Q7 Go-Animate

Q7: Go-Animate

Q4 Moovly

Q3 Powtoon

Q3 Powtoon

Q4

Before we began to create our thriller opening titles we had to think of an idea for it, to do this we had to get our target audience which is teenagers aged 15+ up in till 30 years old and we had to work out the kinds of things that they want to see in thrillers and what appeals to them, we had to work out what subgenres they most like whilst watching thriller films. We found out who our target audience were by questionnaire and by a vox pop, we asked people of different ages and of different occupation so that we had a wide range of different answers, we asked people from the age range of our production on wards so that we could get a more specific audience and we had to make sure that we were targeting it at the right age groups by making sure we had some of the things that they asked for in it. To find out our main target audience we sent out a questionnaire to our friends and families, aged between 15-40, we wanted to know what kind of films they watch and what conventions they like to see in a film. I identified that my target audience for my thriller opening titles is people aged 15+ mainly males. To decide what our typical audience members like to see we did a Vox Pop, this is an interview to where we asked a few different people a few questions about thrillers and what they like to see in them. The questions that we asked them were “what is your favourite type of thriller?” “Why do you like thrillers?” and “what is your favourite thriller film?” we chose to ask these three questions as that then gave us an insight into what our audience like and enjoy watching,  from this research I found out that my audience like action and crime thrillers more than any other genre of thriller. That meant that I knew my genre of film but I still had to decide on what I would include in the opening titles. I found out that my audience like thrillers because of the excitement, suspense, mystery and because it gets them on the edge of their seat. This tells me that when I make a thriller opening I need to make it intense and exciting and I need to add some mystery to it. I learnt that it is mostly men that enjoy the action thrillers however some women do also enjoy watching them. The age we chose was 15+ we felt that would be appropriate for our thriller opening as it has action in it and the use of guns and violence would not be appropriate or suitable for younger children, also having a wide audience helps us as it has conventions of most common action thrillers so it doesn’t have a small refined audience, it has a larger mass audience.  

 The magazine ‘Empire’ is a men’s magazine that has different features that can appeal to most men aged 15-40 which is inside of our target audience. It is a magazine that contains brand new stories on the latest films, TV and video games. The average reader of empire is someone who likes to keep up to date with the latest news and enjoys reading and finding more out about their favourite films, games etc. Empire does different editions of their magazine and this is so that they attract a mass audience instead of a niche audience, this will increase their sales and make the business work better. This is an edition with inception as the front cover, this appeals to the thriller audience as they can be interested in the front cover and learn about thriller films that interest them and they will then read the rest of the magazine.

The average person that would watch our thriller opening titles would be very interested in movies and gaming, they would have all the latest technology and they would want to makes sure they bought the latest games and went and watched all the latest films as soon as they could. They would mostly be into one genre of media, they would enjoy action and that is why our thriller would appeal to them as it is a thriller action.  The BBFC age rating that our thriller would have is 15+ BBFC age rating, we felt this would be appropriate as it has guns and violence in it so younger teenagers and children would not understand the violence and it would not be appropriate for them to see that level of violence. The plot also contains mystery and only older teenagers and adults would understand the plot and the language used in it. This largely influenced our choice of target audience as the themes and plot would not suit younger people. As our age rating was 15+ we couldn’t have had our target audience as younger than that so we thought that 15+ would be an effective age for the audience as we knew that this kind of film would appeal to a large audience so we left the target audience age very open to accommodate for all people that would want to watch it. 

Our typical audience member would look like this, they would be a casual gamer and enjoy lots of films, they would be our target audience as they would watch more thriller films than adults, most teenagers enjoy fiction and watching a fiction film can be an escape from reality for them. Teenagers enjoy the thriller action genre as lots of them play video games like call of duty which is a violent war game, this then makes them want to watch more violent films which is why we included guns into our thriller as that attracts young adults to watch the film. As for the socio-economic class and ethnicity it is not really targeted at anyone in particular, it doesn’t contain any racial themes that could offend people. The socio economic class that we have chosen is C1-E. As these are the most common groups within our age range and our target audience. However it doesn’t mean that is the only audience that will watch and enjoy it, that is just the most common audience.

Q6

During the task I have learnt how to do use lots of different editing techniques and I have learnt how to use new things on the mac to try and make my production as good as it can be. We learnt how to use Prezi to make our presentations more professional and make them look better. We learnt how to use padlet and this was an effective and organised way to present our research and our information without making it look boring and not appealing to the audience. Before we started filming we had to make sure that we scouted the location and we had to check that the area we chose was appropriate to film in, had to check it was big enough and that it was safe enough and there were no safety risks. We had to make sure that the area was suitable for the plot and that we could get enough shots of the area.

