Evaluation

My evaluation used many different forms of media to answer the seven questions we were given, I feel that I have presented my evaluation in a variety of ways which is hopefully interesting and appealing to the audience!

My evaluation was too long to upload to blogger or Youtube but I have created a short mash up video which speeds through my final evaluation to give the overall feel of my presentation. My full evaluation will be uploaded to a DVD and reviewed given that it was 25 minutes. The evaluation process was very interesting as it allowed me to be creative in the way that I answered the questions, i tried to use lots of diversity within my evaluation so that it would stand out and convey the information in an engaging way. I used a variety of programmes and software to create my evaluation.

iMovie 

I used the editing software iMovie to create and put together my evaluation as I found this to be easier than using Final Cut Pro X. iMovie allowed me to record voice overs quickly and easily, instantly layering them over the videos which I found to be extremely convenient, I also liked how everything was on one time line, creating one long presentation for my evaluation.

Prezi

I used Prezi for my evaluation as this was an effective way of combining text, images and videos whilst looking attractive. The many different theme/ background allowed me to make each Prezi look individual - although I was wary of not using too many Prezi's as I wanted to keep my evaluation interesting and not use the same programme over and over.

Powerpoint

I only used Powerpoint for one of my questions but it allowed me to use images and text to help the audience visualise what I was referring to as I was talking on a voice over. I chose to write only small key point on each slide, and talk around each point in the voice over so that I was not just reading off of every slide, I also added images of the films and production companies I was referencing.

GoAnimate

I used GoAnimate as an introduction to one of the questions, this was very fun to use and watch I feel, as the dialogue between characters and animations make the subject more appealing, I followed my GoAnimate with screen recordings of GarageBand, Blogger, iMovie and my Camera/ filming equipment.

YouTube

YouTube was key in my evaluation as I used many clips and trailers from thrillers to illustrate my points, I then included voice overs to explain the relevance of these videos in regards to the question. The music I used on my evaluation was also from YouTube.

 Filming Equipment

Filming Equipment was vital in the construction of my evaluation, I used a    camera and tripod to conduct several audience interviews to gain valuable feedback which I commented on and reviewed within my evaluation, this was vital in understanding how our thriller opening, 'The Lady In Red' would be received.

References

I used Youtube to present some of the videos and music within my evaluation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcjY-VN8_l4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qYGDUt0mTA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1TRJ9iYyx8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsDNmRF-E1c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZSHuFasA0c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6_o_eFpmxA

Finished Product

We have now completed our final thriller opening, we are very pleased with how it came out and I have been reviewing the whole process within my evaluation.

Here is the video of our finished product - The Lady In Red

Evaluation Process

I have been working on my evaluation for some time and have now completed my finished video, I chose to put my evaluation together on iMovie as I found this to be slightly easier than Final Cut Pro. Something that I struggled with over the evaluation process was the need to complete the questions in different ways, however I soon realised how much control this gave me over my outcome and I used various forms of media to create my answers!

The following image is my list of evaluation questions which I annotated as I decided what form of media I would use for each question. 

This image is an example of one of my scripts that I used,for some of my questions I decided that a voice over would be beneficial and I therefore scripted what I wanted to say before recording myself and layering my voice over clips and images to make my evaluation more interesting and appealing to the audience. 

I used lots of different forms of media throughout the whole process, from the blog to the evaluation, just some of the technologies I used were; PowerPoint, Youtube, iMovie, Final Cut Pro X, Goanimate, Prezi, Google Images, Free music downloads and many more. I feel that in using so many websites and software I was able to make my finished product far more diverse and exciting for the viewer. 

The following screen shots show the construction of my evaluation taking place, I found it far easier having my whole presentation on one time line as I could chop and change various bits of film clip and audio quickly and effectively. 

