This is our preliminary task. The dialogue was given to us in advance so we needed to follow that script.
I think that camera work in our FIRST! experience of using it in group is quite good. We have used tracking shot of Anri walking in the room then we used 180 degree rule over shoulder shots and some close ups. Of course when we were filming our thriller we were more advanced and prepared so we knew what and how we are going to film. In our thriller we were brave enough to shoot in interesting angles because we were more aware of how to use camera. Also to film this we were very short in time and to film our thriller we had whole day so obviously we had chance to try stuff that's why thriller camera work was more effective than prelim task.
Mise-en-scene in our preliminary task is not really important because our main task was to use camera and 180 degree rule and we had to use what was in the editing suit. We had headphones, furniture that was in the room and keyboard we used them to create simple story line. In the thriller we were thinking about our props, set and costumes in advance to make sure that we are sending the right massage to the audience. Therefore we were more prepared and serious about M-E-S. We were very lucky to have snowy day on the location we have chosen. The military modern costumes were in costume department in the school and we knew about it in advance so we didn't have to buy it or search for it. Guns were also property of our school so we had what we needed the only thing we had to do is to tell it to them before filming and everything wil. be fine.
Editing on our preliminary task was effective for the first time. We've putted actions in the right time and story line made seance so I think we did very well. Of course when we were editing our thriller we did better in case of effects and number of shots we've filmed helped us to choose the best. We added special effects of blood and sniper scope and for that we used special programme. We learned arrange of different editing techniques and we were able to use them in editing process. We learnt to edit for perspective and create meaning for a character, we learnt how to cross - cut which helped the audience understand what the narrative is for our thriller. We also had shot reverse shot so we could see how different characters were perceived in different shots and finally we had couple of different sequences that we watched through and decided witch one is the best.
When we were working on sound on our prelim task we didn't spend much time on editing it. We just used sounds which were with pieces of video we've putted together when in thriller we had to listen sounds from different channels to pic the best one also we had to add so extra sound effects and we haven't done it in the prelim task. We added soundtrack and other SFX to make it look more professional and interesting to watch.
Audience for my thriller is mostly male but action genre is becoming popular through women as well. Also watching age is over 18 up to approximately 34 usually no kids or school age. So in overall our main audience is male teenagers and young adults. Therefore it's easy to guess what are they doing in their free time. I think our main audience is gamers they enjoy watching violence on the screen so they are more likely to see our action thriller. We are using young actors so teenagers will feel more involved because characters are the same age with them. Main actor is young and handsome so maybe girls also will be interested. I am not sure about music our target audience would listen to but I guess that might be pop, hip hop or maybe dub step music. Also gamers are usually students in universities, schools and colleges so they usually playing computer games on their free time so I would suggest that they'll watch our thriller on internet in the break between playing video games. Films they probably seen is James Bond, Matrix, The Transporter etc. Your movie is low budget but the storyline is typical for action movies. We have violence, fights, guns, love, hate, betrayal, dedication and so on. Also we have young female caracter that will attract mans attention as well. In action movies they actually using attractive woman to involve male audience so as we did.
In our thriller we represent range of different social groups:
1. Age
Skyfall
The Godfather
In our thriller power is in older mans hands because other actors looks younger than him and they are making his orders. This is stereotypical representation of older and younger people relationships. Older person is more likely to be boss because he is more experienced and wiser that his younger "friends" as in we can see in The Godfather and in James Bond Skyfall. In our thriller the older man is a threat to the younger man's life and we see the younger man as the heroic figure and the older man as evil. The older man treats teh younger guy with contempt and shows no value for life and as such is a negative representation of age. 2.Ethnicity Ethnic group in our thriller is East-Europeans, Russians and Italian-American.
The boss in our thriller is meant to be Italian-American because this is typical nationality for mafia member that's why Mike was talking with American accent.
Coriolanus
Then two of our guards looks like East-Europeans and the stereotype about them is that they are usually in wars, riots and so on. Because of this they are expected to be violent and aggressive. We have conformed to stereotypical expectations by showing the non- British characters as the bad guys in essence creating a binary opposition and showing the Russians negatively which historically is how the west sees the east.
Rocky
And also Russians. In our thriller they are represented as quite positive characters what is quite unusual usually Russians are ban guys but now we want audience to be on their side. But still representation of Russians is stereotypical, snow, cold, violence etc. all of this in our thriller.
3. Gender
The Avengers
The Cat Woman
Solt
Kill Bil Vol.1
While man is having their own conflict woman kills them all (almost) so it represents that woman has a power and a priority over them. That also signifies that woman can do the same this as man and sometimes even better. Also they are meant to be attractive to bring male audience. There is a lot of examples of powerful women in real movies. For example: Solt, Black Widow, Cat Woman etc. They are all represented as independent powerful women as character in our thriller. Although our representation of gender and women can be seen as positive it actually is quite negative. Because what we have shown is rather than women being independent and self reliant what we have shown is really a masquerade of femininity. We have effectively made the woman to be a feminised man she has all the attributes of a male spy cold, calculating and ruthless the gun represents her phallus and therefore in Lacanian terms we have made her a man dressed as a woman.
