Brief for Video Production:THE OPENING SEQUENCE OF A NEW THRILLER FILM (INCLUDING TITLES AND SOUND) TO A MAXIMUM OF TWO MINUTES.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or sound effects from a copyright-free source.TOTAL MARKS AVAILABLE = 10050% OF FINAL AS GRADE

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• We will be monitoring all written and practical components.• Students are marked individually for written work.• Any student not contributing adequately to planning, shooting

and editing their production will have marks deducted.• Irregular attendance will also be penalised in the assessment

process.• If students come across problems with deadlines they must

seek support immediately.• If there are problems within a group please seek tutor advice

without delay so that problems can be quickly solved. These matters can be discussed with me in confidence.

• If students fail to complete the written and practical components to an acceptable A Level standard, it is likely their examination entry will be reviewed.

• If students do not pass this coursework unit, it is unlikely that they will pass AS Level Media Studies.

Health Warning:

RESEARCH AND PLANNING: 20 marks

• Research into the thriller genre.

• Research into audience consumption of thriller films.

• All pre-production materials.

CONSTRUCTION: 60 marks

• Short continuity editing task.

• Maximum of 2 minutes of edited moving image footage (including sound and titles).

EVALUATION: 20 MARKS

• “Director’s Commentary”.

• A response to 7 compulsory questions about research, planning and evaluating your thriller opening.

G321 FOUNDATION PORTFOLIO

REEPHAM COLLEGE MEDIA STUDIES : SEPTEMBER 2013-JANUARY 2013

• • ••Keep to deadlines. If there are problems inform me immediately. Persistent

problems with meeting deadlines can result in students being asked to leave the course. Parents and the Sixth Form Management Team are informed if students do not keep up with their work.

•Marks are deducted pro rata if students let down in their group during the planning, shooting and editing process. Marks are awarded for quality and individual commitment to the project.

•Research and planning is individually marked. ALL students must post all elements of planning onto their blogs.

•Avoid chopping and changing ideas. • Keep ideas simple, plausible and possible. • Avoid over ambitious/far fetched over complicated plots and reliance on

dialogue. Particularly avoid plots which represent characters and action which are unfamiliar to you.

•Remember you are shooting the OPENING to a thriller film thus you will want to hook the audience, you are NOT shooting a whole story nor are you shooting a trailer.

THE SOUND TRACK – a vital component of mise en scène.

•The musical soundtrack is a vital part of the production; it sets the atmosphere and may connote aspects of a particular character and place. Once the narrative is storyboarded and all elements of mise-en-scène are planned (characters, locations and costumes) begin to research appropriate music for your soundtrack.

Students may do the following:

•It is an OCR requirement that any soundtrack must be copyright free. It must therefore be over 50 years old, released under a Creative Commons license or written by yourself, therefore research is a timely business. Useful websites include mobygratis.com, ccmixter.org and freesound.org (for sound effects). All require free accounts. For more complete songs, try www.freeplaymusic.com .

Students can also use jazz, classical music or any popular music written before 1959-1960. •Students may compose their own soundtrack. I would advise this option.

Students may wish to use music from unsigned artists (email artists and ask permission first though).

Important advice

Definition of a thriller film

Thriller and Suspense Films Are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension, menace/danger. If the genre is to be defined strictly, a genuine thriller is a film that restlessly pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax.

The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is placed in a menacing situation or mystery, or an escape or dangerous mission from which escape seems impossible. Life itself is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces - the menace is sometimes abstract or shadowy.

Generic Characters in Thriller films: Characters in thrillers include convicts, criminals, stalkers, assassins, down-on-their-luck losers, innocent victims (often on the run), prison inmates, menaced women,

characters with dark pasts, psychotic individuals, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, hit men/women, fugitives, private eyes, drifters, duplicitous individuals, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, femme fatales (dangerous and or deviant women), psycho-fiends, drug addicts, and more. The themes of thrillers frequently include greed, envy, jealousy, terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder.

Generic locations in Thriller films: Dimly lit often wet narrow urban streets or alleyways, lifts, staircases, basements, large featureless exteriors (reflecting moral vacuum of central characters No Country for Old Men), shower cubicles, toilets, phone booths, bank safes, interior of cars, top of a skyscraper, shores with tide coming in or muddy river banks/canals, scrap yards, derelict factories, tunnels, and many more.

SOME CLASSIC THRILLERS

Hit men Vince and Jules (Pulp Fiction, Tarantino,

1994)

Marion Crane in the shower (Psycho , Hitchcock 1960)

MORE CLASSIC THRILLERS

Post war racketeer Harry Lime trapped in the Viennese sewers

(The Third Man, Carol Reed, 1949)

Gilda, classic femme fatale (Gilda, Charles Vidor (1946)

“The purpose of a thriller is to put

their (audiences’) toe in the cold

water of fear to see what it's like."

Hitchcock.

• • •

Please note that understanding aspects of the thriller genre, and individual research into thriller films (lead by Miss Soanes) should be reflected in all aspects of planning. Each student’s blog should include the following:

1. Brain storming details of initial-to-final ideas. 2. A brief synopsis of the plot. No more than 100 words.3. Story boards that are readable and contain image, colour, camera positions/shot types,

any dialogue and soundtrack. 4. Planning edit: For higher marks students should include details of transitions from one

shot to the other so that editing is planned. For example jump cut to…, or fade to black…, or cross dissolve etc.

5. Locations: Annotated photographs/sketches of locations are important. Decisions need to be justified and relate to genre conventions, if students challenge the thriller generic blue print then they need to explain this.

6. Costumes, props and objects: All ideas should be annotated.7. Characters: Brief background details of the nature of the characters are important.

