Above is our final thriller, after completing three separate drafts and a rough cut we believed we have finally finished our opening sequence. We went on to make sure we accomplished all of the targets we were set in order to make the thriller was as good as possible. After completing these minor tweaks, we are now happy with our end product.

In this evaluation question we were given the task to write a script on everything we had done throughout the year and therefore what we learnt from this. We focused on the three tasks we had to do, these were the preliminary task, the montage and finally the thriller.

We decided to allocate each stage of these tasks to each person. Morgan spoke about research & planning, I did production & post production and finally Ellie did evaluation. By dividing these tasks up we managed to produce a very professional script and therefore went on to carry out the video above.

Please click on this image to view the whole table in detail.

For this task I had to fill in the table above about what we did/ used during the different stages of making our thriller. These stages included things like research, planning, production, post production and presentation & feedback. This was helpful due to the fact it allowed us to keep track of everything we had done throughout this process.

For this task, we had to explain how elements of our thriller would attract our target audience. We explained which parts were important and what we actually thought about to make sure we were addressing our preferred audience. Furthermore, we referred to things like our characters, setting and sound to fully explain what parts of our opening sequence would entice the selected market.

Moreover, we also believe that our title ‘Subzero’ would also be another element of our thriller that would attract our target audience. Despite not putting this in our actual evaluation video, we feel that this is also a very important aspect. Personally, we think that although our title does not necessarily link to our thriller directly, it does in a way that still leaves room for questioning. This sense of enigma would draw our audience in, as they may want to discover what this title may mean and the relevance it actually has. Our title also links well with war and action, therefore we think it links to our target audience extremely well.

In this task we had to identify who the target audience for our thriller would be. We did this by first identifying what the core audiences would be, then we went on to analyse the survey results. This allowed us to really see what people preferred and therefore related this to our thriller.

From this we learnt that it is important to establish the target audience because then you can make the thriller appealing to this particular group. We also learnt that customising the thriller to a particular audience to make it more specific and therefore a lot more likable.

For our voice thread, you can only hear our recording on the first slide. Due to this technical difficulty, you can not actually scroll through the slide show whilst listening. This means it would probably be best to listen first and then look through our presentation.

In this task, I did some research on some distributors who would actually be able to distribute my thriller. This is very important because this will be how my product will get on to the market. Please watch the slide show above to discover the useful information I have found.

Please look through the slideshow above to view my answers to this question.

During this task we had to analyse our own thrillers, here I connoted different aspects that helped to represent different social groups in society. These different elements included character, setting, camera, editing and narrative. The characters that we had to analyse were our antagonist and protagonist, we also had to label each character with words that described them the best throughout the clip.

This task helped us to understand the major differences between these characters. I am now much more aware of how these individuals can represent different social groups that can be easily identified by viewers. From this task, I understand how things like different uses of camera and editing can effect to portrayal of a character.

Here I looked back at my thriller conventions mind map, I was able to reflect back on where the ideas for our thriller came from. During this task, I also looked back on what was conventional/ unconventional about aspects like our protagonist, antagonist, themes, iconography, visual style and finally our setting.

Due to this task, I learned where all the details and aspects of our thriller actually came from. We also were able to refresh our minds on what things were seen as conventional/ unconventional in thrillers. This helped us to really identify whether or not we managed to make our opening sequence as traditional as possible.

For our final targets, we gathered data from our YouTube comments and the recorded feedback which we filmed. We also decided it would most probably be a good idea to add a few of our own opinions on what we thought we needed to improve. We then decided to go on to compile a list of targets that will help to improve our opening sequence, these were:

• Move the position of the title from the beginning to somewhere else in the middle of the thriller.
• Increase the volume of the opening sound for more dramatic tension.
• Decrease the sound of the rustling items in the bunker.
• Record a foley sound of laughter for the arrival of the teens
• Fade out the rain when exiting from the bunker, as it ends a little abruptly.
• Overall add more ambient sound/ music, to create more tension throughout.
• Increase the volume for the sound at the end of the thriller.
• Add more sound to the marching montage, perhaps layer it up with the sound of footsteps or a heartbeat.
• A couple of the titles are sometimes hard to view and therefore their positioning needs to be slightly adjusted.
• Make sure there are no harsh breaks or pauses in the sound, this means we either need to add exponential fades to a few clips or make sure they link together better.

Finally, due to this task we learnt what we needed to do to make sure we improved our thriller and make it as good as possible. We also learnt that it is important to receive a lot of different opinions for our thriller, especially on what needed to be changed. This is because without the advice/ help of our peers/ teacher, we may not have noticed the mistakes they did and therefore we would not have made the improvements we have done.

Here we had to actually record a couple of our media peers in order to gain feedback for our Draft 3. For this task we asked Monica and Lauren to watch our thriller: Sub Zero. During this time we recorded them and captured their reactions to particular parts. Throughout they commented on specific details and answered the questions we asked them while the sequence was playing. The questions in which we asked were:

• Do you like the Foley sounds?
• Does the sound for the Title fit well with our thriller?
• Does the background music work well in our thriller?
• Does any sound need to be added to the marching montage?
• Does any more overall sound need to be added?

We successfully managed to gain the feedback that we needed from our peers and therefore we now have a few targets. After recording them, we then took note of everything they said and complied a list of things we needed to change about the thriller to make it even better. Monica first of all suggested that we added a low bass noise at the beginning of the opening sequence for a bigger impact, we feel this is a very good point as it would tie everything together. Lauren also went to mention that a few of our titles were a little difficult to read. She suggested we change the positioning of one of them to make it more visible.

From this particular task, we learnt the about things that we did well in our thriller and what has helped it to appear more interesting. We also came to understand the points that did not work so well and therefore we will be changing these to really make our opening sequence as good as it can be.