Evaluation

For my Unit 23 media course I created the opening of a thriller film. I think that overall the film turned out fairly well. The film begins with a tracking shot which turns into a medium shot of a man on a wall. This shot was used to emphasise the ordinary location which would create juxtaposition with the narrative of the film and make the thriller/sci-fi elements even more unexpected and interesting for the audience. During the filming process I tried to keep to the conventions of the thriller genre. This is the reason for the range of shot types used. I chose to use close up shots to highlight the facial expressions of characters. I used medium shots to show two characters in the same shot and the scenery around them without detracting the audience's focus from the characters. Long shots allowed the audience to see a character but by not showing them up close it made them seem enigmatic. Enigmas are commonly used in thrillers to create suspense and I wanted to follow this convention. The range of shots was well received by the focus group who said that they made the film feel like a thriller. However one of them said that the film could have done with even more different camera angles to exaggerate the genre. I wanted there to be a sense of mystery created by the opening scene and to help create this feeling I decided to have a musical score over the action and not to use the dialogue. Although this choice was criticised by one member of the focus group I still think that it was a good choice. I felt that the events of the opening sequence could be explained later in the film through exposition so the opening sequence would make the audience think rather than letting them know exactly what is going on. I hoped that this would create suspense which is also a convention of the thriller genre. Although I thought that the music chosen worked well and most of the focus group agreed, there were some that didn't think that the music was fast paced enough to match what was happening on screen. In the editing process we chose to have quick cuts between some of the shots to give the film a fast pace. I felt that this worked well for the part of the scene where the man approaches the guy on the wall. Also during this scene we only see the man's feet which makes him seem even more enigmatic. I also colour corrected some of the shots to make them darker to make the overall feel of the film darker. I felt that this worked well as some of the shots were quite bright and would have looked out of place.

My thriller opening is not as high quality as professional films but this was to be expected as I did not have as much time as professionals would nor do I have the experience that professionals do. Professional films would have a much bigger budget, better equipment and experienced actors. Because of this, I am happy with the quality of my thriller opening. I felt that I worked well as a director because I had a clear idea of what I wanted out of the film. I also delegated the workload well. Although I did some of the editing, I appointed Tom Wood as the main editor as he had experience with Final Cut and I felt that he would do a good job. I was present during the editing process and put forward my ideas as well as doing some of the editing whilst also allowing the other members of the group to give their ideas. The editing was very pleasing and I am sure that I made the right choices in terms of production roles. Myself and George Dillon Jones were the location managers for the film. We chose the Co-operative car park as the main location as we wanted the location to be ordinary to contrast with the narrative.