Evaluation

Media Evaluation

Final Version

After fixing a few sound timings our film opening is finally complete and I am happy and relieved we finally finished!

Here are the normal and HD versions of our film as the HD version crops a few shots.

Normal;


HD;

Twelve Draft

This is our twelve draft and we have now got to the point where we are simply sorting out anything out of place. We have now turned down the sound of the birds and have made the fade a lot more gradual so that the voiceovers can be heard clearly. We have also removed the shots of me at the end as they are irrelevant.

Eleventh Draft

This is our film with the background music added, we decided the voiceover was too dull without music and there was also too much attention paid to the voiceover which is only meant to be an added element to the confusing images. The recording is bad quality again as we are still editing the track in Garageband. We also added bird noises at the end of the opening which leads the film on to the rest of the film.

More Voiceovers

Our previous recording had a few mistakes in so me and Aimie re-recorded the voiceover. I am the 'PC Smith' and Aimie is 'Mrs. Richardson'. We have began to edit however a lot more needs to be done.

As our original script was not long enough to fill up our 4 minute long film we added more to the script;

(after Mrs. Richardson says: Maybe you should be talking to her boyfriend, not me.)
Police: Why? What was he like?
Mrs. Richardson: I didn't get to meet him. She never let me.
Police: What about her friends?
Mrs. Richardson: I only really met Sarah Underwood and Stephen Land, but they haven't been to the house in months.
Police: Do you know if she is still in close contact with them?
Mrs. Richardson: No, like I said, she never told me anything like normal daughters should.

Explanation of Film

As our film opening does not reveal much of the plot to the audience we decided to make up a basic story for anyone who was particularly intruiged as to what would happen further in the film.

We decided that Leyla had gone missing and her Mother is concerned and brings this is police's attention (this is why we have a police interview) and Leyla's friend (played by Sarah in the opening) is made to look like the culprit. However as the film continues Leylas mother behaves strangely and begins is show that she is too possesive and has psychological health problems. Eventually it is revealed that Leyla's Mother had caused her to wake up in the forest due to jealousy from her mental health issues.

This explains why we have the repeating image of Sarah at the beginning.

Psychological Thriller Research

Here is some research which Molly found which has helped us understand our genre further;

Research;
"Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the wide-ranging thriller genre. However, this genre often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre in addition to the typical traits of the thriller genre. Also, occasionally this genre will border into the also wide-ranging Horror genre.
Generally, thrillers focus on plot over character, and thus emphasize intense, physical action over the character's psyche. Psychological thrillers tend to reverse this formula to a certain degree, emphasizing the characters just as much, if not more so, than the plot.
The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.
Sometimes the suspense comes from within one solitary character where characters must resolve conflicts with their own minds. Usually, this conflict is an effort to understand something that has happened to them. These conflicts are made more vivid with physical expressions of the conflict in the means of either physical manifestations, or physical torsions of the characters at play."

The Definition;

Psychological – Elements that are related to the mind or processes of the mind; they are mental rather than physical in nature.
Thriller – A genre of fiction that attempts to "thrill" its audience by placing characters at great risk. This constant unease throughout the story makes the narrative suspenseful to the reader by creating a tense atmosphere.
Psychological + Thriller – By combining these two terms, the definition changes to a narrative that makes the characters exposed to danger on a mental level rather than a physical one. Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies (which is often the case in typical action-thrillers), but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind.

Themes;

Many psychological thrillers have emerged over the past years, all in various media (film, literature, radio, etc). Despite these very different forms of representation, general trends have appeared throughout the narratives. Some of these consistent themes include:
Reality – The quality of being real. Characters often try to determine what is true and what is not within the narrative.
Perception – A person's own interpretation of the world around him through his senses. Often characters misperceive the world around them, or their perceptions are altered by outside factors within the narrative (see Unreliable narrator).
Mind – The human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict, where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding or perception.
Existence/Purpose - The object for which something exists; an aim or a goal humans strive towards to understand their reason for existence. Characters often try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative's conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose.
Identity - The definition of one's self. Characters often are confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity.
Death - The cessation of life. Characters either fear or have a fascination with death.