Audience feedback

We wanted to know what everyone thinks of our thriller, get some useful feedback and see what they thought worked and what didn't. We printed out some questionnaire sheets, asked a random group of teenagers and asked them to watch our thriller then fill in the questions. The questions were: 1) What do you think the basic plot to this thriller is? 2) What do you think are the key strengths of this thriller and why? 3) How do you think this thriller could be made even more effective and why?

Answers for the first question were all very close, people easily get the idea of the detective plot (but we should have made a clearer relationship between the detective and the femme fatal because few people remarked on it or noted it) and a lot of people mentioned that "it reminded them of a thriller from the 1940s which was exactly what we wanted so we are very happy and our efforts of making it looking like the 1940s paid back.

The comments about the key strengths of our thriller mainly are mainly compliments about the soundtrack, how it fits really well with the time and effectively helped building tension, Emma Smith said "the music is very atmospheric and effective". Once again the set was mentioned a lot of times, saying it was very well made and realistic as a detectives office.

For the last question there were two answers in particular that were most consistent and that we also as a group agree to, 1) People commented on how the death scene (gun shot) could be a bit more realistic and if I could to make out thriller all over again I would do exactly that and spend more time on sorting out the murder and how realistic and effective it looks for the audience. 2) a lot of the people mentioned that the thriller should be in black and white and this is something that we ourselves are still deciding too, we originally thought that Film Noirs had to be in black and white however have since learnt otherwise and that many are in fact in color. Honestly We don’t like the colors in our thriller at this moment, they look kind of fake and it’s way too bright, but we also feel that a black and white filter would be way too simple and too obvious. Therefore we have decided to saturate the film considerably and that a cold blueish filter should be added to make it more effective.

Overall I feel very pleased with the feedbacks we’ve received and have taken into account the comments on the color of the film and will change this.

Difference between prelim and thriller

There has been a big difference between our prelim and our thriller. We were not able to pick our own groups, this made it hard to adapt quickly to working with people we maybe had not worked with before.

Our prelim shots included medium shots and closeups with maybe one case of match on action or shot reverse shot, however our main thriller included a lot more than just these basic shots. We had long shots, closeups, match on action, shot reverse shot. This made it a little harder as we had not had much practice filming these shots.

The mise on scene of our prelim was very basic, all we had was a small room, with nothing really there and no real props were used. It is easy to tell how little time was used to edit our prelim compared to our thriller, we filmed on one day and edited the next day for our prelim and because of this, the editing does not look as good as it could have done, however it was also our first time editing so we were not 100% sure what we were doing. I would definitely say that the editing in our thriller was much more effective than when we did our prelim. I found it much easier this time round with editing our thriller because now we could use FinalCut Pro better. In our prelim task the quality of sound also wasn’t very good, some sounds were louder than others and we had some spill of us talking saying 'cut' or 'action'. In our thriller we were able to add sound effects and edit this in a way that all sounds were even, panned out to both ears and use compression to make sure that some sounds were not much louder than others. We even had a separate music score added after.

Editing the prelim and editing the thriller in terms of working together as a team I found completely different. I didn’t have the same group when editing my thriller but I felt that when editing the prelim it was a lot less stressful but I think that because there wasn’t a big final grade relying on it. Also in the prelim tasks because we got to choose our groups generally everybody went with the people that they got on well with and therefor had similar ideas and views to. When editing the thriller this was completely different because the groups were randomly picked and I found that especially in our group we had certain views on how our end product should look like and this sometimes lead to a bit of discussion or a bit of tension but I do feel that we managed to overcome this challenge. Below there are two screen grabs, one of the prelim and the other of the thriller, you can see yourselves the difference in quality and how effective or good the shot looks.

How has digital technology been used in our thriller

Molly uploaded our project onto her own YouTube account and used the annotation tool to make notes on the impact of new technology on the production of our sequence. It allows the audience to see how we used technology to create the different areas and effects in our thriller. 

Finishing Product

This is our finished thriller, edited and everything, it is bad quality because it was put on the Hurtwood House YouTube account before we had changed it into HD and into the color scheme black and white we started off as our main scheme, which we are currently unsure whether we'd rather it black and white or not. Because our thriller is a Film Noir I am pretty sure that we will decide to put it into black and white as that was what all our original ideas were based upon. We are going to experiment and see whether or not black or white looks good, but for now all we have is the black and white non HD version, and the color version until we finally come to a decision. 

