Question 5

I considered the audience a lot whilst thinking about the way that I would film my opening. The story told through the opening makes sure that the audience know enough about the story (main characters, that there is imminent danger and a basic idea of the plot line) without giving away too much (what the antagonists want and whats going to happen to the protagonist). The suggestion of danger means that the audience want to watch on and see if the protagonist survives. It also builds suspense as we aren't sure of how much danger the protagonist is in and whether he will find out how to escape it.
I also considered the audience when planning the use of camera. The shot of the hammer is very important as it suggests violence and therefore puts the audience in suspense. They want to know whether the protagonist will survive as he is tied up and defenseless but the antagonists have weapons.
We also planned the shot of the protagonists eye dilating for the audience. This is because we thought that it would add more emphasis on how he is drugged and defenseless, this therefore puts the audience on the edge of their seats as they worry for him.
Through mise en scene we were able to address our audience in many ways. The high key lighting makes them feel exposed and vulnerable and therefore puts them in suspense as they worry for he unprotected protagonist.
The lighting in the drugging scene has the opposite effect. We wanted to use soft lighting to make the audience feel safe and comfortable. This made the other scenes much more shocking and disorienting.

Question 4

We are targeting 17-25. To do this we had to consider many things when making our film.
The character of Sophie was directed by what we thought the audience would want. We put her in a beautiful dress with pretty makeup as we thought this would make her a male gaze. Females are supposed to be interested by her because although she is evil her beauty and strength make her an aspirational figure. This is furthered by how she is in charge of all of the males and is in complete control of the situation. They may not approve of her actions but her qualities mean they may look up to her anyway.
Fraser's character is also built around the audience because we wanted to make sure that he is relatable to attract the audience. We put him in a costume that could be worn by both young adults and people in their early 20's so that they would both relate to him. He is a victim in the situation so that suspense is built because young adults tend to enjoy a suspenseful plot. His weakness would also make the entire audience question how they would survive in this situation so that piques their interest.
The character of Alex introduces violence to the plot as this attracts males. This is done through him hitting Fraser with the hammer. The way that he picks up the hammer slowly also furthers the suspense.
The reason that we didn't target younger viewers as well is because we found that the content would be upsetting for them as we would rate our film as a 15. This is due to the violence and frequent use of strong language which according to the BBFC define a film as a 15.
We targeted the age well through making our characters the same age as our target audience. This means that they find them more relateable and also makes them more on edge as they wonder how they would fare in the same situation.

Question 3

As our film is not well known and we don't have actors that people would recognize there won't be as much draw to our film as there is to more well known thrillers, this makes distribution important. It's a low budget, independent film so our budget will not allow a high amount of money for distribution. As a result of this targeting big companies and cinemas wouldn't be very successful. Instead of this I want to target smaller, local operations.
Our production company (fb productions) would be very small. This is why we put the logo on screen for a long time in our film as we would want people to take notice of it. As we would not make high budget films like Cloud 8 did with 127 Hours so we would not expect to have the same expensive distribution.
We would put our film on YouTube as it is free to put on and if we got a lot views we could earn money from it through advertising. This is very effective because it means that the audience would have many different ways of reaching it. YouTube can be viewed on computers, tablets, phones and can be on TV's through devices like apple TV. The accessibility of this would be very important as it means that we can get as many views as possible. It is also very easy to bring in more viewers as a link to the video could be seen or sent to anyone, anywhere in the world, through the use of social media.We could also sell our film to Netflix. This is not accessible to everyone as audiences have to pay if they want an account. Both YouTube and Netflix can also be viewed on some gaming console such as the X Box One as more and more console makers are changing their consoles into more of a multimedia console than just one for gaming.
We wouldn't use a distributor as our film is very low budget and through using YouTube it would be very easy for us to distribute it ourselves. This means that we could make it accessible to anyone at any time and possible make money from views without spending money on a distributor. There are companies that would work well with films like ours with a lower budget but with how easy it is to get a film to the audience using social media it may not be worth it for a film with as low a budget as ours. Examples of distributors that we could have looked into if it wasn't so easy to do it ourselves are:

• LoveFilm
• Icon
• Focus Features
• Pathe
• Momentum

As I am distributing it myself I would also have to do my own prmotion. To start with I would use lots of social media

We can also show our film at cinemas that show student films.

