Evaluation

My brief was to create an opening two-minute sequence, for a thriller film which included the credits and a soundtrack. I also had to create a blog to document the planning and research that I carried out.

To complete the task of creating this thriller opening sequence I worked within a group. My group consisted of me, Daniel Armstrong and Reggie Witham. Daniel and me paired up imminently and we where allocated Reggie as an additional group member to complete our group.

The production roles our group identified as the most primary where director of photography, director of editing, director of sound and actors.

Director of photography- Daniel Armstrong was assigned to this production role and was responsible for operating the camera. Determining how scenes are shot, how closely/far away the camera is from the character/object on set as well as controlling the lighting on set. 

Director of editing- The director of editing was tasked with piecing the film together using computer program ‘Final cut Pro.’ Inserting effects and music to make the film feel more real and dynamic. (For this task two group members where used. Me and Reggie. as apposed to one as the size and importance of this production role was huge.)

Director of sound- I took on the role of the director of sound and was responsible for all sound on set. Whether it was diegetic or non-diegetic I would use sound to, in the case of our thriller opening, increase the effects of tension and suspense. 

Actors- A primary production role in all filming, actors play a huge part in defining our opening and what we want to portray. Our actors where Cara Gaffney (female victim), Daniel Armstrong (Antagonist) and me, who played a small cameo part as the victims boyfriend at the start. As an actor our jobs where to follow instruction and the script to ensure our director of photography (Daniel Armstrong) gets the desired shot.

With creating a thriller opening with out any first hand experience being a pretty dawning task for us to take on our group thought It was imperative that every group member was allocated at least one of the above production role’s within the creation of our thriller film. This 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 with the project. They will also be specialized 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.

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.

My production role was the director of sound as I had previous experience working on the Garage band application through school use as well as some home use. I was responsible for overseeing all audio aspects of my project, diegetic and non-diegetic however my main duty was to produce a soundtrack to be played throughout my thriller opening. This was a vital job in order for my 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. Although after creating my soundtrack our group opted to use another piece, which they got from an audio sharing site called www.freesound.org.

From my time being director of sound I have learnt the basics of what it takes to become an effective director of sound using the variety of sound techniques at my disposal such as music and dialogue to enhance the effects of tension, suspense and desperation our group is looking to achieve with the filming to thriller opening, conventional of the thriller genre. I also increased my teamwork skills as working within my small group of three pushed us to work together combining points and notes to achieve an opening we all thought appropriate. As well as this I also gathered a more advanced knowledge of sound in media, learning new terminology and techniques to make my work even more effective.

Overall I would say that my group performed well with one another one the project. As they where able to specialize and excel in the task they where individually assigned 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 as a group 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. As we where all familiar with one another we felt comfortable talking and conversing ideas with one another this made communication much easier and as a result I would argue that it increased our productivity and quality of our work as a whole.

During the course of planning my thriller opening our group incorporated as many thriller conventions as we thought necessary. In doing this we are making our thriller film more convention and therefore more effective in the portrayal of the conventional thriller effects of tension and suspense.  So yes I would say that our thriller film is a successful one as a result of relating back to its conventions to support our points.