Thriller Development #14: Retakes and Editing no. 2

Bus Scene - Retake

The Bus scene has been successfully filmed but we will need to cut a lot of different footage to make it valid.

The scene when shown in the thriller will start with a side shot of the bus pulling up, then go to a far angle shot showing the front of the bus. It will then return back to the side shot as the bus pulls away showing the antagonist on the other side of the road.

Unlike before, we have positioned the antagonist in front of the house opposite because it has dark colours and the white mask will stand out against the background. This was the problem with the previous footage despite it being recorded over by accident.

Issues: The weather delayed filming as it decided to forecast floods in practically  every part of the UK, but Wednesday (28th) was reasonably dry and filming went well with no errors like the last few attempts.

Editing - Wednesday session: Final Cut Express

In the double lesson we added effects to certain transitions between shots to make it flow better. Also adjusted the contrast and light level on two shots because when filming it got dark really quickly and there is a slight light intensity difference, but you can't really notice it when you don't look for it. The effects added have made it look like it leads on from one another and not taken at different times in the day. The main transition effect we used was Addition Dissolve.  

We moved the music of the hand hitting the window together and plan to mute the audio below at that point, but the cutting tool went missing so we are going to do that quick adjustments next lesson. Also next lesson we will add in the bus scene finally, so then we have a completed thriller opening.  

We added in the titles and put in a effect so it jumps up on the screen and then gently fades out into black at the music ends. It has become quite effective when the hand hits the glass hard and then the titles suddenly appear.

 

Final Copy: The red is darker then previous and the background is black

We had a abrupt discussion which lasted a good twenty minutes concerning the dialogue, as we had different ideas. With the music and the memento, the music was to flow with the footage their was a debate on whether to use the dialogue or not. Abigail said it would look naff and not go well with the thriller and their was no point in recording it, where as Becky and myself said to record it anyway. We said this because even if we don't use it, it would be a good idea on to know how it sounds like and then we can put in a detailed analysis on why it didn't work and their is always a slim chance the dialogue will fit in with it. If not we can work around it.  

Thriller Development #13: Editing

On Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd we started to edit.

Thursday

Miss Webb took us through the basics of how to use final cut express and how to set up a project. All our footage but the bus scene was imported. We named each scene and either labelled them with number or put ignore if it wasn't very good.

For example:
Telephone Box 1, Telephone Box 2, Telephone Box ignore, Telephone Box 3

Friday

On Friday we continued to edit. Because Abigail and myself did the majority of the filming and Becky hadn't made much of a practical input she didn't most the editing on the Mac Pro with our and Sophie's guidance.

By the end of the lesson we had ordered our footage and cut it where it was appropriate. To cut out unwanted footage (Length, camera shake, noise etc). When we ordered our footage into where we wanted it to go, we imported the music soundtrack we had chosen, which was Beethoven's Moonlight Symphony (Copyright free). 

The music and the shots transitioned well. We considered editing the music so when the scene with the bloody hand hits the window it will be in time with the beat of the symphony near the end. We all agreed that we will see once the bus scene is complete.

Bus scene problems - Heavy downpours in the mornings have stopped us from filming. It has become a problem for the last couple of days. Aiming to have it filmed by the end of this week (30th November).

We saved our current editing and are happy with what we have done so far. All that is left to do it import the bus scene and add in effects to each shot to make is flow smoothly. With each scene we have used different types of shots such as, Extreme close up, head shot, panning, full body shot and long shot.


We also still need to plan and work out how we are to present our titles.(Currently liking this one the most and are considering in using)

Thriller Development #12: Re-Take Schedule

Abigail on the day of filming on the Saturday planned out extra scenes to film so then our thriller would have continuity, instead of cutting to different aspects of the day. This was because she thought it would flow better, and I agreed. We tried other shots like a extreme close up on her feet as she left the house and filmed extra walking scenes without the antagonist. We re-filmed the blood scene and made the antagonist look taller, it didn't take as long as before but we went over it a few times just to be sure. 

Bus Stop scene, caused some problems when filming. The first one got accidentally recorded over the first shot and on the second attempt the angle was wonky due to the tripod stand being slanted. 

Bus Schedule is exactly the same for Thursday 22nd for another attempt at retaking the scene.

