Audience Feedback

It is essential to carry out audience feedback as this way, I can easily analyse what the strengths and weaknesses of my thriller were. By carrying out audience feedback, I can get the opinions of my target audience on my thriller, which is important because it was designed around what the target audience wants and expects to see and I can now find out if that was successful. 

I screened my production by putting my thriller up on YouTube so the target audience can easily watch it and leave their feedback. YouTube helped me with this greatly, as it was incredibly easy for the target audience to leave their feedback and it was easy for them to access my thriller. 

I received both positive and constructive comments and these were;


Good Comments;

Interesting, realistic narrative, which was easy to follow. The first part of the narrative draws the audience in and makes them want to continue to watch. -Kira Reynolds

The sound went very well with the narrative of the film and the actors were very convincing and engaging. -Reggie Clark

Constructive Comments;

Use a wider variety of camera angles. -Jade Warden

More variety in the sound that is used. -Eren Sadik

By reflecting on these comments I have learned that I did succeed in creating a thriller which the target audience would enjoy, especially in terms of narrative and the actors used. I have also learned that there were improvements that could be made in order to make my thriller even more successful. If I could do this again, I would make changes such as making sure I used a wider variety of camera angles in order to keep the audience interested and engaged in the thriller. I would also use more than one type of soundtrack, which would guide the audiences emotions and change as the narrative gets more and less tense and sometimes cut out sound all together in order to build the suspense even further. 

Group Meetings

 The purpose of carrying out meetings was to provide evidence that our group was planning out all the aspects of creating our thriller in lots of detail in order to make sure that the process of creating the final thriller went smoothly and according to plan. Also, by carrying out meeting, it allowed our group to organise and record all the different decisions we had made during the planning period. Our group worked very well together as we were able to each have input into the planning and we were able to come to decisions that the whole group was happy with. 

Extra Group Storyboard

During the editing process of the footage we originally filmed, we realised that, we did not have enough footage to equal the required two minutes. So we had to plan further filming to make up the extra minute that we needed. To do this, we discussed some ideas for our new storyboards. We decided to expand the beginning of the narrative, and being the film with the focus being on the antagonist, as this way, the audience would have a further understanding of his actions later on in the film.

Sound

Sounds are important to thriller films because the use of sound helps to create and build fear an tension within the thriller. Sound is used to warn the audience when something bad is about to happen. Consequently, sound is incredibly important because it helps to manipulate the audiences emotions and feelings, helping the audience to feel more engaged in the film. 

In the beginning of our thriller film, the music will start low and quiet when she is in the room. The low, eerie music will make it obvious to the audience that the character is in danger, but as they do not yet know why, the music will help to create an enigma. The sound will be non diegetic and will make the audience feel tense and apprehensive. This is conventional to thriller films because the tension, suspense and mystery the sound will create is something that the audience will expect to see and hear from thriller films. As we know that this is something the audience look for and enjoy, it will help our thriller to be more successful. 

Along with non diegetic soundtrack, we will also be including the use of just diegetic sound. We will use this when the female victim is running through the forest, as the adueince will be able to hear the sound of crunching leaves and her heavily breathing. We chose to use diegetic sound at this point in the film as the absence of soundtrack makes the sounds that belong in the film world more important and significant. The audience will be able to fully understand the danger she's in as all they can hear is her running away as fast as she can. This is conventional to thrillers because it helps the audience to feel engaged in the film and helps them to create a bond with the character as all they are able to hear is her running, no soundtrack to take away the significance of that. 

We then decided to use soundtrack again around the point in the narrative when she gets caught. The soundtrack will start to play, low at first but quickly building louder and louder and higher and higher pitched which will create a dramatic build up to the climax of the scene. The audience will instantly be aware that danger is about to occur, which will again build the fear, suspense and tension, aspects that are all important and conventional to thriller films. We chose to use this type of soundtrack at this place because it is the most dramatic and tense part of our narrative. 

Preliminary Task

This task was to make a 30 second to a 1 minute film clip to get to grips with the equipment. 

