Our film, 'The Unknown' followed the codes and conventions of a thriller movie by creating suspense and by leaving the audience with the edge of the seat feeling. It also introduces the idea of a character; the detective, relentlessly persuing a single minded goal. We recieved positive feedback from our teachers and our peers about our movie and they recognised the genre of the piece. We then made a video evaluating our movie which you can watch below.
Friday, 22 April 2011
Friday, 11 March 2011
Editing
The editing of our movie took longer than the actual filming. The software we used to edit our movie was final cut express on a apple mac. When we first started editing our movie we did not know how to use the software appropriately therefore our teacher had to assist us a lot whilst editing the movie. We managed to put all our clips onto the software and we ordered them properly and deleted clips we never needed. We then set out to clean up our clips cutting out bits of the clips we never needed and cutting out any sounds and dialogue the camera picked up which we never needed.
We then started to add transitions between our clips to make them look smooth and professional. A couple examples of transitions we used were; fade in, fade out and dissolve. These cuts helped our film to look extremely professional and smooth.
We also used other editing tools such as special effects. We used a special effect on our scene where the killer comes out with a knife to Ali and Henna. The special effect we used was lighting, we used this special effect to shock the audience and give them the little fright whilst they are on the edge of the seat feeling which is one of the main codes and conventions of a thriller film.
We then added sound to our movie using the editing suite. Their was no sounds on the editing suite therefore we had to go on a website to find sounds suitable for our movie ourselves. We went on the website and got a range of sounds which suited our movie such as mysterious and thriller sounds and put them on to final cut express to check which one suited the chosen scenes the most.
The final thing we done was add credits to the ending of the 2 minute introduction to a thriller. Our teacher showed us how to add credits and gave us a picture of what we should be writing for our credits therefore we done this without any problems however the credits looked a bit dull and boring therefore we asked our teacher if we could change it make it look not so boring. He showed us how to change the fonts on the credits and the colour we then changed the font to a more bloody kind of font which suits the film and we changed the writing to red which makes the credits not so boring and more relevant to the actual film.
We then started to add transitions between our clips to make them look smooth and professional. A couple examples of transitions we used were; fade in, fade out and dissolve. These cuts helped our film to look extremely professional and smooth.
We also used other editing tools such as special effects. We used a special effect on our scene where the killer comes out with a knife to Ali and Henna. The special effect we used was lighting, we used this special effect to shock the audience and give them the little fright whilst they are on the edge of the seat feeling which is one of the main codes and conventions of a thriller film.
We then added sound to our movie using the editing suite. Their was no sounds on the editing suite therefore we had to go on a website to find sounds suitable for our movie ourselves. We went on the website and got a range of sounds which suited our movie such as mysterious and thriller sounds and put them on to final cut express to check which one suited the chosen scenes the most.
The final thing we done was add credits to the ending of the 2 minute introduction to a thriller. Our teacher showed us how to add credits and gave us a picture of what we should be writing for our credits therefore we done this without any problems however the credits looked a bit dull and boring therefore we asked our teacher if we could change it make it look not so boring. He showed us how to change the fonts on the credits and the colour we then changed the font to a more bloody kind of font which suits the film and we changed the writing to red which makes the credits not so boring and more relevant to the actual film.
Filming
When we first started filming our movie we were not that great as this was the first time we had all ever used a video camera however we got use to using the camera soon enough and got confident filming the scenes in our movie. The problems we had come across when we first started recording our movie was that we never used enough shots in our scenes instead we would records a whole scene in just 2 or 3 shots we resolved this problem by showing our teacher the movie and the feedback we received was to include a variety furthermore our teacher showed us an example of a small scene which included 12 different shots therefore we took what we learned and applied it to our movie.
One of the things we achieved in our movie was that we actually stuck to the correct timings for all our scenes and we did not breach the two minutes which we had to film in this was a good achievement as this showed that we stuck to what we originally set out to do however we did change a few things from our original storyboard because of different legitimate reasons. We originally were going to use a real knife and alcohol as our props for the film but we could not use these props because of health and safety reasons and because none of us were at the legitimate age to be able purchase alcohol therefore instead we created a plastic knife ourselves using our schools DT departments facilities and we used water bottles instead of the alcohol bottles we set out to use originally.
