Methhods Of Research

I went into Word and created a table to demonstrate the different types of research and the advantages and disadvantages.

Questionaire Analysis

I left my questionaire ( primary research) over 5 days for people to complete. I thought I would gain around 10-20 responses so I could evaulate them. However when going back to these responses this morning I discovered  that we had only gained 6 responses. This is dissapointing as I would have hoped to analysis more as then I would have a wider knowlage of what the majoirty of my audience wants to see within a thriller film.
But with the 6 responses I got, im confident I can still be provided with that knowlage.

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

This question has told me that the majority of my audience is 12-16 year olds, but still aged over. This lets my know that I should target my audience to be that age.

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Question 7

Question 8

Questoin 9

Question 10

Question 11

My target audience mostly watch thrillers once a month. This suggest that they enjoy watching thrillers but dont go out of their way to watch one all the time. This tells me that I should make mine suspensful enought to draw viewers in.

Everyone who answered had watched a seperate thriller movie each, however two of them answered prisoners.








From reviewing there opinion ive gained an understanding that they enjoyed these thriller films. For this I will attempt in conducting some research into these so I cant take inspireation fron them.





Everyone who answered started that suspensful was the most important. So I will work to make mine suspensfull. Secondly they want mystery. So I will work to make it mysterious. Thirdly music and costume had the same result. Personally I think music is a really important aspect towards creating suspence and mystery, so I will work hard on that.

Surprisingly, half answered that they would want a female protagonist. This surprised me as most thrillers often have the female as a character of innocence, and male normally this strong protagonist. My thriller challenges this as I have a female protagonist.
100% said that they think a crescendo works well within a thriller film. So I will definitly be including this.







100% also said that the main location should be within a Therapy Room. This is good as I orignally wanted to film in a therapy room, but I thought it would be good to gain some responces as to where my audience thought we should film.





Majoirty said that the title of our thriller should be 'Thriteen' or '13'. However after that its really mixed as to what we should call our thriller. They all got votes which suggest that they liked all of the titles. Me and Rachel are going to have to have a discussion as to what to name it.


66.7%  of responces said that the titles should be at the begining. Typically if ttiles are at the end it could make it look like a trailor. Howver, if it is used with a crescendo then it could be quite affective.





Majority of our answers stated that they were male. However i do not trust this to state that the majority of all of our viewers are going to be male as there was only 6 responces.

Actors Profiles

Jasper Wynne:
Portrayed by Alice Malyon
Myself and Rachel beleived Alice would be the perfect actress for portray Jasper as we feel she can relate to the look of her alot. Alice has red long curly hair, this was the main aspect which lead us to choosing her. This was because we felt that her bright red hair would help to tie in with the mise-en-scene of her character, demonstrating her anger and depression. Also Alice is a good friend of mine which i knew from a drama academy. The idea that she enjoys drama means that it would be easy to work well with her. Also we knew that she would be able to carry out the role well and take direction really easy.


Benjamin Winters :
Portrayed by George Bartram
George Bartram is a very down to earth a good person. Because of his sensibility I believed he would be perfect for portraying this role. He is a very serious actor so I know he will take the responsibility on full force. He is a good friend of mine so direction will be easy and there is a good bond between director and actor. He also attends Inspire accademy so is allready on a friendship level with Alice. This will make it easier between them when acting together.











Collette Wynne
No descions have been made yet. It is difficult to cast this role as we want an adult to portray her. However i am on no personall level with an adult actresses so we are struggerling at the moment to find someone.

Questionaire

Myself and Rachel Pride made a questionaire based upon our thriller movie to gain insight as to what our target audience would want. During my research I discovered that most thrillers are aged appropiate towards 18+. I want to make mine more suitable for a younger generation aswell.

https://docs.google.com/a/george-spencer.notts.sch.uk/forms/d/1KGrNbBRAN2ikjqQe0cuI-WzqlwivlMBAp2kgU8K3rp8/prefill

The link above is the link towards the questionaire I made on Google Forms. I chose to do my questionaire on google forms as I believed it was easy accessability for studenst in my class and others to answer. 

Title Planning

Draft of Titles

 Whilst planning our titles, we thought it would be best to set it our like a storybaord so we would have a clear idea as to what titles would appear on which shot. We tried to attempt to it would work effectively with that specific shot. For example, when you recive the first clear shot of Jasper it says her actresses name underneathe it. Same with Benjamin.