Editing Process (Final Stage)

This week our group has been moving into the final stage of completing and editing our Thriller opening. We filmed this week an extra scene which includes multiple angles to improve the overall quality of our film. The scene will be placed at the beginning of the film as a serious of mysterious shots to build tension and grab the attention of the audience. The storyline behind our thriller is that the Lady In Red is searching to find the murderer of her love interest, on entering the jazz club she sees the killer and precedes to shoot him. However we wanted to convey the reasoning for the killing and thus filmed an extra scene in which only the hands of the woman are seen, picking up and considering a photograph which is entitled "Darling Edward" 1939 , the affectionate term 'darling' connoting their affection - the following shot is of the hands bringing a newspaper into the shot containing the strap line "Wanted... for murder" connoting that the interest has been killed by the man in the accompanying photograph. The next shot is the hands ominously drawing a cross on the 'Wanted mans face.As the opening progresses the Lady In Red recognises the same man from the picture, who she then precedes to shoot. Our aim in filming this extra scene was to clarify this and build suspense when the two characters come face to face later in the clip. Apart from this extra scene which we have edited we will make some minor adjustments to any glitches, especially within the soundtrack before moving on to our evaluations!

The newspaper and photograph props we used required some time and thought, firstly I wanted to make the props so that they would appear to fit our 1930/40s theme therefore for the photograph I found a picture of an old relative and printed it onto white photo paper which I cut down to size to look like an authentic portrait photograph that the main character would be likely to carry with her. Moreover, I wrote 'Darling Edward - 1939' on the bottom of the photograph as I have seen in various photo albums to authentic and personalise the image, moreover this was an effective way of conveying the relationship between The Lady In Red and the man in the photograph. Furthermore, for the newspaper I printed an image of the actor who the lady kills on to photographic paper, I then printed a front cover from a 1940s newspaper to fit our genre and stuck the photograph onto the front cover. To make both props more authentic I decided to age them, I did this by staining the photograph and newspaper with tea bags and coffee which I felt worked very effectively.

The image below is the storyboard that I made for the extra scene that we filmed.

Evaluation Question -Who would be the audience for your media product?

Within my evaluation I have been considering the representation of various social groups and consequently must consider who the target audience for my media product would be.

I believe that due to the representation of social groups within my thriller film, this would subsequently attract a particular target audience. Our target audience is ideally women between the age of 16 and 25 of  Caucasian ethnicity and of no specific social class, this is who we believe our key audience demographic would appeal to for numerous reasons.

Gender

I believe that our thriller, 'The Lady In Red' would appeal predominantly to women given our strong, powerful female protagonist. Our female protagonist would most likely appeal to women as typically women are often seen as the 'damsel in distress' within thriller films and usually have a minor role in the action, however our main character subverts this stereotype of gender hopefully appealing to women and feeling satisfied after viewing given this change from the norm of stereotypes. 

This example from 'Taken' is a prime example of the stereotypical representation of women within thriller films, Kim is presented as being weak, vulnerable, unable to defend herself and reliant on her father - the male protagonist, the total opposite form the representation of women within our thriller, 'The Lady In Red'. 

Equally, I believe our thriller would appeal to women given the genre that it is, our thriller is a crime thriller but takes on a film noir, 1930/40s Hollywood Glamour theme which has violence but it is not incredibly gory or explicit, stereotypically this would be more likely to appeal to females than males, although this is not always the case. 

Age

I believe that the ideal age group of our audience would be between 16 and 25 years of age. I have concluded this given the similar age of the actors and actresses used in our thriller which would hopefully allow our target audience to relate to the characters. Similarly, the age rating of our thriller film is a 15 given the strong references to violence and small focus on blood, therefore we believe that any one over the age of 15 could enjoy our thriller. 

Ethnicity

I believe that the majority of our target audience would be of Caucasian ethnicity due to the representation of characters within our thriller, however this is not definite and I believe people of all ethnicity's could enjoy our thriller film. Within our thriller the representation of race and ethnicity is consistent with the stereotypes of the genre with our main protagonist being Caucasian and our antagonist being African American - therefore I believe this factor could influence the ethnicity of the people who would want to watch our thriller film.

