To understand and analyse how successful our thriller was, we asked a variety of people for their opinions on it. The results that we got we will try to show in various ways using different techniques.
We asked a variety of people about our thriller, but took responses from the questions which we asked 3 people. The 3 people are from different age groups, 17, 21 and 38. Two of these 3 people were female and the other was male. Below are our results;
What did you enjoy the most about the thriller?
Female, 17
"I enjoyed the scene where the girl was walking, trying to get a signal and then running back. I liked this because the editing matched the pace of plot, and built up tension."
Male, 21
"I liked the shots of the stalker's eyes, as it made us realise that the stalker was following the girls, and getting closer and closer to them."
Female, 38
"I like the opening, as I could see what was happening with the stalker, whilst the girls were setting off. This made me understand that the two sets of characters were related, and hinted at them meeting at some point in the film."
How do you think we could have improved the opening?
Female, 17
"I would have liked to have seen more of the other two girls, rather than the main one. I didn't really get to know them that much, and then they disappeared."
Male, 21
"The stalker's weapon was a bit unrealistic. I don't see how he managed to attack the two girls with his bare hands and a small piece of rope."
Female, 38
"The section where the girls walk from the house to the camp site is slightly slow. Maybe it would have been better to quicken it a bit."
Would you watch the remainder of the film?
Female, 17
"Yes, I want to see if the main girl dies or not."
Male, 21
"Yes. I want to know who the stalker is, and what happened to the two girls that went missing."
Female, 38
"No. Unfortunately, I don't see how the story could develop and continue for an extra hour or so."
Judging by the response from the three participants, the thriller opening was a success. As suspected, it was least successful with the eldest participant - the thriller was not aimed at her age group, therefore, we believed that she would be least likely to enjoy the thriller.
We asked these participants, and the others that watched the thriller, to state a few words that summed up our thriller. Using these words, I created a wordle, which clearly shows all the words used, and their popularity.
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Friday, 11 March 2011
Evaluation of Finished Production - Question seven
Looking back at the preliminary task, What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the product?
Above is our preliminary task, when watching it back I relaised there were many differences between this and our thriller opening. The quality of the video is not as good as what the thriller opening was, and we can see big improvments between the two videos.
Sound was a particular problem for us during our preliminary exercise, when filming we did not know how loud or quietly we would have to speak for the camera to pick up voices from a far distance, so at some points sound is barely noticable and at other times it is like the characters are shouting. Also when we was editing our preliminary task as we did not understand how the sound on the computer, we were not sure if the computer was defficient or if we had not turned the sound up. Either way, as a result of this when watching the finished piece on youtube we noticed that in some placed you could hear the director saying 'Go!' there was lack of continuity and some of the sound had been cut off. When editing our Thriller we made sure we knew how the sound worked and knew that we was at a computer with fully functioning speakers, also our skills with using the computers had developed meaning we could create sound bridges so sound from a previous piece of footage continued on, We also learnt dissolves and fades with the sound so that our thriller flowed well and the sound was not out of place with what was on screen.
The variety of shots we used in our preliminary task where very little compared to the number of shots we used during our thriller. Also the shots used in our preliminary exercise were at a poor quality for example, the pan shot could sometimes be too slow and the the characters could walk out of shot, or it would pan to fast meaning the characters would again not be in shot.
The image above is a point in the preliminary task where the two characters where spread too far apart within the short meaning it was difficult for the cameraman to keep them both in shot, which thus meant this girl at the back drifted out of shot. However due to lack of time this had to be included in our preliminary task as we did not have time to film over it.
However in our actual thriller we made sure that all 3 characters could be seen at one point and explained to our actors not to all step over the gate at the same time but slowly after each other, this left a small enough gap for all 3 people to be seen but not a too bigger gap so that some characters were off screen whilst others were left behind.
Since completeing our Preliminary task our skills developed rapidly and using final cut express and using the camera together became a lot easier as the technology wasnt so new to us when it come to filming our thriller. The adjusting of the sound took some getting used to but we worked it out and overall learnt new editing tecniques and understood new and different types of transitions.
Above is our preliminary task, when watching it back I relaised there were many differences between this and our thriller opening. The quality of the video is not as good as what the thriller opening was, and we can see big improvments between the two videos.
Our preliminary task had not been prepared as well as what our main thriller had and we did not out as much time or effort into what we was doing with it. This lead to us only have a half completed storyboard to work from and no clue to the plot of our preliminary task. When filming our preliminary tasks many of the shots were repeated as we had not written down the variety of shots which could of been used. When we was making the storyboard to our thriller we made sure there was lots of detail added to it so we had a variet of shots and angles and it would not become boring. Although we did not completely stick to our storyboard when filming as we thought of better more exciting ways to films.
