11) Preliminary task and evaluation

                                                           storyboard of preliminary

(here we wanted to add the video of our originial clip, however after we created the separate subclips on final cut express we couldnt get the original back.)

evaluation of original

After filming our clip we found that there were many problems that we could improve on in creating a successful thriller.
The panning shot we used at the beginning wasn’t effective because it didn’t allow a build up of tension and suspense, because we instantly see the crime, and build up of tension and suspense is a key convention of Hitchcock’s thrillers. It also wasn’t completely effective in paying homage to Hitchcock because there is no element of mystery and gives the narrative away instantly.
The high angle shot looking down on the victim wasn’t effective because it revealed too much of the crime, for example; in Psycho, Hitchcock uses a variety of close ups and extreme close-ups when Marion is murdered in the shower..

..This helped build suspense to emphasize the shock on the audience, which is neccesary to create a successful thriller

. The mirror shot is effective in paying homage to Hitchcock, showing double identity, however it doesn’t work as effectively as we wanted because it turned out to be a mid shot, when we wanted a close up of Dannii’s face in the mirror however we couldn’t do this because we didn’t have the right equiptment to make it as accurate as we wanted.

We then did a zoom to Dannii's hands to show her washing off the blood progressing to another zoom of the plug hole. However, this part didn't go very well because we zoomed the camera too close to the plug, which made the picture blurry. Having the close up of the plug hole relates to Hitchcock's idea of when he did that in the shower scene in Psycho suggesting that the crime has been washed away which is the effect we wanted for our thirller to support the double identity theme.

In the last part, Shannan walks into the toilets completely unaware that there is a dead body slumped in one of the toilet cubicles, which ensures that it will create tension and suspense for the audience.

To create more of a tense atmosphere for this part, we decided that we would add some music, starting from the begining of the sequence gradually getting louder as the mystery is closer to being revealed which will emphasise the shock, from the tense atmosphere.

If we could film how we wanted to with the dialogue shannan would have had a conversation with Dannii, with the music will getting louder and louder, until Shannan leaves the toilets, and the door closes. At this point the music would reach its climax and suddenly stop which would leave the audience feeling tense.

At the same time this wouldve been happening, the camera would zoom to the door as it shuts, which would end the clip at the climax of the music with the closing of the door.

The use of the soundtrack would help create anxiety for the rest of the thriller movie also keeping the tense atmosphere and carry on the build up of tension and suspense after the mystery had been revealed.

To try and improve our clip we will use Final Cut Express to edit it adding transitions and a soundtrack to try and make it more effective in paying homage to Hitchcock.

evaluation of edit

                                                             Storyboard of the edit:

in the start of our edit we did a mid-shot of Dannielle looking in the mirror showing two sides to the character, however this was not as effective as we hoped because of the poor lighting as we wanted low key lighting to create shadows on the face, we couldn’t do this because we didn’t have the correct equiptment.  The effect we wanted was a dark shadow over one side of the face to show they are torn between two personalities.  This would of built the tension between the characters and the audience, creating suspense.

From this scene we went straight to a panning shot showing the victim led on the floor next to the toilet which was unsuccessful in building up tension as it gave away the crime too early and therefore there was no impact on the audience to feel shock or anxiety which would have been an effective aspect on the thriller.

The extreme close up of the blood washing down the plug hole from the hands was inspired from Hitchocks pyhsco...
we thought this would be effective as it was succesful in creating shock for the audience and for them to feel anxious and tense of the murder.

In Pyhsco the high angled shot zooming in to the plug progressively turning into Marions eye helped create the tension and suspense to the audience as it created a very anxious atmosphere of the mystery of who just murdered her.  To improve from our original video we added a transition so that the cuts would be more smooth such as Hitchcocks innovative dissolve into the eye. We then cut to the high angled shot of Megan dead near the toilet, however we feel this released the mystery of the crime too quickly and to improve this we should have shown different shots of the victims body such as a hand or a foot to create mystery and build up tension and suspense for her being found later on in the thriller.

The use of the diegetic sound of the water running in the sink was effective in creating a sinister atmosphere, and helped to set the scene for when Shannan comes into the toilet building on the tension and suspense of the audience of the body being discovered.

For our editing we added transitions after each cut for the thriller to flow more smoothly as our cuts weren’t quick to create suspense and so we tried adding different transitions on in order to create a fast pace for the audience to feel tense.  Using final cut express was also uselful in preparation for our final production of being able to succesfully edit.

We also couldn’t use dialogue in our preliminary because of the time restrictions and therefore there wasn’t really any added mystery to be revealed so there was no build up for the audience and no cliffhangers keeping the audience engaged, this therefore wasnt very succesful as thrillers require attentiveness to understand what is happening throughout.

To try and add more tension and suspense to our preliminary we added a soundtrack and changed the volumes round to get it high and low which is an effective convention of thrillers, however because of our filming it didn’t have any significant effect.

From filming and editing our preliminary we now have a better understanding of what is required in order to create a succesful thriller opening for our final production.

Natasha