Introduction to my final evaluation

Explain brief

My task was to create a 2 minute thriller sequence that abides to the codes and conventions of the thriller genre. As a group we had to eventually come up with a narrative and storyboard around which my practical of the finalised thriller clip would be based however to do so I first learnt the elements that contribute towards the making of a thriller film. I looked at elements such as mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound, characters, conventions and editing styles. For each of the elements I then broke them down and analysed a thriller clip to show and demonstrate how and when they can be and appropriately used.

After creating the group narrative, through drawing inspiration from the clips I had watch so far, my group and I created the story board. It helped the narrative come to life and highlighted if there were any errors in the stories plot and if any shots were unrealistic. This then allowed my group to create a time frame onto each shot so I could have a better understanding as to whether you need to edit or lengthen your storyboard and scene. This is good as the guidelines put in place were set out to make a sequence lasting 2 minutes.

Introduce group members
To complete this task, I then worked alongside Ravinder Cheema and James Barry. Both Ravinder and James had taken media studies at GCSE level so I felt confident that between us our group had proficient knowledge and understanding of what to do. However, as I was new to the subject,  I felt I needed to work extra hard in order to keep up with them but thankfully coming up with both a story board and narrative, seemed easy as we all enjoy thrillers and so had similar ideas as what to involve. One of our main tasks was getting to know each other so that everyone felt at ease and comfortable to speak around each other as if someone felt too shy to voice their opinion details may have been left out that would of in turn improved our thriller clip but overall we all worked hard to complete the thriller production.

Summarise the roles in the production
The main roles available were the director, producer, music producer, screenplay writer, main actors, MES co-ordinators and the editors.

Explain what your role was and what you were responsible for and what you learned from it
Because there was a dead line set and a lot of work to do we each decided to take on multiple roles to share the work load and get it done more efficiently as we could each focus on small elements rather than rushing the film as a whole. As a result of this I became the screenplay writer and storyboard organiser.

Along with Ravinder Cheema I also took on the role as MES Co-ordinator. This was also as the filming would take place in my house and so I had a better idea of the props and lighting that could be achieved and were available. Once I come up with these elements of the overall MES both myself and Ravinder then worked together to create certain body language and clothing that has to be used to abide with the codes and conventions of a thriller and make the clip as effective to the audience as possible by making sure the emotions present were translated properly to the audience.

As well as this we all decided to edit our sequence together as we are all amateurs at editing and so none of us stood out to become lead editor. Therefore we all thought we would share the work load and work together to create something correctly edited and effective as through working together we should be able to outweigh our lack of knowledge on the matter.

Did your group work well within the group
It is important that people are allocated different roles as each member needs to have the same responsibility and to also make everyone feel included in the group and that we are all there to help each other so by sharing the workload it puts less pressure on certain members of the group and ensures each element is completed correctly. But as a whole each person was happy and comfortable in their allocated roles which meant everyone got on with what had to be done however we were all comfortable with helping each other and suggesting our own ideas to help.

Explain if you think you have made a successful thriller film by relating back to the conventions to support your points.
I think, looking back my group have been able to make a successful thriller film as we followed the codes and conventions which help make other thriller films successful but managed to adapt and go against them which showed our how we felt comfortable in both the task and genre.