Question 7

I think that we have got much better at writing dialogue as the dialogue in our prelim was very basic and rushed. The dialogue in our film builds story much better as it creates enigma and introduces some key points to give the audience more understanding. I also think that using foleys dramatically improved the end product when in our prelim we didn't use any and relied only on the sound that the camera picked up. This meant that the end project was much more dramatic than our prelim as we used foleys to emphasise the importance of the hammer.
I think that our knowledge of lighting has improved since the prelim as we were able to light the two different scenes in a contrasting way when during the prelim we only knew how to do one lighting set up. However, we were more careful in the prelim when it came to setting up the lighting so we didn't have a character looking over exposed as we did in the final film. As a result of this I think the prelim had better high key lighting.
We were able to use a wider range of props in our final film meaning that it contributed more to the atmosphere of the film. This helped to make our final film better than our prelim. The duct tape, hammer and gag all made Fraser seem much more vulnerable and emphasized the danger he was in. This put the audience in suspense. Our prelim did not have a lot of suspense.

Question 6

I learnt how to set the white balance so that the footage does not have an unwanted hue and is more professional looking. Although I have knowledge of how to do this I am not sure that I used it correctly in my actual film. If I was to do this project again I would double check that I have set t correctly.
I have also gained a lot of knowledge on lighting. In the film I am very happy with the use of lighting on the flashback scene as even though the lighting was naturally acceptable in our lessons we were taught the effects of using a soft light and as we liked them we wanted to set up a soft light in this scene. With this extra lighting the scene looks much more professional. In the garage scene I sometimes think the high key lighting is too bright as some of the characters are over exposed. Next time to fix this I would check the footage more frequently to make sure every character is well lit and not just the one that I checked first.
I also learnt how to use garage band to add foley sound effects. I think that I did this very well and that the effects we added make the scene much more dramatic. One of the examples I am most pleased with is when Alex picks up the hammer as the noise we added makes it more dramatic and brings more attention to the impending violence. This builds suspense.
We tried to use a lapel mic to record our sounds, however even though the mics worked perfectly during the tests we did we didn't like the effect that we got when recording as you couldn't pick out the characters voice over the background noise. Because of this we thought that turning up the volume on certain points in the dialogue the camera picked up would be more effective. We also added a continuous ambient sound so that the spikes in volume wouldn't be shocking and would fit better in the sequence.

Question 2

The main thing that is included in our film is a representation of gender. We decided almost immediately that we didn't want to go for the typical damsel in distress for our female character. We wanted females to be represented in a more strong, powerful way. Therefore we used Sophie's character to show females as more powerful than the male characters. She is in charge of all of the males. You can tell this through the dialogue as she instructs them and doesn't ever actually do much work herself. The male characters are looking at her more often than not showing that they either respect or fear her, this reinforces her power. We also often used camera angles like the tilt to reinforce that she is towering over Fraser. This makes Fraser seem vulnerable as she is much stronger than him and he is in her mercy. Even in the drugging scene where Fraser isn't tied up he takes a drink from her when she instructs him to. This shows that even people that aren't under her control take orders from her, through this we see that her power reaches everyone.
Again for the male characters we didn't want to paint them as the typical powerful characters that we are used to seeing males in thrillers play. We wanted Fraser to be very weak and defenseless. One way that we portrayed this is through tying him up and gagging him so that he had no use of any part of his body and he is very vulnerable. To further this the characters around him all have weapons so he is even more defenseless. He is sitting down so the other characters tower over him making him seem as though he is the weakest.

His clothing is casual suggesting that he doesn't fit in with the others who are more powerful than him. The drugging scene furthers his vulnerability because he trusts Sophie and is completely under her control in the situation.
Reece, Joe and Alex all further both of the portrayals of gender that I've chosen to portray. They further the portrayal of a powerful female as they follow Sophie's orders and don't tend to speak unless she speaks to them first. This shows that they are under her control. This also shows the portrayal of male vulnerability because even though they do have some power they don't have as much as Sophie and they are still weak in comparison to her.
I think that both portrayals in my opening are positive. The female breaks the stereotype that females are always weak and defenseless through being in charge and having all of the males respect or fear her. The male representation is positive in a different way. Fraser's character is a very extreme portrayal meaning that it does come across as dangerous. Therefore that could be considered negative. However, it is also positive as in real life men aren't always the most strong, powerful people and it is positive to have a portrayal of that which the audiences can relate to.

Question 1

Our film fits in with the typical thriller genre as it has many conventions of a thriller film such as:

• Suspense: in the film we deliberately left out what it is that our main protagonist has which the antagonists want. This was to build suspense for the audience as they don't know the full story and they wonder what could be so important to make the antagonists willing to kill to get their hands on it. One example of this being used in an opening is in The Butterfly Effect when the protagonist says he has to "save her" without telling the audience who she is and why she is in danger. 
  
