Final Film

This is our complete film. It shows the first 2 minutes of a psychological thriller called quit whilst you're ahead. It stars Brendan Mcinerney as Harry, Rosanna Duggan as Olivia and Abby Wilson as Emily. Written and Produced by Group 22 from Barnsley College.

Evaluation part five.

We attracted our audience by constructing several questionaires and handing them out to people we knew, and asking them to pass them on to people they know.
I think we reached our target audience perfectly because the people we know are in our age range (teenagers) and are also from the North, and we included certain quotes in the film that we thought might grasp the audience's attention when planning our production.
We recieved a lot of positive feedback, things such as 'excellent storyline' were said a lot, and even though many of them admitted it wasn't their usual prefered genre of film, they were very excited about seeing it.
From our audience feedback, we learnt that the areas we chose for filming were very good. One person said that he really liked the idea of the house being so dark inside suiting the personality of Harry, contrasting with the brightness of the outdoors that the two characters looked so uncomfortable and unfamiliar with; he said it was little things like this that made the film.
We also learnt from our audience feedback that the voiceover of officer shades wasn't so great. The fact that there was no difference in the quality of sound of the voice or where it was coming from let the film down said one girl. We regrettably as a group thought that this might have caught the audience's attention because we simply didn't have the skill to master making it any better. But we understand that this isn't the end of the world and we will aquire this skill for the next time.

Evaluation part four.

I think that a good media institution that could distribute our media product would be WARP films.
I think this because it is not a big institution, it is an independent film production company based in Sheffield & London. It is also known for making fairly low budget films, and ones that are of selected taste - (i.e: four lions and this is england are not films you could watch with the whole family, and neither is Quit whilst you're ahead.)
Obviously our film is low budget as it is our amateur media product, and there are aspects of it that show clearly that it is imperfect, but that is the beauty of it as is the case with many of WARP films.
The target audience for our film is generally teenagers, and to be more specific, Northerners. This is another reason why I think WARP would be a good distributor because a lot of their films including This is England, Donkey Punch, Submarine and Four Lions are popular amongst teens and are set in the North, and therefore a lot of their audience will also be from the North.

Evaluation Part Three

There are a lot of vital camera movements that help define it's place in the catagory 'thriller.' The fact that Harry and his girlfriend don't exchange many words amongst each other and their serious, unsatisfied facial expressions shows they are deep people. The horizontal panning of the camera at the opening of the scene is quite vital as it presents the audience with an insight of Harry's bedroom, which as a teenager is basically an insight of his life. The close up of his face when he is tossing and turning in bed shows that he is unhappy and is clearly being disturbed by this nightmare he is shown to be having.
The close up/over shoulder shot in the graveyard scene is also really important as it allows the viewer to read what Harry is reading and puts you in his shoes for a moment.
The music we used I thought was really effective. We waited until after the phonecall scene (in which there was non-diegetic sound) to add music, and this was also non-diegetic. The music then continued right until the end of the five minutes, and the speech in the graveyard was heared over the music. The music was chilling and eerie, to add mystery.

Evaluation Part Two

I think that our film reflects the genre we are trying to pursue quite well. The scenes we filmed were set out specifically to match the personality of the main character - Harry, which is indie. We took special care in ensuring that the bedroom of which we filmed in was presented as Harry's would have thought to have been. Another thing we added was a ringtone of indie genre music (The Kinks - You really got me) But unfortunately, we had to edit this out for copyright reasons. This is another example of a problem we faced throughout the editing process.
We got a lot of our inspiration for this particular genre from films such as Rear Window, Fatal Attraction, Taxi Driver and Les Diaboliques. As a group we watched a couple of these together and some on our own and developed a passion for this genre of Psychological Thriller.
Our film is somewhat similar to those listed because they all have a sense of mystery. The audience are made to feel uncomfortable, unsettled and eager to find out what happens next.
We established the plot together as a group once we'd decided on the genre, and this flowed fairly smoothly. We didn't have any disagreements as such and everyone was happy with the roles. There was one instance of role swapping as Jess decided she didn't want to act at last-minute, and Abby stepped in and took her place.

