Final Cut - "Rush" Thriller Opening

Evaluation 7

Evaluation 6

Evaluation 5

Evaluation 4

Evaluation 3

Evaluation 2

Evaluation 1

In what ways does you media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?

Title

The title for our film is “RUSH”. This was not our original choice for a title, our original name was “Forgotten” but we had to change the name because of the context of our thriller. At first it was going to be set in an abandoned house where strange things would happen, it would have almost been like paranormal activity. But due to problems finding a suitable abandoned house, we had to change locations, ideas and our name to suit a new idea. The title “Rush” follows thriller conventions closely as many thriller films imply Danger, Adrenaline and a fast paced storyline and so we thought that we should link our thriller name to the thriller conventions. Rush implies Adrenaline as it represents speed and danger and also gives a visual image of someone moving fast and running from something. Other films that represent adrenaline are “faster” and “the rundown”. 

Setting location

We shot in two different locations, one was in a secluded forest and the other location was shot in a dark hallway behind the stage in school. The Forest challenges many thriller conventions as our location represents Paranoia and also it seems mysterious as it all looks the same and you almost feel alone. This is shown in other films such as Women In Black as the location is on an island separated from society, this makes it mysterious as no one knows who lives there and also during the women in black film paranoia is represented through the house as he thinks he’s on his own and also through sound. As you can see from the picture to the side, we filmed our thriller during a bright day,  we done this so that it would contrast with our final shot which was shot in the dark. The use of the forest created tension and adrenaline because the rapid editing as it felt like the protagonist was being closely followed as some of the camera shots were behind tree(s).

The dark setting we secondly use created an claustrophobic atmosphere, similar to the horror/thriller ‘saw’ or ‘The Purge’. It built up tension because the protagonist is tied up to a radiator while hearing footsteps and other noises. Setting our scene in a dark location follows conventions for a thriller. If you’ve seen the film ‘The purge’, you’ll notice that only bad things start to happen when it gets dark and so we chose to start our thriller off with light and then end with dark. 

Costumes and props

The costume stays the same for George played by Max O’Connnor throughout the thriller. George is dressed in stereotyped teenage clothing, he is wearing a blue hoodie, black trousers and blue trainers. We chose for George to wear plain clothes because it shows how he is an average teenage school boy. The average clothing links to other thriller films such as ‘the purge’, the family who get terrorized by the antagonist are an average family. You’ll notice in the film, the stalker, who is being played by Elliott hart is dressed in black to show he is the antagonist. Black clothing links to codes and conventions of a thriller as usually the antagonist is dressed in black to show he is either dangerous or just the bad guy. In the last scene the stalker wears a mouth protection mask and we chose for him to wear this because we wanted to hide the identity of the stalker. Much like other films such as ‘Strangers’ use masks to hide their identity so it brings a sense of ambiguity to the film. The mouth mask is used to create fear towards George. As well as the mouth mask, the stalkers outfit changes in the last scene as he is seen wearing a black apron to add to that sense of fear. The apron gives the stalker a psycho personality with gives him an identity. 

Props

In our thriller we used a face mask for the antagonist to use to try and hide in identity, this is used also in thrillers to hide identity such as in the thriller ‘the bone collector’.

We also used a chain with was held by the antagonist as it represents his power as he is holding a potential weapon and threatening the protagonist. This appears in many thriller films as it shows power between characters.  

Camerawork and editing

We used a range of shots in our thriller. The film started off with a high angle shot of the protagonist laying, tied up against the radiator. This set the scene of our thriller and also showed that the protagonist has no power and the fact he is tied up adds to that. Also in this shot the protagonist moves his head and looks around which conveys confusion and shows he is unaware where he is. These types of shots are commonly used in thriller films because it shows who the dominant figure is. An example of a film where this happens a lot is ‘iron man’ as they want you to know that iron man is the most powerful by using a high angle shot. We used establishing and long shots for example when the protagonist ran. The use of the eye line shot helped us see the panic of the protagonist as the camera is very shaky to show his sprinting away from the antagonist.

