Evaluation for media

The first thing I did was learn different types of shots, angles, position of the camera on how a character enters the scene when it comes to filming. Different types of techniques on how to make viewers feel tension, excitement and worry.



- These are the sheets that show the different techniques.

I started off learning how to create a movie from pen and paper; I did this by creating a storyboard on different kind of scenes. It made me more visual with ideals on how to make a movie more better, it made my imagination expand step by step so I new what was going to happen next in a movie. Even though the process was long drawing out every scene and writing what is happening in the scene, it helped me to be more organized through out the whole filming if I was to create a movie of my own.


- These are the sheets that I created my development of a storyboard

In media I have learnt many things based on thriller movies, we started the prep work on understanding the meaning of the word thriller on how it is develop in movies. The first thing I did was create a brainstorm on different kinds of thriller there is and examples of films that represents the different types of thriller.


- This is the sheet of the brainstorm I did in class.

I also looked at a sheet based on statistics about thriller films and audience, how much profit or lost that thriller movies gained and the audience summary.


- This is the sheet I looked at.

I watch films openings as well, this helped me most because they were professional film directors that produced well named and popular movies through out there history. So I jot down anything that they said which helped them develop and helped their profession as a film director on to the sheet beneath.



- Based on the question they asked I answered them by watching the clips.

In class we had to watch “ The Shining” and we ha to find three examples of a suspenseful meaning, on what makes it suspenseful and how. This helped me understood on techniques on how to build tension.


- This is the sheet I wrote notes down on what I thought built tension for the film.

Then we did a analysis on thriller clips, different kinds of thriller movies we had to watch and jot down notes based on mise-en-sen, this helped me more in detail on what I can do to build more tension. For example the movie 28 days later, it has use of bright lighting to be clear of the view we are seeing, the use of camera shot, birds eye view to see the location and a couple of wide, low, high tracking shot. The music that they use is very deep and echo, phones bashing against the wall and slow mellow music. The editing they use is very blurry and the setting is in the hospital, which represents death and illness.



- This is the sheet I done.

All the techniques that I leant in media did help me to gain more confidence on how to understand a thriller movie and to create my own clip. I especially learnt the different types and perspective on how to develop my professional thriller clip that I produce with my group, the mise-en-sen and all the analysis I did on other thriller clips, and based on all of that our media product, me and my group challenge and develop the different type pf conventions and forms of real media product by trying to take bits and pieces of their professional clips and create a suspenseful thriller clip, and we did this by looking at different types of shots (especially match cuts), angels, soundtracks, costume and lighting that we could use.

My media product is mainly for family watchers. The characters that star in the thriller clip is myself, im Vietnamese, Eni is a Albanian, Derek is a Nigerian and Michael is a Jamaican, so we have different nationalities that we represent, and we worked very well as a group, even though I was the only female in the group we manage to complete a well presented thriller clip. In the thriller clip im acting as being the dead girl, im in my early 20’s, who shows that females are more fragile and weak, even though not much of me is shown in the clip. Derek is the investigator who is in his early 20’s, all suited up and looks very smart, professional and mature which shows a much higher class. He comes into the house, realising that there is a crime scene, as for the last actor Eni, he is the killer who is in his late teens, dresses very casual and plain, who kills me first in the clip and still remains in the house when Derek enters. You can tell that he is the killer, because he is the one holding the knife, sneaking around and going behind Derek to get ready to kill him next.


- This is Dereks car and front house that was used in the thriller clip.

My thriller movie is mainly base on a mainstream audience. For example if I was to describe a certain typical person that would attend to watch my movie, it would be a male called David, 17 years of age, working as a part time retail salesman, but goes to college and likes to go to the movies with his girlfriend to watch the latest films that’s out. As for a female, her name would be Anna who is 19 years of age, who likes to go out with her friends on the weekends to shop and go cinemas, she works as a waitress part time and study’s at a University in London.

In my thriller film, the lead role is Derek. He is known for his stunts, profession of being a well-known actor as an agent and etc… The way he can act upon any character he wants in a movie, he is known for his history of movies that his been in, so being a face of a star and is known by the world, there is no going wrong in promoting a movie, in the right locations. I would advertise the movie by doing trailers of the film after 5, because this is a family movie. I will put the cover of the film up on billboards; I will do this where there is a busy public area and loads of shopping malls. I’ll also put it up on the busses and the underground boards, which is very helpful because many people take transport. Finally I will put it up on the Internet, mainly sites where a lot of people go on, for example Facebook, Youtube and Myspace.

On the practical hands of media, I have learnt many things from the hi-tech technology that I’ve experience on, for example the camera recorder. I learnt how to use it in different ways, especially the tri-pod, I never even new that it was called that. Filming made me understand that you can do so many tricks on using the cam recorder, I was mostly interested in the match cuts, using final cut pro to put it together, it made it look so professional, especially it was quite difficult for us as we only had one cam recorder, but we managed it fine after and I realise that you don’t need so many technology to do many tricks with cam recorder for the audience to be enjoying the movie.


