Thriller so far and feedback

From screening our opening sequence to the class, we have gathered a selection of improvements for our thriller, including the length, the opening sequence needs to be at least 1 min 45 seconds. Our group were also informed that our sequence looks more like a trailer than an opening scene of a thriller, so the advice we were given was to look at the film "seven" and use similar music as well as decreasing the speed of the beginning to make the cuts slower. The sound in the beginning is too loud/happy and needs to be more ominous.

We got told to also add in more credits at the beginning. To get inspiration of what a low budget film company would have at the beginning of a film we look at 'This Is England'. We took screen grabs of the types of credits featured...

The difference between a low budget and high budget film is that high budget films have credits from bigger companies e.g Universal. This screen grab is from American Gangster.

What am i going to change?
Make it longer
Made the beginning slower
Change the music at the beginning so it's slower and not as happy.
Add more credits

We got told to make it look more like the Seven trailer in the way that we should use more slow shots. The extreme close up shots slotted between other types of shots create suspense and builds up tension. It also doesn't give away too much of the film. The slow pace creates the perfect thriller atmosphere.

Video Effects

How we chose them?
We thought it would be effective to show that there is some CCTV in the area that he has chosen to take the girl as firstly it links with the mise- en- scene of the CCTV sign on the gates she walks past, secondly it is effective as it shows that he hasn't thought through completely his plan but after this there will be no trace of her as he is going to eat her.

We also put effects on bits of her in the house whilst she is being kept hostage. We used a flashing or a zoom and flash effect to create a more interesting scene.

Why we chose them?
We chose the ones we did because they highlight what he is looking at and what he wants to eat. They work well with the voice over as well.

How it changed our work?
Without them, our work would be bland, it adds a thrill and excitement to our opening sequence and makes it 100 times better.

Sound Effects

On the 16th and 17th Feb we started to edit our opening sequence. We added in sound effects to create suspense, tension and emphasis on thrilling our audience.

How we chose them?
As we muted all our clips we put traffic and bird noises in to make it seem like it was normal and realistic.
We also put in the car door opening and closing to show the man getting out without actually seeing it.

Why we chose them?
We chose the ones we did because they sounded the most realistic and were the ones sounds we wanted.

How it changed our work?
Without the sound effects our work wouldn't be scary, it would have no sound and probably wouldn't make sense. They enhanced our work and made it much better.

This is a screen video of us choosing our sound effects and putting them on the timeline.
 

Making Sound Effects

Becca and I set up the recorder and made noises by chopping food, cutting food using a knife and fork and grinding salt to make some sound effects to show what he will be doing to the girl. We think they made the idea link with the sound effects to create an interesting composition.

Account of Shoot Day

2:00pm-set up cameras and all equipment including costume too. 2:15pm- moved locations to filming set and started filming the first scenes of the thriller "Caldecote road" and "Elstree Road" were the two locations. 4:30pm-prepared special effects and applied makeup in preparation for the gory scenes 5:00pm-moved locations to "Dani's House" (wooden/shed/child looking house) and filmed the gory and gruesome shots there.

Change of Actor

Our actor that we were using got ill on the day on the second shoot so we had to quickly find a replacement which explains why Dylan isn't dressed exactly how we wanted him to be but we embraced it and were thankful he could do it. We used black gloves and a balaclava as props for him to cover up his identity and therefore hides the fact that he was young and unlikely to be a killer. We thought he looked the role and acted very well.

The Devouring Poster

This is a poster made using photo shop. We used he photo from the shoot of Rachel with her wounds and layered it with the title to create this interesting composition.

Practice Editing

I was trying out Final Cut Pro, potential sound effects and seeing if we had the right clips that we needed to make it look consistent. I found this activity very fun and enjoyable and can't wait to start editing my real opening sequence with my group.