This shot makes it seem like the camera is the eyes of the protagonist so whatever we see is what the protagonist sees, this helps build tension as its making you wonder who and why he is running. We saw this shot used in a thriller on YouTube which was made by a student and we thought it was effective cause it keeps you wondering who he is running from.

We used rapid editing in our thriller and were a massive part of building tension throughout the opening of our thriller. We chose to use this because it makes our film look fast paced and exciting, this also linked to our name of our thriller ‘Rush’. An example of rapid editing used is in Fast and Furious, it is used in this to make it fast faced as it fits the films context. We also used continuity editing which played a big part in the editing process, due to re-shoots we had to make sure the clothes and props we used were the same, otherwise it would show that we filmed different parts of our thriller at different times. 

Title font and style

The font of the title is 3D text written in big, bold capital letters. The word ‘RUSH’ was originally written in white but we changed it to green as we thought it contrasted with the background, being black. We took this concept with the title of ‘Faster’. The word ‘RUSH’ looks big and in your face which implies that the film is going to be filled with fast paced action. The size of the font is large and takes up most of the screen.

Story and how the opening sets it up

We discussed in our group what we thought our thriller would be classed as and we all thought it was a crime thriller. We came to this decision because clearly the person running is running from someone but no one knows why, has he done something wrong? You soon find out that the protagonist is running from a stalker. This is similar to the film ‘strangers’.  Our opening starts of fast paced with the protagonist running away from something, this sets up well as we establish the location and one of the characters. We’ve made it so you have no idea why the protagonist is running and who he’s running from. This follows the conventions of a crime thriller because the stalker is revealed at the end. We don’t really give anything away in the film regarding who the stalker is, we used camera angles to make it look like you’re seeing it from the stalkers eye view. Many film opening start of like this, giving no clues about who the antagonist is such as ‘SAW’. A group of people wake up in some sort of house with no memory of how they got there and all they see is a video on a TV of a doll telling them what to do.

                                         Genre and how the opening suggests it

The opening starts off with the protagonists tied up in some sort of hallway which looks like the stalkers hideout. It looks like this because it has a flickering light and the hallway is quite cramped making it uncomfortable for the protagonist. It then switches to the protagonist running away from someone, we chose to use an action before narrative because it helps identify the situation and characters. You can immediately establish the genre of this film because you begin to ask questions like why is he in a forest? A forest is an eerie environment which makes you feel alone and seeing the protagonist running from something makes you think, what has he done? And who is he running from? This tells us that it is a crime thriller. Although most thrillers start off with a murder, we chose not to include a murder in ours to keep the audience wondering.

How characters are introduced

The protagonist was introduced tied up in a strange hall way which is possibly where the antagonist lives. The protagonist is shown tied up against a radiator. From this we can already see the distribution of power as the antagonist is sitting on a chair in front of him. We also use a low angle shot to show the antagonist having more power.

Interview with Max (Victim - Actor)

Interview with Elliott (Stalker -Actor)

Here is Elliott being interviewed, we decided to get him to talk to the camera instead of us discussing what role he played in the film as we felt it would be more effective if he just talked about it instead, this way the filming process would be shorter and it would be more to the point instead of us just talking about irrelevant things.

Interview with the Director and Editor

Our target audience

Post poster

 

Audience Feedback

This is the audience feedback that we carried out in the sixth form area to ask other students what they thought of our thriller opening.We asked the person that we interviewed to talk about how we could have improved the thriller opening, how the thriller opening was good and their personal favorite parts of it.

Editing update

Editing Diary

Filming Permission

Licensing to the music in our Thriller opening.

The music that we decided to use in our thriller opening is from an artist called Kevin MacLeod, we decided to use this music as it built the suspension very well as the beat is constantly changing and this helps us build a rapid editing opening. To be able to use this music in our Thriller opening we have to use the following licensing agreement to put this with our video. 