Social Class

Our thriller is not aimed at specific social class, I believe that our group was more focused on conveying the 1930/40's theme through elements of mise-en-scene  such as costume, than trying to appeal or attract a specific social class. However, if I were to examine the costumes with social class in mind, the audience could potentially assume that the characters are middle class given the men are all in suits and the women in nice dresses and so could attract a middle class audience who could relate to the characters, although I do not believe our thriller opening limits the target audience to a specific class. 

Examples of character costumes representing class

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of a thriller film contains many components, as music is not the only element to accompany the action. 


Diegetic Sound

Diegetic sound is any sound emitted from a person or object within the diegesis, and seen within the field of vision. Such as a phone ringing or,more relevant to thriller films, sounds such as gunshots and screams. Diegetic sound is important in building up the story as the most common form of diegetic sound is the dialogue between characters.  

This clip, an extract from the 2006 spy- thriller 'Stormbreaker' demonstrates a lot of diegetic sound amongst the action. For example, the sound of the bicycle tyres screeching and car horns although exaggerated in the editing process are still diegetic sounds which build tension. Furthermore, other sounds such as a power washer in the garage and the machinery in the scrap yard are all diegetic sound and the building music indicates that Alex may be in danger and a fight scene may follow.  

Non- diegetic Sound

Non- diegetic sound is sound that does not come from the diegesis or usually seen within the field of vision, but is in fact added afterwards during the editing process. 

The most noticeable of non - diegetic sounds used within the thriller genre, is the score or song accompanying the action. The following link gives samples of lots of soundtracks to thriller films, I focused especially on the fifth up from the bottom entitled "Suspenseful mystery 1" 

http://www.yookamusic.com/playlist/soundtracks_suspense_thriller

This soundtrack is a good example of the orchestral, building music often used within thriller films to build tension. This piece especially is minor which adds to the eerie sound, as well as building slowly to a crescendo and there is an intentional high pitch, squeaky sound produced by the string instruments which adds drama and an ominous quality to the piece.

Sound Effects

Sound effects are the enhanced / artificial sounds that are created and added to a sequence during the editing process. Typical sound effects include things like the exaggerated sound of a gunshot, a scream, a car horn, tyres screeching and so on. The following links are all examples of sound effects that could be used to enhance a Thriller and create/ build tension. 


http://soundbible.com/1998-Gun-Fire.html

http://soundbible.com/1627-Female-Scream-Horror.html

http://soundbible.com/1707-Hearbeat-2.html

Application

Within our own thriller opening we will be using various elements of the soundtrack to help add to the tense atmosphere of the clip. For example, we have within our thriller the diegetic sound of the actresses heels on the concrete making a clip clop sound which intensifies the scene as he have enhanced this sound to be louder and more dramatic during the editing process, moreover our opening includes non- digetic sound also such as the score of our film which includes slowed down, orchestral music. Lastly, our thriller opening contains the sound effects of a gunshot, dripping tap and the sound of falling rain which is also an ambient, background sound before the intense and suspenseful score takes over. 


Sources: www.yookamusic.com, Wiki, Google, Youtube, soundbible.com

Editing Process 4

Last week as a group we were continuing to edit and decided on this style for the name of the film and as the initial opening shot to introduce our thriller opening as we felt that it set the style of our Hollywood glamour 1940's theme from the offset.

In between making minor changes to the titles we were mainly focused on the soundtrack last week which we have been really struggling to get right. The transition from the up tempo jazz piece as our main character enters to the ominous and intentionally difficult to listen to music as the murder takes place was extremely difficult to get right as an abrupt change from one to the other did not sound quite right, therefore we spent time on garage band attempting to create a new piece that would blend together better.

After spending time on garage band we are far happier with the new piece as there is now not such an abrupt ending and it is a far smoother transition which matches the tone of the piece and adds dramatic effect to our piece.

The screen shot above shows how our titles currently appear on top of a shot, we are pleased with the overall presentation of the titles and researched the correct order that the titles should go in, to further authenticate our thriller opening.

On returning after the Christmas break we intend to re - film some footage to increase the quality of our thriller opening and improve the overall piece as we feel that it is not long enough as some of the footage did not turn out well and therefore by re filming we will be able to add another shot to the sequence.