Rough cut

Audience feedback is key when producing a film, it gives opinions including advantages and disadvantages. These opinions mean the production team an understand what they are doing well and what needs to be improved, the more feedback collected the better the film will be. Getting feedback means suitable changes can be made on the work to improve it so it is more enjoyable for they audience. Audience feedback shows the different roles what they have worked well on and why it is liked, it also tells them what's not so good and maybe even ways which could improve it. The advantages and disadvantages that are given are important to see when creating a film because it shows how the film can be made better before it get officially released, it gives a chance to make corrections and changes so that it is a good a possible.






I collected my audience feedback on YouTube. I uploaded my rough cut onto my page and asked people to watch and comment what they thought. I chose this way because the audience couldn't be effected by my presence which they might be if I used a questionnaire or a focus group. This way meant that the audience could express their real opinions and wouldn't be influenced by anything.







The feedback will benefit my production because my group and I will be able to make changes in order to make our opening sequence better. The feedback will let us know what needs to be worked on or changed meaning we can work on certain assets that have been mentioned on YouTube. Having improved on our work means it will be more effective and enjoyable when the final cut is finished, there will be less mistakes and any weak points will have been worked on. These means our opening sequence will be more successful than out rough cut and be more popular with the audience.






Even though to improve our production we need criticisms we also asked audience to leave positive comments of what they thought we did well. One of the more positive comments was about our narrative it said "The narrative is very well thought out and it is clear that the man is a threat to the girl". This shows my group and I that the audience can clearly understand the storyline in our opening sequence, they understand what is happening and who the antagonist and the victim are. Knowing this helped us to know that we don't need to change much on our narrative and that it is something stronger within out work that we can follow.




Another positive comment was that the suspense built up well. Throughout most of out sequence we tried to build up suspense so that the ending was more effective and the audience would want to carry on watching the rest of the film. This comment said that the suspense was used well so make the victim seem vulnerable. This feedback meant that we knew we have built the right feeling for the film and that we achieved what we needed to, in order to add to the effectiveness of the production.




There was also a comment on our opening credits saying that they were conventional and fitted in well with our work. They spoke about how the font looked hand written and strange which is another convention of the thriller genre. Having dysfunctional writing added to the antagonist assets in our opening sequence. They also mentioned the way the writing faded away which made the film look mysterious. This comment was useful because it informed us that our credits were effective for the audience and had the effect that we wanted to give off.


The most useful comment were the constructive ones. Having constructive comments meant we could work on our weak spots in the opening sequence and make changes so that it improved. One of the more negative criticisms was that the sound track wasn't edited well. It mentioned that our non-diegetic music wasn't edited well, it didn't suit some areas where it could have been the pace could have been quicker and the wasn't enough sound effects. My group and I agreed with this comment because we didn't have many sound effects within out sequence and the music sound strange in some places, because of this the audience were left sometimes left bored and emotionless. To change this we are going to change the editing of our music so that is fits in with our shots and adds to their effect.


The next constructive comments was that we didn't have a wide range of camera shots. The comment said that there wasn't many exciting shots leaving the audience abit bored at some stages. This meant that our opening sequence seemed a bit to long and strung  out. To change this my group and I are going to take some more shots and which are a bit more creative and difficult which we will then add into out film. This should help us to create a more exciting opening sequence which stops the audience from being bored and losing interest.


Another constructive comment was about our lighting. I talked about the inconsistency between our shots colours and how some were brighter than other. We already knew our lighting was an problem, because of the times we were filming it meant our perfect lighting didn't stay for long lots of our shots had different lighting which made it look unrealistic. To improve this we are going to add edits onto the shots which look to light or to dark. We want all of our shots to look low key and consistent so we have taken this comment on board.
Based on our comment my group and I are going to make change to out lighting sound editing and out shots. To do this we need to do some more filming and work on our editing more. For out lighting we are going to need to add a filter or tweak the contrast of the badly lighted shots in order for the n to look consistent. For the little range of shots we are going to think of some more exciting shots which could be more conventional to a thriller and go out for a bit more filming. Adding these shots will make out opening sequence more exciting for audience and they wont lose interest. The sound for our opening sequence need to be re done in some areas so that it adds to the effects of the shot and matches with the actions and situations taking place. To do this we will editing some more so that it start builds and finished in the right places. Having audience feedback means we are able to see what the audience are enjoying and what they think we could work on more, this helps our production because we can improve on areas to make our opening sequence better. It has helped us understand where our weakness are and where we need to look over. We can go back and improve our work so that our final cut will be much more effective and the audience will enjoy it more that the rough cut.

