On Thursdays media lesson it was the last lesson for us to complete our thriller opening. Two of my groupmates were not in, which were, Aziza and Elaine so, I had to complete our thriller with Jamie. Firstly, Jamie and I added the finishing touches to our music, we were a little bit confused and didnt know if the other two would agree with our choices but then at the end we decided that we would go with our own choices and if the other two disagree then it is their own fault for not arriving for our last lesson before the deadline. After we added the finishing touches to the music we thought of a title for our thriller and added this too, to our final masterpiece. Now that the making of our thriller openings are over, I feel a little sad because it was a very good experience for me because I got an insight of what it would feel like if I decided to work for the media industry in the future.

On mondays lesson, as a group, we decided that we would carry on doing the music and sound effects for our thriller. We also decided that we would carry on doing this for the rest of this week because we think that after our choice of shots, the music is the most important part of the film when trying to create suspense. Using the software Sound Track Pro, we tried to use the most effective suspense creators. We firstly put a base music which would be playing throughout the whole film, then as the viewer keeps watching and understands what is going on, (when the car starts to follow Elaine), we used a music which makes your heart want to escape from your body. We could only do this much in a single lesson because searching for the right song is quite tricky, as I said earlier, we will be carrying this onto thursdays lesson and hopefully be adding more details, such as, footsteps, running, breathing, gasping etc.

The Shining

The shining builds up a lot of tension because of the music and also because of the point of view of the camera. The music is a very high pitched violin and when the boy is about to open the door the music keeps on increasing in volume and then decreasing, which shows us the audience that something bad is going to happen, it also raises the level of anticipation. When he does open the door the music changes which shows us that there is going to be a change, which will surprise us. The camera is at a very low level, the audience is with the child and we are behind him which shows that something bad will happen. The anticipation the little child feels is then transferred to us which makes us feel very vulnerable. The little boy takes up most of the screen time. When the boy arrives at the door 237 we are shown this very clearly, which shows the audience that it is not a good number. The editing is very fast when we are shown the two girls. The location is a hotel corridor, it is not bright but well lit.

12/1/09 Getting our pitch ready for next lesson

Today's lesson was all about getting our pitch together and ready for next lesson, this was crucial as we will be getting marked on our pitch and this was something we could not leave to the last minute. I first made a list of some ideas for the thriller which my group looked over and added some of thier ideas. We then had a vote to which idea sounded the best: we unanimously decided the idea of a person in a car (the identity of whom would not be revealed), would be stalking a girl as she comes out of a train station and will proceed down a quiet street. Eventually after the girl realises she becomes increasingly frightened and she gets faster, she will run round the corner and bump into someone (taking the suspense out of the scene). Our ending has not been decided yet, one which came to mind was she would be thrown into the back of the car, but this will probably change. As we were giving our pitch next lesson we assigned each other tasks to brainstorm for the pitch I decided to pick camara shots and sound & lighting.

8/1/09 Practice filming session (walking into a room with conversation)

In today's lesson we had to film a short scene of someone walking, from whatever location we wished, into a room and have a conversation. First we assigned each other roles, my role was to film and help with editing. Our teacher told us we must use as many different types of shots as possible, i took this into considaration while filming wrote down a list of camara shots, and worked them into our scene. I think the scene turned out nicely, I thought it flowed good when we matched cut it. The shot I liked the most was the pan up the stairs which only showed her bottom half, I thought this worked well because it didn't reveal her identity and built up the suspense.

In todays lesson we started to create music for our thriller using the software Sound Track Pro. The credits for our film were previously done on mondays lesson. I think that the music that we have produced does create tension because it starts off on a normal pace then as the film plays on and the viewer starts to realise what is going on the music starts to get louder at the points of suspense. Annabelle, our subject teacher, watched our thriller so far and thought that it was very good and she told us that it does create the tension that is needed, she also pointed out some improvements, one was to cut and shorten one of the clips because she thought it went on for too long and Elaine, our character looked very small on screen. She also suggested that we should use some of the music techniques that would make the viewer think that everything is ok when the music suddenly stops, but then they would come to realise that it was a false resolution when they carry on watching the thriller to the end. I think that Annabelle's suggestion for the music is very professional and we would use the suggestion.

1-12-08 Soundtrack Tutorial.

In todays lessons we had a soundtrack tutorial on the computer. It was interesting to see that what no music sounded like in the famous film Casino Royal. We got to play around with the music, put what sounds we like and see how different it sounded. You can also add sound affects eg, the sound of a car screatchig. Also you can place it where you like  so that if you wanted to hear it through one speaker you could, it is really affective. you can pretty much do anything.