Evaluation task 1

We open with a big production company logo; 'Spyglass Entertainment' who have produced other thriller films such as 'The Invisible', 'Unbreakable' and 'The Ruins'.'The title of our own production company was 'Songbird Productions' animated with 'Motion' graphics software and connotes the key principal of our opening; depression. The colour blue used for the birds has connotations of depression, as you feel 'blue' when you're feeling 'down' and the black surrounding also implies death. We have a sound bridge of non-diegetic bird sound effect leading us into the opening scene and creating a smooth transition. 

There is a fade and focus pull using depth of field techniques to establish relevant correlations between natural beauty of detailed nature of earth and natural love. This shot goes from focusing on macro cinematography and focus pulls to the couple situated behind the plant to establish their relationship. The director's name also appears as an overlay title in a traditional 'reflective' font connoting the seriousness of the film and that the genre is a psychological thriller aimed at an oldeer teen and adult audience. The director's name stays on acting as a bridge between shots to create smooth transitions and to imply the critical roles that each cast member had and their importance in the production of the film. We have also placed two thin black bars on the shots to create a cinematic effect seen on professional short films and feature films. Our footage has also been colour corrected so all the colours are enhanced by raising the amount of saturation in the shot and also being slightly under exposed to create an underlying theme of depression and darkness throughout the film. The evident juxtaposition of bright, slightly angry colours to urban greys and black is key to the story as it shows the change in scene so the audience clearly know about the flashbacks to come. The costume within this shot shows that both Kym and Joe are wearing hoodies and are just regular stereotypical teenagers, which we wanted so our target audience of older teens could relate to the piece. The setting of this particular scene also connotes romance as they're sitting around a lake watching the sunset together, which is very romantic, and also makes the audience relate and empathise with Joe in the next couple of shots.

We fade to another setting, cutting each shot to show the difference in time and mise-en-scene. This shot tracks Joe and Kym using a dolly; we are seeing Joe and hearing the last thoughts running through his head, before he jumps, through a non-diegetic voiceover - thinking of his girlfriend. The audience may start to think that it is her fault that Joe is about to commit suicide but as this is only the opening to a full feature film so we didn't want to give the plot away too much and decided to hide the motive to suicide until later on in the opening - gang pressure. We also thought it was crucial for the film to show some happy scenes of Joe and Kym together, so the audience could relate to the characters, create a connection and sympathise at the death. As our target audience is older teenagers, love and relationships in a common place such as a reservoir should be easily relatable. The glare on the camera towards the end of this dolly shot shows sun beaming down onto the young couple as they're happy and in love. The long pan shot with follows is striking and angry in colour. The colour correction was designed so the bright colours were nearly overwhelming so it was almost unrealistic, perhaps a hidden clue to the idea that their relationship and love may be overwhelming. Up to this point we have only had five shots, and we are already 24 seconds into the film, the slow editing pace and long shorts are common in psychological thrillers and will speed up when some 'action' scenes approach but in thrillers, it is not uncommon for there to be long edits, so the audience can focus in on the detail within the shots without getting distracted.

As we cut to the next shot of the bridge/viaduct, we track upwards using a crane to track upwards. In post production, as the crane movement was relatively slow so we increased the movement x2 to give a more dramatic effect and to show the sheer height of the viaduct. We immediately cut to a medium close up of Joe, on the right side applying to the rule of thirds, and we can see the trees behind him looking over at the drop. There is a black vignette surrounding each corner so there is black surrounding the frame - a symbolism that Joe is surround by darkness.

 to give a more dramatic effect and to show the sheer height of the viaduct. We immediately cut to a medium close up of Joe, on the right side applying to the rule of thirds, and we can see the trees behind him looking over at the drop. There is a black vignette surrounding each corner so there is black surrounding the frame - a symbolism that Joe is surround by darkness.