Production Roles - Miss Miller

Having people allocated to specific roles makes the filming process simpler and quicker. Each member gets given an role to focus on so that it is evenly spread out making the work less stressful. The one role to one person rule makes the planning and filming easier this is because they only have one subject to work on and don't have to worry about other parts of the film, they will not be as rushed and the whole filming work will more organised. In our group we were given these roles; Producers, director, actors, music producer, screen play writer, MES co-ordinator, editors and directors of photography.

We decided on these roles by discussing who had more experience and knowledge of which one. As a group we went round saying who would be better at which role and from their we shared out the work evenly so that each group member had the same amount of work and the roles that they would be best at. We decided on these; 

• Producers - Jess, Charlie and Ryan - This job was given to all three members of our group. We decided this because the film was a group effort, everyone has added something to the work and we all discussed everything making fair decision on what everyone wanted. This role meant we all had to over look to project and make sure it ran smoothly.
• Director - Charlie - We chose Charlie to be the director because he has a past with making films he has done it before meaning he know more about what looks bet in shot. The job in this role is to watch the actors and shot when filming and direct how they need to look and how the actors need to he portrayed
• Actors - Harry Osborne, Ella Sawtell, Morgan Boughey and Molly Van-Wijngaarden 
• Music producer - Ryan - Our music producer is Ryan, he was picked to do this job because he has an interest in music so everyone thought he would be best at picking the sound track that would suit our opening sequence. Ryan was in control of finding suitable soundtracks to emphasise the film and worked well.
• Screenplay writer - Jess - I am the screenplay writer because the narrative was based on my individual narrative. This means that I know what the film needs to look like and how it needs to be given to the audience, allowing to be easier for me than other group members to write the screen play.
• MES co-ordinates - Jess - I am also the MES co-ordinator because the group thought I would know the most effective element to emphasise on our film. Also I have previous experience with make-up, iconography and lighting because I have had to plan them for a school dance show meaning I know what looks good to the audience.
• Editors - Charlie and Jess - Charlie and I are the editors. We decided on this as Charlie has had experience of editing before from his previous course in GCSE when he had to make his own film. I have also been chosen to help Charlie with the because I have had a couple years experience on the equipment from school and home. Our role here was to add all the shots together adding credits, soundtracks and editing techniques so that the opening sequence became on hole thing.
• Director of photography - Ryan and Charlie - The group chose on Ryan and Charlie to be the cameramen this is because both of them have had experience with the equipment before also due to their previous media course in GCSE. They could run the shot smoother and quicker as they know how everything works. Director of photography is basically the camera men meaning they were in charge of positioning cameras and  filming the shots.

We each had to be given more than one job because our group is small but as it is not a full film, just and opening sequence it wasn't to difficult and we could still keep organised. Giving each role to a different person made the filming process a lot quicker and easier. most roles were allocated to a specific person who would be best at it due to experiences and their knowledge. This meant the work got done quicker with less mistakes as most people knew what they were doing within their roles. The different roles made the filming easier because the jobs were evenly spread out decreasing stress and the duration.
Everyone worked quite well with their roles, there were rarely any problems and it ran smoothly, we benefitted from having allocated roles because it spread the work across a load of people allowing the it to get done quickly. One of the issues we faced was with the music producer this was because of the technology, Ryan found some of the soundtracks we wanted but due to copy they was difficult to get into our sequence this meant we had to find other sound which was possibly less effective. If we could some parts within our opening sequence we would make the music producer in to a two man job so that it was done quicker matching with the other roles.






 

Group storyboard - Miss Miller

The point of a group story board is to have a final plan of shots to follow when filming. It is used to describe each shots micro elements and other asset like actors and description, this makes it easier to know how the film is going to look with all the shots put together. Each member of my group made a individual story board of how we pictured the opening sequence looking. We then took our separate ideas and merged them together taking the best assets to make our group storyboard. We went through each one deciding on what was most effective for a thriller film and what wasn't to important to include, from this we joined the parts we preferred together make the group storyboard best of the three individual ones.


We created a group storyboard so that the layout of our opening sequence is a joint effort incorporating everyone's ideas, advantages and disadvantages to make it the best it can be. An example of an advantage from one of our storyboards is an over the shoulder shot from Charlie's individual work. This was inspired by the research we did in class from a "Shutter Island" clip. We have picked this to be in our group idea because we thought it worked well with the other shots in the scene and follows good conventions for a thriller. The over should shot used was looking past the antagonist at Cathryn. It is effective because it shows the antagonist is targeting her it make it clear to the audience so that they can understand the intentions of him. This shot builds suspense because it is clear our victim is being watch and in possible danger.


Another idea we thought would be good to have was the handheld of Cathryn walking with her phone. This shot was from my individual storyboard and we chose it because is was effective for the audience as they could relate and react to the characters actions and situation. This shot was an inspiration from the research I did into "Mama" there was a lot of hand held work in the film which I thought added to the emotions. I have used this on our victim because it emphasises on her instability and weakness over the other character in the film. It is effective because the audience can relate to this and expect something bad to happen to her. This also show that it is conventional because the audience expect to see her get hurt or expect her to be target by the antagonist.


