A04 Production Evaluation

The preparation of our Thriller opening wasn't very good. I was originally in a different group and after that went wrong, I decided to work with Brett and Lucie. Because of this we ended up being about a month behind in work, and we had to start the whole process of pre-production, which included intial ideas and audience research again. We had to make sure that we kept the same deadlines as everyone else in our group that were, at that moment, a month ahead of us. We did the treatment, suitable location shots and the risk assessment prior to the filming. Shooting the video was a very lengthy process, as we would shoot it and decide that we didn't like the footage because it wasn't at the high standard we wanted it at and it didn't give the 'thrill,' a thriller should have. Because of this, we ended up filming the opening 3 times. At this point we had run out of time to edit and produce a soundtrack in lesson, as the majoirty of the class had finished editing and producing their soundtrack. We had to come in on the second week of our study leave to re-shoot the opening, edit and produce a soundtrack. This took just over 7 hours to do, and we used Final Cut Pro to edit our video, as we found that this was the more professional software to use compared to iMovie, as it has a larger amount of filters, transitions and effects that we could use. We decided to put out video in black and white so we could give a different, quirky feel to the video. A lot of thriller openings, such as 'Se7en,' are in colour and we wanted to produce something different. We also thought that because the 'ghoul,' was in black, it would accenutate the fact that she is meant to be creepy looking and different to everyone else. I like that we decided not to use any special effects or any gimmicks that could take away from the creepy, tense atmosphere we were trying to get across. The editing was pretty simple, we only slowed some shots down to give the effect that the 'ghoul,' slows down time and has a large impact in what happens next in the opening. Brett produced the soundtrack on Garageband, as Lucie and I aren't confident with this software and Brett has had previous experience working with it. If I could I would've chosen to work with Brett and Lucie first as once we get started we are efficient and want the final product to look as professional as we can, another reason why we kept re-filming our sequence. Overall I did like the final piece and I am quite glad we re-filmed alot as the standard of this video is much higher. I think making it in our study leave, when we didn't have any other lessons was better as we didn't have to conerntrate on anything else other than the opening. Compared to the videos I analysed I don't think that ours has the edge that the other do, the professional ones leave you in complete suspense whereas ours isn't as tense. I think that ours should've been more like a title sequence, where we had special documents that would've given an enigma, and given the audience something to wonder about.

Feedback from Peer - Paige Overton:

In the opening thriller 'Dead Air' I particularly liked the use of black and white effects on the screen. This straight away gives a creepy feel to the opening. The use of lots of different shots is a good way in showing the actress's different points of view, one minute she sees nothing, yet in the next shot we (the audience) can see the ghost. This was a great way in creating tension throughout the opening as we slightly sympathize for the actress. I like the way that the ghost is wearing all black, the directors of the opening have clearly thought through what the colour black represents and have used it well when dressing the ghost. The only negative criticism I have is that i would of liked to of heard human diagetic sound throughout the opening sequence. Other than that I really enjoyed dead air and it gave me the thrill a thriller should give you.