Evaluation of thriller opening- Megan

Assessment Criteria	What went well	What did not go quite so well
Shooting material appropriate to the task set;	The film was conveyed to be a thriller opening by the use of the darker lighting, close ups and the narrative in the police interview scene. Using restricted narration makes the audience wonder what is going to happen which you would expect from a crime thriller.	The lighting in the last scene is quite a lot darker than the rest of our film and is much harder to see and understand what is happening. Due to editing our lighting to make it lighter our shots become much grainier.
Controlled use of the camera	The use of hand held camera in the last scenes conveys thriller as well as using the tripod in the interviewing scene to convey the seriousness of the situation.	Using tracking shots during the last scenes would have added to the pace and suspense, furthering the idea of the thriller genre.
Attention to framing	Framing in the interview scene is used to show the whole picture without spaces to the sides of the shot.	During the end scene our framing doesn’t capture Mr Harvey dragging his daughter as the framing is very inconsistent and darker.
Variety of shot sizes	A variety of shot sizes were used to convey the characters thoughts and expressions through their facial expression and body language.	Need more use of close ups to portray emotion even further towards the audience to convey sympathy towards our protagonist.
Close attention to mise en scene	Mis en scene was portrayed through the characters clothing (school clothing) and make-up was used to show bruising. We showed Mr Robinson to be someone of importance by having him wear a suit. The idea of the killing being in woods rather than in a home adds to the thriller genre.	Mr Harvey’s clothing wasn’t easily recognised due to the lighting and him sitting down. The lighting in the scenes made it much harder to understand what was happening and who was who which would have been improved by re-filming at an earlier time or using lights and colours to use upon the characters.
Editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer	The opening was able to flow with the use of jump cut shots to create mystery. We were able to use continuity within our shots so that our piece flowed.	Meaning wasn’t apparent at all times due to the lighting making understanding much harder to the audience.
Making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions, captions and other effects	The use of cuts between shots rather than fades or wipes matches in more with the thriller genre. The effects and transitions were put in to the opening correctly without just being thrown in because they needed to and were used to convey the thriller genre even more.	Using small captions in the corner for our title made it harder to spot and didn’t match in quite as much with the thriller genre. The title should have been more appealing and bring it to the audience’s attention so it’s a film title they’d remember.
Recording and editing sound with images appropriately.	We used foleys to create a louder sound of footsteps as well as a variety of sound effects i.e. birds. We also made sure that it was easier to hear our narrative with no music playing over it.	There are places of silence where the camera has been cut for the use of continuity purposes. The contrapuntal music may bring confusion to the audience due to the thriller genre on screen. Dialogue can be hard to hear sometimes and could be improved with the use of microphones and voice overs.