We learnt that you can’t break the 180 degrees rule, this just means that you can’t film on two sides of a room as it would make it so that things that were on the left side were then on the other side so that it doesn’t confuse the audience and they don’t lose track of what is happening. You have to make sure that you frame a shot correctly and that you make sure the main thing you want the audience to see first is in the middle centre, also you have to make sure that you don’t have anything in the shot that you don’t want the audience to see. We learnt that we needed to include lots of different shots so that it has variation and not just bring being the same shot type with different background. We learnt how to use iMovie to make our production more professional, we learnt how to put clips together and how to make them longer/shorter. We learnt how to use transitions between clips, how to add music and how to put text over the top of clips. We had to use all of these to make sure that our production was better and that it looked more  like a real thriller. We learnt how to add effects to clips and how to make them lighter or darker. We used lots of close ups, mid-shots, high angle and low angle shots. Close ups allowed us to show the characters faces without showing much information about the location that the characters are in. mid-shots let us show the character doing something and it lets us show the location that they are in which reveals to the audience what the character is like and how they act. We used lots of fade to white transitions but we only added them for half a second, this made it clear that it was switching between locations and the different characters, this gives the impact that it could be a flashback that one of the characters is having.

 

We learnt that you have to use the tripod to keep the camera steady and still so the shot doesn’t look like someone is holding it and it doesn’t look like an unprofessional shot, the only time that the camera shot should be moving is if you are doing a pan or If you are having a shot that is meant to be a security camera as then you have to have the camera moving left right/ up or down. You have to make sure that the lighting is correct and that you can see what is happening in the scene without it being too light. Thriller films often set the mood by the lighting, having a shot with lots of light set up the mood to be calm and secure which then gives the audience a false sense of security. Before we went to film we had to make sure that the weather was ok, not raining at the time, unless we wanted that for the mood. Not really windy so that the camera can’t stay still and so it is easier to film. We learnt when we had to use certain shot types and what the most effective shot types are for each scene. Close ups and mid shots are used to show facial features and location. In terms of framing you have to apply the golden mean, you have to make sure that all of the main parts of action are in the middle of the shot so that the audience’s attention is on the main parts first instead of something they don’t want them to see. When we wanted the audience to pay attention to one thing but still have something else in the shot we made sure that the main action was in the centre of the screen. We had to think about framing a shot, we had to make sure that we didn’t include anything in the scene that we didn’t want the audience to see.

 

 

 

 

The first technique that we used is called split clip, this is where you take one clip and you split it into two clips which makes it shorter, also it allows you to add another clip in the middle of it or and effect or image. This allows for a clip to be lengthened  or shortened without losing any of the footage.  

The next technique that we used was changing the exposure, contrast, brightness and saturation. All of these effect the lighting and they can change the mood by adjusting the brightness, they also make it so that it is harder to see the shot as they can make the shot more pixelated so they give the effect that it is not real or that it the audience are looking through a security camera. They can also affect the colouring of the shot as they can add a red tint which symbolises death, blood and evil.

 

The next thing that we had to do was add music into the production which meant that we had to first add pick the music that we wanted to use, we then had to upload it onto iTunes on the mac and then add it into our production  where ever we wanted it.  We used the music to create a background sound so that it wasn’t just pictures moving, music is used to create suspense and can change the mood.

 

Next we had to add effects to the production, the only effect that we used was a fade to white. We added lots of these in between the shots to give the effect that it was a flash of light as we only made the clips 0.1 second long as then it gives it the effect that it is a flashback which is the effect that we are going for.

 

 

Next we had to add in the text and the titles, we did this by adding them into the clip via a picture in picture, this meant that we could add our titles over the top of the images and clips that were already there, the picture in picture effect means that the titles look natural and they don’t cover up all of the action in each shot.

 

 

When we had to pitch our idea we created our pitch on prezi, this gave it a whole new effect and it allowed for more audience interaction as they could clearly see all of the information we were displaying without it just being a PowerPoint presentation. This also gave us an idea of how to use technologies that we can use again. We also used padlet to say what each member of the group’s role is, this allowed us to present all of the information in an exciting way. We got feedback from our audience on Facebook and on YouTube, we posted them on these social networking so that we could get feedback from our audience on their so that we can see and respond to them directly, we also did a vox pop to find out what our audience like in a thriller. We also did a questionnaire to see what our audience wanted us to include in the thriller and how we should lay it out. We then took this advice into our planning and we looked to include some of the ideas that the audience gave us and some of our own ideas.

