances where the cuts didn't quite work properly, and we were forced to use a different angle.
After editing, we were given a briefing on how to do a pitch, which we'll have to present to the class next lesson.

Editing Practice 2

We had to film and edit a short clip that includes match cuts, shot-reverse-shots and obeys the 180 degree rule.

Editing Practice 1

We had to film someone reading a newspaper in a thrilling way. This is the result.

Preliminary/Practice Sequence

In today's lesson, we filmed and edited the short sequence we'd planned in the last lesson. Filming started off shakily, as we knew what we wanted, but didn't know how to get it. The idea was to track a person's feet walking towards the camera using a worm's eye view. With just a stationary tripod, we weren't sure how to achieve the overall look we wanted for that particular shot. The original idea was to put the camera on a piece of cardboard and then drag it, but cardboard scrapes the floor and makes a noise that would be difficult to edit out. However, when I presented the fact that I was wearing several layers, and could quite easily take one off, filming got underway. We used one of my t-shirts to place the camera on, so that we could drag it along the floor without any harm to the camera, and no awkward noises.We were very slow filming the shots we needed in the corridor, because so many people were continuously using it, and most didn't like being asked to stop and stay still while we filmed a short section. But we got it eventually, and that's what matters. Then we were almost continuously interrupted during our filming inside the classroom as other students filtered in. It took us a while to make it clear to them that if they were going to be in the classroom, they had to be silent and against one wall, so as not to keep ruining our shots.Eventually, we got everything we needed; however, due to time restrictions, it was not possible to get everything to the degree of almost-O.C.D-perfection that we wanted.Editing was also not without it's difficulties. We had problems with the log and capture process from the camera to the program. It simply stopped working and we were forced to restart twice, which used a lot of valuable editing time. Because of this, our sequence is not entirely complete; however, what we have edited is -if I do say so myself- really quite good! Fatma and I became very obsessed with getting the continuity in the match cuts as close to perfect as we could get them. We added three effects to a few shots to imitate a security camera ("desaturate", "timecode bar" and "video frame"). Unfortunately, we didn't have time to edit the entire section of dialogue.As I wasn't involved with the filming of the first practice piece, I can't really comment properly on whether or not this one went better than the first. However, I'm told it did, as we had planned it properly this time, and had an actual narrative to film for. Since the last practice piece, I've learned the importance of getting the same sequence in a variety of different shots and angles for match cuts, and I've learned I can get a little obsessed with continuity both in filming and editing which -at the end of the day- can only be a good thing really. The lighting in the classroom was bad, as it was difficult to see Yarohey because of the light from the windows, but when we closed the blinds it was too dark. We decided to keep the mise en scene simple, and just have the characters, clock, tables and chairs, although there were varying papers and bags in the room that we tried to hide, along with the computers that we couldn't move. I think our group stuck to the conventions of real films, though we'd probably have preferred to challenge them; however, we weren't inventive enough to do so with such little time. I think, and it may just be my interpretation, but I think our film represents the overall view of our group, in a way. If we had been able to finish editing, it would have been clear that it was a short comedy piece, which just shows that our group is definitely about having fun, and those little absurdities in life, which I think is quite a nice message. It shows we're willing to make ourselves look ridiculous in order to get the work done in a way that is both fun and productive. (And I can guaruntee that both Fatma and I looked just a ridiculous filming as Nicole and Yarohey did being filmed.)

Match Cuts

During this lesson, we learned about making editing "invisible" using match cuts. Match cuts follow the same sequence from many different angles, so that it looks like one smooth shot, and the audience doesn't notice the editing. We were set a task to plan shot types we would use in order to film a short sequence about a chainsmoker ilegally downloading secret files from MI5, burning them to disc and posting them. Nicole and I had quite a few good ideas, but we forgot to make the "chainsmoking" bit obvious. We then watched a film that Michael (one of the media technicians) had done for this scenario, to see how many of the shots we'd thought about, and whether or not we could see the match cuts. Of, I think, four match cuts, I only saw one.

After this, we were set the task to plan what we'd do for a short piece of film that we will be shooting next lesson. It is supposed to be someone walking into a room, sitting opposite someone else and the pair of them talking; and it can be in any genre we want it to be. So, seeing as our group is composed of Yarohey, Nicole, Fatma and myself, we decided to make it a "dramatic" comedy. Hopefully, if all goes well, we'll have a short piece of character 1 storming down a corridor, a jump cut to character 2 sitting patiently in the room, a jump cut back to character 1 turning to a door and then a match cut of character one bursting through the door and into the room where character 2 is waiting. All this followed by shor-reverse-shots of comedy dialogue done as if it was all very serious, character 2 calmly walking out and character 1 staring into the camera at the end. Overlayed onto all of this, should be an interesting soundtrack (we hope).

Film Openings

In this lesson, we watched a video about Thriller film openings, so that we could have a better idea of how to do ours. During this, we had to answer some questions. The video analysed the mise en scene, editing and sound of the opening few minutes to various thriller films. We noted how certain soundtracks, lighting or placements could give different effects to the overall film, as well as the editing, camera movement, etc.
We then had a look at students' thriller openings from last year. Most of the ones we saw were very good, using effective shot types, sound, mise en scene, etc to get varying types of thrillers. One or two even made us want to watch the film, which means they were doing their job properly!
The lesson ended early due to several students having an exam and needing time to continue revising.

