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.

Tenth Draft

We have now recorded our police interview with Aimie and my own voice, this draft includes a sample of the recording which has been edited to distort the full name being spoken. Again, the sound is not very clear as it is a recording of the track as we cannot add the track so far as it is not finished.

Ninth Draft

We have now changed my credit to 'Introducing' rather than 'Starring' to make our film seem more realistic and professional. In Dreamgirls Jennifer Hudsons credit is also 'And Introducing'.
The recording is loud as we made a recording of our voiceovers so far, the real version will not be like this as this is only a test.

Eight Draft

This is our eight draft. We have kept the company names and title at the beginning but decided to spread the named credits out amongst the film similar to a real film opening. We've removed the effects off the shots of 'Leyla' after she has woken up to show the difference between her sleeping and her being awake which is not a mistake in our editing as we have added this on purpose!

Use of Sound

In the song In Regards To Myself by Underoath it begins with a clicking noise similar to a tape recording which would be used in a police interview. We decided to play a noise similar to this to create the sound of the recording effect to make the film opening for atmospheric.

The sound is used at 0.00-0.09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDRmbQLftLw

Seventh Draft

After watching the opening of Step Brothers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sczh_KjjFNU) we decided that we really liked the way that the production companies names appeared before any visuals and decided to attempt this with our film opening.
We put all our names at the beginning however it is a bit long to watch and ends up being very boring for the audience and also our footage became a bit full-on with out the name credits breaking it up

Credits Research

In lesson we watch film openings to a selections of films such as Babe, Derailed, Bourne Identity and In Bruges so that we could see where each film placed their credits to help us with our own film openings.
Most of the films had the production companies names appear, then credits and then the title of the film.

We've decided to move the title of our film to the start of the opening after a production company name and after that our names appear spreadout through our footage so that we can have sound before any footage is shown similar to all of these films which makes our film opening look more realistic.

Sixth Draft

After watching over our fith draft we decided we needed the make the time differences a lot clearer especially after getting people to watch and they were confused between past and present. We made the present day shots a lot slowed and changed the effect from 'Vignette' to 'Romantic' which makes the shots lighter and hazy around the edges rather than black to give a waking up and hazy effect. Slowing down the shots made the film slower paced so that our film opening looked a lot less like a trailer.

To stop the film looking like a trailer which we are in danger of we decided to have a black screen with sound paying before any footage is shown. For a test we added walkie-talkie noises over the beginning of this curent draft. We all liked this sound but we obviously cannot leave it simply as this.

After getting a few people in the lesson to watch the film opening they said the 'Filmed and Edited by' finished too quickly to be read so we have also extended the time it is shown on screen.

Fifth Draft

We have now added a new effect on the present day shots in the woods to make it clear which shots are flashbacks and which aren't, we added 'Vignette' to the present day shots to make it seem as though someone is watching 'Leyla'.

Script For Voiceovers

Policeman and Woman (Leylas Mother): This is PC Smith interviewing Mrs. Richardson concerning the disappearance of her daughter Leyla Richardson. Time is 12:43.

Possible Questions From PC Smith
- Mrs. Richardson, when was the last time you saw or had contact with your daughter?
- What was her mood like?
- Did she say or do anything that you consider out of the ordinary?
- Is there anyone that you know of that would have a desire to harm your daughter?


Possible Answers From Mrs. Richardson
- She was at home yesterday, we had a cup of tea and lunch together. Just like we always do.
- Well she's a typical teenager, how do you think her mood was?!
- She was on the phone for a long time, probably to that boyfriend of hers, and she wasn't paying me enough attention. I shouted at her for getting all tarted up in those heels and she stormed out. That was the last time I saw her.
- No. Maybe you should be talking to her boyfriend, not me.

This is our decided script for the News Report;
Concerns are being raised after the disappearance of a 16 year old girl, Leyla Richardson, who was last seen a week ago in North London. The police have stated that the case is becoming more serious than they initially thought it would be. Mrs.-, Leyla's mother is urging people to come forward if they have any information on the case. All those closest to her are being questioned but so far the police can't seem to find any suspects and no-one seems to know anything about the mysterious disappearance of Leyla Richardson.

However the 'Richardson's' will be blurred out similar to Plan B - Suzanne