Characters can have names that may give a clue to their personalities or their fate.8. Casting of characters – brief explanations of casting decisions. Some student hold

auditions for roles and include pics or notes related to auditions. Avoid casting 6th formers who are meant to be hardened gangsters otherwise the film will be unconvincing. Casting should be discussed with course tutors. You cannot take anyone out of lessons.

9. Soundtrack: Ideas for soundtrack which must be evaluated. Explain purpose of final choice and likely influence on atmosphere within mise-en-scène. Students can upload ideas for soundtrack onto their blogs.

10.Equipment list: Digital camera (students must include name of camera), tripod, lights, microphones, filters for camera etc. Details of any special effects.

11.Shooting schedule: Organisation of time (dates when going to shoot), to include locations and names of actors required, and props.

12.Evidence of the individual contribution to the planning and individual responsibilities during the shoot and edit.

13.Some of you may wish to produce an ANIMATIC STORYBOARD (see WEB for further info).

Inter textual references: Student’s ideas need to be explained, 1) Reasons for choice of ideas. 2) Source of ideas with explicit or implicit references to thrillers you have researched. This could be through location, costume, character, action, shot type, soundtrack. This is HIGHLY IMPORTANT.

Important: Identify the type of thriller being planned. Example: A psychological thriller like ‘Sixth Sense’; gangster thriller ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, ‘Essex Boys’; Mafia thriller ‘The Godfather’; comic thriller ‘Snatch’; or incorporating elements of a futuristic/action thriller, ‘Blade Runner’, ‘The Matrix’; film noir thriller such as ‘LA Confidential’, ‘Jackie Brown’.

Planning: Opening to a thriller feature filmDeadline - Friday 22nd November 2013.

You will have lessons with WEb & SOA to complete, plus any homework.

• • •

• Lending Policy (cameras) To borrow a school camera or other school equipment students MUST BOOK AT LEAST ONE DAY IN ADVANCE THROUGH MRS OSBORNE IN THE SCHOOL LIBRARY .

• Responsibility with borrowed equipment: Students must check the camera in with Mrs Osborne every four days if you need it for a longer period than this. Students who flout these rules will be denied access to school equipment on future occasions. Students will be charged for any equipment which is damaged or lost.

• Students must inform course work tutor prior to going out on location to shoot their films during the school day.

• Equipment available includes: camcorders, stills cameras, tripods and dolleys. • If you return equipment late you will lose ONE mark per day per person from your final

coursework grade.• Using time effectively: Students will be given media lesson time to shoot and edit their

films. During the shoot and edit students can only use Media lessons for construction. No other media or other subject lessons are allowed for the shoot and edit. Students will also be expected to use SPS periods (by negotiation with me) and after school/weekends.

Guidelines for shooting film.• Shooting the action: Students are strongly advised to:

• take multiple shots of the same action so the most effective shots can be selected for the final cut

• hold shots steady where appropriate• frame shots carefully including and excluding elements as appropriate• shoot material that is appropriate to an opening to a thriller film.• use a variety of shot distances appropriately• carefully select mise-en-scène, thinking about colour, figure, lighting, objects and

setting.• Camera angles: Students are advised to use an appropriate variety of camera angles and

movement, in order to add to the appeal of the film.• Close up shots: Students are often reluctant to use close ups, but these shot types are most

effective in drawing your audience into the action.• Lighting: Some student productions are too dark and are thus unreadable. Though you may

wish to achieve noir lighting effect make sure the action is decipherable, professional directors use non ambient lighting to achieve noir or chiaroscuro effects. Therefore make sure that your action is well lit; when looking at the rushes/raw footage and the lighting is too dark then students must re shoot the clip.

• Revisions to original ideas: If students shoot action which is different from the original planning (story boards, character etc), any revisions can be briefly redrafted and explained on the blog.

• Raw Footage: Students should have at least 9-10 minutes of raw footage to allow for cutting during the edit.

• Do not put health and safety at risk, do not use pretend weapons in public.

Construction: The ShootDeadline - Monday 9th December 2013

n.b. if I (WEB) have agreed your (everyone in your group) planning is complete, you may start shooting earlier.

• Always check with course work tutors that your allotted computer is available.

• Each group is allotted a computer for the edit. ALWAYS USE THE SAME COMPUTER.

•Downloading raw footage: Once the shoot is complete you need to download the footage from the camera onto your allocated computer using a firewire cable to link the camera to the computer. In Final Cut/iMovie click the ‘capture’ button at the top of the screen. This will load up a window which will help you to control what video and audio you upload from your camera onto the computer. It is wise to download no more than about 8-10 minutes of your best footage, which then has to be edited to approximately 2 minutes of film. Further technical information on editing will be given to you separately.

•Selecting what shots to keep: Once students have raw footage, make an editing list of what shots you want to keep and where in the narrative your selected shots are appropriate.

•Soundtrack: When students have chosen the sound track it must be downloaded and saved on your computer.

•Using post production time effectively: Editing can be done in course tutor media studies lessons, during SPS and after school.

•Titles: Titles should be included immediately the narrative begins.

•If students wish to work independently and use their own editing software make sure it is compatible with the school computer system by checking with Ms Webb.

Important guidelines:

• Edit so that meaning is apparent to the viewer.

• Use varied shot transitions and other effects selectively and appropriately, for example jump cuts, cross dissolve, fade to black, slow motion etc.

• Use sound with images, and titles appropriately.

A note on the EVALUATION

• Your evaluation will be on a 2 week deadline once the editing is completed.• It will take the form of a director’s commentary - a voice-over that answers the 7

compulsory questions (including a Q&A with the director). Any amendments you need to make (after marking) will be done individually in a written response to my feedback.

• You will begin preparing for this in your Mock Exam.

Construction: The EditDeadline - Friday 20th December 2013 (rough cut) Friday 17th January 2014 (final cut)