 The fades between settings act as flashbacks so the audience know what's going on in the film and what Joe's thinking inside his head, later aided by the voice over. When editing, we originally were going to put dissolve transitions where he was thinking about Kym and fade transitions when he returned back to reality, but when we watched it back, we saw that it looked rather messy and distracted from the story and shots, drawing too much attention to the construction. We found that it looked more professional with fades and this also added continuity to the film.

In the next two shots there is a match-on-action of Joe pulling his suicide letter out of his pocket and reading it in his head. The angle when reading this is low connoting that he has the power over his life and whether he commits himself to ending it. He also has his back to the camera, an unusual sight within films but this had deliberately been done as it implies that he ‘has turned his back to the world’ As this is a mid shot, and there is evidently a significant difference between this shot and the previous close up, this conveys that he is distant in his mental state.

 As the story progresses we keep returning to an over the shoulder close up shot of Joe reading the suicide note, constantly being reminded that the ‘happy’ images we see are his memories and now we are consciously returning to reality and depression. The mise-en-scene within this particular section has grey, bleak colours as seen on the grey stone wall, the overcast sky connotes his mind has been clouded by his depression and he cannot think logically and practically about his future. The mise-en-scene in the next shot connotes happiness due to the bright colours and positive natural surroundings. The faster editing pace as we get to the suicide in comparison with the majority of the film (4 shots in 10 seconds) creates more tension and builds up the impact of the action.

When Joe's phone rings, we see a close up of him getting it out of his pocket and also hear the diegetic sound of the phone ringing, this has been forwarded in the mix during post production and was recorded externally through the boom mic so we could alter the sound levels during the editing process to focus the audience's attention onto who the caller may be. We see Joe decline the call in the same shot as when he got the phone out of his pocket so the tension could rise through out the extract. The fact that the audience doesn't actually see who was calling him creates mystery and enigma which are common conventions in thriller films. When the shot of Joe committing suicide occurs we're actually seeing two layers of film, one which is the film overlooking the bridge and the other is of a different bridge on a green screen. We had to use the chroma key to mask out all the green parts of the footage and replace it with the background and then colour correct this to fit with the rest of the film. The audience want to know why Joe has committed suicide and this would be later explained and creates mystery which is crucial in fulfilling the audience's expectations of the psychological thriller  genre.

After the overlay title of 'two months later', anchoring time difference, we use chiaroscuro lighting which is common in thrillers such as 'The Sixth Sense' and connotes that Kym herself is now depressed as it's daylight outside but her black curtains are drawn. We deliberately use lots of close up and mcu shots in this scene as we wanted to create an intense and claustrophobic feel to make the audience feel slightly uncomfortable whilst creating sympathy for Kym. This scene is shot in Abi's bedroom and we chose this location due to the confined space and the monochrome setting (white walls and black curtains) which connotes the binary oppositions of good v bad and is a clue to the rest of the film as we see Kym switch from depression to 'avenger'  if we went on to make the full feature film, as she kills the gang members who drove Joe to commit suicide, one by one.

Later on in this scene, special effects such as our own attempt at 'Foley' sound is used; when Kym picks up her bag I recorded the sound of plastic bags being scrunched up and then overlaid this onto the timeline during the editing stage to connote the idea that she's off to a mystery place with a bag full of clothing and a knife in her bag. When Kym had previously picked up the knife, there were props of 'with sympathy cards' and empty alcohol bottles to imply that she's still mourning over the death of Joe and the alcohol is a means of her trying to deal with this.

Our film's title, 'Sweet Revenge', contains a juxtaposition connoting the psychotic tendencies which will be seen throughout the film as a psychological thriller. The titles also denotes the main theme of our thriller; revenge. The title creates enigma as the audience, just viewing the title wont know the main character (Kym) is getting revenge and why she wants to do this and carry out the dreadful act of murder. 'Sweet' is feminine loaded lexis and therefore implies that the main character is female, which creates more emotion. This is fairly uncommon in thrillers as the main characters are usually middle aged men but we thought that we would challenge these usual forms of thriller conventions and try and be original with our work.