FINAL THRILLER OPENING!

(watch on youtube for bigger screen, couldnt make it bigger on the blog)

Feedback

 We received several comments on youtube and on the social network site, facebook, all were positive and one comment had some suggestions for improvement: 

- Mark Clark "No way lee hilton is that skinny sort your aspect ratios out. Make yourself a steady cam for smooth panning shots, plenty of examples on the net. Look forward to your next edit. 5/10"

- "very good editing, and a good homage to saving private ryan at the beginning of the film"

   Smaskakus

- Some good ideas and cinematography. Well edited.

   nvqlevel2

We are very pleased with the feedback we got from the video and will listen to any suggestions for further improvementofor our next peice.

Evaluation

Evaluation of the Final thriller

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our thriller opening uses several different parts of the thriller genre. I would say that our thriller is an action/ psychological thriller becuase of the Vietnma war scene and the fact the veteran is halucinating in the graveyard. I beleive we did create some suspense and a good story to work with.

I beleive that the editing is perhaps one of the most important parts of a thriller, and it certainly made our thriller a lot more effective and it improved the quality of it drastically. We used short clips of the blood running down the trees to create suspense, which I think it did so quite well. The lighting was also changed in the editing, becuase the original footage looked dull, and looked nothing like Vietnam, so we brightened the colours a lot on the editing to create a more realistic feel to it.

Another important factor in thrillers would be the sound, it can create tension and suspense or create the right mood for any scene in a movie. We were inspired by 'Apocalypse now' for our music choices, using music from the movie, we also used several sound effects in the editing software to create suspense and to use for gunshots/ explosions.

Camera angles and other techniques were used effectively in our thriller, they can be used to do anything in the film, create tension, show emotion or let the tense atmosphere fall. A good example of a camera technique that builds tension is the running shot as the main character runs towards the Vietcong, and the camera chases, this technique makes the audience feel part of this scene, making it much more effective.

The Mise-En-Scene is one of the most important ways to create tension and it is what makes the film overall. We used the blood on the trees to create the tension in the sense that the audience know what is ahead, but the two main characters dont know whats coming. The rest of the thriller uses costumes and props effectively to set exactly the right mood and scene that we were after for our thriller.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I beleive our media product represents the working class, becuase it is stereotypical for working class people to be regular soldiers placed in these situations. The Mise-En-Scene shows this becuase the main character wears a standard G.I's uniform, which is a stereotype for lower class soldiers. I beleive the veteran scene is also very good at showing this particular class, becuase he has a scruffy appearence and you can see how this experience has really affected his mind.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

We got inspiration for our thriller from several big hit films, such as 'Saving private Ryan' and 'Apocalypse now' this gave us the graveyard scene and insiration for the Vietnam part of the opening. 'Apocalypse now' was distributed by Miramax studios, so we beleive that they would most likely distribute our product in cinemas and on DVD. 'Saving private Ryan' was distributed by Paramont pictures, which is perhaps a better known film company, so they wold also distribute our product, meaning a much wider audinece becuase of them being known throughout the world. Due to the low bugdet we had for our film, big companies such as these wouldnt want to distribute our product, so smaller film companies would be more suited to us.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our audience for our peice, would have to be anyone over the age of 15, becuase this is the certificate of our movie, and it would be innapropriate for anyone under the age of 15 to watch. The BBFC would give our film a 15+ certificate becuase of the violent nature of the film, involving war, and strong langauge later in the film. I beleive our thriller will appeal to a very wide range of people becuase the plot is easy to follow and in todays society, it is usually people over the age of 15 who show more interest in movies, so it has the right certificate. However it is not a family viewing film, which may affect views.

How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract our audience, we would use advertisements on TV, in cinema screenings, magazines and billboards. When the film was shown on TV it would need to be advertised after 9pm due to the certificate rating of the film. The opening scene draws in the audience becuase they want to see more of what happened in Vietnam and what it has done to the vteran after he returned from the war. 

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The technology we used for our thriller really helped to improve the quality and create an excellent looking final product. We used Sony Vegas editing software for the special effects and editing part of making the thriller. The hand held camera we had was not HD standard but I beleive we didnt need it with the editing software we had, as it improved the quality dramatically.

Sony Vegas allowed us to use a lot of different editing techniques in order to make the Final peice look as good as possible. This would not have been possible without the use of this technology becuase other editing software does not contain these techniques for editing.

Other technology not used for the film also proved useful, for example, we used facebook and mobile phones to contact each other when we were not in class so we could communicate effectivley and discuss our ideas in order to get the most work and planning done. This blog is also an example of new technology we have used, it allows a much easier way to show our work and planning in a much easier format. this is also better due to it being more organised and has a good lay-out. Youtube also helped massivley becuase it is what we posted our thriller on and then youtube also allowed us to post videos onto the blog straight from youtube.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary task was a short video clip where someone had to walk into a room and exchange two lines of dialogue with another person. I feel that my skils have improved drastically since this preliminary task becuase ours was quite poor and we had done barely any planning, so we learnt from this and planned a lot of our thriller a long time before filming and were overall, more organised.

I learned new editing techniqes through the use of Sony Vegas, which will allow me to improve the quality of my work and provide different styles of work for my media studies projects. This has proved very useful, along with new camera angles and techniques which will also allow me to improve any future work.

The most important thing this preliminary task taught us, would have to be that planning is extremely important for a successful media product. The more planning we did, the better the product turned out, we planned much more before filming the thriller peice, whereas we did minimal planning for the preliminary task.

Without the preliminary task, our thriller would have been nowhere near as good as it turned out to be, and I am glad we learnt from the experience as it allowed us to create a much better quality of work.