When looking at the Prliminary exercise i noticed below that where comments are left their was one dislike to to it although there was no comments explaining why they had disliked it, although it may be that there was no story to our preliminary task it was mainly people walking.
Storyboard to Preliminary Task; When looking at the Prliminary exercise i noticed below that where comments are left their was one dislike to to it although there was no comments explaining why they had disliked it, although it may be that there was no story to our preliminary task it was mainly people walking.
Storyboard to our Thriller opening;
Sound was a particular problem for us during our preliminary exercise, when filming we did not know how loud or quietly we would have to speak for the camera to pick up voices from a far distance, so at some points sound is barely noticable and at other times it is like the characters are shouting. Also when we was editing our preliminary task as we did not understand how the sound on the computer, we were not sure if the computer was defficient or if we had not turned the sound up. Either way, as a result of this when watching the finished piece on youtube we noticed that in some placed you could hear the director saying 'Go!' there was lack of continuity and some of the sound had been cut off. When editing our Thriller we made sure we knew how the sound worked and knew that we was at a computer with fully functioning speakers, also our skills with using the computers had developed meaning we could create sound bridges so sound from a previous piece of footage continued on, We also learnt dissolves and fades with the sound so that our thriller flowed well and the sound was not out of place with what was on screen.
The variety of shots we used in our preliminary task where very little compared to the number of shots we used during our thriller. Also the shots used in our preliminary exercise were at a poor quality for example, the pan shot could sometimes be too slow and the the characters could walk out of shot, or it would pan to fast meaning the characters would again not be in shot.
Since completeing our Preliminary task our skills developed rapidly and using final cut express and using the camera together became a lot easier as the technology wasnt so new to us when it come to filming our thriller. The adjusting of the sound took some getting used to but we worked it out and overall learnt new editing tecniques and understood new and different types of transitions.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Evaluation of Finished Production - Question six
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the thriller?
Monday, 28 February 2011
Evaluation of Finished Production - Question five
How did we attract/address our audience?
I attracted an audience in many different ways, one of the ways was through facebook, i used this to publish my survey on to it, so i had a wider variety of people acknowledging thrillers, and i particular our thriller. I feel that this worked. This seemed to work reasonably well as i did get a few responses, however not as many as i would of liked.
There are different ways in which we kept the audience was kept engaged through the thriller. We done this by creating suspense and tension which made the person want to keep watching to find out what happened next. In the previous question i mentioned using survey monkey to help find out what the audience would like to see involved in a thriller. We used female actors, and we used the age of which was most popular with the survey results this meant that the viewers could feel more involved and relate to what was going on. Also all of our actors were of similar age to those who we want to watch our thriller. As we used teenagers in our thriller it means that the audience will be able to feel our main characters fear and be able to imagine themselves in the same situation. We tried to make our characters look like they are from a normal working class background, this meant it was easier for the audience to relate to them as they live the same type of lifestyle. I think i used the information from my survey monkey results quiet effectively to produce a better outcome on the thriller. I took into consideration what people wanted to see, and who seemed more interested in thrillers and worked around it.
The location for our thriller was picked rather carefully and we believe that we picked a good setting, we thought it was very effective as it was eerie. We had decided to film over Eastbrook End Country Park as it was very deserted, with the location picked it added to the mysterious effect and added to the tension which we had already created. The trees and the bushes, made it seem very eerie and scary as they were looming over the people and made them look small and vulnerable. The setting was in some ways perfect as it was deserted, it made it seem that if the protagonist was to run away they had no where to run, as their was a lack of space and would be hunted down. Although, the tree's were surrounding the people, they were closely packed together, this made less space for the protagonist to run, and made it look like she was cornered.
From the image above you can see there is little space for the protagonist to run, this can help build up the suspense and the feeling that the individual is being trapped.
We ended our thriller on a cliffhanger, this would encourage the person watching want to continue watching the thriller. This is because from the thriller which they had seen it made them ask a lot of questions, such as 'Where have the girls friends gone?' 'Who was on the phone?' 'Who is the antagonist?' 'What does he want with the girl?' 'Will the girl survive?' 'What has he done/ going to do with her?'
I attracted an audience in many different ways, one of the ways was through facebook, i used this to publish my survey on to it, so i had a wider variety of people acknowledging thrillers, and i particular our thriller. I feel that this worked. This seemed to work reasonably well as i did get a few responses, however not as many as i would of liked.