I think that our thriller might be distributed by online film websites or any other web sites that man are more likely to visit. It think this is nice idea because our target audience is +16-15 up to 26 and this is the most effective way to make them watch our product. Also distribution might be in some gamer magazines this is type of press that males would read and therefore probably watch our movie. There is no sense to distribute our movie in cinemas because it's low budget so we will lose money because of high competition on the market.
Vertigo Films is a UK Media company founded in 2002 to create and
distribute commercially driven independent cinema. I think that Vertigo film company will like our idea and they might film it. Our movie is hopefully will be interesting or young adults and adult probably male audience. This film company made similar genre of movies as we want to make action thriller. They published Sweeney which is pretty close to our scenario so if this movie was successful they might want to publish one more. Also they made action thriller "Pusher" which is also alike your film. Our Film will be seen on DVDs ad in Internet. I don't think it would be successful in US but it might go on screen in Russia. Also we can sell it to American company or distributed in the UK by Vrtigo. Target audience of this company is young adults and teenagers. This is our suggested audience for our movie. I think Vertigo Films is perfect decision for us.
1. We discarded not only bad shots where we made a mistake, or actors, or shot was out of focus etc. We didn't use some nice shots because they were to stable for situation and instead of them for example we used handheld shots which where in the "Bad" bin. Sometimes we even went back to bad shots to check if we can somehow use them and that helped.
2.When we were using eye-line match between Max and Mike we had to cut Max's point of view shot on Mikes pointing a gun on him to support a story and make it clear to the audience that the main actor is about to die and soon we will hear gun shot. Also we used match on action shots when one of the guards hitting Max so we can see him falling down in pain in the other. This methods helped us to show story line and represent the atmosphere and situation our characters are getting into.
3. It was quite difficult to find out which pace should we use. I thought that before the culmination we should slow down pace a bit to make it look dramatic, but Mat gave us useful advice that audience will expect that something is going to happen so we have to give it to them straight away. After this we started to increase the speed shot by shot so in culmination pace will be faster than in the beginning and after action sequence we will reduce the speed to give some time to have a thought about what just happen.
4. Or main actor covers most of the timeline and we wanted to represent him as a victim in the beginning. To achieve it we added hit sounds when guards kicked him so it looks painful and audience will feel sorry for him. Also most of the time main actor is visually lower that other cast so it represents that he has less power in this situation. Also in the end of that opening sequence we used Max's close-up of looking somewhere far away. This is typical James Bond type hero shot and we putted it in the end to support story so this is not the end of his adventure. 5. During editing sounds that we used were recorded in process of filming. Of course we spend a lot of time getting reed of our comments on the background, actions and cuts, but still it wasn't that bad because we seriously thought about sounds during filming and we tried to record sounds as good as possible. We had to listen to stereo tracks to choose the best one and double it. Sometimes we had to use the same sound twice and maybe even more. Also we added quite storm wind sound on the background to represent that it is very cold and mysterious. As I mentioned in previous question we used hitting sounds to show how painful guards kicks are. We are about to get our soundtrack which was given to us as a bonus.
6. I find editing quite fun! Final cut pro is not very difficult if you'll get into it and if you can always ask for some help. We had some problems when it came to the group decisions and not all of us liked what we've done and told us his own point of view on this sequence but anyway we looked at everyone's suggestions and choose the best on that works for our thriller. We haven't got any big problems such as not enough material or we couldn't find matching sounds we always had a variety of choices how to solve any problem.
7. I am quite satisfied with our final product and I can't say that I would like to change something. Our work was successful, stress less and all of us enjoyed working on it this is the most important thing I think. 8. Personally I enjoyed editing a lot. I think this is one of the most fun things about creating a movie. When you filmed and you can use it to tell your story or change it if you have better idea as you go.
9. We were really nice team we helped each other and listened to opinion of every member of our group so result satisfied all of us. Personally I spent a lot of time in editing suit trying to make thriller look better. I brought my own ideas in and then showed them to the group so they can say their opinion on it. I was involved in every process that was made to our thriller involving sound, special effects, pace timeline, choosing shots etc. I even tried to make my own soundtrack but we didn't use it. I think I did great job on editing Black Dolphin Run. 10. To edit preliminary task you don't have to know about any special sound or effects. We used simple basic actions just to get seance of how to use Final Cut pro. To edit opening sequence we used specific effects and sounds and we worked harder on them than in prelim task. It was harder because at first it is longer and it had to look more professional so we had to bring our best. 11.