Title Storyboard

Another example is when Jasper opens her eyes, after being sucked into a flashback

Studio Logo Construction

When deciding the logo of our company we wanted to base it of something which has meaning towards us. Mine and Rachels friendship symbol is a peach. So we believed it would work affectively. We found an image of  a peach of google images so we were able to be creative with it through photoshop. We imported the image into photoshop so we could take different sizes and colours into consideration.
For the font we logged into Dafont.com. We initally found the font used within our first logo, we found others but didnt use them straight away.
When working on the first logo, Rachel inniciated using a pink colour scheme. This was because we both love the colour pink, so this uses aspects of our friendship aswell. We created a gradient background so it faded up to white as the peach does aswell. It resembels where the light hits it.

For the font we found a font called Crystal Breath.This is because it stood out alot to us and catched our eye. It is also a very recognisable font.

We decided to create another logo so we would have a couple to choose from. For this we kept the colour scheme the peach colour. The peach was duplicated three times and each time it fades slightly untill its transparent. The words Peach Production was placed aroudn the peach to create a rectangle shape.
I prefer this shape as a rectangle allows the logo to fit more into corners etc.

The writing for this logo was chosen off Dafont.com was Calendulia. This font also stood out and was memorable. I prefer this font to the other as the little carvings within the font are smaller and more compact which I believe gives it a overall better affect.
Rachel and I have chosen to go with the second option  for our studio logo.

Risk Assessment

Filming locations

Living Room

Therapy Room

Living Room

For now the only descion made on this location will be my living room. The reason for this is because the set out is as smiliar as we can make it. There is a black L leather sofa, where the characters can sit on. There are book cases surrounding the room to give it that professionnal vibe we were aiming for. Orignally we wanted to have filmed inside of the Study of the Nottingham Contempory. However last week I rang up the contempory to see if it was possible to film in this location. The response given provided the answer that the study was going through refurbishment, this means we were not allowed access to the room. This location would have been perfect a it has views overlooking to city which would have allowed us to take some intresting shots. The room was all painted white and filled with bookcases with two sofas where our characters could sit on.

Study

The Push ( Stairs)

Stairs

Stairs

This section of the opening sequence we thought we could film on my stairs at home. We believed this to be a good location as rthere is lots of space to allow us to film. The entire of the upstairs hallway is painted white and there is little light comming through which will allow us to have the low key lighting we disire.





Flash backs 
These flashbacks have been given to us through Alice ( actress portraying the protagonist, Jasper)
These videos are acctaully videos taken of her as a child so this will work well to provide the idea of naturalism and make it more realistic. So for theses we have no controll over what locations these videos were taken in.


More Present
These flashbacks are going to taken at several locations. Typically surrounded by nature. This is to add a haunting affect and will be filmed dyuring night time hopefully.
These locations will included:

Wollaton Hall

• Side street road along side of my house.
• Cookies Pond. ( a pond with large trees and bench)
• Maybe Wollaton Hall if needed. 

Original StoryBoard

Myself and Rachel Pride made this basic Storyboard which is the original copy of how we want our thriller to bascially go. It demonstartes the shot types and helps to guide us as to what we are doing. Throughout the process of filming and planning I have no doubt that shots will change and ideas will mix up abit. With this story board I am not 100% happy with the variety of shot types. When filming I will like to add in more and make it more complex and professional.

Rachel and I then sat down and began to create a Prezi which would allow us to tell our Story board in a more complex way and write paragraphs underneathe explaining everything that is occuring wihtin the shot and expand on the sotry line.

Blog Update

 What tasks I have got left to do for the deadline of 6:00pm 27th November.
Planning

• Original Story board
• Prezi on basic plot
• Actors using within our final piece
• Character profiles
• Finalised Filming locations
• Filming scheduale 
• Risk Assessment
• Shot plans
• Ttile planning( order of appearance)

Research

• Questionaires and surveys to gain a  wider undertsanind of what our audience wants out of our thriller. (approxomitly 10-20 interviewees)
•  Title analysis
•  Potentional location shots 
•  Evaluation of surveys/ questionaires
•  Evaluartion of location shots

Audience Research

I am conducting secondary audience research to gain more information about what sort of poeple emjoy watching thrillers and hwy they watch them.
In my opinion thrillers was watched to gain a 'thrill' anf for entertainment purposes. When they are filmed based on true stories or in a fimilar way to the viewer it makes it even more intriging to watch as it has the ability to draw in the viewer more. This is also done in the sense of having natural and realistic characters which the audience can relate to, this puts them on a personal responce with the characters of the thriller.
Through my research I have discovered that thriller films are typically rated age 18+, this is due to the horrific images protrayed and sometimes containing nudity.