Tuesday and Wednesday wasn't appropriate due to bad weather.

Thriller Development #11: Thriller Comparison

Our thriller idea was influenced by a variety of psychological thrillers. We very much liked the idea of a central protagonist who is unconventional. As suggested by our title ("Hysteria") the underlying theme of the film is the mental health of the protagonist, and in our opening sequence we have the protagonist speaking to a psychoanalyst, to re-affirm this idea of the central character's mental fragility. Many psychological thrillers employ the technique of creating a character who is presented as the protagonist, but is deeply flawed. In our film, the protagonists main flaw is her carrying out a sinister deed under the orders of the antagonist.

From our research into audiences expectations regarding thrillers, we found that many appreciated a twist in the plot, to keep the audience guessing as to the outcome of the film.

The idea behind this was that at the end of our "film", it would be revealed that the protagonist had simply endured a vivid hallucination, and the antagonist had been a figment of her imagination. This sort of twist was employed in films such as "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others", where the central characters are not as they appear.

My Addition:

We could not relate the exact relationship of the antagonist and the protagonist in our thriller to any other existing thrillers. The protagonist is mutual to the antagonist and doesn't display any emotion or feelings towards eachother. Unlike in conventional thrillers where the plot line is similar to ours the protagonist would express fear towards the antagonist and the protagonist would try and make contact almost straight away with the protagonist.

One weak example is "The Shining", where the father starts seeing things in the house and gets influenced to be violent towards his family. He can't tell if the illusions he see are actual illusions and his mind is plagued or if they are really there. So the antagonist is the illusions, but instead of putting any influences onto the protagonist the antagonist does nothing, just stares.  




Fact File

Sixth Sense:

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Producer(s): Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Barry Mendel 
Running Time: 107 minutes
Country: US
Budget: $40 Million
Box Office: 672,806,292


The Others:

Director: Alejanro Amenabar

Producer(s): Fernando Bovaira, Jose Luis Cuerda, Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner 

Running Time: 104 minutes

Country: US, Spain, France, Italy

Budget: $17 million 

Box Office: $218,947,037

The Shinning:

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Producer(s): Stanley Kubrick

Running Time: 114 minutes (US cut) 

Country: US

Budget: $19 million 

Box Office: $44,017,374

Thriller Development #10: Soundtrack

Taken from Sophie's Blog: 

Beccy and I have been given the task on researching and possible find music.
Deciding on a thriller song will be hard, manly because of two reasons : the expectations of what a thriller should be the second will be try to find music that will fit the editing or trying to fit the editing around the music.

Copy right laws also make it hard for us to find music with out paying royalties.

Music ideas we have are;

• Beethoven Moonlight Sonata Movement 1.
• The rite of spring - stravinsky
• Horror film music - scary halloween piano music- isisip original instrumental music - myth
• Frosty moon by shingetsutan tsukihime

There is another piece which would be very good to use however, we can not do this because of copy-write laws. The piece is Frosty moon by shingetsutan tsukihime. We also had this trouble with the song "Myth". However we can do Beethoven and Stravinsky.

At the moment it is had to choose a music piece to go with our film. It will be much easier to do the editing and then pick one of the pieces to use.

This piece is subtle and creepy, the only trouble with this piece is that it is played by an orchestra. Many people dislike the this music and the music is very key to the opening f the film there for if people don't like the music they won't like the film. If we had of made the film in the 50's i think this piece would be perfect however with the range of music genres now out there i think it will be tricky to get this pice to work however having sad that if this piece does work it will be very effective.

This piece is very effective to the audience. This piece makes you think like a good thriller film, it also makes you feel like you are in a dream, a world with no truth. There is also crescendo build ups in this piece. this piece has a mixture of note values this helps to give you the idea that you don't know what to expect next. There are 3 different parts to this piece, the structure goes A B A C A. The good thing about this piece is that it will appeal to the audience meaning. Many people turn their noises up at classical and orchestral pieces, this piece uses a piano so it does not have the classical/ orchestra sound. Though classical pieces are ones which we should use because of copy write laws tis does not men we should se them as this can sometimes reduce our audience market. Often the structure of classical songs reflect a story for example Raindrop prelude by Chopin is a story of a storm, the structure of it is a ternary structure ( A B A). this piece starts of calmly( A) then builds up to the storm (B) and then quietens down again (A). This piece comes from a collection of 3. This is the 1st movement of them, called Adagio Sostenuto. The third piece of this movement is too fast Ferocious. The second movement is too short. The 1st movement  is based on an accompanying motif in triplet rhythm that, together with a accented notes motif, creates the impression of a grave, meditative state of mind. The composer adds the following direction at the beginning of the first part: „ Si deve suonare tutto pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordino” which means that the performer should play the part with great delicacy and without dampers. Moonlight sonata is the 2nd movement out of 4 movements. This Movement is the best known. 

