Evaluation

Evaluation

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Last Day of Editing

Tuesday 14th April 2009

Today me, Elena C, Natalie N and Elena A all got together and finished editing our Thriller. We also ended up filming another part to bulken it up a bit where it shows the villain boiling a kettle and sharpening his knife. We hoped that the simple evryday task of boiling the kettle would bring up more narrative enigmas and give the character a more psychotic level to him. We also hoped the noise of the kettle boiling would work well and add tension to the scene. The sharpening of knives is also a powerful shot as the audience will be curious to see why he is doing this. The way it shows him making sure they are all straight is quite good too.
Elena C shot the kettle scene which was difficult as the sun light and the window were reflecting in the kettle and showing Elena so she tried to hide heself in it the reflection which was too hard and so she ended up kneeling down and getting it from a lower angle. I filmed the knife scene using the tripod.
We then went back to the computer and added this part to the whole film and carried on editing.

Choosing the Soundtrack for our Thriller

As a group we wanted to put a soundtrack with our Thriller to help create the mood and atmosphere we wanted. The main problem with choosing a soundtrack is the issue of copyright. In order to prevent this we used the website http://www.audio.lgfl.org.uk/. We found out about this site when we were at the CLC editing our preliminary task.
We found a few soundtracks we liked which we believed would work well with our Thriller. These were called:

• Heart of Hell
• Heart of Hell 2
• Mystery Killer
• Crime against the person
• Enemy Within
• Arachnophobia

However, when we tried to download these soundtracks we encountered a problem whereby the ICT technician had to download them himself. Once he had done this, we listened to our chosen soundtracks and selected various points in the track we believed would work best in our Thriller.

Filming - Day 3

Today we filmed the final part to our Thriller. It was successful unlike day 2 of the filming process where it became too dark for us to film. We have now finished all the filming and we can now focus completely on the editing stage. We shared the filming role out between us which meant that we all got a chance to film. As a group I think that all of our skills have developed. For me, I am now more confident with using the camera and I am able to find good places to shoot from and how to shoot the shots. Our next stages are editing the film and choosing the soundtrack we want to place into it. Overall, I am very happy with how today went and how we are working together as a group and progressing well.

Soundtrack Research - The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is regarded as one of the best psychological Thrillers ever made. It won Oscars for Actor/Actresses and best film.
The soundtrack was created by Howard Shore.




THE OPENING:
The music which is played during the opening makes the audience think something bad is going to happen. We see Clarice (Jodie Foster) running through a wood which the audience later find out is an assault course. Whilst she is running the audience think she is vulnerable. The music from the start is an eerie piece of classical music which is immediately unsettling; in fact, we are almost waiting for something bad to happen. The music makes the audience predict something in the visuals.

THE INTERVIEW SCENE:
The audience hear the same soundtrack playing throughout the interview scene as we did during the opening. The soundtrack begins as Clarice walks towards Hannibal Lecter’s (Anthony Hopkins) prison cell. It is used to unsettle the audience without getting to its full tempo.


THE ESCAPE SCENE:
The scene opens with diagetic classical music playing. This suggests a peaceful scene. It joins two different sounds together – classical music to the soundtrack. The high tempo soundtrack creates immediate anxiety within the audience. Then the soundtrack stops and the classical music comes back.


BUFFALO BILL IS KILLED:
As Clarice staggers around in the darkness the soundtrack builds up again to its crescendo (peak) until she shoots him and then the music dies down. The audience is familiar with the soundtrack from its use during key moments in the film. It is very loud which can be draining.

EVALUATION:
-how this film influenced our final piece
we liked the way that this film had only used one soundtrack for all the key moments in the film. we thought it was very powerful as it got the audience familar with it so when they heard it they knew to expect sopmething bad to happen. We wanted this effect too so we found one soundtrack that fit with our film and used this throughout.

Filming - Day 2

Yesterday, the group had decided to film the final part of our Thriller. We wanted to arrive and begin filming when it began getting dark outside (as we were filming outdoors). This would have allowed the darker lighting to make the audience feel a sense of mystery and eeriness. However, by the time we arrived at the house and sorted ourselves and the camera out, it had become too dark to be able to film properly. We managed to get a few shots filmed but they were not of good quality due to the darkness. We will be re-filming on Tuesday 24Th March and hopefully this will be the last time and we can move on and begin editing.

Filming - Day 1

On Tuesday 17th March 2009 our group began filming our Thriller. We all met up in the morning and discussed our storyboards and final ideas. Once we had done this we arranged our filming area (basement) to how we wanted it to look and gave out roles to everyone.
Some of these roles were;
· Make-up artist
· Lighting/prop director
· Director
· Filming – even though we all filmed at least a little part each
· Photographer – so we could put pictures onto our group blog

We worked continuously for most of the day and managed to get a large part of the thriller filmed. We only have one small piece left which will be filmed on Friday after school outside of a house.

We managed to get lots of shots of the same thing so that when we are editing our film we will have a wide range of shots to chose from and merge together.
Overall I am very happy with how the day turned out to be. We managed to get everything we completed that we wanted to do.

Elena A applying make-up to Anna, our main character.

The number 24 on Anna's leg

Elena A getting a tracking shot.

The number 23 on Thegla's arm

Me, Natalie M, getting a mid-body shot.