Thriller comparison - Miss Georgious

I think we have made a successful thriller sequence because we used the conventional thriller aspects such as mystery. This is specifically seen by the gas mask on the antagonists face, this hidden identity leaves the audience curious of why she is wearing a mask and what she is going to do. Also the element of surprise is used when the door slams behind the babysitter protagonist, these conventional thriller elements appealed strongly towards our target audience so I believe we have a made a successful thriller sequence.

I think the micro element which shows my creativity most is the little girl antagonist, the contrasting features such as; scary staring and evil laughter manipulates the audience as they wouldn't expect a little girl to be so evil. This is most specifically seen when the babysitter looks out of the window and Alice stares at her with the mask on and doesn't say anything, this is very mysterious and creative as other thriller films have a male killer.

Our thriller film and 'Sinister' have some similar thriller elements. For example the little girl antagonist, in Sinister the little girl turns out to be a killer and kills her family, in our film she turns viciously to the babysitter and the audience are left in suspense. Also, the use of a big house is used in Sinister just like our thriller sequence, this allows the audience to relate if they feel their house is big and allow the film to appeal more to them. The sounds used in our film are mysterious and creepy, for example the slow song with laughter over the top is used during the credits of our film, and in Sinister there is slow music when the homemade clips are showing creating the same mysterious effect.

Audience feedback - Miss Georgiou

Audience feedback is the comments and criticism you receive from making a film. This is very important as it is the comments from your target audience, the success of your film depends on if your film appeals to your target audience. The feedback will determine our success on our film and help us with the improvements we will need to make for it to appeal more to our target audience.

We received our audience feedback through questionnaires, we had 10 varied questions, mostly multiple choice questions about which characters they would like to see featured most, what gender antagonist and protagonist they would want to see in our film. This allowed us to focus specifically on the aspects that our target audience wanted to see in our film so that we could aim it directly to them to achieve our goal of making a successful film.

One positive comment we received was about the gas mask we used, it was said to be mysterious and scary and draw in the audience as the little girls identity is hidden. Another comment we received was about the low key lighting, the lamp post outside the house was "creepy" and conventional to the thriller genre. Finally, we received a positive comment about the chosen characters, the female babysitter was relateable to the audience and the little girl antagonist was different and unexpected.

A negative comment was received was the camera shots, some of them were too still and needed more movement, maybe a zoom in shot instead of a close up. Secondly the last hand-held camera shot was very fast and jerky which was hard to notice what was going on. Finally the editing at points was over-done and reduced the fear factor slightly but this can be easily fixed by Joe our editor.

In our two minute opening scene, we followed the brief by using conventional thriller aspects such as mystery and surprise, we also had eerie looking text for the credits whilst creepy music is played in the background. We also used a conventional female protagonist allowing our target audience to relate and create an emotional link with the characters, also a little girl antagonist manipulates the audience as they would expect a little girl to be nice and cute but contrastingly she is a possessed killer.

Technologies Prezi

Media Institution Prezi

Rough cut - Miss Miller

A rough cut is important as it is when the film first starts to look like the final product so that any changes and improvements can be made and the cast and crew can change certain aspects of the film if they think it doesn't look as good. In our rough cut we realised that the sounds and effects could have been improved to make the thriller aspects be evoked further towards the audience, also, more transactions needed to be edited in to make the film flow better. This is why a rough cut is important as it shows a clear indication of where improvements can be made to make our thriller opening better and appeal more towards our audience.

Audience feedback is very important because they are the people that the film is aimed to, so our thriller genre must appeal to them in order to receive positive comments on our opening. Also the target audience can comer up with better ideas that we can use in our thriller opening to make it more satisfactory to watch. Audience feedback can also boost confidence in our group if we receive positive comments which can allow us to try more effects and sounds without worrying if the audience will like it or not.

We received our feedback from questionnaires given to the whole class which included questions such as; what went well?, what could be improved? and an overall mark out of 60. This allowed us to see what our target audience (teenagers) wanted to see in our thriller opening that we may not have included, it also shows us what we done well so we know what aspects to keep in our opening when we alter it.

Our feedback had good marks out of 60 from everyone who done the questionnaire which was helpful as it indicated to us that we were on the right tracks with our editing and shots etc. Also, in the 'what could be improved?' section the answers were small things such as: 'don't repeat shots too much' and 'sound was too loud' which is easy to alter and doesn't need any re-filming. Also the comments in the 'what went well?' section were very positive and morale boosting for our group with comments such as 'editing was good' and 'iconography was scary' which was our aim in our opening thriller scene.

This feedback from our peers will help us improve our thriller because multiple peers have written specific comments which shows that it is a fault in our opening which can be easily fixed by our editor Joe. When finalising our thriller opening we will not be changing our positive comments as we know those aspects appeal to our target audience making our opening a success.