• Investigation of enigma: as you can see from our synopsis our narrative follows the exploration of what object the protagonist has that the antagonist wants.
• The hero is the only one able to solve the enigma: in the opening the antagonists make it clear that they want the protagonist to find what they want to save his life. This means that only he will be able to solve the enigma.This is again suggests in the opening of the butterfly effects as the main protagonist says that he has to "save her". 
• Violence: the opening includes shots of a hammer suggesting that it will become violent. It also later on includes violence when the protagonist is hit on the head with it.
  
• Diegetic sound of breathing: our protagonists breathing is often heard to show the audience that he is scared and hurt and therefore make them fear for him more.
• Protagonist is in the mercy of the antagonist: our protagonist is tied up and gagged by the antagonists. They also have weapons but he is unprotected.
  
• Story is designed to make the audience think it can happen to them: we made our protagonist very relatable. We also made it clear that he has no idea why he is in the situation he found himself in and that he didn't do anything bad to bring it on. This makes the audience scared. 

Final Film

Title Sequence: The Roommate

The only credit before the film begins is to screen gems. These are the people that produced the film. Having only this logo at the start is effective because it means that all the audiences focus is on this particular company and they don't have to wait too long until the film starts so they don't get bored.

The film then begins with another credit to screen gems super imposed over the location where the film is set. The white, bold text is effective the colour stands out against the background and the boldness makes it more eye catching. This is effective as it draws the audience to the information. I like that they superimposed it over the background as it means that the audience stay interested as the film has begun. 

On the other hand there is a moving background meaning that the audiences attention would be more on that than the information that the creators are trying to give them.

They introduce some of the key aspects through the background shots in these titles. This gives the audience a basic awareness of the film without having to specifically point it out.

The titles give a lot of information about many aspects of the film

• The production company: this would draw people in as they are a recognizable brand who have produced many successful thriller films such as Hostel and Resident Evil. This means that the audience would recognize them as the producers of other amazing thriller films and anticipate that the film is going to be as good as those.
• The actors/actresses: Leighton Meester (former Gossip Girl star), Cam Gigandet (Easy A), Aly Michalka (Easy A), Daneel Harris (Fired Up), Frances Fisher (Titanic), Thomas Arana (Limitless), Nina Dobrev (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Matt Lanter (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) are all named in the titles. This is because people would recognize them from their work and they would have already gained a fan base. Therefore when their name is associated with the film people would expect it to be as good as their previous work.
• Casting: Lindsay Hayes Kroeger did the casting for The Matrix. This is a very successful film so having someone who worked on it would make audiences assume that this film is going to be very good.
• Costume design: Maya Lieberman worked on Taken which is a very successful thriller film so fans of the genre would already be very familiar with Taken and therefore would be excited to see people who worked on that film working again.
• Music: Micheal Friedman also worked on the X Factor which is highly successful. Therefore audiences would assume that since he worked on such a successful program he must be very good and therefore so must the film as he did the music supervision. The actual music was done by John Frizzel who worked on Alien. Again this reflects well on the film as Alien was highly successful.
• Editing: Randy Bricker worked on other successful thriller films such as I Am Legend and Men In Black. This would draw audiences to the film as it suggests that he is very good at thriller editing so the film is going to be put together very well.
• Production Design: Jon Gary Steele also worked on Burlesque. The success of this film means that audiences would recognize his name and associate him with well designed productions and therefore be drawn to the film.
• Director of Photography: Phil Parmet is known for his work on The Devils Rejects. Because people would recognize him from this audiences would see his name on the titles and be excited for this film.
• Producers: the executive producers on this film are Beau Marks and Sonny Mallhi who have previously worked on Die Hard and The Strangers. Die Hard is a thriller which was highly successful and has an amazing reputation. This means that fans of thriller would be excited to see if this film was produced as well as Die Hard. This film was also produced by Doug Davison and Roy Lee. They both have reputations as good producers from their work on The Grudge and The Ring meaning that audiences would be excited to see more from them.
• Writing:This film was written by Sonny Mallhi so he would attract audiences through his writing in the same way that he does as a producer.
• Director: The director Christian E. Christiansen has worked on other successful films such as Life Hits. This means that he already has a fan base that would be interested in watching a film he has worked on.

Overall I think that the moving background wasn't effective as it takes the audiences attention away from the text so I would like my film to have the title sequence over a black screen. I like the way that there wasn't many production acknowledgements before the film begins so I would like to keep the amount of them to a minimum in my film so I don't bore the audience. I think in this case superimposing over the background was festive because they were giving the audience a lot of information but for my film we won't have that many credits so we can just give the basic information over a blank screen as we don't have successful people working on our film to interest the audience.

