Rough cut- Miss Miller

A rough cut is important to consider within the final stages of completing our thriller opening as it gives our group a 'rough' idea about how our thriller opening is going and gives our peers a chance to review it, helping us to improve different areas that could be better and therefore achieve a better mark.

Audience feedback is a necessary party of our thriller opening evaluation as at the rough cut stage we are able to present what we have to our peers and give them a chance to give us criticism as to what we could improve on and tell us what we are doing well. From this outside member feedback we are able to make necessary changes to our thriller opening that we did not recognize. This will maximize our thriller openings effectiveness in conveying the desired conventions and effects of tension and suspense and as a result we will achieve a better mark.

We received our feedback through a group presentation prepared by Reggie Witham. It gave a brief explanation of our narrative and then went on to explain how effective some of the conventions used in our thriller opening, such as a female victim where in conveying the desired effects of venerability, tension and suspense. At the end of our presentation a YouTube video of our thriller opening rough cut is shown and this is what we receive our feedback from. Our rough cut can be seen in the video bellow.

On the whole our feedback from our rough cut was generally positive. We received great feedback on the use of the generic thriller conventions used throughout, including a blonde female victim, iconography including a knife, soundtrack and slow editing techniques. Our peers who assessed our work said we done an excellent job in achieving the effects of tension and suspense (generic themes to be explored in the thriller genre) through the use of these conventions, as they are so relatable to the thriller genre. We also received positive feedback on our editing skills that pieced together our thriller opening. Particularly the effect of 'Bad TV' used in coordination with the music that created an effect of confusion, danger and instability, which we hoped to relate that to our antagonist and according to our feedback, we done it well. However there were still parts that needed to be improved on. For example we did not incorporate our film title 'Phobia' into the opening credits which is a circumstantial flaw within our work that was must change. We also needed to make our film shorter by at least 20 seconds as it is over the two minute and ten second limit, our feedback showed the general trend that we should delete the scene with the girl texting her mum to adhere to the time limit as this scene took focus out of the tension and suspense within the narrative and severed no real purpose in our thriller opening.

The feedback we have received as a result of our group doing a presentation to our peers will help us in finalizing our thriller opening sequence as we are now aware of specific elements we need to change or put in to our work to make it as effective as possible in portraying the effects of tension and suspense, making it a conventional thriller opening, achieving full marks.

Opening Scenaration - Miss Miller

Our group made the controversial decision midway through editing to split all our filming into two different category’s. Narrative one and narrative two. Narrative one was the first filming we done in Repton Park where our victim is stalked and taken by our antagonist however narrative two is the second part of filming we thought necessary to do, where the victim is in a shed tied up and eventually killed. Splitting the two up made editing much more easily as we where able to apply the relevant editing techniques to convey certain effects to particular narrative parts. For example Different music is needed in the two different narratives as the second narrative focus's mostly on our antagonists madness, while the first focus's on our victims vulnerability.

When creating my thriller opening, our group tried our best to incorporate as many of the generic thriller conventions into it as possible in order to convey the shared effects of fear, tension and suspense. Our narrative begins with a low angle shot of Repton tower; this shot acts as an establishing shot to bring in our setting. There is then a fade to bring in our shot with our female victim walking home with her boyfriend down a symmetrical road, late at night. The boyfriend then kisses her goodbye and walks of camera. After the boy leaves she is left walking home alone in our isolated, yet relatable setting, where she is stalked by our antagonist. The shot is ended by black slowly covering the shot as the victim walks of camera; this is used to create an effect that our stalker is the figure that has just obstructed our cameras view. We then have a mid-shot of the girl walking across a path while looking at her phone, completely oblivious to anything that is happening. We then incorporated a POV shot of our victim texting her mum "be home soon love u" in reply to her mums text "where are you hun". Following this our female victim begins to walk through a vacant car park where after she curves her walking route our antagonist is visible in the distance and after a suspense sound accent available on garage band called ‘Suspense Accents 04’ he moves back into cover.  The next shot is fuelled by garage bands Suspense Accent 04 to build tension and is the shot where our antagonist then makes his presence aware as he walks slowly toward our female protagonist from a over the shoulder shot of our victim. After a slow, three second long reaction shot of Cara (our victim) it is clear she has been taken.

