Part 1-Evaluation

Genre: Thriller/Supernatural/Mystery

Tagline: She can only see what he knows

Just with the tip of a paintbursh can alter her fate from heaven to hell Plot: A film about painter Nathan Peterson who thought painting was his one and only thing in life to live for

yet when he comes to find that these paintings are more than just pieces of artwork but the destiny of 18 year old Honey Harrison. Up to this point in Honeys life she has been given the golden ticket of happiness in gaining this fame as a model. Though to her dismay these paintings are the absolute beginning and end to her happiness.

The brief we were working towards was to create a two minute thriller/horror opening sequence. Therefore we had to make sure that all the elements of making a thriller was included within this two minutes. Though two minutes doesn’t seem long at all and in reality isn't much it still enabled us to grab the audiences attention.

The sub genre of True Colours is mainly supernatural though it also has elements of mystery. This is because it shows that the painter as he is disguised has the implications of controlling her life. This also represents the element of mystery as even till the end of the opening sequence the audience are left not knowing who this person is. As according to our treatment what is explained in the opening sequence is intended to give the audience an open mind to interpreting what happens on the rest of the story if they were to continue watching it. The main aim of this two minutes is to hold their attention to every detail of the sequence. Then through this opening sequence it

Simply in the opening sequence the female character is in a vulnerable position in that she in not in control of her actions she feels appalled to come to this house and is her reason for attending to the painters house a place that she would if it hadn't already been painted would have come to.

Title-True ColoursExplaining the title

True colours comes across as quite positive as not typically

title that seems to be related to the thriller genre

However this was deliberate

as it challenges the audiences connotations

of the film. The don’t really know what to expect.

The title conveys the storyline in that these paintings

come true though its still implicit in showing

the horror of it all being that its destroying her life

rather than enlightening

Part 4 &5Part 4 &5 The narrative is conventional of our opening sequence in representing it as a thriller. This is through the sound

in particular as it starts off with a silence and then the voice over come in to establish the plot. Honey is dressed in a green top, white sweater, and jeans as she is by her self shows vulnerability of

character. She is young and so we have not challenged the stereotypical connotations of a thriller in this aspect of chosen characters. She is at the age of 18 years old and at the peak of her modelling career though she has only just started she has received a lot of attention from the media and from agencies which has in reality has made her become more well known.

However on the other side of the spectrum is the painter. He is shown to be quite dark and mysterious. As the audience is unable to distinguish any particular characteristics of him. The narrative is non linear. This is typical of the thriller genre as it subverts the audiences typical ideology of a film being in chronological order. This therefore makes it more abstract and out of the ordinary. Similar to other films with similar genres true colours through the cameras shot movement and position for instance the beginning of the sequence the audience doesn’t actually see the characters face this therefore doesn’t give a sense of identity until after when the camera position moves to the side of her. This therefore can be representative of the mystery elements within the thriller as though this creates enigma it creates the mystery of who this person is a swell as the shadow figure behind her.

It helps to establish the plot through the voiceovers in the beginning. True Colours appears to be like a thriller though not only the storyline but the fact that the lighting was quite dim inside of the house compared to the brightness from the sunlight outside was deliberate to connote the difference between the two characters as well as how it’s the change in the state of mind. As she is unable to control the situation this is shown through the fragmented editing. The typography Wet Paint MF was used to develop the conventions of a thriller. As the titles appear first it can demonstrate the codes and conventions of the thriller just from the beginning. However through the voice overs this could be suggested to anchoring the audiences view of the narrative of the storyline. As rather than it being restricted fully its still open to interpretation.

Though the two characters in true colours as there is the princess and the villain this doesn’t quite challenge the stereotypes in that it is typically of thrillers to have the male character being the villain and the female as the princess in need of help. As she is shown to be vulnerable not only the fact that her character as a model is seen to be resprented typically .The sound has been key in true colours in representing the social groups in that by having her say I can only see what he knows this sense of her being vulnerable and isolated is represented.

As there is various shots used for instance there is a point of view shot which enables the audience o emphasize with the character consequently this represents though she is not control of her life actions the way she feels her emotions are not bring controlled .The painting only controls the surface of the situation she finds herself in and therefore the camera angle as well contributes to the representation that at the end of the sequence there is a high angle shot where we see her turn around at the realization that the painter is behind her as shown in the painting.

This would be an important part of the mis en scene In connoting clues of her being

watched and the fact that the audience are given

This shot was an overview of the paintings which because it was quite close up it would

then help to relate it to what can be seen at the start when shes walking to the house as the

mis en scene is the same it can be compared and therefore this connotes the idea that what

the pictures show is going to happen.