This Piece i think will be very effective for thriller music. This piece i feel had the effect to make you more sad then scared or tense. This piece, however is not very long lasting, only 1.56 minutes. We cannot use this unfortunately because of copy write law.

This piece is really good as it is more recent using developed instruments like the synth to create tension. I think however for the thriller we are doing to tempo is too slow. This might be good for a horror but not for our thriller.

This is a collection or already used thriller ad horror theme track, this helped us in deciding which songs to pick as it gave us a greater understanding of what is needed.

My Comment:

I had not as much input on the music but when they found one they liked I gave my opinion. Sophie said she would like to edit and muck around with the music (Since she is taking music tech) and she knows more about music than I do. Beethoven Moonlight Sonata Movement 1 & The rite of spring by Stravinsky are the two songs we are looking at because they aren't copy righted and depending on how much time we have we may or may not edit it but try and fit our filming in with the soundtrack. We like these two because they are eerie and sets the right tone and atmosphere we want to achieve in our opening. These two tracks fit what we want well into producing a physiological thriller.

The music could be compared to Hitchcock thriller films, but we are trying not to make it as aggressive and upbeat like in "North by NorthWest". We are following his style of using classical music but at a lower/slower tempo.    

Thriller Development #9: Original Storyboard and Retakes

From the first schedule we ended up merging the walking and dog walking scene together. This is because it was raining and we thought at the time it would be enough. We didn't shoot the bus pulling away scene because we only had one camera and it would have been difficult to film it on the bus with all the other passengers, we also felt that it was not needed. We got the antagonist to put their hands on the door. When filming we found it difficult to write "Hysteria" in blood and it didn't look very effective, so we changed it so the antagonist bangs their bloody hand on the window when the protagonist opens the curtain downstairs. Also while filming we decided a head shot would be better than a extreme close up for the therapist at the beginning. 

Retakes 

We had to redo the bus scene because of technical problems and was recorded over, but only a segment was saved. (Was retook on Wednesday 7th November and is due for another retake Thursday 15th) 

We are to redo the dog walking scene because we didn't like how the antagonist followed the protagonist when in all the other shots they just stand and stare. 

We plan to add in another walking scene when it starts to get dark. Abigail wanted to do it, as we had time as we had asked for an extension of time with the cameras. We plan to film near a lamppost which will give it a eerie feel. 

To re-film: Sunday 11th November - Afternoon. 

                  Saturday/Sunday - 17th - 18th 

People Present: Myself and Abigail will be filming the retakes on Sunday because Becky and Sophie are busy. Sophie - Working all day Becky - In Derby

   

Thriller Development #8: Opening Titles & Soundtrack

Date: Thursday 8th November

Sound track

We as a group have started to look at different sound tracks to get an idea of what will work along with our film. So far, we have chosen the sad, dark, eerie genre of music to set the tone of the colourless, dull atmosphere we want to achieve. After researching on youtube a piano style is what we like the idea of Beethoven's moonlight symphony 5. We are still undecided on what music soundtrack to use, but once we have the filming all complete we will be able to capture it onto a Mac and see what fits best with our opening.

Opening titles work 


We have already agreed on the name 'Hysteria' and have started to think about possible font types which we can adapt. Our aim for the font is to make it look like a blood splatter and the titles is made from the blood.

We started messing around with Cooltext.com to get an idea of what we could have.

 1) Black - Dark. This font is hostile and looks like the writer is isolated and alone. The wobbled effect of the letters suggest instability and madness (instability of the mind).    

