Evaluation of ‘Suspected’…

Our crime drama ‘Suspected’ didn’t go entirely to plan or as we had hoped, however I now have a trailer that still matches the majority of our group’s original ideas. The crime drama is targeted at people interested in crime and the law, and one positive point is that the target audience of ‘Suspected’ is clear within the trailer, which was a main aim of ours. I think this gives us a better chance of reaching audience expectation. We planned to create a crime drama packed with accusations and intriguing twists, with a plot that involved a robbery, a murder and a gang of 5. The scenes we planned to capture and put into the trailer were the following:

-the gang burgling the flat, the policeman leaving the flat and then the building, the gang leaving the building after hearing noises (a scream), clip of forensics and investigators around the dead body, forensics, police and investigators discussing their findings, CCTV being viewed and discussed, paul (the policeman) saying he witnessed the gangs exit and saying 'FIND THEM NOW', three of the gang members being arrested, the other two fleeing, gang members being questioned individually, josh speaking to his father, remaining 2 gang members discussing, policeman being murdered, the policeman’s body.

We managed to capture the following footage:

-the aftermath of the flat burglary, the CCTV footage, the viewing of the CCTV footage, the woman’s body being investigated, an arrest, another death, scenes of people running and multiple escape attempts.

Despite not capturing the footage that we had intended to capture, I still managed to create an action packed trailer that although didn’t follow the original plot, still linked to the title ‘Suspected’. The target audience of ‘Suspected’ is also extremely clear through the trailer and I think that this is a very important and positive point. The only unclear part of the trailer is the storyline, however I don’t think that this matters too much since it is instead focusing on the action aspects of the drama rather than the plot. The trailer starts off with a 3 piece sequence of clips involving a woman’s dead body. These clips are joined by the beginning of the 28 days later soundtrack, which is slow and chilling.

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This first clip lasts for over 5 seconds and is an effective way to begin a trailer. We took a high angle shot to show her complete lack of power, and to be able to fit in the length of her corpse. This shot also captures the feet of the investigators to show that she

This second clip also lasts about the same length of the first. It was put in the trailer as a way of allowing the audience to establish the situation further, and it was taken as a floor level shot as another way of capturing her lifeless body.

After this three piece sequence, there is the footage of the CCTV footage being viewed, a key part within our trailer. This part involves three pieces of footage, all of which are still accompanied by the 28 days later soundtrack, and a conversation within the second that then continues over the 3rd clip.

3. This is the 3rd part of the dead body sequence. The first two parts have no audio except for the 28 days soundtrack, however this footage includes a conversation between two of our characters, in which they discuss the body. The soundtrack remains at the same volume throughout this, but I have turned up the audio for the footage so the conversation is clear. We took a still, medium shot in order to capture the body, the two main investigators and the other officers and forensics visible on the scene. This shot allows the viewer to see everyone in that setting.

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It begins with the camera following a main character of ours as she walks into the computer room, in which the CCTV footage is being studied. We chose to use a medium, long shot, as this was the best way to present the setting as well as the character. The panning of the camera worked great as well, as it allowed the audience to see exactly where she was heading.

This clip involves a conversation between our two main characters (seen before in the 3rd piece of footage). We took an over the shoulder shot to show their conversation and to get a good view of the CCTV footage that they were viewing at the time. The footage is cut off almost immediately, but the conversation from the clip continues onto the next clip (the actual CCTV footage).

3.This clip is the CCTV footage. It is accompanied by the conversation from the previous clip, as well as the 28 days soundtrack. We took a high angle shot whilst panning the camera in order to create some footage that looked exactly how CCTV footage does. I then made it black and white, as well as adding numbers at the bottom in order to further the effect.

After this sequence of clips, the music cuts off, and it goes to a black screen. To this point, the calm and relaxed soundtrack of 28 days has been playing. However after a few seconds of no footage and silence, the climax of the same soundtrack kicks in. My plan was to put the conversations and more reserved footage into the first half of the trailer against calmer music, but to then kick into an action packed second half with louder and more thrilling music. The second half includes the following scenes:

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This clip is of Luke running and is part of the sequence of action and eventful clips. This part is played in slow motion which really contrasts well with the fast moving beat of the ’28 days’ soundtrack. This was filmed by following Luke with the camera as he ran; creating a clip that was far from still. This produced a more chaotic and disorganised clip.

This clip is of Laura and James fighting at the door. This wasn’t a planned piece of footage, but it seems to fit well within the trailer. This clip doesn’t last long but is slightly slowed down and seems to be effective. This is a high angle shot, large enough to capture both sides of the door in which is being fought over.

This clip is of Laura running down a flight of stairs. This is a high angle shot that manages to capture the full flight of stairs and also her full body length. She is wearing a hoodie to fit the ‘troubled youth’ stereotype, and her clear attempt to hide her identity from the camera presents that this is an escape scene. It has also been sped up in order to present this attempt to escape further.

This clip continues from the previous one in which Laura is running down the flight of stairs. Like the previous clip, her identity is yet to be revealed, creating more suspense. This shot captures her feet and legs in order to emphasise her agility in the escape scene.

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This clip also involves running, but instead with Lily. This clip has been slowed down a large amount as another way of emphasising the agility within the scene. This clip reveals a lot of identity, suggesting to the audience that she may be the chaser rather than the mysterious hoodie wearer in the previous scene. For this clip, the camera steadily follows Lily as she runs.