Planning group storyboard - Miss Miller

A group storyboard is important as it allows everybody in our group, (Me, Joe and Cara) to understand exactly what is going on and not to get confused as it is one storyboard for all of us which also reduces the chances of us making any mistakes or doing something in an incorrect order. It also creates a guideline for the group to follow and make filming and editing less complicated and make sure everyone of us is on the same wave length.

Before our group storyboard each of us in our group made an individual storyboard of our own ideas and shots. When told to make a group storyboard we had to put all of our ideas together taking different aspects

Opening scenaration - Miss Miller

The opening scene of our thriller film begins with a little girl in Victorian clothing sitting in a garden playing with a doll whilst singing, we see many different angles of the girl then she suddenly drops the doll and runs away. The camera zooms into the doll which has a large leaf on its head to create foreboding. The scene cuts to inside the house when the little girl is running up the stairs but her face isn't shown, the babysitter then walks through the door saying 'bye' to Alice's parents, the puts her blanket on the side and hears some banging upstairs. She calls out 'Alice?' and without an answer walks up the stairs and turns on the lights. The camera then follows over her shoulder when she walks into a room and finds a gas mask on the bed, when she picks it up a slam of a door sounds and alarms the babysitter causing her to drop the mask and run down to where the sound came from. She puts her ear to the door and a music box sound is playing, she opens the door and calls out 'Alice?' again, the window is open and as she goes to shut it Alice is outside under a lamp post with a gas mask on facing away from the babysitter. Alice then turns round and the camera jumps to her face the cuts back to the babysitter running down the stairs to the front door, the camera goes into a handheld shot and jumps with flashes towards Alice with mysterious singing echoing in the background. The babysitter puts her hand on Alice's shoulder and Alice looks round quickly with the mask on her face and the scene ends.

We could improve our opening scene by cutting down on the amount of repeated shots of Alice in the garden, it took up quite a lot of our 2 minute limit, it also may bore the audience as it takes some time for the opening to become scary and mysterious. Also we could have less shots following the babysitter, although it puts the audience in her point of view and create an emotional link, it can come across quite boring at times especially if the opening is only 2 minutes long.

Filming schedule - Miss Miller

Shot	Date & time	Location	Content /Action	Shot type & Duration	Costume/ hair/ make up	Iconography	Personnel	Equipment
1	25.11.13 3:10	Cara's garden	Little girl playing in the garden with dolls and tea cups looking innocent.	Close up 5 seconds, high angle 4 seconds, tracking shot 6 seconds, zoom in shot 3 seconds.	Little girl in old fashioned dress to show when it is set, not showing her face hiding identity.	Blanket, teddy bears, doll, tea cups and plates.	Hannah acting, Joe camera man, me (Shaun) director and Cara also directing.	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, Tape / memory card.
2	25.11.13 3:30	Cara's house	Little girl running up the stairs still not showing her face creating mystery	Tracking pan shot 5 seconds	Again, old fashioned dress to show the era.	None	Hannah acting, me (Shaun) camera man, Joe director and Cara also directing.	Digital camera, batteries, tripod, Tape / memory card.
3	25.11.13 3:40	Cara's house
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Planning sound - Miss Miller

Sound is important within in a thriller film as different soundtracks can evoke different feelings and emotions to the audience. Also sound effects and techniques at certain parts in the film can create a better understanding and create tension, enigma and create an element of surprise.

We will be using a child's singing as a diagetic and contrapuntal sound as we can see it on the screen, the point of this is to give the audience a better understanding of the opening as they can hear the child as well as see her playing. Also the laughing will mislead the audience as it is a thriller film which is contrasts the happy laughing when the little girl is playing. This will shock and surprise the audience when something horrific happens as they don't associate nice singing with thriller films.

Another contrapuntal sound that will be used in our thriller opening is a music box, when the babysitter is scouring the house for Alice she hears a music box playing a nice calm song which confuses, and scares the audience as nice music isn't associated with killings. This is conventional to many thriller films such as Insidious when a happy song is playing whilst a demon is sharpening his blades, we want to create a similar effect to this win our opening scene.

Another sound we will be using in our opening scene will be a non-diagetic bird to make the film seem realistic and not in an artificial garden, this will make our opening scene more professional. Also the bird's tweet can convey happiness which will then be contrasted by the horror occurring in the house during our opening scene. This is conventional to a thriller film as the contrasting effect of good and bad is represented simply by a non-diagetic sound.

These sounds are very important to films specifically thriller films as they can have a great effect on the audience as it makes the film enjoyable are professional looking, also the use of contrapuntal, diagetic and non-diagetic sounds evoke different emotions such as mystery, enigma and tension.