Evaluation - Rachael Humphrey

Our film is in the sub genre of a Crime Thriller. The conventions of a thriller are fear of the unknown; shadowy lighting; flashback; crime; outside the law; mystery; death and an eerie location.
At the beginning of our film we showed a van coming from far away in the night as it helps the audience start to feel anticipation. When the van reaches us, we see a shot of the main character reaching for something in the boot, but as the audience are not shown what was taken out it is unclear what he is doing, creating the aspect of fear of the unknown until it shows him dragging the body bag through a woodland. We used a flashback to further the narrative and show the audience how the main character got into this situation. We felt the kitchen scene during the flashback should show the main character and a female character in the front of the shot so that when the abrupt looking man comes out behind her she is unaware, leading the audience to believe he killed her however we decided not to show him killing her to give a sense of mystery as to whether or not she is in the body bag and the audience is left to make an assumption about their relationship.
Van coming from far away.

I was the Editor in my group which involved me using editing style; techniques; and I played an important role adding the sounds to fit the shots. It was important to make sure the film was continuous and flowed in order to make the narrative further on as our film was from the middle of a Crime Thriller. We used video transitions like fade in/fade out to show a change in time which helps show the narrative is moving on. The video transitions meant I could put in jump cuts between the digging scenes in the woodland so the film could jump between a mid shot of the man digging to a close up of the spade going into the ground, this was an important learning development as it meant using the transition not only showed a change in time, but we were shown in detail the main characters actions and using single source lighting which created an eerie mood.

Showing the single source lighting from car lights.

We worked to further the narrative, character and genre we decided a flashback would be a good idea in between the digging scenes to show an insight of how the main character came to digging a grave in the woodland. We developed the character using no dialogue, which meant there was more emphasis on his actions and the genre of Crime Thriller. We developed our genre as we decided to use some of the typical conventions of thrillers which helped show the extent of the crime.

Flashback scene, showing abrupt looking man.

There were certain shots we wanted to use such as close ups, pan, long shots, mid shots, over the shoulder shots, track forward and an establishing shot. We changed our plans slightly on which shot type to use to focus on what was happening in the scene but kept to most of our plan. We changed having no non-diegetic sound and added a small electronic sound to the flashback to add eeriness and it was subtle in between the diegetic kitchen sounds we added.

Close up showing detail of digging scenes.

Close up of man in car, to identify main character.

I wanted the transitions to signify a change in time showing the narrative had moved on. I wanted to show the characters state of mind when he is digging, so placing the flashback in an important place shows the audience not only what happened to the female character but suggests his thoughts and feelings are being shown.


Close up allowing audience to see his emotions before the flashback scene occurs.

The feedback we received showed us the decisions we chose, made our film quite successful. Some feedback told us the pan shot when the man is walking from the woods to the van then continuing from the van to the woods with a spade was very good. When the man comes close to the camera then goes into a long shot was a very good technique that worked well. A criticism of our sequence was some of the sounds were not in sync with the film showing me the importance of technical skills and I worked on making the sound fit with the action so it held the audiences suspension of disbelief.

Man walking from woods to van and back in a pan movement.
The skills involved in creating our film helped us develop the choices we wanted to make. From editing I was able to cut unwanted scenes and choose scenes suitable for the film, to give it the suspicious atmosphere that can occur in crime thrillers. Using film transitions to create a change of narrative and got rid of all original sound then added any sound that resembles the action from using different parts of a sound clip; like in the digging scene it shows the sound is not on a loop and creates a realistic effect as the digging sounds vary.

Screen Grab of Timeline

This is our time line for our film project, in total we have added 30 layers of sound to the film all of it being not the original sounds.

Screen Grabs of Our Project

Planning - Dates and Locations

We booked our camera for two over nights during the week in January, we filmed in the location of Ely. We used and orchard in Ely to film our digging scene in the film, this was behind Abby's house in Ely. We left college around 2 to be able to get to Ely so that it was dark enough for the outside scene, but also so that we could film the kitchen scene in natural light and some other inside lighting like lamps. We filmed the kitchen scene in Abbys house in Ely, which was good as it meant that we did not have to go far to get to our two locations making it easier for use to film and also meant we could spend more time filming rather than travelling to the location.

Psycho -Shower Scene

In Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock, the shower scene builds up suspense and fear of the unknown when the female is in the shower and a person with a weapon appears at the shower curtain, this is similar to how we wanted to get our flashback scene to look like. As in our flashback with have the female character washing up which is normal and the kitchen is a very public place as it is somewhere that everyone can relate to, then when the main male character steps into the room behind her who is also unaware like the woman in the shower in psycho, it creates that suspense for the audience as to what the person in the background is going to do.