2) Red - Blood. The crazy scratching of the letters hints the Thriller will be psychological. Its an aggressive font which suggests what the story line could be about without giving away too much information. The font style is more horror then thriller. It is similar to "Seance".

   

Thriller Survey: Responses

Primary

Thriller Survey Link:

Do Survey here!
Forum that it has been posted on...

http://www.city-data.com/forum/search.php?searchid=357539


Responses (Quantitative)

1) Male or Female?

Male - 5
Female - 6

2) Favourite genre?

Thriller - 3
Action - 2
Comedy - 3
Fantasy - 2
Romance - 0
Musical - 0
Horror - 0
Other - 1

6) Which elements make a good thriller?

Both male and female characters - 1
Suspense - 8
Plot Twist - 7
Action sequences - 2
Other - 1 ("All of the above")

7) Rank the following thrillers in order of preference. (1 = Favourite, 7 = Least Favourite)

Average Rating:
Shutter Island - 1 and 3
Psycho - 1 & 2
Pulp Fiction - 1 & 4
Taken - 5
Leon - 6
Alien - 4
North By Northwest - 7

8) Which of the following thriller directors do you consider you favourite?

Alfred Hitchcock - 3
Roman Polanski - 0
David Fincher - 0
Quentin Tarantino - 2
Christopher Nolan - 2
Martin Scorsese - 0
Steven Spielberg - 4
Other - 0

9) How often do you watch Thriller Films at the cinema?

Never - 3
Occasionally - 8
Often - 0

Responses (Qualitative)

3) What is it about that genre that you like? (if you selected "other" please specify the genre you have in mind)

When asked this question people said features such as 'plot twists', 'mystery', 'magic' and 'the killing'. A few said they like thrillers because they 'holds [your] attention more than the others' and 'keeps you interested throughout the film'. 

4) Do you enjoy thriller films? If so, what is your favourite thriller film?

Two people said their favourite thriller was 'Pulp Fiction'. Others said 'Sixth Sense', 'Ghost', 'The Hills have Eyes', 'Any James Bond/Oceans/Italian Job/Cape Fear/Jaws/Shutter'. 

5) What don't you like about Thriller Films?

When this was asked the frequent answer was 'being too scary', followed by 'too violent' and 'too much gore'. From these responses we can conclude that people don't like thrillers that contain too many elements of a horror film.  


10) What was the last thriller film you saw at the cinema?

When asked, the majority of people named recent releases - such as Taken 2, Hanna, The Village, and Shutter Island. This suggests that the people who took our survey might be frequent cinema goers, and keep up to date with the latest releases. The fact that Taken 2 appears more than once among the responses suggests it was a particularly popular release.

Analysis of Results

Question 1

From the chart above, we can see that it was close between the number of female and male participants. However, there were more females taking part in the survey, which might have had some effect on the overall results. We can assume this because we know from our previous audience research that females and males have varying tastes in films.

Question 2

The above chart shows that, overall, thriller and comedy films were the most popular among our participants. The fact that some of our participants selected thrillers as their favourite genre of film suggests that they are fans of the genre, and will subsequently have some knowledge of thrillers. This means that their answers will benefit us more in our research.

Question 3

The responses to this question imply that the majority of participant enjoy thrillers with suspenseful plots; they enjoy story-lines that keep the audience guessing and hold the audiences interest from the beginning. This is also reflected in the replies to a later question on favourite thriller films, where psychological thrillers have been chosen by some of our participants.

Question 4

Although the answers to this question varied, we could determine that our participants predominantly enjoyed thrillers with a twist in the plot (such as Sixth Sense), as well as films that are very suspenseful (such as Jaws and Taken). There were also a number of films that lean towards horror mentioned in the responses (Shutter and The Hills Have Eyes were two of the responses that contain more elements of horror than thriller), which was a surprise seeing as later in the survey we discovered that most of the participants didn't enjoy thrillers that crossed over into the horror genre.

Question 5

Among the facetious responses we received there were some specific criticisms of modern thriller films - namely that they can become very complicated, sometimes very predictable, occasionally too violent and often appear to lean too much towards horror. A number of people who took part in our survey said that they found some modern thrillers too "scary", and some "too gory", suggesting perhaps that they prefer psychological thrillers as opposed to crime or action thrillers.


