Evaluation Question 7

- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In reflecting on my progression from the preliminary task to my thriller opening, I can see that my skills have developed and that I've matured as a media student in that time.
The preliminary task opened with an establishing shot of Elliot and I. This shows that there's a distance between us and symbolises that an exchange of something is about to happen. It sets the characters apart and allows for the audience to differentiate the characters. 

This shot shows Elliot's character opening the briefcase. It was poorly directed as his arm is positioned in front of his face. This restricts how much of his expression can be seen by the camera. This was poor because his reaction to what is in the briefcase is a vital part of our prelim task. 
However, we thought our use of props was adequate as we used the briefcase and the light wand to create a Pulp Fiction style scenario. Elliot also introduced his glasses as a prop which added to the humour of the task.


The costumes were unsuccessfully planned also. I was wearing my normal college clothes, as was Elliot and Vickey which made the piece seem unprofessional and sloppy. Although we had planned for all of our costumes to be black as to fit in with the narrative and to create verisimilitude. 
Another poor point of our prelim was that the acting was quite awful. In this screen cap you can see Elliot smirking which indicates his lack of acting skills.
However, this was expected in our prelim as it took a long time to shoot and we had so little time to prepare effectively for it. 

There's an evident continuity error made during this part of our prelim. In the first screen cap, Elliot picks up his phone to ring Chloe's character. In the second shot he is seen in a completely different room which doesn't work to make the piece seem fluent.  It looks sloppy and messy which is why I think I've come so far during this project. 
The editing in the prelim was choppy and showed evidence of a lack of effort and care which added to the general messy look of the video. We used the sound effect of a gun as Vickey shoots Elliot to add dramatic effect to his sudden death. 

For Thirteen, we used an establishing shot also, however this time it was much more controlled and both characters were in costume. 
The shot sets them apart but also signifies that they have some sort of relationship as they both seem comfortable in their environment. 
The props being used are the books on the shelf and the pen and notebook that Elliot uses to make notes about Jasper's health and state in general. 
The use of the books makes the location seem a little more like a therapy room, however the television, radiator and ornaments hanging around almost cancel out our use of props as they do not make the room look as it should. 

To differ from the preliminary task, we used outside shots which helped create a much more realistic sense of things. Having Jasper sat across the pond thinking about what she's done makes the audience question her sanity and her motive at that moment in time. 
Having the branches cut in front of the camera almost makes it seem as though it's a POV shot and that someone is watching her. 
The diegetic sound of the wind and the leaves rustling gives a more atmospheric sense to the piece and creates mystery.
We used shot reverse shot between Benjamin and Jasper to show each side of the conversation. That way, the audience is able to see the way each character is expressing each part of their dialogue. This was a feature that wasn't used in the preliminary. 

The use of split screen didn't really work as we intended. However, the true intention was to demonstrate Jasper's anxiousness and also to represent how hastily Benjamin was making notes. His hastiness is reflecting his apparent concern for the situation and how he thinks that what she's talking about is of great importance and bares relevance to the reason that Jasper goes to see a therapist. This use of split screen was not as good as the use of split screen in the prelim, however it was still important to the narrative.

 We used different angles in the argument scene between Collette and Jasper to ensure that the audience could see different aspects of it.
The mid shot to the right is further away, creating a sense of distance. 

The high angle shot to the left foreshadows the event that is to follow. It looks down on Jasper's hand movements which appear angry and shows her want to push her mother. 
The next show shows Jasper's mother on the floor, dead. The high angle shot acts as Jasper's point of view, looking down on her dead mother's body. Showing the audience exactly what happened to make Jasper so uneasy and in need of therapy. This is dramatic irony as the audience then understands, but Benjamin does not. 

In general, I feel my skills as a director, editor and a media student in general have progressed largely and I hope that this is evident through my work.

Evaluation Question 6

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

Evaluation Question 5

- How did you attract/address your audience?
We initially conducted some audience research before we created our product which enabled us to see what the audience wanted to see in our thriller.  However, only six people answered our questionnaire which means that there wasn't a wide range of data available for us to analyse. 
Although, from our six responses, we found that 50% of the audience wanted to see a female protagonist, which is what we provided.  By asking the audience which gender they'd like the protagonist to be, it gave us a better insight as to what they want and we planned our product accordingly.
We found that 66.7% of our responses were from males which indicates that they'd also like to see a female protagonist. This seems diverse and is unconventional of a typical thriller, however we are happy to break some of the conventions to allow for audience pleasures.  