- The 2 technologies that i used, including the umbrella.

It was my first time experiencing how to use final cut pro, I never touched a editing sweep in my life, so it was all new to me and from all that, I no how to cut video’s, putting the videos together. I mostly enjoyed using the soundtracks for my movie, there were so many different sounds, It was kind of hard finding the right track for our movie, so we had to make some of our sounds ourselves, but other than that it was mainly from the final cut pro soundtracks. One of the difficult things I found most was putting the sound on the right time on when the action was happening in the clip. I also used the Internet to record the process of my filming on my thriller clip, so people can have a look into more details of the project, and I even posted up a little intro of the film up on Youtube as well so people can have a slight peek of the film.



The Angel Islington Cinema.

Finally I got feedback from the audience that watched my thriller clip at the angel cinema, all of the media students went to the cinema and the thriller clips was presented on the big screen for all the students to see each others work and this was the feedback I got back from on of the students. The positive side of things is that he said the film is really life like based on where the film was set. The angler writing on the road when of the characters that star in the movie, the intro of the movie when the title “Thirteen“came up with the soundtrack, the pov shot of Derek walking into the house, they really liked the match cut when Derek is going up the stairs and entering in the room to check if anyone is there, and he looked out and the camera was on him at the stairs, the lighting in the living room made the scene very tense, the shot of the envelopes and how the camera was position and the way the cuts introduces area of my body.


- The favorite bit for the audience is the match cut

The negative side of my thriller clip is that they don’t see any meaning of the title, the investigator should of worn a badge so they can recognise what his job was and lastly the lighting of the hallways was to orange.



- This is the sheet I jot down the audiences feedback on.

My own personal comment on this project is that I most enjoyed working as a group, especially my group as we worked very hard on it, in finding the place and all the editing that we did on it. I learnt a lot of new things on editing clips that I didn’t no about, especially cutting them, putting them together and adding soundtracks. I really enjoyed watching everyone’s thriller clips at the cinemas too.


- Two shots of me in the clip. A high angle of the knife, one of my favourite shots.


- This will be me

At the Angel Islington Cinema.

The teachers all decided that all of the media students thriller clips should be viewed in cinema to give it more of a professional affect and seen on the big screen by a bigger audience. Majority of the media students did turn up to the cinemas on Thursday, lucky enough it was a day off for every body so more can make it.

We all settled down and every one was really excited on watching there own clips, as in myself i was so embarrassed and nervous, even though i wasn't really acting. I was so shocked on others groups work, it was really good on the affects and some of it did actually did scare me, even though i still think my work is much better. Everyone was really friendly and supporting one another on there clips. I really enjoyed watching it on the big screen.

Viewing each others clips.

We finally all finish our thriller clips, so we all decided to watch each others clips. I was really excited on looking at my own clip because i havent seen the finishing bits yet. I finally finished watching my clip and it was brilliant having it working well with the soundtrack, all the finishing touches on the editing. Watching others clips was really good too, seeing what ideas they had and exploring others work gave me a better insight on us youngsters working together and using limited technology to make it work. Finally i decided to ask one of my friends on what they thought of the film, and over all the things they said it was really good, especially the match cuts. But they only thing they didn't get is how the title represents the film.

Reshooting & Editing.

Firstly, we tried to look for soundtracks for our thriller clips., which took sometime. While we was doing that we noticed that we had an object that was not meant to be in the clip, so derek and michael had to go back to dereks house to re shoot that bit. While derek and michael was gone, myself and eni was trying to look for sountracks, but we only managed to find 2 sound tracks that suited the film. Finally when michael and derek came back, we deleted that particular section that we reshooted and placed it with the new one that they did and we decided that we will complete the clip just before the deadline at 3:00pm on Friday, which the boys did manage to do it so welldone!!!

Editing Our Thriller Clip

It was only me and eni at first, doing the editing of our thriller clip. We first decided which scene is going to go first, middle or last. So we place all the scene in the right order. Michael and eni was doing the next editing part of our thriller clip, by cutting out scenes and placing scenes together, to make it all a one completed clip.

The next editing part was looking for our soundtracks to place in our thriller clip. Then we started cutting out the original soundtracks that was recorded in the clip.

Filming @Derek's House

First of all, we had a little help from one of the teachers on where we are going to do out last filming. Our first opinion was basing the scene in the college, in an office. But our team realse that it wasn't what we planned for our thriller film in the beginning. So we had another option on going to one of our group members house, which was Derek's house.

We first created a hostile effect of the living room by dashing letters, papers, flower pots and tables on the floor, once we were done creating the setting, we moved on to filming. Michael was the camera man majority of the time, and Derek, me and Eni were the characters of the thriller.

Michael filmed derek as the detective entering the scene in the living room, realising there has been a robbery, but as he turn he corner of the living room he saw a female lying on the floor, which was me playing the dead character. Derek came over to me, to check if i was breathing but i wasn't . Then Michael filmed derek going up the stair case, having Eni as the killer, going to kill derek next.