"Chase Pulse Faster" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

"Rush" Thriller - Trailer

This is the trailer to our film, the reason we decided to create a trailer is because we felt that it would help the audience feel the tension when watching the final thriller opening so we decided that it was best to just create a trailer as well, as they do not take long to create.

Trailer Editing Diary

Our second location

Rough cut (3) of our Final Film

This is the final rough cut to the Thriller, we have decided to chaneg the production company that we open the Film with as we feel that Lionsgate is a better production company as they have produced Crime thrillers in the past. We also feel that the opening scene with the final scene from last time suits our film better, this is becasue it looks like an action before narrative and this is what we was looking for. There are still a few minor tweeks that need to be made as a few of the shots are way too long, but our thriller opening is nearly finished now we hope.

Final Thriller Poster

Rough cut (2) of our Final Film

This is our second rough cut of the thriller opening, the changes that was needed to be done have all been sorted so now the thrilelr looks better, we still are not sure if we like the ending of the film fully so we are deciding whether we are going to put this at the beginning. We also feel that the shots at the end might drag out for too long, this will be looked into so that we can try and make the thriller better.

Teaser Poster Update

This is our new Teaser poster that has been updated and will be used for our final thriller teaser poster, the reason it had to be changed was because we had a name change and our old teaser posters still had te old name on them.

Editing Software we are using

 

These are the three pieces of editing software that we are using throughout our Thriller opening, we are using them ofrdifferent sections of the opening, for example Cinema 4D is for creating the 3D intro, After Effects is for creating the title sequence and to tidy up the editing, and lastly Sony Vegas is used to do the majority of the editing.

 

Rough cut (1) of our Final Film

This is a rough cut of our final Thriller Opening, this one is a few days old and many changes have been made now. There are a few minor errors with the editing such as the fading from one scene to the other in the chase isn't meant to be there and some of the shots are way too long, these faults have now all been changed.

Brief on the thriller opening

This is Jack explaining what our film opening is going to be about, the storyline that we are using and what the characters are going to be dressed like.

Risk Assessment 2nd location

These are the Risk Assessments we came up with for our Second Location,

Filming Diary

Day 1:
On the first day of filming we went to an abandoned house which is located in the heart of hutton mount right near Shenfield High School where we attend, the reason we chose this location is because it is very creepy and we thought it would be perfect to set our film in the abandoned house as we felt we could make the most out of the scenery we would have surrounding us.

After we got to the location, our actors got ready and we had a look about the house to see where we should film each shot. Sadly, when we was about to start the filming process the Police turned up and informed us the house wasn't in fact abandoned like we thought and it still had an owner, this then meant that we couldn't use the location, this meant that we had to then rethink our storyline and location.


Day 2
After we rethought out our storyline we came to the conclusion that we will do a stalker storyline in the woods right near to the school, however we didn't want to do the same old storyline of a stalker where it is very slow paced and the stalker just walks behind the victim, we wanted to change this so we decided to film as many camera angles for the film as possible and this helped us when it came to the editing process. we started filming around2 o'clock in the afternoon and finished filming around 5 o'clock meaning that we managed to finish before it got dark.

This then meant that we could use all of the shots that we filmed as everything was visible in all of the shots and as luck would have it, we managed to film on a day where the weather was really hot so it made the surface for Max, who was our actor, to run on as it wasn't slippery etc.

Day 3
On the third day of filming we managed to take 2 hours out of our double media lesson to go down to the art block to collect a few props, these being a rope and apron for our stalker and then we had to go to D.T to get a face mask. The reason we collected these was because we felt that it made the stalker looks very psychopathic and we decided this is what we needed to make our film look even better.

After we had collected the props that we were using in the scene we headed into the main assembly hall, upon the stage and behind into the passage that is located behind it, this is where we filmed the scene. The reason that we decided to use this location is because it is very isolated from everyone and everything, very quiet and it overall helps the film look even more scary and tense. We spent around 1 and a half hours filming the different scenes in this location to make sure we got them near-on perfect to what we wanted and then we went back to class.