Question 6

The majority of people answered this question with "suspense" and "plot twists", reaffirming the ideas above regarding the audience preferring intelligent thriller films, with carefully constructed plots. Only two people suggested that they thought action sequences were an important element of a thriller, again confirming that those who partook in our survey do not enjoy action thrillers as much as psychological ones.

Question 7

Our survey participants ranked, on average, Shutter Island, Pulp Fiction and Psycho as number one. North by Northwest was ranked last - although due to the assumed average age of our participants we presume that this is because they have not yet seen the film, and so ranked films they had seen above it. Despite this, we can gather from the responses that psychological thrillers were generally ranked higher than action thrillers (Shutter Island was ranked higher than Taken), and thrillers that contain elements of horror ranked higher than sci-fi thrillers (Psycho ranked higher on average than Alien).

Question 8

Steven Spielberg was selected as the favourite thriller director of our participants, with Alfred Hitchcock coming in second. It came as a surprise that neither Roman Polanksi nor David Fincher were voted by anyone, despite being established and successful thriller directors. Martin Scorsese was also not selected by anyone, whereas Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan were both voted by two participants each, meaning they both ranked third in the list of favourite directors. The fact that Steven Spielberg was voted favourite by those who completed our survey suggests that they enjoy films that are more family orientated. This could explain why they appear to dislike horror, graphic violence or gritty action in thriller films.

Question 9

73% said they occasionally go to the cinema to see a thriller film, whereas the remaining percentage never go to the cinema to see a thriller film. This means that from our results at least 73% of our responses are reilable because they have some idea on what a thriller film is. This also provides evidence that those people we collected responses from are relevant to what we are trying to find out.         

Question 10

From this question the majority of people had seen more recent thrillers. So we can conclude that they keep up to date with the latest films. Publicity of films via trailers/advertising are a key element on how the population are acknowledged of the newest films.
Conclusion

We can conclude, having analyzed all of our responses, that the majority of our participants prefer thriller films that contain intricate plots, plenty of suspense, little violence, few elements of horror, and are, to some extent, family orientated. However, many of the responses given seemed to contradict one another, which also suggests that peoples preferences where thrillers are concerned depend on specific films and directors.

Thriller Development #7: Changes

Changes to Our Thriller

- The shots of the protagonist are not intercut with shots of the therapist scene. We only see the therapist at the very beginning of the sequence. This means that now the scenes can be put together as though in a dream sequence or flashback, and the opening flows a little better.

- The script does not mention the antagonist a great deal - in order to create mystery, the protagonist is vague in describing the person watching who is following them. The script also alludes to an event in the protagonist's past that she wishes to forget - something she has done that she regrets. Again, very little detail is offered, in order to create intrigue and gain the audiences interest.

- Instead of a shot of the protagonist's front door, we used a large window at the front of the house. We had the protagonist creep toward the window in a dimly lit room, before tearing open the curtain and revealing the antagonist. The change from door to window came about because, originally, we wanted a smooth tracking shot from the hallway to the door, but when we started filming we realised that this was not entirely practical. Instead we decided to use the front window, which meant we could have the curtains closed - making the room dark - and introduce a "sudden reveal" into the opening - having the protagonist rip back the curtain, revealing the antagonist.

- The antagonist does not write the title of the film on the glass, as the fake blood mixture we used was too thin to draw with. Instead, they slam their bloodied hand against the glass when the protagonist opens the curtains.

- We merged the dog-walking and park scenes together, due to extremely bad weather on the day of filming. The bad weather meant it was extremely difficult to film certain outdoor scenes, and we also wanted to avoid any damage to the equipment. The merged scene now involves the protagonist walking the dog past the park, in the rain, with the antagonist suddenly following behind.

- Rather than an extreme close-up of the therapist at the very beginning of the sequence, we opted to film a close-up of the therapist's head and shoulders. A shot of the therapist's whole face allowed the audience to see her expression, and to begin to identify the character more easily - something that would have been very difficult with an isolated close-up of her mouth, which we had originally intended to do. The shot we chose to do also allows the audience to see the therapist as an authoritative figure, someone sensible and sane - in contrast with the other characters.


[Taken from Abigail's blog. We discussed what and why we changed things and complied a list. Team Effort]