Our next location of filming was downstairs in the kitchen, having eni getting prepared to kill derek by pulling out a knife from the cupbored as derek enters into the house. The last filming we done was outside when derek is pulling up to his house getting ready to go in to the house.

29th January Filming

Me and my team members went out in dereks car to a location where they first planned it all ready ,it was near houses with no front garden and has natural sunlight and high trees. We first filmed derek in his car pulling up to the house, michael manage to do 3 different angle shots from that. Then we filmed Derek inside the car turning off his engine and using his steering wheel and his gear stick. The 2nd part michael filmed was derek getting out of the car.

5th & 8th January Lesson

For this lesson, as a whole class we was told to watch thriller clips that students in our college created last year for there exam. We had to jot down notes based on mise en sen and how tension was risen by the music, angles and shots that was used by the students. I find some of the clips that i watch was really good, as some of it was really affective and looked really professional. Our teacher told us that we couldn't talk in our clips and i thought that me and my group will find it hard as we never seen or created a clip without voice, as i also thought it would be impossible to create tension without a loud tone of voice, but after watching them clips i new it was possible to work out with.

Then we had to watch a documentary about film openings, we was also given by our teacher a sheet of paper that had questions on it that we had to answear based on the clips we had to watch. After watching it, it did help me and gave me ideas on my thriller movie that i am going to be making soon.

Turotial, Group & Video.

For our thriller project we started off having a tutorial lesson with Mickey, starting off learning how to use to video camera and tripod. Then we was placed in our groups, which was a group of 4 people, myself, Eni, Michael & Derek. Once we finished off learning bout the video camera, our teacher set us a target to begin our project on working with the theme “thriller”, We had to use the video recorder to create a clip and build tension, using a certain item that the teacher set us which was a newspaper.

We started off using different types of angles and shots, firstly with Michael doing a low angle view of where the scene is going to take place, then we introduced the first character which was Eni, tracking him whilst he was walking into the building. Then we did a couple of close-ups of Eni using the lift. Then Michael done a head and shoulder shot of Eni walking out to buy tea, there were a couple of medium shots and close-up while Eni was reading the newspaper. The second character Derek entered the scene; Michael introduced him by doing a high angle shot of him entering the canteen and based on the story line we did, Eni saw a picture of Derek as a famous footballer and Eni as a fan of Derek, Eni decided to chase Derek.

By Catherin Truong

Notes for derek & Eni.! faggs

- The maze tracking shots
- Don't no whats round the corner which builds tension , as for the corridors as well.
- 237 room where the family was murdered by the dad/husband
- Jacks "limp" He slows down which creates suspense, throws the ball hard and catches it.
The type writer closeup -" all work no play makes jack a dull boy"
- Chef, suspenseful when he is walking around saying "hello anyone there?" we don't no whats around the corner
-Danny playing with the car and train tracks, then a ball roles in the scene, bird eye view, then high shot (not knowing whose there)
-Initial stories about cabin fever signal to the audience where the plot is going. The fact that the audience knows the story makes us more engaged, were waiting for him to go mad and kill.
-Location huge house and is empty

by catherin.

The Shinning

On todays lesson on monday we was told by our teacher to watch particular clips to notice the suspence of the different types of films. We had to concentrate on lighting, use off camera, music, editing and the location that it was set at. Out teacher set us a homework to explain in detail a certain clip that i was most interested in and i choose to do the shining.

There is tension straight away from the clip, with the camera following the boy behind him, whilst he was riding his bike with the sound affect of the wheels rolling and a low steady beat, not knowing what could be in front of him and at the back, which shows suspense by being clueless on what could be around the corner. As the little boy continued riding his bike around the hotel the music starts to slowly build with a squeaky sound and piano notes. Then the boy suddenly stops, and it shows a low angle behind a head and shoulder shot of the boy looking at the room number, the camera goes back and forth showing the boys emotions which makes the audience feel tension . Then a medium shot of the hallway and the boy, the boy slowly gets up from his bike as he does, the music rises and gets louder. As the camera tracks the boy walking to the door the sound changes into a very deep and high pitch rhythm. Then the camera cuts shots of these two girls for 3 seconds then the boy gets back on to his bike and he rides off fast.

By Catherin

editing our clips

In this lesson, it was only me and Eni and the other two members of ours weren’t in. We continued editing our video clips which Eni has done, which means placing different clips that we filmed together and creating an intense vibe of our video. We decided to edit the clips as if one of the characters in the video is fantasising about a football player he sees on the newspaper, so Eni gave the video a dreamy affect.

As for me, I edited the sound affects on the videos, the first thing I done was looked through a file of sound clips that the college had. I decided to insert a sound clip when eni is walking into the college, by putting in a sound affect of footsteps, including the part where he went to sit down with to drink his tea, I put a sound affect of him drinking his tea and screaming, because he was fantasising about the footballer.

By Catherin Truong