Questionnaire...

One Audience Feedback Questionnaire

Name:
Age:
Nationality:


What was your overall reaction to the film?

What do you think would happen in the rest of the film?

Were the titles clear? Yes / No

What did you think about the use of sound?

What do you think of the actor's performance?

What do you understand the story to be (briefly)?

What genre would you classify it as?

Would you go see the film at the cinema?

Evaluation Task 7: Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Over the course of the last year I feel I have learnt a lot about filmmaking. I realised this after looking back at my preliminary task, and comparing it to my thriller.
We had to plan much more to get our thriller off the ground compared to our preliminary task, which only took about an hour to plan and shoot. There was a lot to juggle around, and problems which had to be worked around, as we couldn't necessarily get access to items that we wanted.

Storyboards:
·         Prelim – We were given the storyboards, so no planning was required there.
·         Thriller – We had to create our own storyboards and fill in the details, which took over a week. to complete.

Location/Props/Actors:

·         Prelim – Used the studio to film, no travel required, no permission needed.
                        No specific props needed, used objects we found in the studio.
                        We chose our actors from random people, no target audience to think of.
·         Thriller – Had to find the locations, get permission for them, get transport sorted.
                         Had to sort out list of props including cars and a cot.
                         Had to think about actor to suit story and target audience.

Making the storyboards and creating a narrative...

I found that when you become responsible for creating the storyboards, there is a lot to think about in every individual shot. You have to compose each shot and create a pleasing image to watch, whilst getting all the information and detail that you need to tell the story with without creating a cluttered and busy image.
However, unlike photography, you have to take movement into account and think about what the picture will look like at the end of the shot, and if it still works. When you cut between shots, you can’t break the 180 degree and 30 degree rules as the sequence will lose its fluidity and seem jumpy.



Changes and Improvements in composition...
Looking back at the Prelim Task I can see a noticeable difference in shot composition. The first thing I noticed was the use of space within the shots. In the Preliminary task we had quite a few shots with seemingly unnecessary and excessive amounts of space. The focus of the shots is stuck in a corner of the image. We have obviously used space and wide shots in the Thriller task, but only to frame the image.  The Thriller is on the left, and the Prelim on the right.
                           

I found this was the same for the close up shots. I think it was a fear to crop into the image, which a lot of people suffer from when taking photos. They are scared to fill the frame and feel the need to use excess space.  I think that as we had gained confidence from the prelim we managed to zoom into objects better. The Prelim is on the left, and the Thriller on the right.

Working with sound...

In the Preliminary task we didn't add any sound to the sequence, we just used what was on the video cameras. However in our Thriller sequence we relied on the various different layers of sound to create the atmosphere we wanted.
The majority of the sounds featured in our sequence were added in seperately in order to allow us to change the volume levels individually to give us the scene we wanted. We found them in the final cut pro and school server banks of sounds. These sounds included the both of the alarms, the car engine and the wind in the final shot.
Other sounds where recorded seperately on the day as they had the sound we wanted, but we wanted them to be brought forwards in the scene. This was used for the baby music and the shower. This allowed us to draw the audiences attention onwards in the scene as they followed both the action and the sounds as a narrative.

Working with Final Cut Pro and After Effects...

I had very little experience with either of programmes before I started this course, but have found them both very useful with this process. With this Thriller product we were a lot more careful where we placed our cuts and for how long shots lasted, as this can completely change the mood of a scene.
We created the ending title in After Effects to reinforce the idea that everything is disappearing. I am not extremely happy with the outcome, as I think it went down a slightly different route than the one I was taking. However I still think it works for this sequence.
We have annotated our youtube video outlining what processes we used in this video which can be found If you click here.

Evaluation Task 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project?

Evaluation Task 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Task 5; How did you attract/address your audience?

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Evaluation Task 4: What would be your audience for your media product?

I think our target market for this film is an older teen/young adult market, as our main character is an older teenage girl and it plays on themes of isolation and abandonment. I think the ratio of male to female coming to see the film would be about equal, as the main character is a girl, so girls empathise with her, and since she is shown to be so vulnerable, boys feel the need to look after her and feel protective of her. Our character represents an average western school girl, with no super powers or special talents, simply a girl who finds herself completely alone, and how she deals with this isolation and constant threat of danger.

Due to the fact that she is English, the target market would be much wider than the target market for a Chinese/Spanish/Japanese film, as they tend to be translated more and simply better known.
This film is not for people who are only into mindlessly gory horror and thriller, as I would sat that it fits more into the surreal psychological thriller genre. There are no unrealistic mass murderers or crazy schemes.

When we came up with the idea, we only thought about the title sequence, and didn’t really think about why all these people have disappeared. So we could go in a few different directions with the plot. It could be the cause of alien abduction, government evacuation, a highly infectious virus or global warming to name just a few. This would effect what genre our film fit into and has left us with a more open ended idea of our target audience. The idea of the film is that it is more realistic and that this could potentially happen.

Similar film ideas include 28 days later, I am legend and Independence Day, and I would say that these are the kind of films our target audience would watch and have enjoyed.

I would put a rating of 12 on this film due to its lack of gore and horror, because I think smaller children would find this film slightly disturbing due to the ideas of abandonment and being alone, and its lack of vibrant colour, music and positive themes.