Will Bone Evaluation

1. Evaluation question 1

2.  Our narrative is fairly unconventional in that it
shows a point in the narrative from close to the
end of the timeline at the start of the film.
 However, this is not a completely original idea. We
had inspiration from other films that have a similar
structure such as the interrogation scene from
Mission Impossible III and the building explosions
from Fight Club.
 The concept of a journalist exposing leaked
documents hurtful to someone in authority is also
a previously explored theme.
 Other films such as The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo follow a journalist seeking justice for the
information they have uncovered so we tried to
pick out how they created a strong thriller film and
apply it to ours while, at the same time,
introducing our own ideas to create the final piece.

3.  We used numerous conventional techniques for our final
opening in order to best fit the thriller genre and create the
most professional opening we could.
 These included implementing the standard indusry 180
degree rule in order to not confuse and disorientate the
audience when carrying out shot/reverse/shots.
 As for unconventional camerawork, our use of focus pulls
was fairly disassociated from other conventional thriller
films with the extent and way in which we used them. We
used a deep focus from the commissioner pulled into a
shallow focus on the protagonist’s hand in order to
emphasise the importance of what the protagonist is about
to say and create anticipation for what is coming. As well as
this, we also implemented a shallow focus on the
commissioner’s shoulder with the reporters out of focus,
furthering the isolated atmosphere we aimed to create
around the commissioner at that moment.

4.  For our mise-en-scene, we tried to make the
scenes look as authentic as possible through
realistic looking settings, props and costume.
 Our settings of a busy conference room and an
isolated interrogation room both conform to
the stereotypical locations of a thriller movie.
 Similarly, for props we used most prominently a
handgun as well as the expected items
(podium, notice board, microphone) for a press
conference while for costume we had a
standard police uniform for the commissioner
and a white shirt for the journalist so were
conventional in this respect.
 However, as for the shot construction, we were
fairly challenging towards the conventions by
using intimate extreme close-ups on the
commissioner such as the shots of the sweat as
well as the eye.

5.  For our music choice, George created his own
non-diegetic background music to use over the
initial walk to the conference. It consisted of
muffled electronic sounds in a slow but rhythmic
beat to build tension and create the feeling of
something ominous ahead, thus fitting with the
thriller genre conventions of other thriller films
that open with a similar soundtrack.
 With our diegetic sounds like dialogue, we wrote
vague lines for the commissioner to say in the
interrogation scene and left the details for the
journalist’s questions as ambiguous as possible in
the conference scene. This was done purposely to
not give away any major plot details so early on in
the film such as we witnessed done in other
thriller film openings when carrying out our
research such as in The Prestige.

6.  We used mostly standard editing techniques for the
final edit in order to conform to the genre as much as
possible to achieve the proven industry effects.
 These include using long clips with few cuts for the
conference scene once the journalist reveals what he
knows to emphasise the horror the commissioner is
feeling and juxtaposing it to the fast cuts when George
fires his gun in the interrogation scene representing the
danger the journalist is clearly in.
 We also used common editing methods such as an eye-
line match but, in addition to simply using these
methods archetypically, we also experimented by
implementing our own takes on these techniques. Our
eye-line match on the commissioner during the
conference scene for example first showed a shot of the
commissioner as he stared with horror before cutting to
a shot of the press he was looking at but with them
particularly out of focus. This helped to further the
emotion the commissioner is feeling and create a more
poignant shot.