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

Filming and editing.

Freya sorted out location, actors and timing as the locations where her own house and social club near her town and her frends happily agreed to be our actors for the day. Whilst filming I used a clapper board on an Ipad so it would be easier to log and name shots when it came to editing. I recorded what shot we did, how many times we had to shot each shot. This made it easier for us to edit them in order. We used Freya's filming equipment and borrowed a friends lighting. This allowed us to reshot shots and not have to worry about bringing the equipment back in time incase we missed a shot whilst editing. Luckily we have all the footage we needed in a single day. To record dialouge we used lapel microphones connected them to each of our phones. This allows us to get clear audio and not relying on the camera. During the prelim task we found it hard to use the voice recorders and opted to use the camera for footage and sound, in doing this we found it difficult to edit the sound louder or quitier. This lead us to the option to get lapel microphones for our phones.

Whilst editing we uploaded our footage onto the computer and proceeded to label the footage in Final Cut Pro. Labelling the footage made it easier to put the shots in order as well as knowing which shot the us as we had many bloopers. Cutting the shots down to make sure it was two minutes long we had a minute and a half of footage for our film. Adding the title sequence and lengthing some shots and adding black outs to create a flash back we should have a two minute long opening. We timed the length on the opening and are happy with the progress we are making. For the sound editing we have to send our self the audio files and upload them to the computer. This will allow us to sync the audio with the video image and create a crystal clear audio.

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.