Location Report

This is our location in Ely where we shot our entire film. In the small black circle on the left of the picture above of the orchard this is where the digging scenes in our film was shot, and to the left of that is that track where the van drove down to get there in the opening sequence.

Editing

Whilst editing our piece we decided to add some transitions in that showed a change in time, and also some transitions are used to show his mind blanking, and tripping, we thought this would be effective to use, to make it look more psychological and freaky.

In the flashback scene we have effectively changed it to black in white to show the change in time and place, also it is effective as it makes the audience make a presumed link that the flashback is the related to the man digging to hide the body bag.

thriller conventions

Fear of the unknown
Sound - to build up suspense/tension and atmosphere
Hero v villain
Subtle
Location - woods, abandoned house
Lighting - shadowy
Film Noir
Damsel in Distress/Vulnerable female
Flawed hero
Narrative - suspense restricted info
Flashback/Flash forward
Objectification of woman - voyeurism.

We used shadowy lighting to create a gloomy atmosphere, and build suspense, so the audience cant see the characters face.
We used a woody location, as it was suitable for the narrative and also because of the trees and being able to make the sound of wind in the trees this would build up the tension and show his struggle to hide what he has done.
Another convention we have used is a flashback, to a scene in a kitchen which shows a woman washing up and suddenly the main character appears, the reason we chose to add a flashback was because we thought it would further the narrative along as it shows a possible link as to why the man is digging the grave in the woodland and who could be in the body bag.
We also tried to be quite subtle when using some sounds like in the flashback with some eerie electronic sound to build a suspense.
Fear of the unknown has also been used in our film as although the flashback shows the man approaching he woman from behind very angrily, there is nothing to show that she was then killed and that is who he is digging the grave for. So there is a fear of the unknown as to who could actually be in the bag and also the reason as to why he has committed this crime.

Film project ideas

Ideas:

As a group we brainstormed different genres and ideas that we thought would be interesting and work well for our project.
In our brainstorm we came up with different characters like hippies/villains, and also a crime genre or also thought a high school thriller would be a good idea to work with.
We finally chose to do a crime thriller genre, which would include one main male character that had murdered a possible wife or girlfriend. The clip would show him digging a whole in an orchard at night, and driving down the track in a white van, and whist he is digging the hole he has flashbacks of the killing, throughout the scene. We thought this would create a good suspenseful clip for our project as it would lead the audience into wanting to know how and why he had ended up killing someone.


What we'd need to do to achieve this;

Camera shots:

We'd need to use a range of camera shots to make the extract interesting, as there is not going to be much packed into the scene, so we'd use a range of long shots when the van is approaching the back of the orchard, maybe a close up of him in the van looking nervous and sketchy, another shot type is we'd use a close up of him, and a low angle shot to make us as a audience feel inferior to him, and a range of mid shots flicking around him so its not just one still shot, maybe also a panning shot, to show his confusion and nervousness.
-Establishing shot
-Long shot
-Close up
-Mid shot
-Track forward
-Pan
-Over the shoulder shot

Mise-en-scene:

Setting/Location for our crime thriller is a back track next to a orchard which is far away for visibility of the public eye.
Also the orchard is a very scary place, we are going to film it in the dark/mid evening, to make it feel a lot more scary also if it is filmed in the dark, it would make more sense.
Also we are going to use the kitchen for flashbacks, there is also going to be some filming in the van as-well.

Props-
Spade
A body bag (in the bag will be a sleeping bag and teddy bear, to create the idea of a person)
The van
Torch
Sellotape ( so the body bag can be shaped into a person outline)

Costume-
Main Male Character-
Dark Jeans
Black Coat
Opened Checked shirt
Boots

Female Character for the flashback -
Casual Jumper
Jeans
Slippers

Lighting-
It will be natural lighting, outside in the dark, the scene will be lit up by the car lights and a torch whilst he is shoveling the hole.
In the flashback it will the black and white, to show the difference in time, the lighting will be natural house lights.

Sound list:
Diegetic & Non Diegetic sound in the scene:
The sound of the van rumbling down the track, the male characters breathing to emphasize the worry, the spade hitting the ground, this will be quite loud as its going to be mostly the only sound, and its significant to the narrative.
In the flashback, the female character will be washing the dishes in the kitchen, low level non diegetic sound will come in when the male character enters the room.

Cast List:
Lucy Jones- Wife that gets killed introduced in the flashback
David Martin - Man introduced at the beginning and throughout the scene also the killer and the digger of the grave.

Script -
No script needed, there is going to be no dialogue.