We also got some other ideas from Ryans individual storyboard, one was the establishing shot he used at the beginning of his storyboard he has an establishing shot of the forest. We decided this shot would set the feel for whole film, showing the mystery from the low key lighting and isolation of the forest. This is effective because the audience become immediately intrigued into what the film is about and why it is set in a forest. The establishing shot show all the conventional assets of our film before any characters are involved giving of an enigma for the audience making them want to continue watching.


Each shot we chose to use is picked because it adds to our narrative, the group story board will have different shots to create different emotions and meanings. Each shot will be incorporated together to make the film runs smoothly, they will be made to fit in with everyone's ideas.




I think our group storyboard went well, we included as many of eachothers ideas as possible. We analysed each individual storyboard to make sure we used the best assets from each one. The end result was extremely good it included everything we needed to know about each shot and also had them in a good order. We did have to make a few changes to some of the shots because they didn't look as good when actually trying to perform them for example the establishing shot couldn't be a high angle because we didn't have the equipment need to make the shot, in stead we have to do a low angle looking up at the forest because it was easier to film. If we had the chance to do the storyboard again I would the duration of some of the shots and also some of the cinematography assets of the shot to the frames more effective and conventional.

Opening scene narration - Miss Miller

The narrative brief for our thriller opening sequence is about a girl who is left walk him eon her won through a forest and gets kidnapped by a murderer. Here it is in depth -

The first image shown is an establishing shot of the forest, this immediately sets the low key lighting for the whole film. Next there is a group of friends walking through a forest on there way home from a night out. They are all alone, well they think they are. As they walk down the main pathway they are talking and laughing, everything is normal. Having the girls whole bodies in shot shows the mise-en-scene, their hair and make up is very natural and their costume is light colours to show innocence. Our main character Cathryn is placed in the middle of the friends to show she is important in the film and needs to be watched closely. There are lots of shadows and dark areas due to the low key lighting we used to create mystery. This scene has an extreme long shot to show the girls situation, which is them being set in an isolated setting inform the audience they are far from help. The editing for this scene is slow editing so suspense builds. When the girls come to the end of the path they all say goodbye and venture of. Cathryn, our victim goes down a different smaller path than her friends. For this scene it is still low-key lighting and most cinematography shots are used to show her vulnerability for example high angle and long shots, also starting here is non-diegetic sound of slow eerie music. As Cathryn walks down the path further away from her friends she beings to get slightly scared, so the slow editing stop and changes in to normal straight cuts, she continues walking whilst texting on her phone not looking at her surroundings. All of a sudden she hears a twig snap, this is off screen sound, she looks around to see a dark shadowed figure in the middle of the trees. Invisible editing is used here to emphasise her panic. As Cathryn turns her head the shot changes with her and moves with her face. This scene is when the timing of shot begins, the more panicked she gets the fast the editing becomes. When she sees the antagonists silhouette she gets scared and walks away quickly trying not to show that she is worried. The non-diegetic music start again and this time it pace is fast rapid. This shot shows the antagonist for the first time, he is wearing dark clothing to show death and evil, also he is higher up in the frame to show strength and power. As she is fast pace walking up the path the camera is hand held to empathise her movements and actions clearer. The antagonist follows her so she starts running away, she drops her phone, the antagonist is faster than her so soon catches up. This is when the iconography is used the antagonist has a knife in his hand and when he gets close enough to Cathryn he uses the handle of it to hit her on the head. The fast editing ends hear suddenly to emphasise her being hit. The scene goes quiet silence is used the foreshadow Cathryn unhopeful future. Cathryn is knocked out and falls the ground, a canted angle is used looking though a high angle down on her to show her instability and weakness over the antagonist. Last she gets dragged away semi conscious leaving the audience unaware of her outcome. A fade to black is used and then her phone which was dropped further on in the sequence is shown in a close up. The lighting here is extremely low key, a message appears on her phone and the screen again fades to black.

Risk assessment - Miss Georgiou

Risk Assessment

When filming the risks should always be discussed and considered, this is to prevent any mishaps. It is important to consider risks so that when the filming is taking place all the right precautions are taken to avoid mistakes and accidents. We examine the dangers before filming so that when we actually film we are prepared to deal with the issues making the process smoother and safer.