Q5

Our audience told us that they wanted action and mystery in the thriller, they wanted to be engaged in the action whilst still not knowing everything that is happening and having plot twists that kept them interested. So we had to make sure that we added them into our opening along with some other themes and ideas we thought of ourselves and that we thought our audience would like. From our questionnaires, which we did in the form of a vox pop, we learnt that our audience wanted action and mystery whilst not being too cliché.  

 

A common convention of the action and thriller genre is cars which are used for the soldiers to get to the location and find the man, masks which hide the identity of the soldiers and they make it so that the man and the audience don’t know who they are and guns which are used by the soldiers to attack and kill the wanted man. The shot shows the group of hired men coming into the area where the wanted man is. The all arrive wearing similar clothing which is what the audience wanted, it gives them the impression that the men are professional and know what they are doing. Also the car has blacked out windows which hides the people in the car giving the audience something to think about as they don’t know how many people are inside the car going after the wanted man. Having the two people on the side of the car also tells the audience that the car is full so it gives them a small idea about how many people are coming after the man. Having a lot of people after the man makes the audience wonder what he has done and how bad his crime is. The camera angle we chose was a low angle shot, this means that you can see the entire car and it makes the men on the side of the car look more powerful and it makes them look like they are in control of the situation. Having the men look more powerful gives the impression that there are more of them and that the wanted man is outnumbered, this is common in the action thriller genre and it is what our audience wanted us to include.  The ligting is fairly lit as there is a light directly on the front of the car so it gives the effect that the car is bright and like a becaon for the men. The men on the side and in the car however are dark as they arent meant to be seen and it lets the audience know that they are evil and villains. The setting shows that they are in some kind of construction yard and it is quite protected as you can see a gate in the background of this shot.

 

The soldier has a small gun and he is wearing dark clothing, black coloured clothing symbolises evil and death. He looks like a professional killer as of the way that he moves and with the hand gestures that he uses, it makes the audience think that the soldiers know what they are doing and that they can do their job well. The lighting focuses on the soldier and the objects around him are dark compared to him. The location is by some bags or blocks of concrete, this shows that the location of the man is a construction yard. This is a common location of thrillers and gun fights as there are a lot of places in the yard that can be used to hide behind and fight from. The clothes that he is wearing symbolise a villain as is wearing dark colours which shows the evil and darkness of the character and of his intentions.  The lighting is dark but there is a light shining on the man which shows that he is the subject of the shot and it makes it easier for the audience to identify what he is wearing.

 

 

In this shot it shows a silhouette of two of the soldiers that are searching for the man, the shot is from inside of the hut looking through a window, you can see the lights and the outline of some of the guns, this shot shows that the men are still searching and they are looking everywhere for the wanted man. The audience wanted us to add mystery into the plot of the film so we did that in this shot. We framed the shot by making sure that light was in the centre and not too high and not too low. Because the light was in the middle of the shot it is the first thing that you see when the shot comes on. It is a mid-shot of the doors on the hut and it shows the lights on the guns. This shows the audience that the men are well trained as they have good equipment and they search everything so they are well trained, however the question of what the wanted man has done will still be in the audiences minds. The lighting is dark apart from the big floodlight coming through on the left of the shot and the flash light in the middle of the shot. The lighting suggests that someone is searching the building without going into it, they are shining the light into it to see if they can see the man inside of the building. The location of this shot is by a shed, the camera is in the shed and the men are on the outside.

 

This shot is a close up of a gun. Guns are a common convention of the action and thriller genre, they are often used and they symbolise action and violence which is common for thrillers and action films. For the framing of this shot we decide that the best place for the gun was in the very middle of the shot so that it is the first thing that you see and it’s the thing that the audience focus on the most. The audience wanted us to make sure we had some common conventions of the genre to make sure that it was recognisable and that they had definite something to look at and enjoy. They also told us to add our own things into it and make it original. So we have used a mix of common items and non-common items.  We made sure that you can only see the gun in this shot because it shows that that is the focus of the shot and it makes you think about what the man who has the gun will do next or to the other characters that you can see in the previous shots. This shot is very light as this shot doesn’t contain any characters it is just a close up of the gun, however it is very light as it is focused on the gun and it shows that this gun is the hero’s as it is inside in the light whereas the villains are outside and are in the dark. The lighting symbolises the different sides of the characters and the roles that they play in the story.

