Planning: Questionnaires

To gather results for our questionnaire we used an opportunity sample, meaning we used people that were available to us at the time, this means we could get quick and helpful results. Although we only managed to get people from one age group; despite this the questionnaire results gave us a good understanding of our audiences preferences. 
There were an almost equal amount of male to females answering so this means the results can be generalized to both gender; similarly with age, so our audience are males and females in their late teens (16-19). We are going to use a group of characters as potential victims as that was the most popular result which also strays away from our original idea of having a young girl in the plot, but this was fortunately changed to a group, of 3-5 teenagers, so this makes the concept easier for us to adapt.Considering all the people answering requested tension and suspense followed by most of them agreeing this was created best through sound, this allows us to use sound to our advantage to create tension and please the audience. We only included 6 questions in our questionnaire so we could have more control over adapting and improvisation throughout the filming and editing stages. 

Planning: Story Board & Location Scouting

Story board
I've joined into a group with Heather and Beth who originally planned a plot including a young girl but, as that was a hard character to portray with the people we had available, we had to adapt the plot a little so that was then changed to a group of teenagers which is then a lot easier for us in terms of finding actors and actresses to film as we have people in sixth form available to us. The story board is a rough plan of how we want the film opening to flow which contains the arrival upon an abandoned location, inserts of where dialogue should be present and how the characters act about the situation. The story board is only a rough representation of the  filming process as it means we have something to go on but we also have room for improvisation during the time we're filming so if we have any spur of the moment ideas that are good then we can include them into the filming process. The abandoned infrastructure we're going to use was found when location scouting and is only a  5-10 minute walk from school which means we can easily get there and back during free periods or in media lesson time so not only is it a great location but it's also extremely convenient for not only us as a group,  but the actors and actresses taking part too.

Location Scouting

Location scouting proved a success as we came across an abandoned green house still standing which is easily accessible from school and easily explorable, we took multiple photographs of aesthetically pleasing aspects and features throughout the abandoned infrastructure that we'd potentially include in our filming process.

Research into Thrillers

Casino Royal (2006) Directed by Martin Campbell
 Within this opening sequence there are two states which are present day and a flashback so I'll be analyzing each state separately starting with present day as that is the first one to appear on screen. Both sequences are filtered with a black and white effect.-
Present Day
For the first 50 seconds of the sequence there was almost no ambient noise, although there were a lot of diegetic synchronous sounds such as the car pulling up to the complex, the elevator going up, foot steps, a door opening and light switching on. This is then harshly interrupted by a loud sharp sound, this being non-diegetic, that matches the man turning round startled to see Bond sat in, what appears to be, his office; to which they begin to exchange dialogue. The whole sequence regarding the high pitch noise and the reveal of Bond creates a large amount of suspense and anticipation and even more so when the man sits down, opens his drawer and rt

Introduction into Thrillers

Watching a Thriller
To introduce us to the aspect of thrillers we began our first lesson by watching the movie Now You See Me (2013) directed by Louis Leterrier which is a crime-thriller, this allowed us to get used to the codes and conventions surrounding a thriller. 

We also watched the beginning sequence of Memento (2000) directed by Christopher Nolan, Don't Look Now (1973) directed by Nicolas Roeg and The Usual Suspects (1995) directed by Bryan Singer. From watching these openings I've learned that main contributors to the movie, such as producers, directors and actors will be credited. Along with that I've picked up information on the mise en scene, music, camera angles and editing; the lighting throughout is usually gloomy, especially if something mysterious or questionable is happening, the music is often from string instruments as they're great at being able to build tension and suspense, the camera angles are usually low or high angles, the editing isn't too complex, it consists of quick cuts and action matches to create continuity. Foreshadowing is also a widely used aspect, like in Don't Look Now (1973) the colour red is very important and foreshadows important moments later on in the film. Emotions evoked through thrillers are usually:

• Suspense
• Excitement
• Anticipation 
• Anxiety
• Uncertainty 

One main feature in thrillers is the constant questioning of what's going on and in doing this it makes the viewer want to carry on watching so that they can figure it out.

Preliminary Task: Editing & Finished Product

On Tuesday we began the editing of the videos we shot. Many of the videos had to be deleted but luckily we did more than one shot for a lot of the parts we needed. For the editing I did most of the trimming of clips and placing them in order and Jacob finished off the end product to ensure that it looked good as he has experience with making and editing videos. Jacob also had the idea to turn the shot of Jack walking up the stairs into a jump cut, which was risky as it could have made the shot look faulty, but he managed to make it work well and give a great effect to our piece. We also used two action matches, one of Jack coming through the door and another of Jack putting the money down, although we already pre-planned this and recorded it we still needed to trim clips to make the action matches give a good continuity to the piece and not make have it out of time. I think with everyone's input we worked well to create a reasonably good first piece of work and it also shows how much we've learned in terms of camera angles and editing.

Preliminary Task: Recording

Over the shoulder shot during exchange of dialogue

On Monday we began to do the recording for our preliminary task. We went to the common room and asked if anyone would like to take part and we got ourselves a volunteer and Jacob from our group acted the other part; due to this he was only able to record a minimal amount but still helped out a lot. We began with a close up of Jack's feet, followed by a long shot taken at a low angle of him walking up the stairs. This was then followed by a close up of Jack's hand reaching for the door handle and opening it, which was paired with and action match of him walking into the building. A long shot and pan right shows him walking up to a small window. An over the shoulder shot begins the dialogue and Jacob says "Oh hello there. What would you like?", this shot is then reversed so the camera is on Jack and he proceeds to speak his lines; the shots are reversed until the dialogue is over. As Jack hands over the money the camera zooms in on the action, followed by a high angle shot of the open draw with the drugs in and a tilt upwards as he hands the drugs to Jack and takes the money. The last shot is a close up of the drugs in Jacks hand as he walks out and this is then taken out of focus.
The lines of dialogue were-
Jacob: Oh hello there. What would you like?
Jack: Hey, do you have any of them 'Zesty Oranges'? [reference to drug]
Jacob: Maybe...
Jack: I've got the money.

Preliminary Task: Planning

For the preliminary task my group consists of myself, Jacob Maud and Joshua Mellard. During the first lesson we began to brainstorm our ideas. As a group we produced a number of good concepts and have decided on one. I think as a group me, Jacob and Joshua work good together and use our strengths to our advantage. One of our strongest ideas was drug dealing in school as there is good location and means we can take advantage of the space we have.