Sound Editing

In today's lesson, we learnt about the various layerings of sound, and what effect it can have on the audience. As our group had already put some sound onto our video, we knew a little about both the effect and the program used to add the sound.

Firstly, we were shown a trailer for the James Bond movie: Casino Royale, and then had to think about the sounds used, and what effect they had on us as the audience. We were then given a series of entertaining, interactive tasks on various Casino Royale clips and stills, along with several Sound Producer's videos. I liked the task where we had to place the sounds onto the still image, as it was interesting seeing what the different placements did to where you heard the sound coming from. I managed to make it sound like a truck was driving from one side of the screen to the other. (It was most amusing!)
I particularly enjoyed layering different sounds onto a clip from Casino Royale, as it gave me a chance to see what sounds could fit where, and which were better suited. I got two crashes and a tyre screech in the right place by complete fluke. Also, some of the sounds were quite amusing, particularly the "grunts".

One of my favourite pieces of work was the sound layering work we did after the James Bond stuff. We were given a video that we had recently edited some clips from, and told to give it a soundtrack using the program "Soundtrack Pro". (This is what my group and I used to add a soundtrack to our short thriller practice piece.) I found that, for this particular footage, middle-to-high-pitched violins worked quite well, along with a high-to-middle flute here and there, as well as a soft beat and a low violin at different points. Giving each instrument it's own layer meant that I could control the volume of each one individually, how long they all went on for, and whether or not they overlapped at all. I also learnt how to fade the music in and out, which made it sound better than a straight stop. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to finish it, but I still had fun making it.

Practice Thriller Editing

Our task was to compose a piece of film based around someone reading a newspaper, using as many of the conventions of a thiriller as we could. Unfortunately, the filming side of this was quite difficult, as both Fatma and myself were absent during that lesson due to illness. This meant that we gave no contribution to the filming process.

When we watched what the others had filmed in the next lesson, we all realised we needed more clips in order to do a good piece of work. However, this was out of the question, so we had to use what we had. I was a little confused with how we were to produce a coherent plot, but that's what editing is for (as a fall-back). I was pleased with some of the shots they'd managed to get of a girl reading a newspaper; including a close-up of her eyes moving along the lines as she read, a few over-the-shoulder shots of the inside pages of the newspaper and a high-angle shot, filmed from the first floor. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed that each shot had been filmed in the same location, and the entire film was just of a girl reading the newspaper (i.e. No shots of her walking, talking to anyone, etc). I also found that the camera had not been held steadily, and the zoom, however effective, was definitely not smooth. Though, I am sure it was the best they could have done, given the circumstances. I was quite pleased that they had remembered to film a few seconds before and after the shot they were filming.

The first thing we did, was upload the whole video onto the Mac, so that we could see all of it. We then split it into clips, and renamed them, so we knew exactly what shots were where, and how long they all were. We then trimmed them, and placed them on the timeline in a different order to create as much of a plot as we could, with as much accurate continuity as is humanly possible. There was a small problem with a specific, vital shot that we needed to add, but which had poor continuity. I suggested reversing it, and that seemed to make it work better, so we stuck with it. There were also places where we needed to slow down the clip for dramatic effect. Finding the "slow down" command gave us a little trouble, but once we'd found it, it all went rather well.

Once we were as happy as we could be with our minute-long film, we added some music to it. The non-diagetic sound, or soundtrack, was a difficult one to compose, as there was so much music to choose from that we didn't know where to start. Once we'd found a good drum-beat, everything else started clicking into place. While Yarohey and Nicole started blogging, Fatma and I decided to start layering the sound, so that it started quite quietly, with just a drum-beat, and then began to open up into a louder, more thrilling composition of drums, guitar, a violin and some form of piano or organ. I believe the composition of this music, and the instruments chosen, create a suspense that the film itself cannot. The music then cuts out just as we come to a speedy zoom into the headline of the newspaper's front page, which claims 88 people have died. This is acompanied by the squeaky sound of a fast zoom, and breaks the suspense and tension that the music has been playing up to. I believe it to be quite effective, as it is very unexpected, and could possibly make the more nervous members of the audience jump.

Our short film doesn't exactly make sense, but as a practice, the narrative is clear enough: There's a girl, on her own, reading a strange story in the paper, although -let's be honest- the cover headline says "88 dead" but the inside page she's reading is about mortgages. Still, you can't have everything perfect in a poorly planned practice. The editing does help. The mise en scene is quite good, and definitely helps to create a tense atmosphere. The girl in the shot is the only person inside the building, so she is definitely on her own. Her clothes command a casual respect, and her hair is tied back so that we can see the expressions on her face and her reactions to the article she is reading.

There was one shot that I thought built up the suspense, in conjunction with the soundtrack. She turns her head, and looks around, as if she knows that someone is watching her, but can't quite place where from. I have my own personal belief that the high-angle shot from the first floor could be a point-of-view shot from whoever is watching the girl. But that's just me. I think this really draws the audience into the story, such as it is, as everyone knows what it's like to feel as if you're being watched. It enables the audience to connect with the character, providing more suspense within the audience than if they could not relate at all.

I think we only really used one convention from the thriller genre: the music, as there was not enough footage to judge otherwise. However, I am impressed with what the editing could do to change a boring film of a girl reading a newspaper into a less dull, slightly more interesting film of a girl being watched.

Like Fatma, I also feel partly responsible for the poor quality and lack of variety of the footage. If we had been there during the filming session, perhaps our group would have done things differently.