This leads to the second part of our narrative our group like to call, 'The shed'. It begins with a handheld shot of our antagonist walking down to a shed and as he reaches the door he is in complete darkness and it is nighttime. A door shutting sound effect is then used and the screen is completely black as a female voice is heard struggling. Lights suddenly turn on, blinding our victim and the audience and the victim begins to examine to room making more and more panicked sounds as another body, blood or weapon is seen. This in then followed by a POV shot from the antagonist as he approaches our victim, while wielding his weapon (knife). We chose this particular use of iconography, as is it conventional to the thriller genre. After doing some slow, obscure ritual acts, to increase tension and suspense within this part of the narrative, our shot then switches to a contrasting POV shot from our victim as the antagonist comes face to face with them and as the music fades out he lets out a sinister laugh. We then have a low angled shot of our antagonist walking away from the victim. This is used to convey his superiority over the situation as well as the victim. The music used in the background is used in the previous shots. The next shot is somewhat controversial; it brings attention to the fact that our antagonist is recording the event through the use of a CCTV effect that can be seen bellow and brings attention to his twisted mentality. The camera is above the victim looking down and this is the shot where our antagonist eventually murders our female victim as she struggles, tied up and venerable. After which the killer turns to the camera and turns it off which is illustrated in our work through the TV static effect that we inserted into the clip. Our film is then over, and so concludes our narrative.

Throughout narrative we where constantly looking for a variety of thriller conventions to use to convey the desired effects of fear, tension, suspense and desperation (particularly within our second narrative part). For example the static effect in compilation with our music that we used throughout our secondary narrative part was used to create the effects of obscurity, unpredictability and suspense, as its jumping pace and tone provoked an uneasy feel among our peers who viewed it. This was precisely the type of thriller convention we where hoping to replicate and I would argue it couldn’t of gone any better as it set the tone of our thriller narrative and conveyed the relevant effects of fear, tension and suspense.

Out of focus shots where also a key feature within our narrative. We looked to utilize them as much as possible usually on the antagonist as the mysterious and eerie feel it conveyed helped to further the fear our audience felt towards our antagonist. As it again conformed to the thriller convention of hidden identity as the antagonist was blurred at times, relative to the killers insecurity, madness and how blurred his mind is.

Production Roles-Miss Miller

It was imperative that every group member was allocated a specific job or jobs within the production of our thriller film as it would help keep our thriller opening on track and all group members would be able to share all potential ideas allows us to make a opening with good conventional thriller genre ideas as well as allows every group member to get involved wight he project. They will also be specialised in the specific task they where allocated allowing them to become more familiar with the techniques and allowing them to become better at it, making our thriller film better as a result. For example the person who was allocated the task of editing (me) would be able to increase there experience on the final cut pro programme and therefore edit our film better.

In order to allocate each member of our group a specific role we sat down and all wrote down any relevant experience or skills we had that where relatable to the project. This was done to make the group feel comfortable with the task they where assigned to do as they had previous experience doing it and had a basic understanding of how to complete it, this made the group member more motivated to complete the task to a good standard. I had previous experience working on the Garage band application through school use as well as some home use and therefore i was picked to be the director of sound, with my main cutie to produce a soundtrack to be played throughout our thriller opening. This was a vital job in order for our thriller opening to be successful as much of the thriller openings tension is sourced from the music that is being played in the background and so i look at previous successful thriller opening on Youtube such as Shutter island, Insidious and Se7en to take inspiration and replicate the effete that they created.

The role of director of photography fell to Daniel Armstrong as he was the most experienced in handling a camera. This system allowed Daniel to take in ideas and opinions from other group members but was tasked with the final word on what shot our group would use and the duration of the shot as he was clearly the group expert in this field. This experience that Daniel had as well as his research done in his blogs allowed Daniel to choose what shot  would be best used in certain scenes to create the desired effect and i would say he done his job well.

Which left Reggie to the job of director of editing as our group wanted to split to control of these three main roles amongst the group as otherwise it would provide to much work and pressure to one individual which would result in them not doing there job to the best of there ability. Although Reggie had no experience in the editing field he done a good job however he had the constant input and help from me to ensure he was doing the job correctly and effectively. As we both had Apple software on our Macs at home we where familiar with the structure of final cut pro and it didn't take long for us both to start getting good at it. Reggie was tasked with the editing of all shots within our thriller opening that would come to an expected two minutes altogether. This meant he was responsible for making the transitions between shots smooth and conventional to that of a thriller film so that the desired effects of tension and suspense where created. This was then therefore one of the most important roles within our group and that is why our group thought it relevant that Reggie received regular input from me as well as Daniel at times to make sure the job was being done properly and all of our ideas where contributing to the thriller opening sequence.