This was a match on action where when she opens the door the shot continues to

the room of her opening It. This is part of the continuity in that though there is fragmented

editing this is continuity

The camera angel in this shot was a low angel to make her look weak in the situation and as she is unable to control her actions

This shot was intended to create a build of to the climax. By having a freeze frame It emphasises the moment and builds the

tension to its highest peak

This shot was framed particularly to create the idea of her being vulnerable and the

narrowness of the shot connotes her isolation in this unfamiliar area.

Part 4

This challenges the stereotypical connotations of a thriller as It is in the daylight and thriller are usually shown to be in dark areas. Though

this was to make it even more abstract in that there is an

emphasis on the shadow which is a clue to the audience that there is another character but they are

disguised at that particular moment, whether or not they will

find out who this person is will only depend on whether or not they

continue to watch it. This type of reverse shot is typically used in

supernatural type of films and therefore it connotes

this sub genre. Also as this is one of the many shots we

included

The typeography indicates the thriller genre quite clearly through the colour red as this is significant as it is polysemic it has many different representations as a colour. It can symbolise good/bad and therefore it is to the audiences interpretation though the way the letters are presented in paint letters quite precisely in an eerie manner it gives the audience the idea that

Part 5

Part 7-What have you learnt about the technologies from constructing your product The key decisions we made about technology during pre production was that firstly when deciding on

what technology we were gonna use it would be limited. Therefore with this amount of technology which was limited to our availability we needed to be quite innovative in finding different technologies to include within our production of True Colours. Firstly when we planned our storyline in the pre production we used Photoshop. This was used effectively for producing the props of the paintings for the opening sequence. Though when using this software I had to take into consideration the time it would take to use it and create the painting effect on the photos. Yet, this technology in particular was adequate for completing the making of the paintings in time as well as it being quite easy to use. Overall it came to be successful in the preproduction of our opening sequence.

Another technology we used during this time was the microphone usb as we used this to record foley sounds of the wind which we hoped we could include in the post production when editing the sequence. Though we came to find that it wasn’t to best quality of sound and within our thriller if we wanted to include the sound of the wind it would have needed to be pristine in the quality otherwise there wouldn’t be much use of it. However it wasn’t a complete squander as were able to record various sounds of the wind that seemed to be quite effective in creating the tension of it being a windy day yet when we actually listened to it after uploading it we realised it wasn’t very clear and therefore we didn’t actually include it even after trying to adjust it in garage band.

Though we used various technologies within each stage of creating true colours some on the technology we used was used very effectively in that we used it throughout the production such as the internet came to be important for the research aspect of it as I needed to find what elements would be needed to reach out the target audience that we aimed at. Though some that I would consider to be less successful would be the microphone usb as we didn’t use it to a full extent as we didn’t include it though if it did manage to pick up sounds better it would have been to better use. Consequently although we hoped to use garage band to create the music we came to find that sounds from the freesounds project where we were able to choose sounds that we felt went well with different parts of the scene. However it was still useful when it came to importing it onto garage band and trying out the different instruments overlapping it. Because we wanted to structure the beginning part with voice overs to establish the plot and give the audience slight clues we used the microphone on the I mac as well.

This was much better than just using our microphone usb or phone as she was able to read out the script as well as sitting to record. This made it much easier and faster when it came to editing as well as it was already on the mac it just needed to be cut. From using all of this different technology I learnt that with the little amount of it you can still create the thriller genre with the sub genre and that though there may not be excessive availability of it the way in which we use it is more useful to the production.

Some of the technology we used:

Technology & Example Why was it used and was it effective?

Pre Production

Photoshop

Microphone Usb

Used to create painting effect on phtotos for props –yes it was effective as we used it

Though we didn’t actually use the foley sound that we recorded it was useful in that we were able to try out different sounds

Production

Digital Camera & Tripod

Mobile Phone Camera

Used when filming the shots of true colours. The tripod was vital as it helped to take still shots rather than making it look hand held

Though we had the camera to film having the mobile phone to use was help as well as it enabled us to record the shadow part when it came precisely when the sun came out rather than having to carry the tripod. The mobile phone camera was much more easier to use.

Post Production

Micro media Flash

Garage band

YouTube & Flickr

Fireworks

Mac& I Movie

This was effective as we used it for the titles in making them be presented in a way which it represented that it was a thriller rather than it just appearing simply.

When it came to editing we did try out garage band even though we didn’t actually create our own music we did upload sounds and overlap the sounds to see how it would sound.

As for the audience feedback I uploaded true colours and received quite good feedback which as well as reaching to people on youtube it created good word of mouth especially from my fellow peers. Also I used flickr to upload screen grabs of the sequence which also enables audience responses.

This software was extremely useful as it allowed us to use the font that was available on the font website to paint out the letters when it was presented as the titles.