To portray the research I have found myself and Rachel Pride made this Emaze to demonstrate the technical elements of a thriller film. This includes the costume, lighting, props&setting and sound. 

Begining Of Thriller Planning Lesson

On friday I had a double media lesson. In this lesson we began planning our thriller movies. Myself and Rachel Pride partnered up and began brainstorming. I believe Rachel and I will work really well together as we have ver similar creative minds and just flow off each other. We have the same work ethic so I can trust her to put in equal amount of work into everything.

Our brainstorming went really well and we managed to get lots of work done in this double lesson. We got all of our A3 sheets scanned and moved onto the computers so begin typing up everything we had discussed. After the lesson had finished we were so in the mode we stayed in during third period to get on with extra work and move ahead. I ended up staying in for the entire day, during lunch, fourth and fith period. In all of this time I had managed to type up all of the planning for The Narrative, Mise-en scene, Sound, and Backstory.
In this time we had also chosen the actors (apart form one) to use within our project and made a group chat with them all so we could discuss our ideas with them. From there we were able to develop our characters and put alot of thought and detail in them.

Evaluation Of Prelim Task

Strengths
camera angles 
We used a variety of angles to create the right atmosphere and tension we were aiming for. I believe the camera angles worked really well in this prelim task and helped to create that professional vibe.
Editing
I believe we demonstrated a wide range of skills for editing. We used straight cuts, fades, blurs, match on match action and created a section which resembled a CCTV camera. I think all of our editing showed off our skills and worked well with the camera angles to make it continuous and flowy.
Mise-en scene
Lighting was a good aspect which was thought about considerable throughout the process of filming. Whilst shooting the parts where Paddy was tied up, we thought hard to make sure it created a more violent atmosphere than the scenes with myself and Csenga. To do this we used a separate light source and placed it in different angles to create different shadows and brightness etc. We even filmed a section using the strobe option.

Titles
The titles worked affectively by not distracting what was occuring on screen, they were also nicely visible and not fading into background.


Weaknesses 
Mise-en scene
I dont believe the Mise-en scene used within our project was of the standard of something professional. I believe this is the aspect in which let us down the most. We didnt take much thought into what the sets look like. However we didn't have the time or money to get sets which would have represented our scenes better.
E.g. The scene in which Csenga and I exchange the money: the black backdrops don't do anything to help create affect or provide the viewer with understanding as to where they are.
Our use of pros were very limited and we just kept everything simple.

Sound
The plane engine non diegetic noises are too loud and disrupting for the scene. The images of Paddy were taken to create tension and I feel like the diegetic noises ruin this and make it seem unprofessional and not to the desire of what I want.




What I have learnt

• Filming may not go right first time, so dont assume you have all the content you need. Allow yourself time to go back and perfect filming or gets shots you may have missed or filmed incorrectly. 
• Provide yourself with lots of time to edit, you can always make it better and better.
• Dont leave anything your not 100% happy with.
• GET PLANNING DONE. Even if it takes you a while to do the planning. As long as you know exactly what it is your doing so you have a guide line. Dont dive into filming blind as it will just be messy.
• Think about every single shot.
• Mise-en scene is very important. Make sure every prop means something and everything is used to create create the scene what it is. 
• Dont make it look like a trailer.

Mad Max Analyse

Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)

Mad Max begins with a pitch black background showing no titles. A voice over begins striaght away, "My name is Max". Straight from the begining it is establishing that we are listenign to the protagonist of the movie. The balck background still leaves a sense of mystery and suspsion to the viewer. The voice over goes onto say "my world is fire and blood." The black background fades up to this red gruesome colour resemberling splatters of blood on the screen. Here we see our first title. It is presented in a sans serif style in block capital blod letters. it is placed central on the screen making it clear that they want the viewers to read and comprehend it. Over the top of this a non diagetic recordings of screaming, radio transfers and new reports can be heard. This is doen to create tension and provide the viewers with extra information as to what is occuring in this world at that point. This helps to set the scene.