Title Sequence: would you rather

 The opening credit is for IFC films. They are famous for films such as The Human Centipede. This means that they already have a reputation that will build excitement for the audience.
The writing is in white lettering on a black screen so that it stands out. The film begins with saying the film is associated with periscope entertainment. This is effective because there is not too many associates before the film begins so the audience won't get bored. The details are between the opening of the film so that there is something for the audience to watch while the information is still getting through to them. Having the titles spread out in this way means that the audience stay interested instead of getting bored throughout the  big blocks of information.

The main  title sequence is over an X Ray of the human body. This reinforces genre and builds enigma as the audience wonder where death comes into the story.

They credit

• ICP Films
• Rene Sekula: known for Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• David Guy Levy: David is credited twice to draw more attention to his name as he played a big part in the making of the film.
• Zak Kilberg
• Andre Royo
• Morgan Conrad
• Ivy Isenberg

Overall I believe that this is a very effective title sequence because there is not too much information distracting the viewers from the story. In my film I want to have my information spread out in the same way so that the audience are not bored by it.

Title sequence: Limitless

Before the film begins it credits relativity media. This is effective because they have helped make successful films such s 21 and Over. This means that fans of their other work would want to watch Limitless to watch more. It also means that audiences would assume that this film would be good because they are successful and would also make this film successful. This is credited twice to further the influence it has.

It then credits Virgin Produced, this is effective because Virgin is already a really well known name in many areas as they have worked on all kinds of things. As a result of this audiences know that Virgin would probably make this successful also. They have also worked on 21 and Over and then are also credited with That Awkward Moment. This means that fans of these films would want to see more of their work. Audiences would assume that since this company have made other good films this film would be equally good and would therefore be excited about the film. This was also credited twice to further its influence.

Other Credits

• Rogue Productions: They have worked on many adverts as well as this film so the audience would see them as a well rounded company and get excited for what they would do on this film.
• Neil Burger: known from Divergent which is a highly successful film. This means that it has many fans that would want to know what else he can do. This means that him being in this film would generate excitement from audiences.
• Bradley Cooper: known from the Hangover and The A Team. Bradley Cooper has appeared in many amazing films. This means that he is very well known and probably has a large fan base. This means that his appearance in this film would generate a lot of excitement and make many people want to see it.
• Abbie Cornish: known from sucker punch. Abbie Cornish has also been in many successful films meaning that she would also have a large following that would be excited to watch her work.
• Robert De Niro: known from classic thriller films. He is a legendary actor meaning that many people love his work and want to see more of it. Fans of the genre would already know him very well from his previous work meaning that they would be very excited to see he's in this film. He has also done a lot of work in other genres that are very popular such as Meet The Parents, this means that even people who aren't big thrillers would know his name and be excited to watch the film because of it. 
• Intermedia film: known for their successful film terminator, this company is very recognizable and have a following that would be incredibly excited to see more from them. This means that many people would be excited to watch this film after seeing their name. 
• Many Rivers/Boy of The Year

In this the title is on screen for 7 seconds. This is effective as it means that the audience has a very long time to take it in and remember it. The writing is super imposed over a moving background of the city that the film is set in. The writing is very light colored so that it will stand out against the dark background and catch the viewers attention. The movement of both the camera and the title make the sequence very disorienting to put the viewers in a state of confusion, through this the film seems fast paced and thrilling from the very beginning. The title sequence takes up a lot of time as it is 1:21 minutes long. The business of the background adds to the fast pace. The camera furthers this by moving quickly through the scene. The way that the camera moves seamlessly through the environment reinforces that the main character in the film is in fact "limitless" and builds excitement to the audience.

The opening titles include many names of people associated with the film. I find this very ineffective as it takes up a lot of time and therefore makes the audience lose interest.The non diegetic music begins very simply and crescendos to a very busy piece. This is effective as it builds excitement.
When the background moves from a busy city to a brain the audience are reminded that the character is limitless as the camera seems to move through the brain endlessly, the constant reminder of the title builds excitement as the audience wonder what a limitless human being is capable of.
The sequence ends with a blank white screen. I find this very effective as it makes the writing a lot more easy to focus on meaning that the audience is going to take more notice of it.

Overall I believe that although the fast movements and disorienting features in this opening work well I won't use it for my film as my film is not supposed to be as confusing and disorienting as Limitless is. I also won't make my sequence too long as viewers would find it boring when they just want to watch the film. On the other hand I think that the long duration of the title is good because it makes it more memorable, I also think it's effective that they had the title moving as it draws more focus so I will try to include some form of movement.