Another thing we had to change from our original planning documents was the time of day we were going to record our scenes. We originally set out to record our movie at night (8pm) however we did not have the equipment to record at night and our camera did not pick up anything when it was dark therefore we decided to change our time of day to daytime (2pm) in order to be able to record our scenes properly and to be able to actually see what we are recording.
Friday, 11 February 2011
Storyboard
Filming schedule
The above is the filming schedule this was very useful as it kept us organised as we could write down what scenes we were filiming, the days we were filming them on, the times we were filiming each of them. This was very useful as it let us know what days we were filiming what scenes on and what times also. In addition the filming schedule also let us write down other important information for each shot such as; the filming location, camera angle/shot, characters/actors needed, weather/lighting and the props needed.
Change of props - Knife
We were not allowed to use a real knife therefore we had to use a butter knife.
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Prop list
The detective:
Detective hat
The detective who shows up after the killings is a crucial character within the film because he is the only hope of any justice in the film. Thoughout this film he is going to wear a hat similar to this, to show that he is a rather sophsticated character and is very intelligent and has alot of clarity walking around wearing this hat. It also covers the majority of his face which shows how mysterious the detective is.
Magnifying glass
A magnifying glass will be used by the detective in order to show the effort he is putting into finding clues within the murders that have been going on throughout the film. he is going to be carrying the magnifying glass all the time and always looking through it looking for any clues that he can find at the crimescene.
The victims:
Smartwear:
The victims of the attacks are going to be dressed very casual and smart in order to make the audience feel like they are regular people which gets to the audience much more because the majority of people are smart and casual so the audience can relate to it. Another reason the victims will be dressed casually is that the audience can sympathise for them because immidiatly they assume that these characters are innocent and haven't done anything to deserve getting killed.
Bottles of drink
The victims will all be equipped with bottles of vodka drink in order to show that they were all only going out to have fun. This makes the audience sympathise for them because they only went out to have a good time however they ended up going to the wrong spot and this leads to a tragic ending of all of the victims dying. This also suggests they were helpful and not able to defend themselves because they were slightly drunk and not able to think properly. However we could not get hold of alchahol because of legal reasons so we used water bottles instead which connote the innocence of the teenagers.
The murderer:
Black dressing
the murderer is going to be dressed in all black so it suggest that he is evil however it also shows that he is a mysterious character dressed in black and no one knows that they are, it also has a hoody to cover up the majority of his face which makes him unidentifiable to the audience then no one knows who he is and this keeps the audience confused.
Knife
the killer will be equipped with a knife and this will make the audience sense the danger of the whole situation and this will make the audience fear the murderer. the knife also makes the audience sympathise for the victims because the knife seems very sharp which would be very painful to someone.
Detective hat
Magnifying glass
The victims:
Smartwear:
The victims of the attacks are going to be dressed very casual and smart in order to make the audience feel like they are regular people which gets to the audience much more because the majority of people are smart and casual so the audience can relate to it. Another reason the victims will be dressed casually is that the audience can sympathise for them because immidiatly they assume that these characters are innocent and haven't done anything to deserve getting killed.
Bottles of drink
The victims will all be equipped with bottles of vodka drink in order to show that they were all only going out to have fun. This makes the audience sympathise for them because they only went out to have a good time however they ended up going to the wrong spot and this leads to a tragic ending of all of the victims dying. This also suggests they were helpful and not able to defend themselves because they were slightly drunk and not able to think properly. However we could not get hold of alchahol because of legal reasons so we used water bottles instead which connote the innocence of the teenagers.
Black dressing
the murderer is going to be dressed in all black so it suggest that he is evil however it also shows that he is a mysterious character dressed in black and no one knows that they are, it also has a hoody to cover up the majority of his face which makes him unidentifiable to the audience then no one knows who he is and this keeps the audience confused.
Knife
the killer will be equipped with a knife and this will make the audience sense the danger of the whole situation and this will make the audience fear the murderer. the knife also makes the audience sympathise for the victims because the knife seems very sharp which would be very painful to someone.
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