Attract our audience

Account of Editing

The editing process was slightly challenging in the beginning of it but after we moved further along and edited our thriller, it became more comfortable for us and we could judge how good a sequence looked much better. Correcting mistakes and re-editing them was another thing we learnt but we didn't have to re-edit much at all apart from the fact that we’ve moved around the video so we have to adjust the right sound for the right part of the video and also fixing the pace of the sequence. But we all looked at it and tried cutting different parts where the detective gets killed and managed to over come the problem of it being a bit slow in pace. Making the most of our thriller on Final Cut Pro but putting the shots together and cutting was easy and straightforward and took less time once we have adapted ourselves to the software. If we did it again I would have changed the way in which we placed a few of the shots and put them together to get the pace and more flowing, but overall I am happy with the result produced by our group. The group worked well together, although we did have a few clashes with ideas so to resolve this problem we did some individual work by creating different versions which allowed everyone have a go at the beginning stage and then in the lesson we showed each other and went with the idea we liked the most and would incorporate it into the final body. I enjoyed the editing process and it was good to see our thriller being made as we went along. It was also exciting when we came to adding the music because it is one of my favorite things and so I enjoyed the opportunity to pitch in my ideas.. The sound also made a massive difference to the entire feel of the film it helped create an eerie suspense which we were going for. We did not assign ourselves specific roles however some of us were better than others at each role. I think I personally helped a lot with sound and general ideas for where to cut a scene.

My preliminary task, which we all did during our first few weeks, you can really see the difference between editing our thriller and editing the prelims is that there was a lot more to be done and in a lot more detail, we did not have the real issues or sound or any sound effects in our prelim task whereas this was a big process for our main thriller. From this experience I think I have learnt a lot in terms of editing, I now know a lot more about using FinalCut Pro, whereas before I had never used it much, I also now know how to cut sequences in order to raise tempo and suspense which is very beneficial for me.

In order to introduce our characters, we thought we had to give most camera time to the detective and less to the femme fatal, this was to create binary opposition. Most of the shots of both characters are of the same height and therefore it portrays them as both physically equal in power except she is clearly holding a gun and the audience know that he has put his into his draw as we specifically filmed a close up shot of him doing so, and therefore she has the power over him. Sound was difficult to add in, especially where the typewriter is used. Possibly more difficult though was making sure that each sound was perfectly in time with the action so that it was smooth and in sync. After this we had to find a gun shot effect we could use as of course we did not have a real gun and therefore could not record a sound ourselves. Once we had found a suitable gun shot in the effects we had to cut it and pan it to make sure that it sounded as if it were inside and had no reverb and most importantly that it fitted in with the timing of the action. After this we had to find a suitable soundtrack for our thriller, in the style of a typical film noir, we looked at many different clips of old films to see how they use music to the greatest effect. We were not allowed to take the music we heard and use it in our thriller because of copyright so instead we had to recreate our own more modern version.  We didn’t want it playing loudly throughout so we cut it in some shots so that we could hear the gun and typewriter, we also made sure that the pace matched the pace of the film (slow to fast back to slow). We had a minor or a major key sound at significant moments to highlight them to the audience and to build up tension before the climax, this is a common convention of a thriller.

We began editing quickly after the shoot day using a program called Final Cut Pro. We used techniques like match on action when the detective is frantically looking through papers, putting his gun in the draw and dialing a number into his telephone to suggest to the audience that there is reason to be anxious and that there is danger. Another technique we used was eye-line match when our detective turns to look at the door and we then see the femme fatal Dayana is standing there. Shot reverse shot is also used at this point and as she walks towards him to shoot him, enabling the audience to experience the situation from both characters points of view and see both of their expressions. Once the detective is killed we no longer have shot reverse shot because we wanted to show he was dead by taking away what he would be seeing, instead we use an over the shoulder shot from Dayana's position so that the audience see him fall to the sofa to add tension and emphasize his death and it's importance. It quickly cuts to a wide shot and continues to follow Dayana out of the room and through street. The first thing we did was to separate shots that we thought we could use and shots that we didn’t think we would use. We made the choices by firstly discarding all the ones, which were badly done, or had continuity errors or faults such as people in the shot or background noise we didn’t want. It was easy to find a good version of each shot as when we were filming we repeated each shot various times from various different angles or points of view. We picked particular shots based on how we felt it would fit into our original storyboard and plans, and how it would work for keeping tempo and suspense. Next we placed the good shots we wanted to use onto the timeline and made a basic layout of our thriller, which we then were able to work with, cutting, adding visual effects and sounds.