Evaluation Part One

I feel that as a group, we couldn't have put more effort into the completion of continuity. There were several times that both me and my fellow group members turned up in the same clothing to continue our filming and perfect continuity. However, the weather wasn't on our side, and we postponed filming a lot because of this. in the end, we decided that there was no point waiting around for the correct weather in order to complete continuity, because realistically, we weren't going to get back those couple of days of beautiful weather we'd previously had, so we decided to film regardless of the weather that day. As it happens, it was pouring it down with rain that day.. Which is unfortunate, but as media students we have come to realise we have to compromise with things like this and not everything will go the way we want it to all the time. As for editing, i think we did an excellent job. Despite the sudden change of weather from the opening scene to the next, we managed to make it look like it was literally followed on from the previous scene.

             
                        

What defines a psychological thriller?

My character's profile

Name - Olivia Hopwood
Age - 18
Gender - Female
Country/City - Manchester, England
Family - None, Boyfriend Harry Jenkins
Hair colour - Brown
Eye Colour - Blue/Green
Hobbies - Listening to music, Shopping
Political - None
Religion - None

Olivia plays the role of Harry's girlfriend, they have been together since high school and the incident with his sister. She is an optimistic person and the backbone to Harry's life. When they are informed of the case being closed Olivia offers to help him on his journey proving she is a strong, supportive and brave woman therefore breaking the stereotype of women being weak in films.
Olivia came from a respectable family but her parents disapproved of her relationship with Harry so she moved out to live with him and now considers herself to have no parents. She is independent and works to pay the rent to support Harry.

Continuity

As a group I think we've kept up continuity quite well. Despite a sudden weather change in the first to second scene, everything is spot on and looks as though it is literally the second after. Our audience must take into consideration the fact that we don't have control of the weather and couldn't help this, and that we did all we could to make it look the best we possibly could have done.

Target Audience

We decided that our film would be best suited to a young audience, with intrests that are similar to that of the characters. For example, Harry likes to listen to music and smoke cigarettes - more or less a typical teenage male, and so a lot of teenage males would probably be interested in our film. Olivia - Harry's girlfriend - enjoys spending time with Harry and shows herself to be a very supportive girlfriend at the same time as being quite reserved and shy; Girls that are like Olivia would be interested in watching the film. Overall, our film is generally aimed at anyone between the ages of 16 and 25.

Costume research

For our costumes we decided to keep it casual. There is no particular theme for our film (e.g: gangster) and so no particular 'uniform' as such is required. Because it is a psychological thriller, the clothing the actors wore had to be quite plain and basic, just to add mystery. We decided that wearing a tshirt with a brand name printed across it would not compliment the genre of our film.

Risk assesment for last scene.

Shot Script

Blogging from Paris - now that's dedication!

Filming inconveniences/How our plan were altered

In one of my previous posts, I stated that we were to shoot the last scene the following day to complete our filming, but we had encountered a few weather problems previously and by the time the weather had cleared up, transport was an issue and therefore the location of the scene was inaccesable.
Due to this inconvenience, our filming for the last scene has been furtherly postponed and we are yet to organise a day that will be suitable for us all.

Filming tricky shots..

When it came to filming the scene of Harry's sister- Emily screaming, we had a few minor setbacks. We ventured around college to find a room that was dark enough to enhance the dark and eerie atmosphere required for this scene, however, we couldn't find any. We were all worried and on top of this Jess was uncomfortable in fullfilling her role, but everything turned out fine and Abby offered to take on the role of Emily and we were given permission to use the TV studio in college with adjustable lights and curtains. After a lot compromisation and quick-thinking, we were able to film this scene perfectly.

Tricky Shots

Tomorrow the only tricky shot we face is the position of the light as when we last filmed it was bright sunshine and there were no clouds in sight. We may find that by the time tomorrow comes around, the day won't be as bright and there will be a lack in our continuity

Aim's for last day of filming

Tomorrow we will film our last few shots in a park in town. Issues we must deal with to do this are ensuring the whole team arrives on time and in the same clothing in order to keep continuity. We need to film the last part of our title sequence which includes our two characters mourning over a grave, a medium close up of his girlfriend comforting him and lastly Harry bending down to read the letter taped to the grave which reads 'quit whilst your ahead'

Examples of distribution logo's

Different types of camera shots