Evaluation Task one

Screen Shots from our two minute film opening.

Here are some screen shots from our two minute film opening. From these screen shots we can see that dark lighting is used continuously throughout the whole clip. This shows that as a group we’ve looked back at our blogs and re-read our research on what our target audiences thought made a good psychological thriller. The dark lighting creates a tense and mysterious atmosphere making the audience feel uptight. This provides the audience with an adrenalin rush which therefore provides them with entertainment and a sense of escapism.

When we re-read the survey answers back, we saw that most of our audience thought that fast paced editing/cut is needed at the start of a psychological thriller. Therefore as a group we decided it would be best to edit our film with quick cuts as it would create suspense and make our audience feel on edge. Also when looking back on our research of an analysis of a psychological thriller, we saw that they also used quick paced cuts, which means that this editing type must be very common within psychological thriller films.

As you can see most of our shots are either close ups or mid-shots. This is because our research on what the ‘typical’ conventions of a psychological thriller are, show these shot types were the most popular. This is because they allow the audience to connect with the main character, as the close proximity of the character helps the audience relate to their situation.

Similar exciting films

An exciting psychological thriller film that has used similar shot types as ours is the film ‘Insomnia’ which was released in 2002. This film is about two Los Angeles homicide detectives who are dispatched to a northern town where they investigate the murder of a local teen.

Here are some examples of some similar shots that exist in actual films. The screen shots are from the film ‘Insomnia’

These shots are almost identical, except our shots have been interpreted in a different and unique way.The close up shot of our actress Jess’ face is the first time the audience establish her as a character. She is having a nightmare and is represented as a weak and vulnerable woman . This is a traditional representation of a woman. This shot makes the audience feel empathy toward the character. This is being achieved by the camera being positioned higher than the actress, which makes her look small and helpless.Our actress Jess is wearing a white t-shirt which suggests to the audience that she is the protagonist, as the colour white is normally seen as being a good and pure colour.