Editing

We started by labelling all the shots and putting them in order.

For this film we did more editing than we did for our prelim. One of the things we are confused about it how to edit a flashback so that it doesn't just look like a sudden change of location. We started by using a soft focus lighting to try and hint to the audience that it is a flashback but it wasn't entirely effective.

To figure out the best way to do this I analysed the Butterfly Effect to see if it gave me any ideas as to how to portray a flashback in a thriller film.

From 0:00-1:16 you can see how the first flashback is done. It makes the scene very shaky before cutting to the past. I don't think this method would help with my film as we are trying to make the flashback scene a dreamlike escape from the rest of it and the shaking is too violent to maintain the soft feel we are going for.
In this you see me and Briony discussing our plans as to how we are going to do our flashback. Briony decided that we should use a cut to black each side of the flashback to signal that we are going into a jump in time. I then had the idea to use a fade transition each side of the flashback to give it the dreamlike feel that we are going for. This would also contrast with the harsh cuts back into the present time. We decided to remove the dialogue in this scene and instead have happy music and background voices to portray the dreamlike state we are trying to create.

Filming Plans

Due to Briony's work schedule and my holiday in France from the 11th to the 21st we couldn't find a day to film until the 21st. Due to this we arranged to meet at my house at 3 O'clock as I was getting back from France at 2:30. I had arranged with Adam for our lighting to be dropped at mine before I got there so that everything would be ready.
We all helped to move some things out of the garage so that we had enough space to film safely but it still had a cluttered, chaotic effect to the decor. We also blacked out the window using duct tape and a black fabric so that the high key lighting would have a more dramatic intrusive effect. To ensure everyone's safety we also moved wires to the sides of the rooms so that no one would trip over them.
In addition to the characters, Briony and me we asked our friends George and Cameron to film with us so that they could assist us when moving things and getting equipment from one location to the next.
We arranged with Bradley to get to our second location by around 5. Cameron and George helped us get all of the equipment in the cars which were driven by my dad and Joe. The people that weren't needed for the scene were instructed to act as extras so that the bar wasn't suspiciously empty.

When filming we began to see that some of the decisions we had made could be done better in other ways. In this post we will explain why we thought the new methods were better.



Actors
Originally we were going to have Sophie playing the female lead but on the day she couldn't make it so instead we gave the role to Rosie



Costume
We removed Alex's ski mask because we felt that it made the other characters seem less intimidating. We thought that instead of hiding his identity through costume we could hide it through camera shots and angles until Fraser starts remembering and recognizing them. We also thought this was effective because it means the audience relate to Fraser more and it forms an emotional connection. It also means that his costumed isn't too different to the rest of the group and it shows he's a part of it.


Script
We found that the original script didn't give enough information, although we wanted to keep many things secret in our opening to build an enigma code we also wanted to put in some basic information to interest the viewers and to make the opening less confusing.


Props
Explained in the props section already.

Storyboard
Our original story board had too many shots that didn't seem to portray anything to the audience. To make our film more effective we decided to cut out some shots and film some of them in a different way so that every shot either furthers the script or portrays something to the audience.

Lighting.

Our film is a mystery thriller film. To keep the sense of mystery we decided to use high key lighting on the characters and try to keep as most of the back ground of the shot hidden. This way the viewer cannot tell what is happening behind the characters. This will create and eerie and unsettling feeling.This type of lighting also gives a sense of the main character being exposed and therefore vulnerable, this creates an emotional connection as the audience fear for him.
To create this type of lighting we decided to only use one light source and move it around. This also helps to make the viewer feel uncomfortable and to keep them on the edge of their seat.

We really wanted this to be dark and grungy in the garage scene. To make sure that we didn’t get any natural light we black out the window on the door with a sheet of black fabric. This stopped the natural light from ruining the shot and creating weird shadows on the characters as the light outside changed as it got darker.

The lighting in the pub we wanted it to be soft and warm to really capture the atmosphere. In doing this we set up the scene underneath one of the lights on the wall. We changed the settings on the light from being bright white to a softer yellow. This really helped create a warm feeling.This also creates a safe atmosphere which shows Fraser's emotion because at this point he does not suspect anything is wrong.

For the shot where Fraser's pupils dilate we needed the lighting to be very bright to cause a dramatic reaction. We moved the light closer to him and shone a phone torch to do this so the lighting is more dramatic on this shot. This fits with the scene as it is when Fraser begins to notice that something has gone wrong. It also exposes him more which makes him seem more vulnerable, this furthers his weakness as he is drugged and not in control of himself. This also makes the audience more fond of him as they see that he's been wronged.



Fraser testing the lighting