This shot is similar to the previous shot however this time the gun is being loaded by the wanted man, this symbolises that he will soon have to use it. This shows the audience that a gun fight will happen in the film somewhere, it symbolises that the man is ready to fight the men that are coming to get him. It still keeps the question in the audience minds wondering what the man has done, however it helps them to have a guess as they know it must be something bad as he has to fight them off, it makes them think that he has probably killed someone. For the framing of the shot we decided to frame it in the centre of the shot again because that is the first thing that the audience see so then they get to see what we wanted them to which keeps them engaged in the action. Our audience asked us to include some action into it as it keeps them on the edge of their seats wanting to know what will happen next. We only made sure that you could see the gun and the bullets so that you know exactly what is going on and you only have to focus on one thing. We also included an element of mystery into the opening so that the audience are more likely to want to watch it as that is what they asked for. This is another close up of the gun and again it shows that the gun is in possession of a hero as it is light throughout the shot and the gun is lit up which shows it is the main focus of the shot. Once again the lighting symbolises what side the character that has the gun is on.

This shot is a close up of one of the men that is coming after the wanted man. He displays the common clothing and features of a bad guy in action thriller films. The bad guys always seem to wear dark clothing and masks to hide their appearance and to make sure that people don’t know who they are. Our audience told us that they wanted to see villains that you don’t get to see till the end of the film, we added this into four characters by hiding the identity of the bad guys its adds the element of mystery that audience asked for. We framed it so that the soldier was in the middle of the shot and it is a close up so you can only see the front man and you can’t see the other men coming from behind him. The lighting is quite dark however the main lighting focus is around the character which gives the impression that the light goes around him and he is the main villain. The lighting around the character is very light and this shows that the location of the hero hiding spot has been lit up by his era of good. The costume that the character wears is a balaclava, a jumper and a vest, this is typical of a soldier and a villain as he is prepared for battle but he is also hiding his identity. He is wearing the clothing that symbolises he is a villain, he is wearing all dark clothing and he is staring into the camera with an evil look in his eye. The setting is in a construction yard, we picked this location as if a man was running away from being chased he could go into a construction yard to hide easier. We took the scene from the film Skyfall as our inspiration, in the opening scene of this film James bond chases his target into a construction yard, and we chose to have the wanted man hide in a construction yard so that it was similar to Skyfall but no completely copying it.

This shot is a close up of one of the soldiers running through a puddle, it shows that the weather has been raining and this symbolises that having bad weather means that a bad event will occur, this gives the audience the impression that the man, or one of the soldiers will die. The lighting can affect the mood of the scene and in this shot the lighting is dark to show the splash of the foot in the puddle and to show the flood lights shining into the puddle. As the man runs through the puddle quickly you can see that his is in a hurry to get somewhere which could mean that he has spotted his target and is chasing him. The soldier is wearing boots which is the conventional footwear for soldiers as it shows that they are ready for any situation and they are ready for any ground and weather conditions.  In the questionnaires the audience wanted us to add different angle shots and unusual shots, so we decided to do a side angle close up of the soldier running through the puddle as that isn’t a standard shot in thriller films. You can’t see the location from this shot however the audience are to presume that it is the same location as you can see a little bit of the ground around the puddle which suggests that the location has not changed.      

Q3

Our production company is called Burton Production, we chose this as our production company as they are a small company that produce new and exciting films at a low budget. This is our logo.  We did this as it symbolises and represents us capturing the world, shows that we can do anything to get the best shots and best productions for our audience.  The main inspiration for our logo was universal pictures, as we made our logo very similar to theirs as we also used the universe however we changed the rest of the image and the location of the name of the company.
 

 

Our logo is a just a plain camera however the unique feature is that in the lens of the camera is the world along with the writing with says Burton productions. The black of the camera is to contrast with the other colours of the world, it gives a background to the rest of the colours. It gives the audience something to look at as it doesn’t have too many colours in it or too much going on, it is simple yet effective so that our audience will remember it without it being too bold and in their faces.

 

A production company helps to make a film, it helps with funding, scheduling, casting, scripting etc. it helps to look after the making of the film from when it is just an initial idea to when it is finished, they help with everything and without a production company a film couldn’t be made. They have to find a director and most of the actors needed for the main characters. They are also responsible for anything that goes wrong during the filming, whether that is that an actor gets injured or property gets damaged.