We already knew the tempo we wanted our thriller to be at, we started with a slow steady pace which we created by using a long tracking shot of the detective walking along the street and then into his office and hanging up his coat and hat before sitting down at his desk, this allowed us plenty of time to show the titles and also time to start to build up suspense. Then as soon as he switches on his table lamp we sped up the pace by cutting quickly whenever he made an action, such as him typing on the typewriter, searching through paper and dialing his phone to create a sense of urgency and danger. We kept cutting quickly until he is shot and falls on the couch. Then we cut to a slower tracking shot of the girl taking something from his pocket and walking out the door and down the street, similar to the beginning shot. We found the correct pace for our thriller I think, as we didn’t want it to be like an action film, but we wanted it to not be too slow like a drama for instance. 

Our Target Audience

The thriller we are making would be suitable to more art house type of audience and also people who are in their late 20's that would want to experience an old fashioned film because ours will be set in the 1940's and also the audience of L.A. Confidential because I would say our film is pretty similar to that. Anyone who enjoys noir American style theme films involving assassin, mystery, crime and detectives as well as a strong femme fatal female leads. Our film would most likely to first come out in art house cinemas due to the fact that it's not that much of a commercial film.

Seeing as our thriller sequence is a film noir our target audience would be quite diverse. For example film noir has been around since the 1940s therefore many a people would be attracted to watch it from the older generation through to younger people that are interested in older films. An example of a old noir style film in Brighton Rock which was remade in 2010 by Roland Joffe and will therefore target a younger audience who may rediscover older film noirs through this. Our film is a homage to 40s film noir a film such as The Big Sleep, the Maltese Falcon and Sunset Boulevard. These films are classics so therefore they will target a wide audience of film fans around the world.
Our target audience would also be fans of neo noir films such as The last seduction and The Usual suspects these films sparked a revival in noirish films in the 90's which lead to new films like Sin City being made in the noughties. I think if we marketed our film as being similar to these we could expand our audience to a younger generation of people maybe those over the aged of 18. If we mananged to get a cinematic release we could hope that this audience would bring along their secondary audience of their boyfriends/girlfriends to watch the film.
Our ideal audience would be over 20's in employment hopefully, probably university graduates, enjoy arthouse films as well as the odd blockbuster a la The dark knight rises and lives either with their partner/girlfriends or alone.
Our secondary target audience would be over 15 into gaming, comic books, indie music and dub step, dj Carta and would be attracted to our film because it will give them something to watch on iTunes, vimeo after doing their school homework.

Distributer for our film

 With our thriller, we think that the British production company Hammer, would be whom we would try to contact in order to help us create the film. Hammer is a well-known British production company, and they have a history of producing horrors and thrillers, which is what we are trying to produce. Most recently, Hammer has been responsible for the production of ‘Woman in Black’, which was a fairly successful British horror with a budget that is nowhere near Hollywood sized. Hammer are also known for their not so large budget films, and being our first film we would not have a large budget to use unless we could find an investor.

The main way that our film would generate revenue, would be through the sales of DVDs, and other film-related merchandise. This is because, being a first time director, and a British-made thriller, it means that it will not be a massive hit in cinemas, and we would not be able to afford to get the film playing in hundreds of cinemas. In order to gain an investment we would hopefully take the film to a film festival, in either the UK or in Europe. By doing so, we would hope to be picked up by a US distributor, someone along the lines of Harvey Weinstein, who is known for picking up low budget UK films, distributing them in the US and around the world and making them a huge hit.

Also, in order to generate more revenue, we would hope to distribute our film to television stations, by doing so it will also act as advertisement for the film, and this would hopefully encourage people to then go out and buy the DVD. We would aim for TV stations such as ITV and BBC, but then aim for the more movie-based TV channels, such as Film4, SKY Movies, which would be better for getting our film out into the market. By doing this, TV channels would buy the rights to show the film on their station, and therefore we can make more money through it.  They work with Millennium Entertainment to distribute their films. Once their film gets distributed, they could get more attention from larger film companies in the uk for example TV 4 and BBC therefore the film will be a bigger hit.

From our research into ‘Hammer’ we know that their target audience must be between the ages of 20+ I would say. Films such as ‘Woman in Black’, being a dark horror, are not going to be aimed at younger children, and neither are they aimed at people over the age of 50. However, Hammer has been around since 1934, and therefore they will have produced some films a long time ago, which would appeal more to an older generation, but the films they produced nowadays seems primarily based on a younger audience, from the age of 17-28.