Character profiles

 

Day 2 Filming Schedule

Risk Assesment 1st Location

This is our risk assessment for our location in the forest.

Day 1 Filming Schedule

This is the schedule that we are using for our filming today, we have planned out the specific times in which we want to get everything done by and the different sections of filming that we are doing.

 

Our location

This is a panorama shot of our location, we chose this forest as inside it is very open which allows us to easily film our thriller.

This is inside the forest and as you can see it looks very eary and a perfect location for our thriller as there is a lot of space for us to run. We chose this location because this forest is quite a secluded area and so it fits perfectly with our story line of the thriller as its about a boy who is getting chased by a stalker and due to the location being isolated, no one is there to help him.

 

Here we are looking for different places to film within the forest, working out what camera angles will be good to use in our location. we were also brainstorming different ideas, for example if we saw a certain feature in a forest we would think about how we could use it to our advanatage. Overall we visited the forest 2 times before filming just to double check that this was a good location to film our thriller.

Focus Group findings

This is a focus group that Jack, Sam and Max carried out, this focus has helped us realise how people get scared, what they think makes a good horror thriller and what they think brings together the whole experience, from this focus group we have managed to be able to make many changes and good plans which cater towards the focus group feedback so we can try and bring the best quality film possible.

Insidious Title Sequence

This is the Title Sequence, written out to show the order in which the names come up on screen, starting with the production company and finishing with the directors name.

Storyboard for our final Thriller Opening

Location unable to be used

Location (OLD)

Me and Sam went to our location after school yesterday to see if there was many risk assessments, how we was going to film it and the cinematography we was going to use. We decided to take photos of location and add them into a flipagram so we could go back over each room to plan the thriller opening.

The Strangers- Opening Analysis (NEW INFLUENCE)

At the start of the film 'The Strangers', we instantly witness the production companies involved in the making of the film. 'A Vertigo Entertainment and Mandate Pictures production' appears in orange writing with a black background which outlines a clear view of what sort of film the viewer is in for. The music being played also adds to the tension and suspension of what genre the film is. The immediate dark background and spooky music adds the fear into the viewer.

 

With the same background and writing, a narrators voice is included into the opening by explaining that the events in the film is inspired by true events. This quote instantly adds the fear as it is placing in your mind that is not false and the following story in the film could happen in real life. It can also let the viewer relate to the story rather than a made up storyline which is unrealistic.

After the narration, we then see 30 seconds of filming in which it just shows a variety of houses which it sounds like is being filmed in a car. This puzzles the viewer as it does not particularly make sense as to what exactly is happening. The spooky music continues to play along with the sound of a car/truck driving, this again builds the tension of the film as the viewers continue to try and figure out what is happening.

The screen then goes black with the sound of a crying women on the phone to a police officer. As she begins to speak we see a shot of two young boys on bikes in the distance behind a car with a broken windscreen in the shape of a heart. As this is happening, the women is saying 'There are people here'. The women begins to panic and as the police officer asks questions, we witness the two boys entering a house. A variety of shots which include a playing record player, a knife with blood on it and blood marks on the walls. The character which seems to be called 'Jordan' says while crying 'Theres blood everywhere'. The screen once again goes black and the Title- 'The Strangers' comes up on the screen in the same orange writing and in all capital letters with the sound of wind. This leaves the viewer in uncertainty over what is going to happen in the film.

Focus group on thrillers

Group discussion on our idea of the thriller, we decided that our thriller will be based in an abandoned house or barn. We also discussed on characters that will be involved in our thriller, we decided that max will be the main character in our thriller along with another girl who will be our paranormal actor. As a group we decided that the ghost like character will be a girl, we will make her look ghost like by the use of mise on scene (make up, costume). 

Saw 1 opening scene

Blogger for iPhone

Our group have downloaded the iPhone app for Blogger which allows us to upload posts quickly from our phone. This is a quick and efficent way to upload our blog.