G321 - Questionnaire Answers

We gave out a questionnaire to to a mixture of people to get some information on our target audience. These are the result we have collected back:

Audience Questionnaire - Results

1.      What is your age? Answer

          

16 (x3)

17 (x3)

53 (x2)

36 (x2)

2.      What is your gender? Circle

Male (x5)

Female (x5)

3.      Do you like psychological thrillers? Circle

Yes (x10)

No (x0)

4.      Why/why not? Answer

•          They interest me.

•          Because YOLO.

•          Because they are fun.

•          Because they are interesting and I like having to actually think about the film.

•          Because they are educational.

•          Because they make you think, it’s not just spoon fed.

•          Because they are interesting, make you think.

5.      Can you name a psychological thriller? Answer

·         Shutter Island

·         Inception

·         Prometheus (x3)

·         The Usual Suspects

·         6^th Sense (x3)

·         The Hole, Panic Button and Saw

6.      Do you know of/or like any of the following psychological thrillers? Tick Boxes

·         The Butterfly Effect – x3                                

·         Inception – x8

·         The Usual Suspects – x1

·         Identity – x1

·         Shutter Island – x7

·         Se7en – x7

·         Fight Club – x4

·         Memento – x4

·         Silence of the Lambs – x3

·         Don’t know any – x0

By Connor and Jack

G321: Audience Questionnaire

Audience Questionnaire

This is our audience questionnaire, we aim to give this out to at least 10 people to get a good response back to help us when we are making our opening.

1. What is your age? Answer

16

17

53

36

2. What is your gender? Circle

Male

Female

3. Do you like psychological thrillers? Circle

Yes

No

4. Why/why not? Answer

• They interest me.

• Because YOLO.

• Because they are fun.

• Because they are interesting and I like having to actually think about the film.

• Because they are educational.

• Because they make you think, it’s not just spoon fed.

• Because they are interesting, make you think.

5. Can you name a psychological thriller? Answer

· Shutter Island

· Inception

· Prometheus

· The Usual Suspects

· 6^th Sense

· The Hole, Panic Button and Saw

6. Do you know of/or like any of the following psychological thrillers? Tick Boxes

· The Butterfly Effect                                

· Inception

· The Usual Suspects

· Identity

· Shutter Island

· Se7en

· Fight Club

· Memento

· Silence of the Lambs

· Don’t know any

By Connor and Jack

G321: Why we chose the genre and Generic Conventions

The genre we have chosen is Psychological Thriller because it generally focuses on the unstable emotional states of characters and we thought this was good as we had a great idea on what we were going to make off of this genre in combination with mystery and thriller. We chose this genre mainly because we had a good idea and wanted to build upon it with this genre because psychological thrillers tend to include something that is mentally wrong with a person and our idea fits in with that.

Generic conventions typically found in a psychological thriller:

Mise-en-scene: usually set in a isolated area, dark/mysterious mood surrounding the characters. usually a weapon is used either for threat or use.

Characters: There are normally two main characters in a thriller. The heroes are often men and the villains are also typically men who are creepy and weird. In psychological thrillers they are quite intelligent and think about original ways of taunting victims.

Themes: Normally based around the mind set of someone, for example something mentally wrong with them and seem to be isolated. There also seems to be a scene that makes the audience feel uneasy. Normally shown from the victims point of view so you can see and feel what they are going through. Make the audience feel uncomfortable and concerned. Try and fit the film around common fears.

Music: Eerie sounds, chilling effects. Climax normally and and a low beat when it hits the climax this can have connotations of a heartbeat.




These are the opening titles to the psychological thriller "Se7en", from this I can see that lots of the generic conventions you would expect to see in this are in there, this is what we will take into consideration when we make our film opening.

By Connor

G321: Institution we would like to be and why

We chose to be a mainstream film production company rather than a independent film production company because we wanted to have a more professional looking piece, with high quality camera shots and scenes. Also considering the mise-en-scene in the piece and making it look really good. When considering the titles in a mainstream film we want to make them as effective and look like they should be with this film and genre. The locations that will be in the piece have also got to go with the storyline that we are going to chose and be of a good quality as mainstream companies typically rely on their locations to be of high quality and look pretty much perfect.

