Thrillers in Television.

As we are only producing the first few minutes of a thriller, I think that it would be useful to look at and analyse television shows in the thriller genre.
A particular show that I find interesting is Misfits. Misfits is a British comedy-drama series about a group of young offenders forced to work in a community service program, where they attain supernatural powers after a strange electrical storm.
One of the main reasons I watch the show is that it is extremely entertaining; each episode provides a whole variety of different emotions. Moreover, topics such as sex, death, drugs, love, relationships and age are all discussed in a way which engages people.
The opening episode of the first series is the most appropriate for my blog; the scene is set and the story begins. I will be creating a video of the first episode, showing some of my favourite, and the most thrilling parts of it.

Survey

Using surveymonkey.com, I created a survey that asked the participant various questions about thriller movies. By doing this, I hope to gain a better understanding of the audience for my thriller project. Also, I hope to know the aspects of thrillers that most appeal to the viewer. I will be collecting my data at a later date.
Feel free to complete the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HXL7DJ9

Livetype Experimentation

Last Wednesday, I briefly experimented with Livetype. I created a small piece with the software, but wasn't able to upload it.
I hope to use Livetype and it's functions again in the future, but I feel more comfortable using software such as Photoshop. Therefore, if there are harsh time restrictions, I will not be using Livetype, as learning the basics of the software will be time consuming.

Interviews on the Thriller Genre

Last week, we recorded a series of interviews and were ready to put them onto the computer. However, we realised that the person using the camera was recording all the parts that didn't need recording, and not recording the parts we needed. Luckily, we managed to capture a few minutes of usable footage.
This week, we decided to interview more people, and hopefully use the camera correctly this time. We then uploaded our footage today, and used Final Cut Express to edit the footage. We decided to use the funny and serious footage, as we wanted to show how much fun we had recording the interviews.

Graphic Matches

Graphic matches are two similar shots that are placed next to each other. The graphic matches provide a smooth visual transfer from one frame to the next. They also increase the continuity of the film, and create a  flowing transition between scenes.

Examples of Graphic Matches.

Thriller Montage

This is my montage, showing some of the things I would like to include in my thriller. These include a scary, ominous character, and silhouette figures and dark and deserted locations.

Preliminary Exercise.

The above video was our preliminary exercise. We created a storyboard and then had roughly 40 minutes to film the shots we wanted.We decided to use a variety of shots, including a long shot, extreme close-up, and a pan shot. The also wanted to make the editing appear seamless, so we filmed everything several times.
I feel as though the piece turned out well; the film flowed well, and the shots we used worked well. However, there were a few errors.The first of which is the sound. Some of the dialogue is cut from the piece, and you can here the cameraman shouting go at one point. This was because we could not hear the sound when we were editing at the computer was being slightly temperamental. Moreover, one of the actors looks into the camera.We have realized our mistakes, and we take them into consideration when we next film.