Evaluation

For this project we had to produce a minimum two minute thriller opening, using one camera and working in groups of two or more. I worked with Nikita and Priscilla to produce a thriller opening named “Rebecca” which shows the start of a film where a girl named Rebecca is being stalked by a man who takes photos of her regularly and has an obsession with her. Meanwhile she is trying to get along with her day to day life, but she does notice and if we had made the rest of the film we would see her go on a journey to find out who exactly her stalker is. Our overall production went well but we did face quite a few problems along the way technically and went back over the thriller various times to check for problems.
To film our thriller we used a High Definition Sony Z1 camera and to edit we used Final Cut Pro. During this process we had to learn how to use these new cameras and learnt a lot of new things to do in Final Cut pro such as how to de interlace our work when it’s finished and also how to export the final product. We also had to check for audio peaks and checking video levels to make sure that it is professional standard.
Our project/thriller mainly went well while editing as we finished filming quite quickly compared to other groups and so we started and logging and capturing from an early stage, making sure to name all captures with appropriate names so that it was easy for us to know what we were clicking on in later stages. Our first problem which we faced was that we found that we haven’t actually filmed some shots that were on our storyboard and were in fact quite crucial for continuity reasons. One of these shots was a MS of Rebecca through the cafe window which would have been identical to a picture that the stalker has on his board and would have allowed for a match cut which could have been a strong point in our thriller. To get around this we added in a camera sound effect and made it seem as though the staler had taken a picture but the audience didn’t see him taking it. Despite this one thing that did go well was the music, which took us some time to find. We had about ten CDs with us while choosing the music but couldn’t seem to find the right track, in the end we ended up not using any, but in fact used a track from Soundtrack Pro. This leads on to one of my roles which I took on within the group of changing sound levels and making sure the music came down when there was important diegetic sound and came back up when we needed to add suspense and also moving it and cutting it where needed. Adding to the success of the music we added an additional sound from soundtrack pro at the end of thriller when the title Rebecca comes on to add impact to it. Although when we have watched the thriller back we noticed that actually that sound and title effect gives the whole thriller “opening” a trailer feel rather than the beginning of a film.
In final cut we used a lot of cross dissolves and fades to black, which wasn’t actually our original plan of having quick and sharp cuts. But we did this to overcome the fact that some shots weren’t so good as they were out of focus or shakey and needed something to take away from that. But looking back at the film it does work well, as it leaves something to the audience’s imagination and adds an enigma.
On a whole I don’t think we used the technology to its full potential as when we were filming we had the camera on automatic, not manual which although we couldn’t see a difference before, we did when we watched the footage over and over. A good example of this downfall is with the scene where Rebecca is in her house coming through the door and ringing the police; we noticed that the whole scene had a very yellow tone rather than a perfect white balance. If we had used the camera on manual and changed the white balance as we were taught then we wouldn’t have had this problem. To overcome this hurdle we acquired the advice of the technician and found out how to change the colour balance. Although this was helpful, after looking at the final product on a big screen I feel as though we didn’t quite get the colour balance right as I feel it looks a bit washed out rather than vibrant. But saying this, the washed out colouring signifies the thriller genre of our opening.
If we was to do this again I think we would film more shots, even if it’s too much as at points we wanted to replace some shots but couldn’t because we had nothing to replace it with. I’d also try to look at our work with more of a critical head and look at it how an audience would; so that I would notice things like the fact it looks more like a trailer.
Our work does work well as a thriller but I don’t think that it works well as a thriller opening, because of how it ends, other than that it does work well as an opening. I don’t think it’s conventional as we have dialogue in it, which we didn’t see when we were researching thriller openings, but it is conventional in the sense that it has enigmas, although when getting feedback we were told that it actually might be giving too much away. To improve it we could have added more after the title “Rebecca” to make it seem like the beginning of a film. Some feedback we received was that the slow motion effect worked well as well as the stalker putting up the pictures. They also said that the way Jesse disappears is very dramatic and adds to the suspense as well as the gloved hands. The audience could also see that we put in effort and a lot of preparation into the stalkers picture board. One downfall was the acting but this is through no fault of our own.
Overall our thriller looks good and received a good response from the audience apart from the laughing when Rebecca is on the phone to the police. But mainly it went very well as we worked good as a team and put in a lot of effort in all parts.