Our actor was again a difficult role to assign. We thought it imperative to find a suitable, blonde, female victim as it was a thriller convention seen in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's 'Psycho'  the blonde hair made our victim appear more vulnerable and there fore increased the sympathy our audience felt towards her, increasing the viewer/character relationship. We eventually got Carra Gaffney to become a actress in our film, who was perfect that she ticked all the box's we needed in a female victim. Other actors in our film also included group member Daniel armstrong playing the part of our antagonist and i myself played a small part as the female victims boyfriend. The actors where expected to follow the directors instruction in order to achieve the best possible shots and create tension through the use of these shots.  Having an excess of actors made it easier to choose what one would be best for the individual role.

Overall i would say that our group performed well on the task they where assigned as they where able to specialise and excel in there task and as a result we where able to spend more time as a group on the harder tasks that took longer such as editing making editing done to a excellent standard. The only problem we encountered was the naming of our film. With suggestions from my group members such as 'the disappearance' and 'the taken'  feeling to generic, i put forward the title name of 'Phobia' relating to the target audience of teens relatable 'phobia' of clowns (our antagonist) which was ultimately chosen  as our films title.

Risk Assessment/filming schedule- Miss Georgiou

The primary objective of completing a risk assessment was to ensure that all group members would be safe before, during and after filming. So we could get everything done quickly and easily without any potential injures or dangers stopping the progress of our filming, resulting in us having less time to film and therefore making our film of a poorer quality than it could of been. Theses dangers and hazard could be anything from tripping on wires or equipment or hurting yourself with potentially dangerous iconography such as knifes. To avoid this we created a graph as a group with a prevention for each potential one which can be seen bellow.

Description of hazard	Prevention of hazard
Trailing leads while filming	Use gaffer tape to secure wires to ground
Using knifes in public	Take caution with where we film
Getting hit by a vehicle	Take caution when crossing roads
Tripod falling over	Ensure it is carefully balanced
Dropping the camera when it is handheld	Always have it strapped to hand

Our filming schedule is as follows:

	Shot	Date & time	Location	Content /Action	Shot type & Duration	Costume/ hair/ make up	Iconography	Personnel	Equipment
1		17.11.2013 5:00pm	Repton Park	Filming the large tower in order to set the scene.	Extreme long shot into a pan, for approx. 4 seconds.	None	None	Cameraman Location manager	Digital camera, Tripod, Street Lights.
	2	17.11.2013 5:15pm	Repton Park	Filming the victim saying goodbye to her boyfriend after a night out on Halloween.	Long shot, approx. 5 seconds.	Girly outfit, Hair up.	Phone and Handbag.	Cameraman Location manager Actors	Digital camera, Tripod, Street lights.
	3	17.11.2013 5:30pm	Repton Park	Filming the victim on her way home.	Mid shot, approx. 3 seconds.	Girly outfit, Hair up.	Phone and Hanbag.	Cameraman Location Manager Actor	Digital camera, Tripod.
	4	17.11.2013 5:45pm	Repton Park	Filming girl texting her Mum when she will be home.	Close up, approx. 5 seconds.	None	Phone,	Cameraman Actor	Digital camera
	5	17.11.2013 6:00pm	Repton Park, underground car park.	Filming girl walking and then mysterious figure appears.	Long shot approx. 5 seconds.	Girly outfit, hair up.	Phone, Handbag, Mask.	Cameraman Location manager Actors	Digital camera, tripod.
	6	17.11.2013 6:15pm	Repton park underground car park.	Filming the antagonist walking towards the girl.	Over the shoulder shot approx. 5 seconds.	All black outfit.	Mask, Knife.	Cameraman Location manager Actors	Digital camera, Tripod.
	7	17.11.2013 6:30pm	Repton park underground car park	Filming the girl looking shocked and scared.	Close up approx. 4 seconds	Hair up, make up on.	None.	Cameraman Location manager Actors	Digital camera, Tripod.
	8	18.11.2013 5:00pm	Repton Park, field	Filming the girl running	POV, approx. 4 seconds.	None	Shoes.	Cameraman Actor	Digital camera.
	9	18.11.2013 5:15pm	Repton Park field	Filming the girl being captured	POV approx. 2 seconds	None	None	Cameraman	Digital camera, bin bag.