Advantages of a Mainstream Film

• Generally a blanket release in lots of cinemas
• Come out on DVD/Blu-ray for customers (generates more money)

Disadvantages of a Mainstream Film

• High budget for the film (this can be good and bad becuase you can get given the money but generally you will have to get sponsors and investors that are willing because you will be demanding lots of money)

Advantages of an Independent Film

• Low budget for the film
• Can make it whatever the idea e.g. you think of an idea and you can recreate it without loads of people saying it is a bad idea (this can be good and bad)

Disadvantages of an Independent Film

• Relies on ratings and reviews
• Limited release
• Mainly screened at film festivals
• The public don't really watch independent films
• Got to find investors because you most likely wont have enough money yourself

By Connor

G321: Our Remake

This is our remake of the film Momento, we choose to do this because we had an idea to do a thriller for our final piece and creating this remake gave us information onto generic conventions used such as a weapon and blood and also what kind of shots are used in that type of film.

Shots used

There were many close up shots used from the very beginning. The first shot used was close up of the phone (replacement for the picture). This shot did not change until 1:13 as the shot in the original film lasted a verly long time.

The second shot used was a tracking shot of the phone moving up to Daniels head, which then changes to a cut away of him putting the phone in his jacket pocket and then ends on a close up of his face. This shot was from 1:13 - 1:27.
. By Dan and Jack

G321: How we Made our Remake

While making our remake we had to search for locations for our piece, we were preferably looking for places that had a kind of damp looking floor which we is what it looks like in Momento. These are some of the choices that we had in mind:

This would work well for the flooring as it gives of the damp floor impression seen in the opening of Momento. However we did not end up going with this choice as we felt that the space was too open and we could not the effect of the blood dripping down the wall very well in there.

This would again work well with the flooring and the dripping blood effect worked very well in this room. However, unlike the other room, we felt that this space may be slightly too enclosed as the room equipment kept on getting in the way and sometimes made it very hard to shoot (espially with the high angle shot of the dead man on the floor).

We thought the layout of the room helped to give us the right amount of space needed for the remake. However the lighting in the room did not work well and we could not get the 'dim' effect that we needed.





This room did not work very well for most of the remake as it did not allow us to create the grimy feel that the opening of the film had (being that it was in a dark damp room). It also had barely any space to film it in.


Eventually we decided to go with location 2#  (below) because we realised that since the opening of the film was in a fairly enclosed space, this would work very well. It also allowed us to create a grimy feel similar to opening scene location. It was also the only room that would allow for a good dripping effect which was vital for the remake.

By Dan and Jack

G321: Film Remake: Storyboard

This is our storyboard for our remake of the opening title sequence of 'Memento'.

This will allow you to see what we have been planning ready for filming and in conjunction with the timeline will see how the 'Memento' storyline pans out.



By Connor and Jack



G321: Film Remake: Time line

This is the time line created for our film remake. By creating a time line for the film we can see where each title is meant to enter the screen or fade/ transition out of shot. A time line is very important for the editor or title sequencer as they are able to see where each title is meant to go and when.

By Dan, Connor and Jack

G321: Film Remake: Shotlist

 

This is the shot list for our film remake of Memento, as you can see the shots were not really varied as there were mainly close ups used in the piece and few other shots but we did get a chance to use a tracking shot which we found interesting to shoot and also a tilt which differs from our preliminary task were we mostly used mid/long shots. The use of close ups in this piece is trying to build tension and make a mysterious feel of the piece, aimed at an active audience to be able to think in more depth about the film.

 

By Dan

G321: Why We Are Doing a Remake

We chose to create a remake of a film opening because we felt it could further our skills in creating and editing pieces of film opening titles so we get an insight on how we shall create and edit our final piece. We wanted to try to make it as similar as possible to the actual film opening as we can. We want to experiment with a variety of genres and styles before deciding on our final piece and institution we would like to be.

In editing it will help us improve on our skills in iMovie and creating more precise cuts and transitions. We also wanted to remake a film opening so we know how to make it look professional and enticing to audiences in preparation for our own final film opening.

By Dan and Connor