The black background appears again and ontop of this we see more titles. the titles are presneted differently now as there are two seperate ones appearing on one screen. This could suggest that they are off equal importance. The actors titles are presented in the same style as previously however they are not shown in 3D. Underneathe this it states what roles they are playing in the movie. The way in which they have presented this is intresting as it demonstates the kind of violent, blood thirsty characters that they are. The brown neautral shade contradicts harshly against the sharp red striking colour which connotes danger and violence.

A deep droning sound fades the stactic non diagetic add ins of new reports etc back into the voice over. And again goes back into the news reports. The black background quickly fades to a black and white clip of a long shot. This shot shows bare trees beig forcefull psuhed by a strong gust of wind. All of the tree's moves insync in one direction as loud gust of wind are heard underneathe a news report stating that nuclear bombs are being set off. This suggest that what we are seeing as an audience is what is occuring within the entire world of the movie. The black and white affect demonstrates that the world is damaged. Non diagetic sounds of heavy breathing can be heard throughout. This adds to the erie atmosphere.

There is a small crescendo and at the slight climax we see the first real clip of the film. It is an establishing shot of orange desert, which is all can be seen for miles. Moutains of stone and dust can be seen within the distance. No life source can be found except for a man stood nearly central with his back facign the camera. This entitles a sense of mystery. As the voice over continues we are lead to beleieve that this vocie belongs to the male character stood in the shot. Now we know who our protagonist is. The camera begins to slowly tilt downwards and lands on what appears as a rock. Within the shot we see a lizard and whispers are are now heard. These sounds are not dialogue as they appear to be wihtin the characters mind. This plays with the idea of being mad, suggesting the film title 'Mad Max'. The lizards turn around and it is clear to the viewer that it has two heards. This automatically plays with the idea of abnormality and madness, a key theme so far. The camera angle establishes Max as a dominating character. The lizard begins to move quickly towards the protagonist. As this occurs we hear the sliver of the liazrd as it moves and the whispers increase in volueme and pace, it helps to create a chaotic and mad atomsphere. The whispers provide an affect that they are talking to you directly as a viewer. It gives a sense that you are understanding what it is like inside of the protagonists head and allows you to sympothise with him a little bit.

This is all taken as one long take. This plays with the ideas of how long Max's life has been like this for. It suggest that the end of time has been stretched out for so long and provides themes of loneliness and isolation in the viewers minds. The whispers build up to a small crescondo and are silenced at the point of build up by the protagonist squishing the lizards with his left foot. This suggest that he is killing the voices inside of his head, again suggesting that he is mad.

The extreme long take has been disrupted by a cut to a over the shoulder shot. Here we see that the protagonist is looking into a vast of nothing; again suggest the idea of isolation. He moves his head around to his right, so now some of his face is clear and it is visual to the viewers that he he is eating the lizard he had just killed. This connotes several aspects about his character. His determination is real. This demonstrates he has the willingness to survive, no matter what. Also that he is almost heartless. He can kill a living animal to provide for himself in a heart beat. As he chews we can hear the squelching of what remains of the lizard inside of his mouth.

All of a sudden the pace of the film changes massively. All of the takes become short snippets and editted very quickly together. Max head to his car and kicks the mysetrious objects spilling out of it. He begins packing frantically. The sudden pace and urge to get away suggests a sense of danger which he must escape. The engine is running at this point of rapidness. The short takes are filmed with lots of close ups and extreme close ups of detailing of the car. The car helps to suggest what time it is they are living in. It can not be the past as history's technology was not as advanced to create cars of this standard. This then connotes that it is set in the future after the distruction of the world or some sort.
The zoom in to an extreme close up shot connotes the pace in which things are going at. It helps to speed up the scene confusing the viewer and creating more mayhem.

Sound Planning- Thriller

 Sound planning

We want the majority of our project to be carried by a gentle and calming incidental music, almost as if that is the music which is playing wihtin the Dr's room to calm Jasper down. It will be very soft at the begining then build up to a crescendo as memories build up untill the point of the push where there will be a climax. This kick starts off the rest of the movie, which you do not see.
We are still unsure wether we want to create out own music using a synthesizer or use a copy-write free way of music. Ambient sounds including Dr Winters pen scribberling and pages turning etc. Also birds which can heard from outside of the window, again this is used as a calming aspect for Jasper.  We want to be carefull with ambient sounds as after I had analysed other students work I discovered that the background noise can be very harsh and distracting in comparrison to the rest of the scene, like a loud fuzz over layerd. So we dont have this, we have decided to add in the sound needed to create verisimilitude.
Sound Bridges will be used as Jaspers goes back inot her flashbacks to describe how she is feeling and provide the viewers with extra information. 