What makes our movie a thriller?

Our movie opening might seem more like a film in the war genre, but we have placed a few thriller elements in our final peice in order to make this film a thriller and build suspense.

For example, There is a shot of some blood running slowly down a tree trunk and dripping off onto the ground, with tension building music playing for the soundtrack. This creates a thriller feeling to the movie, becuase the Audience knows what the two main characters are walking into, but they cannot help them, building tension as the two main characters walk unknowingly into danger. This could also give mystery to the film becuase the audience don't know what has left this blood trail, whether it some creature or enemy soldiers.

As this is only the opening to our thriller, the rest of the movie would contain more suspense and tension building moments.

Behind the scenes, Still shots, etc.

Whilst we were filming the main feature, we brought a digital camera along to each filming day and took still shots of everything we were doing, in order to get a collection of shots for planning.

Here we are setting up a tripod to film a shot of the Vietcong sniper firing at the main character, we used a tripod for every shot except for one moving shot where the camera chases the main character running towards the enemy.

The tripod helps to keep the camera steady and avoids the annoying 'shaky' camera so it will help improve the quality of each shot and the film.

When watching the footage after we had done the filming, the camera had proved to be very steady through most of the filming, however, there was one or two scenes where the camera did shake a bit, but overall I was pleased with the camera use.

Here is an over the shoulder shot of us filming the Vietcong sniper firing on the main character with the rifle. We thought an over the shoulder view was very effective here, showing the scene from the enemy's point of view. We used several different camera angles, and experimented with different angles in every scene to see which looked the best.

The apparel of the characters is used very well and shows exactly where they are, and the equipment they would have been issued to fight in the war, this photo gives a good view of what the Vietcong character was wearing for the thriller.

This is a photo of me doing a moving shot of the veteran walking through the graveyard, we wanted to film his feet walking through so the audience cannot see his face at this time.

This shot did work very well, however becuase we had nothing to use to give a still moving shot, the camera was shaking a bit too much. We could have found something, but we felt it dissrespectful to do anything that might cause problems in the cemetary.

Overall the different camera techniques and angles worked very well, and we were pleased with the end result.

Searching for props and costumes

We had some difficulties finding appropriate props for or thriller becase with it being set in Vietnam, we had no access to original unirforms and weaponry. Therefore, we had to improvise with what we could find.

We managed to get hold of a replica rifle and a wooden gun off our teacher for the filming, and a camoflage jacket, the jacket was used for the second main character, although they did not wear this camo in Vietnam, it was all we could use.

This picture is what they would have worn in Vietnam.

For the main character, I found s pair of green combat trousers and a green jacket, along with a military belt and Vietnam war replica helmet. I also borrowed my friends boots from the army cadets. All this managed to create a convincing Vietnam war G.I uniform and overall looked very convincing.

 

For the Vietcong sniper, we used a ju jitsu martial arts jacket, as it looks very similar to a Vietcong soldier's uniform and then made a hat resembling a Vietnamese straw hat.

A few extra props included blood capsules, fake blood, a bandage and several playing cards to place in the band around the helmet. This was everything we managed to find for the Vietnam war scene.

Soundtrack for the thriller

I felt that the music in the thriller had to be realted to typical Vietnam war film soundtracks, with well known 60's tracks, such as the Rolling stones, or Creedence clearwater revival. But at the same time we needed music to add suspense during the flashback scenes.

I collected several different songs for the credits and for any other part of the opening that might need the music, these tracks were from my own itunes collection and included:

1. Fortunate son - Creedence clearwater revival

2. Hendrix (Becko) - Vietcong 2 (game)

3. The End - The Doors

4. For what its worth - Buffalo Springfield

5. Clapton - Vietcong 2

In the end we felt that ' The End by the Doors was most suitable to play at the end of the thriller as the veteran walks away from the graveyard, becuase it suits the mood of the scene perfectly so we chose this track for the scene and to play through the credits.

For sound effects in the thriller, we thought it was best to get rid of the original sound during editing and replace it with sound effects that we downloaded, this would provide much more realistic sounds and improve the quality of the peice.

Storyline

The Thriller's plot.

We now needed to decide on the full plot of the Thriller opening, we discussed different ideas and then decided which had the better story and which would be simple enough to do, becuase we didnt want to have an over complicated storyline to the opening of the film.

We discussed these ideas whilst looking for the actual locations, at school and we would meet after school at each others house to finalise the storylines.

In the end, we decided that this would be the plot.

A vietnam veteran, played by my dad, would be visiting his dead comrade's gravestone in a cemetary, the year in this part of th opening is 1988, he walks along and stares at the grave. This gives a sense of how affected he has been by his friends death.

He then sees a person walking through the graveyard, and he hallucinates it to be himself 20 years before when he was sent to Vietnam. The veteran immediately has a flashback to his time in Vietnam and the day that he lost his friend. 

The flashback  starts with a shot of blood running down some trees, the remains of an american unit ambushed on the same day just before the main characters arrive. Then the main characters boot hits the mud and we see him and his comrade walking through the jungle, not knowing what is in store for them. Nect thing we know, the second soldier is shot by a sniper in the shoulder, sending him flying to the ground badly wounded. The main character then flies to the ground and begins shooting back at the Vietcong sniper.

With the sniper pinned down, he gets up and runs for nearest cover in order to throw a hand grenade at the sniper, which explodes on target and kills them outright. He runs back to his wounded comrade, but as he tries to help more Vietcong begin firing and he turnes and flees from the scene.

The opening then flashes back to the veteran in the graveyard, as he turns and slowly walks away from the gravestone as the credits play...