This was used to edit the opening sequence it was a successful technology as it allowed us to add effects and select which shots we wanted to use

Part 7- Technology used for Audience FeedbackPart 7- Technology used for Audience Feedback

This is my media class when they just then they had finished watching True Colours just giving us their feedback on what they thought. The technology we used at this point was the flip camera which was actually where they were looking

when responding to out questions which you can see when you click on the link to survey monkey

As we broadcasted our opening sequence on YouTube we’ve been able to receive comments on it which have come in handy for evaluating on whether or not it reached out to

the intended audiences and if they found it appealing.

Now that we’ve finished creating it

what is the outcome?

Overall as you will be able to see

in the video I would say it is positive feedback

Part 7-Technology I used

Props-This website helped us to use the format of a newspaper to create

our props for when Honey enters the house.This was useful as it was

easy to use and it didn’t take too much time whereas starting from scratch to make

it would be more time consuming

I used YouTube to broadcast true coloursNot only was this useful in trying to reach out toaudiences we received lots of feedback as well

through word of mouth.

The technology we used to create the titles for puzzled productions was flash. This software was useful as it enabled us to customize

the title so that It appeared in paint letters as well as the away it was presented

to connote that it was a thriller.

Part 7-Technology used for Research

Survey Monkey

We used this website to assess peoples views of a thriller. It was very useful as it allowed me to include

open and closed questions. Therefore I was able to gain subjective as well

as objective responses.

IMBDFurthermore I went on imbd to research more

about thrillers and common sub genres of a thriller which I came to find many

had supernatural,horror,mystery and drama. Though in order to narrow this preference down

I decided to conduct a survey to find which two were the most common

500__dropthedyle__dtd_infirmiere.aiff

Photo bucketWhen creating character profiles for the two characters in true colours I used photo bucket. This was useful in

allowing me customise it the way I wanted to. Also during the production of true colours when it came to editing the titles it wasn’t until after I found I could use this and so if I were to improve it

I would use to this to add more effects to the titles.

http://www.freesound.org/We used freesoundsproject in finding our sounds for

true colours yet we did try changing it to fit different parts of the sequence through using garage band.

Part 7- Technology used for post production

Sounds we used for true colours

Click on to listen to sound

Fireworks-This software was used to add effects to the logo for the production company puzzled productions. This was

useful as it consisted of the various tools to change the logo to the way we wanted it to appear in the beginning of the

opening sequence.

Looking back at my preliminary task I used what I learnt in terms of the misenscene, sound, editing and camera. For instance a strength was the match on action and so we used that within out opening sequence which worked well.

We also found that as silence was a key element that we didn’t manage to quite grip when working on the sound for our preliminary task we made sure to keep this in mind for true colours. The actual storyline for our preliminary task was rather simple and so when it came to working on our thriller we wanted to make sure that though its more implicit as it’s a thriller its be more sophisticated and have more connotations through the sound and camera angles.

Overall I feel I have made progress from making our preliminary task to this two minute opening sequence. As iv learnt how being precise in the mis en scene, camera angles and sound for instance using too much or too little sound, can make all the difference in the way it affects the audience. Consequently since creating the preliminary task I have developed my knowledge of how to use I movie and rather than trying out the simple effects and not particularly choosing only certain shots to connote a theme as well as the typography selected was much less thought out then. Yet as I have become more aware of the different types of technology iv been able to incorporate it with true colours

Also I think the creativity was more successful in true colours than it was in the preliminary task once again because I think as it came to the planning of it it was more precise and it was very much related to the genre of it being a thriller. When making the thriller from the table where there are the weaknesses we improved these by avoiding the mistake that occurred with the preliminary task.

For instance we found that that when it came to the organisation of it it would be easier to make a shot paper where we listed down what shots we should use and so when it came to post production it would be a lot faster and easier to select which shots were appropriate to use and therefore work from. Lastly in the prelim. task I used the envelope to present the humour of it all yet within true colours I didn’t emulate this as I didn’t feel it was necessary to as well as trying to maintain the verisimilitude of it all. The lighting for the preliminary task was a weakness and so we made sure that the lighting was clear enough to see as though it was darker inside we were still able to get a clear view of her face expressions.

Part 8-Preliminary Task

Good Points about your work Not so good points about your work

The location of the restaurant matched with the setting and mood of the scene therefore there is a sense of verisimilitude created.I used a range of shots to emphasise the characters emotions with what was actually happening for example I used a close up shot to show her reaction to the empty box of chocolates. Foley sound was used well in effect to create a more dramatic slap as before it was added it was difficult to hear the sound of the slap as the music was playing over it.

Yet the sound wasn’t very clear due to the background soundOveruse of sound some of which could be considered asynchronous sound After the match on action shot where we see the character, it cuts to the other character where we see her react to him coming through the door.Also the lighting for when we see the two characters was quite dim and therefore it made it difficult for the audience to recognize their emotions through their facial expressions