The Plot- initial ideas

In our thriller opening, it will introduce the main characters. The location of the thriller will be set in a rented out log cabin for a girly weekend break (including a gay guy), which is owned by one of the girls family members. Typically the log cabin will be in the middle of nowhere, which helps prompt the horror setting. Whilst in the log cabin, its just a casual night in, with some drinks and snacks scattered between the characters while background music is playing and conversation is occurring. After having a few drinks a phone rings, but when its answered there is no response on the other end, thinking nothing of it everyone carries on with the night. However when the boy goes out for a wee, he hears a noise and then brutally gets dragged away..

Conventions of a thriller

                         
What is a thriller? A thriller is a novel, play , or film with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage. Thrillers use suspense, tension and excitement as its main elements in order to heavily stimulate the viewers mood.


 Types of thrillers:

• Spy thrillers
• Political thrillers
• Medical thrillers
• Forensic thrillers
• Psychological thrillers
• Military thrillers
• Horror thrillers
• Supernatural thrillers
• Romance thrillers

Conventions of a thriller- 

Most thrillers usually have a protagonist (hero) and a antagonist (villain) revolving around a type of grand crime, with the story evolving and building up tension and suspense for the climax. The protagonist is stereo-typically a brave male, and the antagonist is stereo-typically seen to be a hidden identity character who is revealed as the story progresses. One of the main conventions to a thriller is to make the story realistic, so they believe it could also happen to them!

Thrillers are often shown through the use of camera angles, editing and sound. For example quick cuts will be used for a shot of the antagonist in order to keep them unidentified whilst still giving clues to the audience. Added sound such as the diegetic sound of the villain's breathing and background music will also be added into parts of the thriller to arouse tension.

7even Textual Analysis

7even textual analysis from _brookepollock

The role of a Screenwriter

 The very beginning of a screenplay starts with an idea! Scenarists develop ideas which may be their own, ideas from a story or ideas based on someones real life experience or story, in order to write a script with the intentions of turning it into something amazing to get it produced into mass media such as a film or television program. The Screenwriter must set a specific target audience and specifically create something fascinating and exciting to have a lasting effect on the reader to enhance them to want the production to go through so they can watch it.

Open assignments are the perfect opportunity for Screenwriters to produce highly creative writing pieces and present it to a production company or film studio. These are competitive positions where more experienced writers usually get chosen, however it is an equal opportunity for a screenwriter to present work and let the producers make an decision.

Screenwriters then work with a production company's or film studio's director, agent or entertainment executive to develop the final finished product. Sometimes an additional screenwriter is brought in to bring any additional final ideas to the project. This would mean the screenwriter may have to share credit, or they may just be credited for dialogue.

As this industry is vastly growing, many screenwriters are going off on their own tangent and becoming freelance screenwriters.

Lighting Task

This task we've been set has given us chance to experiment with different lighting in order to create different effects, however we did only have the use of natural lighting and the torch on ours phones to create lighting shots.

This shot which we took was using natural lighting where we attempted to gain the effect of natural lighting, capturing shadows, whilst focusing on nothing in specific. This shot captures the normality of the setting. 

Low Key Lighting; for this image we simply used a phone, a torch and turning the room dark, using the blind as a backdrop. To capture the image we shone the torch lighting onto the object from a distance and were able to receive the effect of a shadowed image. Which looked good as it denotes the importance of the lit up part to the image, compared to the rest, which would obviously have more effect when working with people and objects.

Side lighting; to gain the effect of a mysterious and creepy mood we shone the torch onto the paino from a slightly low angle on the left side, which helped enhance part of the image more while still be able to see everything in the shot. This would work well with oht thriller task as it helps set the mood.

Back lighting; in this image we chose a darkened corridor, as you can see natural lighting is shining through the windows of the door along with a spot light, which both regret onto the floor enhancing that section of the image. This picture would have worked better if we ensure the lighting to the front of the image was darker to intensify the value of the back of the image. 

Semi-Permanent Sydney analysis.