This clip is of someone crying over a corpse. The camera circles the two characters, so goes from an over the shoulder shot that begins to turn into a medium shot that reveals the identity of the lifeless body. This has been slowed down a bit, emphasising Luke’s actions and making them seem more effective.

Although like clip 3, this involves Laura, we hope that the subjects within the footage are treated as two individual characters. This high angle shot is similar to clip 2, and allows the viewer to see the character as well as the situation. This high angle could also suggest that something is over-powering her and that she is not in charge within her current situation. This may be because she is the one being chased.

This is the first arrest scene of the trailer. It is filmed as a still, long shot that shows the setting as well as the involved characters. This clip doesn’t last long but gets to the point, as well as clearly showing the situation of the characters. This clip then cuts onto a different shot of the arrest.

This is the 2nd part of the arrest that links to the previous piece of footage. This is a medium shot that allows the viewer to see slightly more identity and expressions from the characters, but still allowing them to see the setting and therefore notice that this is a link on from the previous clip. This isn’t a still shot, but this slight movement in the filming creates the effect that things are disorganised and a bit chaotic.

THE FILMING and THE EDITING…

The group consisted of myself, Lily and Laura, and in order to achieve all of this, we had to work well together. In the filming stage, I took the role of the camera man, Laura played multiple characters, and Lily also acted as well as directed. We then all individually made edits of the crime drama.

THE PRE-PRODUCTION STAGE…

A long time before any planning began, we learnt about the 12 stages of film making that involved pre-production stages, the actual filming and the editing. We also studied shot types, as well as studying multiple crime drama credits and plots, including: Sherlock, Cagney and Lacey, The Bill and NYC 22. Studying these allowed us to see the techniques used within creating successful crime dramas. They also allowed us to see common crime conventions, which taught us ways of presenting the genre to the audience. Here are some of the tables we filled out in reference to these Television Programs…

With an improved knowledge, we began individually planning for our own crime dramas. From this point, we could bring our individual ideas into a big group plan. This was my original mind map of ideas…

Our group then all developed a plot for our crime drama, and decided to name it ‘Suspected’.

We didn’t assign any roles throughout this stage which was a mistake of ours. Having clear roles would have allowed us to get through the pre-production stage more successfully and quickly.

Myself and Lily worked on a possible plot and then produced further diagrams to map out ideas for characters…

Once we had strong ideas for plots and characters, we decided to work out how all these points could be fit into a short trailer that would advertise the drama successfully. On my blog, I wrote: ‘Rather than doing a full episode, we plan to create a trailer that portrays the extent of the action in a

matter of minutes. This trailer will also need to explain the storyline and show the characters and settings’. With this idea in mind, we managed to decide on 13 parts that would be combined into the trailer and these included a murder scene, forensics and investigators at work, as well as a burglary. We then developed a script for each of these parts, most of which had no speech since we wanted to focus on action. The script writing stage wasn’t too successful because we didn’t include much about shop types or angles which would have definitely improved our footage and therefore our overall trailer.

The script did, however, give us an idea at what props and equipment we would need for each scene. This list of these props and equipment included a tripod, 2 cameras, a microphone and a selection of tables. The list also included the costumes for ‘Suspected’, which were all simple and easy to get hold of as they were just hoodies and the basic school uniform. We picked hoodies as the main dress code because they are commonly linked to the stereo typical thug life and gangs, which was a big part within our original idea, and the wearing of the basic school uniform was great for authority figures within our drama (the police) as they would usually be dressed smartly. With the plot, characters, props and dress codes decided upon, we went out to scout locations for filming. We decided upon multiple classrooms and different blocks around the school and also managed to work out possible camera angles for each area.

We then worked on a schedule for filming.

I am reasonably happy with my version of the trailer, because although our filming didn’t go to plan, I feel that I now have a trailer that includes multiple crime conventions, action and accusations which was a big aim within the development of ‘Suspected’. I think the fact that our team worked well together was a huge aspect of this because we managed to get footage despite a change in the plot and multiple other problems. I feel that the pre-production stage was the most successful part of this all, as we managed to come up with a good plot, a list of filming locations, a filming schedule, a script and a prop list. The mind map of characters should have definitely of been thought through more carefully, though, as this became an obstacle within the production which ended up hindering the filming stage. If I am set a similar task in the future, this is definitely something I’d focus on. I

Our schedule didn’t go entirely to plan for multiple reasons. The main problem was that the people that we had planned to act for us weren’t free due to their own group commitments. Laura agreed to play multiple characters, but took advantage of the hoodies that could cover her identity. However that didn’t entirely solve the problem because it still meant that we could only have the 3 people from our group to play the characters, eliminating the gang of 5 plot. For two particular scenes, we did manage to gather students from other classrooms to act for us which was a great help, but the lack of actors was an obstacle. This was all down to bad planning, and we should have thought through the roles more carefully. Despite having to change the majority of our plan, we still managed to capture scenes that turned out to fit well within the trailer. Compared to the schedule and planned footage, we managed to film the aftermath of the flat burglary, the CCTV footage, the viewing of the CCTV footage, the woman’s body being investigated, an arrest, another death, scenes of people running and multiple escape attempts. Although the filming schedule and the plot mind maps don’t relate much to my final trailer, the mind maps on possible characters, the script, the filming locations and the prop lists were a great help within the creation of ‘Suspected’. The 12 stages of film making, the work on shot types and the other studies on crime dramas and their conventions turned out to be a great help.

think it would also help to clearly assign roles within the pre-production stage as this proved useful within the filming. Apart from these points, I think that my trailer is a lot better than I was expecting it to turn out.