We practiced using different camera shots and also editing. We filmed two members of the group walking up the stairs and meeting in the hallway.  A strength of this task was the editing; the cuts were professionally edited in order for the clip to flow better. We could improve by using a wider variety of camera shots and by making the clip longer, to be able to include more camera shots. We  initially found it difficult to edit as we were unfamiliar with the editing software. Another thing we struggled with was getting a wide range of camera shots within our film. This task will help us when we come to film and edit our thriller because we will be more familiar with the equipment and we will plan our shots better, in order to incorporate lots of different camera angles and shots in our thriller.

Vox Pops

Along with our questionnaires, we also decided to conduct spoken interviews with some students from West Hatch High School, to get more detailed answers that would help us to decide what would be the best things to include in our own thriller film. We wanted to give people the opportunity to elaborate on their answers, something that they were not able to do on the questionnaire. This type of interview will help us to plan our thriller because we now have a deeper understanding of the types of thrillers our target audience enjoy watching. This will help us when we come to planning our thriller because we will be able to plan it very closely to the way our target audience would enjoy it the most, making our thriller ultimately more successful.

Planning Editing Styles

Editing is important because the different different shots all need to linked, or edited, together and the way they are edited can have a dramatic effect on the look and feel of the film. As there are so many different camera shots and angles within the film, editing is vitally important as the shots need to be put together in order for the film to flow and make sense. The following shot should should compliment its predecessor so that the audience are easily able to follow the sequence of events happening within the film. 

The types of editing we will use in our own film will be;

Slow editing- 
We decided to use slow editing because it builds suspense and draws the audience in because it causes the film to be more dramatic. We will use slow editing when the female character is sitting in the chair crying. We feel that slow editing would be the best type of editing to use at this point in the narrative because it builds up the suspense and tension. Slow editing is very conventional to thriller films because it helps to build up the suspense, fear and tension within the film. Slow editing involves the characters doing something in slow motion which adds effect to the scene. An example of this is the film 'The Strangers' when the female character is walking very slowly towards the door after hearing knocking. This makes the audience worry about who's behind the door and what might happen to her. The use of a conventional editing type such as slow editing will make our thriller successful because it is something the audience expects to see so they would enjoy our thriller more. 


Fade- 
We chose to use fade at the end of our opening sequence because the end shot involved the female character sitting in the chair and the male protagonist sitting on the floor near her legs. He drags the knife over the leg and the audience can see blood on her leg. He then plays with the knife and although its dark, the audience can see blood on the knife. The screen then fades to black which leaves an enigma as the audience wonders what's going to happen to the female next. A fade is  conventional editing style because the effect of the screen fading to black creates questions and suspense. The audience wonders what will happen next, how will it happen and why and the questions keep them interested and intrigued. As this is commonly used at the end of the film, it leaves the audience wanting more. This will make out thriller successful because it will keep he audience interested in our thriller and make the whole film more enjoyable. 


Jump cut- 
We used the jump cut when the female runs away from the antagonist in the forest. The camera is focusing on her from behind and the antagonist grabs her. At this point, the camera suddenly focuses on the male character. A jump cut is when the film suddenly focuses on something. This is conventional to thrillers because the technique of quickly changing the shot and focus makes the thriller fast paced and exciting and shows the audience the importance of certain characters. When we use this in our thriller, it's to shock the audience and the show the importance of the the antagonist. Due to the fact that this is a convention of a thriller film, the audience would expect to see this editing style, it will keep the interested so they will enjoy our thriller, consequently making it successful.


In conclusion, we chose to use editing styles that were very conventional to thriller films  because we knew that they were the things our target audience would expect to see. Important elements to include in our thriller would be the elements of shock, suspense and surprise, because these elements are something that our target audience will expect too see and also will draw the audience into the film and feel more engaged in the film, which will make it ultimately more enjoyable for our target audience. By making the edits, consequently our film, conventional to popular thriller films, it increases the chance that our own thriller will be more successful and popular.