There are different ways in which we kept the audience was kept engaged through the thriller. We done this by creating suspense and tension which made the person want to keep watching to find out what happened next. In the previous question i mentioned using survey monkey to help find out what the audience would like to see involved in a thriller. We used female actors, and we used the age of which was most popular with the survey results this meant that the viewers could feel more involved and relate to what was going on. Also all of our actors were of similar age to those who we want to watch our thriller. As we used teenagers in our thriller it means that the audience will be able to feel our main characters fear and be able to imagine themselves in the same situation. We tried to make our characters look like they are from a normal working class background, this meant it was easier for the audience to relate to them as they live the same type of lifestyle. I think i used the information from my survey monkey results quiet effectively to produce a better outcome on the thriller. I took into consideration what people wanted to see, and who seemed more interested in thrillers and worked around it.
The location for our thriller was picked rather carefully and we believe that we picked a good setting, we thought it was very effective as it was eerie. We had decided to film over Eastbrook End Country Park as it was very deserted, with the location picked it added to the mysterious effect and added to the tension which we had already created. The trees and the bushes, made it seem very eerie and scary as they were looming over the people and made them look small and vulnerable. The setting was in some ways perfect as it was deserted, it made it seem that if the protagonist was to run away they had no where to run, as their was a lack of space and would be hunted down. Although, the tree's were surrounding the people, they were closely packed together, this made less space for the protagonist to run, and made it look like she was cornered.
From the image above you can see there is little space for the protagonist to run, this can help build up the suspense and the feeling that the individual is being trapped.
We ended our thriller on a cliffhanger, this would encourage the person watching want to continue watching the thriller. This is because from the thriller which they had seen it made them ask a lot of questions, such as 'Where have the girls friends gone?' 'Who was on the phone?' 'Who is the antagonist?' 'What does he want with the girl?' 'Will the girl survive?' 'What has he done/ going to do with her?'
Evaluation of Finished Production - Question four
Who would be the audience for our media product?
Previously i have done some research into who could be the thrille's audience by creating a survey on http://www.surveymonkey.com/. This enabled me to discover the age group which be more likely to watch our thriller. I had only recieved 8 responses on my survey after posting it to popular social networks such as facebook and twitter, many people did not reply. This means my results were not as reliable as i would of liked them to be, as i would of liked at least 30 or 40 responses.
Our thriller can be watched by anyone however will have a more popular audience. It can relate to different people in different ways. The target audience would more likely to be females between the ages of 17-24 as this was the largest age group, of people who answered in my thriller survey. I think this is because they can relate to our female protagonist who is a teenager, and they may be able to put themselves in her situation, and feel that she is weak and vulnerable.
Previously i have done some research into who could be the thrille's audience by creating a survey on http://www.surveymonkey.com/. This enabled me to discover the age group which be more likely to watch our thriller. I had only recieved 8 responses on my survey after posting it to popular social networks such as facebook and twitter, many people did not reply. This means my results were not as reliable as i would of liked them to be, as i would of liked at least 30 or 40 responses.
Our thriller can be watched by anyone however will have a more popular audience. It can relate to different people in different ways. The target audience would more likely to be females between the ages of 17-24 as this was the largest age group, of people who answered in my thriller survey. I think this is because they can relate to our female protagonist who is a teenager, and they may be able to put themselves in her situation, and feel that she is weak and vulnerable.
To ensure that the audience were interested in the thriller, in my survey i asked the question 'what do you think makes a good thriller'. I got a few different answers, however as not many people completed my survey it made it difficult for me to create wordle that had numerous and various words in it. Although saying that, below are some of the answers which were given;
I think if i am to use survey monkey again iwill encourage more people to complete my thriller, and upload it onto various social networking sites for a wider variety of results. I will also tell people about my survey and ask them if they could fill it in for me, if i gave them the web address
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Evaluation of Finished Product - Question three
What type of media institution might distribute your media production and why?
There are quite a few variaties of media institutions which might like to distribute our media production, as they fit their criteria for a thriller rather well. In order to find out which one may be more likely to distribute our thriller i done some research into the different types of production companies which have previously been known to produce thrillers, such as warner brothers, dimension films, Summit productions and Universal Studio.
There are quite a few variaties of media institutions which might like to distribute our media production, as they fit their criteria for a thriller rather well. In order to find out which one may be more likely to distribute our thriller i done some research into the different types of production companies which have previously been known to produce thrillers, such as warner brothers, dimension films, Summit productions and Universal Studio.
Question 3
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