 

The distributor that we have chosen to use is Eon productions. We chose to use this as our distributor as they are based in the UK which is where the filming took place and where it is all based. Having the distributors in the UK meant that it was easy for us to communicate with them and not having a time difference meant that it was easier as well. Arranging meetings was easier as well as it was easy to talk to the distributer and easy to sort out a time and date and make sure that everyone that needs to turn up can get there.  They are a good and well known distributor as they made the various bond films and they have a very good reputation for producing famous thriller films. They have a new budget to spend on producing thriller films. Eon productions have been responsible for a number of successful and well known films including the James bond series of films. They were founded in 1961 by Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. Eon productions have been behind all 24 of the bond films and linked in with that they are also responsible for the name of some of the video games that are linked to James bond. All of the James bond films that they have produced have been very successful which has been why they have produced so many. We chose them and we thought they would be a very good production company to use because the James bond films are of a similar genre to our thriller, also they are a well know distributor so then a large audience could see and watch our film.

 

Most of the funding would have come from the production company but also from the personal savings of the people behind the idea from the film, they could also find funding from other sources. Investors and stakeholders also provide funding as they put money towards the movie and they get back a percentage of the profits that the film makes.

 

We wanted the make sure that we named everyone in the titles in a conventional order and in an order that reflected their importance in the making, producing, or character role in the film. We had to include the companies involved with the film first as they had the most importance. Then we had to include the director as he has the main influence in the making of the film. Then we included the actors in order of their importance in the film and how influential their role is in the plot of the film. We used the names being put in the titles as an opportunity to show that character or person, however this only applied to the actors so we made sure that the first time the character was shown was the time when the actors name appeared so that the audience can put a name to a face.

 

 

Sam thistlewood was our cinematographer, our co-editor and our typography editor. We chose Sam for these roles as he has a steady hand and he knows how to use a camera well so he was appointed as cinematographer. Sam also has a basic understanding of editing so he will help out with any editing. He knows how to use cinema 4D which he will use to add the typography after the edit.

Sam Hargrave was our producer, editor and sound engineer. He was chosen for these roles as he is a good leader and is very well organised so he would make a good producer. Sam has a very good understanding of editing therefore he is our editor. He also knows a bit about sound and working with it whilst editing so he will be in charge of all of the sound.

Tom Branch was our casting director, mise-en-scene director and costume designer. Tom was picked for the role of casting director as he knows what he wants people to do. Tom has a good understanding of how props should be arranged in the shot and he knows what props we need so he is the mise-en- scene director. He is also the costume designer because he knows what people should be wearing in the scenes.

Glen Burton was our director, script writer and lighting director. He was picked for these roles as he has a very good vision of how he wants this production to turn out so we appointed him as the director. He is also the script writer for the same reasons. Glen is the lighting director because he knows how the lighting affects the mood of the scene.

 

 

Our film is very similar to the walking dead, lone survivor, the Bourne series and taken. All of these films were high profile and were greatly advertised before their release. The producers had to make sure that they would get the amount of sales that they wanted to get a good amount of profit and so that they get back at least what they spent on producing and making the film. We had to make sure that we got the right publicity to do this we had to look at what the real distribution companies do and how they make sure their films are out there for the public to see.  The most common film distributors in the UK are lions gate, Colombian pictures, 20^th century fox, Paramount Pictures, universal pictures.

 

The plot of our opening scenes is that the man that is hiding in the construction yard is on the run from a group of soldiers that have been hired by an agency to hunt and kill the man, in the opening titles we don’t learn any of the characters names. The soldiers arrive via a car, they then all get out the vehicle and they begin to search the area whilst the wanted man hears them and begins to pack up all of his stuff. As the soldiers have searched everywhere but the building that the man is in they breach into the room and find that the man has already left and they were too late, you then see the man running away into the dark, this is where the titles end and the film itself begins to start.   

 

The opening titles from the walking dead are very similar to ours and from there’s is where we got most of our inspiration, they use the same as us and they show different scenes for a few seconds so that the audience can see a building, item  or place that will be featured in that season of the show. Showing small glimpses of the show makes the audience intrigued because they want to see more of the show to see how each location and each item links in with the rest of the programme. We also got the idea to put the names of the actors, director, producers etc. in the titles as this is what the walking dead do.