In attempting to attract an audience, we used props, location and music to try and encourage the target audience to be interested in our thriller opening. 
The props we used helped to create verisimilitude, , the notebook that Benjamin was using to make notes on Jasper's state was key in making that scene as realistic as possible as it is typical of a therapist to take notes on their patient's wellbeing.
The production logo also helped to entice our audience as it uses the peach emoji which is universally recognised by people that have an iPhone or have seen it displayed on social media, it typically has connotations that perhaps are crude. Despite this, Joelle and I used the emoji because it is symbolic to us as friends and demonstrates meaning in our friendship. 

Another way in which we tried to attract our audience is through the sound in the first 20 seconds of our opening. There's three loud symbol sounds which are intriguing and though provoking. The dialogue of Benjamin shouting 'Jasper' is loud and grabs the audience's attention over the black screen and titles.

We did a screening in-class with our peers to help get feedback on our product. The questionnaire consisted of ten questions in which Joelle and I attemtped to attain as much feedback for improvment as possible. Below is an image of the questionnaire that I created for our peers.

The overall response to the first question was positive and all that answered the questionnaire said that they enjoyed and the music seemed to be a factor that was most enjoyable.
This general response is one that I'm happy to hear as we worked hard for the outcome and wanted it to be enjoyable. 

For question two, the audience expressed that they felt the editing and music really helped to add suspense to the opening, this was important for us as a very important convention of thrillers is that that they contain suspense. The music was a key factor for us in the editing process. We looked for the right piece of music for a long time and once we got it right, we knew that it would work in creating a build up to the end of our sequence. 
We also found that as we were editing, the pace building up to the ending was key in creating suspense, therefore we made the editing quite fast and interchanging between different scenarios occuring. 

Question three asked the audience whether or not our product held typical conventions of a thriller, from the responses that I collected, all of them said that it did and that they were used well. One peer said that 'it didn't become a trailer/horror' which was a vital part of our thought process. We tried as hard as we could to try to make sure that there were no horror aspects involved and that it didn't feel as though it was a trailer. 

In question four, our peers generally said that the costumes were fitting of the characters and helped to portray their roles. However, a class mate did say that the costume of Benjamin was too formal and that the actor was too young, but that it wasn't a problem for viewing.
With the costume of Benjamin, we tried to go for a more formal yet laid-back look as he is supposed to be young, not as young as the actor. The costume he wears is a black suit-jacket, an open collared white shirt (we thought open collar was less formal than done up with a tie), black trousers and formal black shoes. We thought this was suitable for a therapist as when typed into Google, each image is of a formal dressed person.

Question five questioned our use of location. The general feedback for this question was that we could've used more props to create a more realistic therapy room. It may not be noticeable but we placed books all along the chest of drawers along the back of the room to try and make the space as much like a therapy room as possible. Ideally, we would've filmed in a library or a real therapy room, however we did not have enough time to try and sort this out. Therefore, we ended up filming in Joelle's Summerhouse. With more time, we could've moved the television and ornaments to make it seem more like a therapy room.

Question six aims to focus in more on the sound for our product. Our peers said that the music created suspense throughout and the build up of events matched the sound. Another peer said that they liked the way we transitioned from dialogue, to silence, to music in the beginning. This was a conscious decision we made so that the product would be cylical with the sound at the beginning and end.

In regards to question seven, one peer said that they weren't fond of the fades, however the straight cuts seemed seamless. 
Another said that they thought the editing was fluent, another said that there wasn't anything obvious to improve about the editing. 
The fades were used to introduce particular parts of our product. The straight cuts were throughout to try and maintain a good quality of editing. 

Question eight asked the audience whether they thought we need any more different angled shots in our piece, they said that they would have like to have seen more high and low angle shots to create representations of the characters. After filming, Joelle and I realised that we definitely could've incorporated a wider variety of angles to get a higher grade. However, with the angles and shots we used, I think we managed to sustain a good quality of filming.