This is feedback on draft three of our thriller. The feedback is on sound and visual.

The majority of our feedback was very positive and they thought that our thriller was very effective and challenged everyday stereotypes.

Mrs Cobb felt that when Morgan is walking in the courtyard we cannot hear his footsteps. To correct this we have added some in and enhanced them. We have also increased the volume of the music at points of high tension this enhances the tension of the scene. Every target that has been mentioned has been resolved.

This is our final draft of our thriller the next exported sequence will be the complete full final thriller. For this draft we have added in a distribution company of our choice. We have also made and added in our own production company to the beginning of the thriller. Another addition we have made is that we have added in a piece of film that included the location and date of the film. By doing this the film makes more narrative sense and a scene is automatically set. We felt that it was a very conventional way to introduce the film.

However, even with all of these added adjustments we still have a few more things that we would like to improve on. For example, the creaking of the door is far too loud and it takes away from the scene. Another thing that we would like to correct for our final thriller is leaving a longer gap for ‘ A Film By Ewan Champion-Smith’ at the end as we feel that it appears too soon and is far more dramatic with a longer pause.

For this draft  the first thing we altered was the lighting of the whole video. We felt that it looked far too boring and dull. To fix this we altered how it looked by adding multiple layers of effects. These effects were:

• Opacity
• Tint
• Brightness & Contrast
• Colour Balance

Please click on the image to see an enlarged version

After we had altered the videos appearance we started to add more sound. A background white noise track was added to cover the whole opening to our thriller. By doing this we have insured that at no point there is complete silence.  Just as we did to edit the appearance to our thriller we also altered the sounds in for our thriller by using audio effects.

Please click on the image to view a larger version

Foley sounds are sounds that are sounds from the world of the film. So the everyday sounds that the charters would be able to hear, such as a door slamming or footsteps. They are used in almost every film as they are a good way for producers to avoid the risk of copyright infringement. We are using them so that we to can avoid problems with copyright also so that we can make sounds that fit our thriller perfectly which makes the scenes look more real

This image is of when we recorded Morgan’s footsteps as he ran up the stairs outside after he heard a noise

This was us filming the slam of a door

This is the the sound of gravel crunching for when Morgan jumps over the fence

This is the footsteps for when Louise steps out from behind the wall on the roof

We are now nearly ready to add sound into our thriller. Before we do this we decided to conduct some research and save diegetic and non-diegetic that would work well for a our thriller. We are adding sound to our thriller to emphasis specific points. For example when Morgan runs from the courtyard because he has heard something, or something as simple as footsteps. Here are some that I have found and where, below they have been labelled as to where I feel they would fit well.

Background noise – This connotes that something is nearby that is dangerous and should be avoided. That someone is exploring somewhere that perhaps they should not be exploring. Near the end it also shows that Morgan is very close to the danger and is about to get caught.

Bang for outside when Morgan runs this will show that there is someone else around and something that need the attention of Morgan.

Shocked expression or entering the staircase to fort. This connotes that what Morgan has seen is not good and that something bad is to follow because of this event.

Background noise for throughout. This infers that the place in which Morgan is in is not a safe one. It portrays that he is not alone or that he is being watched.

Bang for outside when Morgan runs. This sound would be to draw Morgan’s attention the the fact that he is not alone, that someone is nearby and want him to know that they are.

By creating this running order we created a list of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds that we needed to use. This was useful as it helped to organise what we needed to do so that we could collect all of our sounds at once rather that finding or making them as we needed them.

Synaesthesia is when one sense triggers another senses to work. For example, feeling sounds or hearing colours. In this task we listened to a composition and stated how what we pictured and felt as a result of the sound. We did this so that we could learn to identify which sounds make you sense a particular movement, feeling or scene as research for our thriller.

Some senses that can be felt by sound are in the image below:

These particular senses are what I personally pictured and felt whilst listening to the soundtrack below. (To make the image bigger please click)

To see how well our titles actually looked we asked people to view our titles and got feedback from them about what they liked and disliked about certain areas to do with titles. Such as the font/colour. Some of the questions that we asked to get the feedback that we required were:

• Is the font of the titles suitable to our thriller?
• Is the colour of the titles suitable?
• What is your opinion on the positioning of our titles?
• Are the transitions of/between titles conventional?

In Draft 2 we have added in all of our title in a font that we are happy with. We have added FX effects onto our main title and to some clips on our video to alter the colour and lighting of the scene so that it is more suited for the story line of our thriller.  A couple sounds have been added in this draft also, however they have not all been complete as of yet and no foley sounds that have been created by us have yet been imported.

For this draft we used  a variation of different tools and effects to make our thriller better. We used the razor tool to shorten clips that we had to make them look more slick and interesting. It also allowed us to split clips in two so that we could have one half of a clip in one place and the other half further along.

To create a CCTV look for some of our shots we layered multiply effects in after effects. We learnt to do this by watching videos to gain the skill. First we layered the video with a shape that made the film looked scratched. By applying a motion effect onto that layer we made the footage look like it was flickering. The final touches were adding in the running time and the camera number into the corner of the footage. This gave the image the final authentic look that it needed.

Here are some of the videos we watched to help us with Adobe After Effects :

Furthermore, to make the location and situation look cold and unwelcoming we changed the brightness. By tweaking the brightness we were able to make the fort look more unwelcoming.

This is all of the layered effects we used to add the CCTV effect onto some of our footage

This is what the finished effect looked like after we had successfully layered everything after effects

Here is a screenshot of what we used to edit the font and size of our titles. We did not use the font KaiTi in the end, and we also changed the gap between the two lines to be smaller as it looked far neater

This shot shows how we put all of our titles together. We dragged them along to the correct space in our opening and cut them to be the correct length. To insure that all of the titles had the same settings and to make the whole process a lot faster we did one to be perfect and then copied and pasted it many times. By doing this we saved time as all we needed to alter was the words

This is what our titles looked like originally with the settings displayed above. Since then be have made altercations in order for them to look better and more suited for our thriller opening