Our risk assessment will help my group when we are filming by not only making the set safe but making sure nothing goes wrong in the shots. An example of the precaution we have taken to keep the set safe is to do with knife prop, having a knife around a large amount of people could cause a potentially life threating accident if the knife was to hurt someone. To prevent this we have are going to make sure the knife is put away safely when it is not in use, it will be keep away for the production team and cast so that their is a smaller chance of injury. A major example of how we are going to make sure nothing goes wrong with the camera equipment and shots is to keep the camera charged. If the camera was to run out of battery it would cause a big issue meaning we wouldn't be able to finish filming, elongating the finish date. To prevent this we are going to make sure every time we film the camera is fully charged and maybe even take a spare battery. The risk assessment to asset us when filming our opening sequence by preparing us for issues that we could face meaning we can deal with hem quickly without wasting unnecessary time. When filming we did encounter an issue that could have been a risk to filming which was passers by getting in the shots. Because we were in a forest filming on a public footpath it meant anyone could walk through. To stop this from happening we had to have someone looking out asking them to wait or telling the filming to stop until it was safe to continue filming. We knew how to over come this risk by looking at our risk assessment to find a solution to the problem.

Filming schedule - Miss Georgiou

Filming schedule

A filming schedule is an order of the shots going to be filmed, and the details to follow when shooting. It is important to have this schedule because it makes the filming of the opening sequence run smoothly, it makes it clear of what needs to be shot and what is included within the frame. Without this there would be many debates and issues of what needs to be done causing a longer filming time and possibly making the work bad quality. Schedules help when reminding the cameramen and the production team how each shot needs to look and what cinematography needs to be used. It also organise when the filming is going to take place, with the date and locations. It reminds the make up artist of how each character in the shot needs to looks they are prepared if any changes need to be make between shots. The film schedule also includes what iconography is need in shots, what personal will be needed and the equipment needed for filming. All of the information on the filming schedule makes the filing time quicker because it organises and allows the team to prepare for the shots. 

My group followed most of our filming schedule, we followed the shots and the content of them. We used the right equipment and had the personnel on set when they were needed. The iconography was used correctly and the hair and make up set up was stuck to. There was one issues when filming that we couldn't stick to the schedule for which was the date. On the date stated we filmed half of the shots but it ended up becoming to dark to film the camera couldn't pic up the characters or main features within the frame. This meant we couldn't finish filming, so we had to go back the next day in order to complete the shots on the schedule. This showed that we didn't think ahead enough about how long our lighting would stay for, we should have spread the filming our over a couple of days so that we could keep the lighting the same for the whole opening sequence. Apart from this mistake everything else was on time and ran smoothly. The filming schedule made the filming process much easier, the production team and something to follow which meant everyone knew what was happening where and when.

Individual storyboard - Miss Miller

I created a storyboard so that I could make a clearer image of how i wanted our opening sequence to look. The purpose of it is to plan out which shots and frames go in what order and to put in the microelements that go into it. Within it the time is also decided of how long the shots will remain on screen which is useful when cooperating the editing in, for example I used slow editing which I was able to plan by elongating the shots to the duration I needed.  A storyboard gives a visual of what the sequence is going to look like, the storyboard is important to make the production easier. It gives an idea of what the shots should look like in the film, and gives a guideline for the shots to be based on instead of being made up as it goes along.






Each member of my group made an individual storyboard of how we wanted our opening sequence to look. We did this so that we had three different versions we could merge together to gain the best results for a our group storyboard. We will analysed each one and chose the best elements from them to include with our main storyboard.  


I included some ideas from my inspirations post into my individual storyboard, for example the slow editing.  I have used this through the beginning half of my story board. This was inspired by the research I did on 'Scream 2'. I have made the shots durations longer so that the changes are far apart. This builds suspense for the audience because the anticipation of what might happen to our victim gets more intense and the sequence goes along. I think this editing technique is effective for the thriller genre because it adds to the suspense of the film by making the audience intrigued into the outcome of the victim.
 I also used a lot of non-diegetic sound of slow eerie music that builds tempo. Non diegetic sound is used throughout most of my opening sequence because with out it the film would be bland and boring. I have being using this because it creates the right emotions of tensions and suspense. This sound and the emotions it creates are conventional to have in a thriller film because they allows the audience to feeling worried for the characters meaning they can relate to the film. This shows how effective the non diegetic sound is because of the suspense it builds on the narration.


One of the shots I out in my storyboard was a high angle on the victim just as she spots the antagonist in front of her. This shot is looking down on her to show her weakness compared to antagonist who she is facing. It shows the audience her vulnerability and the danger that she is in, this causes them to feel sympathetic for her. The high angle shot allows the audience to understand the relationship between both characters and they can recognise the antagonist dominance over the victim. This is conventional because it portrays the typical conflict between the two main characters and who is most powerful.






I think my storyboard is good but it could be improved, this would be done by blending some of my ideas with my other groups members. Things like the angles, positions and movements could be changed to be more effective, I have chosen simple, less creative cinematography elements. When we are making our group storyboard I would changed them so that the opening sequence was more effective and exciting.