Semi permanentsydney2015analysis from _brookepollock

Q6. Evaluate your contribution to the group's work

My main part was being the director of photography, i only had a small part in the acting right at the start which made me the perfect candidate to be the photographer, however i wouldn't say i had a big part in the editing mainly due to my absence, (i'd say Charlie made the most effort in that aspect). I was always open to ideas, as i didn't really mind what our story was about as long as it met the brief. From this preliminary task I've mainly gained knowledge on how to use the cameras, but also how to time manage and plan within the group to enable us to finish with spare time to make any last minute changes we might have needed to do.

Q5. Feedback from others

Q5 from _brookepollock

Q4. How well did you meet the brief?

During the task I think we forgot about the brief a little bit as we didn't manage to master it (or come close in some aspects), probably due to us focusing on other aspects of filming but i think our biggest let down was the 180 degree rule, I think we need to focus more on the brief in the main task, however we made a pretty good attempt with match on action and shot reverse shot, so we managed 2/3 which wasnt bad for a first attempt!

Q3. Areas for development

Click below to view my Prezi slideshow :)
Prezi: Areas of development

Q2. Areas of success

Q2. Areas of success

What have you done well?

Finished version- In my opinion our finished version turned out relatively well considering for all 3 of us it was our first time actually making a short clip using editing and filming to the extent we did. We managed to make the continuity of our clips all link together with sound, using Adobe Premiere Pro CC making our first attempt quite successful, but also letting us see which areas we needed to improve! Also teaching us the different aspects available for use of the editing software, enabling us to gain a wider understanding of the software for our main task.

Planning stage- For out preliminary in our opinion we believed that the actual filming and editing were the most important parts, hence why we just chose a quick and easy story line giving us more time to focus on the parts that actually made the clip look better.

Time management- I think our group met the deadline rather well, we managed to finish filming within a few days, allowing the most time for the editing side of things, this was important as we could then watch the clip and see what needed to be improved and what was going well. We finished the task before the deadline which allowed us to spend the final session looking for areas of improvement for out final task.

Group dynamic- The dynamic of our group was positive, probably because we are all friends so didn't have problem with each other commenting their opinions on changes being made. This was good as it meant everyone contributed to the editing. Overall Charlie ended up doing most of the editing due to mine and Annabel's absence, however when we were back she had no problem sharing the roles again. During the filming side of things we all had the most equal roles,and we all knew who was doing what which worked well with timing.

Effective shots or useful editing software- For our preliminary task we used Adobe Premiere Pro CC which was useful as  we got to grips with the main features of the software in order to give us a head start with our main task! The task also expected us to be able to use 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot, we managed to get all 3 of them in (even if they weren't 100% perfect due to it being our first attempt).

Q1. What have you learned during the making of your preliminary task?

Media q1 from _brookepollock

Preliminary task: The Fight

Preliminary task storyboard

Preliminary task storyboard from _brookepollock

Preliminary Task

My continuity task is involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines in dialogue.
This task will include match on action shot editing technique to cut one shot to another portraying the action of the character in the first shot, creating the continuity sense.
A shot/ reverse shot will show the conversation between two characters and the 180 degree rule is the idea that shows the characters from different angles however they stay within 180 degrees..



The Preliminary Task involves me, Charlie and Annabel. My role is camera work, Annabel and Charlie will be doing the acting roles of the task and we all with work together with the editing part of the clip.

Media shots!

Media shots from _brookepollock

Uploading

Ok, so i'm currently trying to work out how to post PowerPoint and word documents onto blogger! They will be on soon.

Hi all bloggers :)

I am 16 and currently in year 12, the first of my two years studying A-levels. Media is one of my 4 chosen A-level subjects, along with Business, Travel and Tourism and Psychology. 

This is my first time ever writing a blog so you'll have to bear with me as I learn more skills towards blogging.

I felt Media would be a good subject to help give me a wide variety of choices, as well as the fact I am curious about the subject due to me enjoying watching television and films so thought it would be fascinating to actually be behind the scenes in creating a short film as part of my studies instead of just watching. And also learning about the aspects of media along the way. 

Thank you for reading- see you soon :)

#bloggersforlife