Mise-en scene Planning

Mise en scene- Settings
For the setting of this our ideas lead us to the conclusion of using the study at the Contempory (an art exhibition in Nottingham.)
On Saturday myself and Rachel are going to go to this location to ask if it is possible for us to film there and take an hour or so out of there morning. If the possibility of this is not available that Rachel and I will have to find a new location for this scene. We will work hard in attempt of correcting the Mise-en scene so it has a sense of verisimilitude.
For the setting of this our ideas lead us to the conclusion of using the study at the Contempory (an art exhibition in Nottingham.)
For the flashbacks of Jasper's happiness we want really beautiful shots to connote this. For these shots we have settles on locations including Highfields Park, Wollaton Park, and Two locations unknown to others which myself and Rachel have found previously which we beleive would be perfect for view shots. The reason for our decion to film at these parks is because they have large and glamerous building and lakes which can create amazing views and shots.
Mise-en scene - Costumes 

Jasper Wynne
Alice's charcter we want to represent in two very different ways. Whilst in thearpy we want her charcter dressed in white. This is done to resemble her near control over her anger and left with is her depression. The colour white we chose as it links with connotations of purity and innocence and she reveals all of the hidden thoughts within her head. The colour white would also resemble the idea of heaven and afterlife, suggesting she is angelic or suicidal. Make up will tie in with this by having white aspects and her hair will be down and messy. During the flashbacks we want to dress her charcter in red. This is to connotes the theme of anger and depression which she is suffering with. Her flashback reveals her dark past and we want to strognly show this through colours. Myself and Rachel decided that we want colour to portray a large role in our project as we feel they work exceptionally to connote to themes.  Her makeup in these clips will be red and raw using eyeshadow. We thought Alice would also be good for the role as she has natural curly messy bright ginger hair. The red hair hair was perfect towards detail in her character. 
Dr Winters
George's character has to resemble something of a professional nature due to his job title. However we dont want him to look intimidating but more approachable. For this we have decided to dress him in suit trousers, a shirt and a casual brown jacket. We chose the colour brown as it is a neutral and earth colour. This is to resemble his realistic yet comforting nature.  
Collette Wynne
No formal descions have been made so far in terms of this characters costume. 

Lighiting
We decided we want the lighitng to resemble the dark times in Jaspers past and what it has become. For the flashabck were going to keep them fairly dimly lit. The push scene we want as the darkest scene as this would connote that it was the darkest time in the protagonists life. Whislt in thearpy we want the room brightly lit, this is to give it an angelic feel. It will connot that it is a safe room and she cant be hurt there, able to express what blocking up her head.

Begining Of Narrative Planning

Rachel and I began our Thriller movie task today. Weve started with the planning of the Narrative.
Our basic story line consists of three characters.

• Jasper Wynne (18) - Protagonist
• Portayed by Alice Malyon 
• Benjamin Winters A.K.A Dr Winters  (23)- Therapist
• Potrayed by George Bartram 
• Collette Wynne (?) - Protagonists Mother
• Unknown at the moment

Backstory
 Jasper had a really simple family life, filled with love and compassion. Growing up was difficult for Jasper as her Dad worked away constantly, this filled her with neglect without that important farther figure in her life. Jasper and her mothers relationship was unbreakable, however when they argued it was an accurate representations of an explosion. At the age of 13 Jaspers mother died, from a very young age this created a stem of depression and anger. As a child she was diagnosed with anger disorders which was rooted from the absensence of her farther.
The Push                   
                                     
What the viewers dont know untill the end of our project was the she killed her mother in the act of a rage. They were having an arguement at the top of her stairs. The arugument is heated and unheard to the viewers, so what it was they were arguing about is unknow. The idea is to have one Long Take; this will resemble to exteent to how long the arguing was going on for. Jasper attempt to walk away but Collete just keeps nagging her. This leads towards Jasper pushing Collette. The fall kills her and is forever known to the rest of the family that Collete just 'fell down the stairs'.

The Narrative
Our project begins inside of a therapy room. This is where we are introduced to the character Benjamin Winters. The scene begins with the pair in mid-convocation, Benjamin is asking Jasper questions in which she is struggerling to answer to. Answers for these question will be included within flashback and childhood memories. To recreate these memories we have asked Alice is she could provide us with videos of herself and her family as a child.