AS Thriller Evaluation(Thursday 26th March)

AS Media Evaluation Final Draft

We were told to produce an opening sequence of a thriller for our AS coursework, therefore we were put into small groups of four. My response to the brief was to start with the ending then go back to the beginning in order to get the audiences attention about what has happened.Thrillers are supposed to get the audiences on the edge of their seat as the plot builds towards the most intense moments of the thriller. It will give the opportunity to go through an experience and get out the other end alive.Later we decided that our narrative should be anxious and suspenseful. For us to do make it like the way we wanted the group and I have to do the following:
-Storyboarding
-Research on the thriller and the target audience
-Blogging
-Production schedule (organising props and people, time management)










We have watched many opening sequences before we started the project, for example the last years students, pack of thriller openings and the documentary. When I was watching the last year’s groups, some I did not like but some of them were making me watch the rest of it because it created it suspense on me. The documentary we watched was interesting because it teaches us about how to create suspense and how it was to film thriller in the olden days. When I was watching ‘Collateral’ I liked the way they exchanged the suitcases and the shots like POV, mid-shots, long-shot and close-ups made it more interesting. I was planning to use that technique in our thriller but we did not use it because it was a typical storyline but it depends on how well you use the techniques. The technique we used was used by ‘Slum dog Millionaire’ as well which was released recently. I can say that we got that technique from that film because the film has being nominated to win the Oscar, BAFTA and this shows that it was a successful film. It started from the end and went to the beginning throughout the film.







After watching the samples of thriller openings like 28 Days later, The Shining and Collateral we were told to make a pitch to the producers (teachers) in order to see if they will accept our film to be made. The pitch has involved the brief explanation of our narrative, the key images and the props such as candles and the mask. We then talked about our mise-en-scene, camerawork, use of lighting and the sound. Our project is accepted by the producers and is ready to get the shooting start.






The media institution that might distribute our media product would probably be a small independent UK release, because I think this is the audience that it would appeal to, all ages. The reason for this is that thrillers are more attractive in the cinema because the darkness and silence dramatises what you are going to see on the screen. We had the chance to watch the film in the VUE, and the audience who watched it were the sort of audience that the film is targeted at. The audience were pleased and as a reward, we had applause

from them. I think this thriller will work best in

websites like YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, because it has all ages and any people who would like to watch it could watch it free. I think it can be successful as an independent release in UK, because there is no competition on thriller films because there are not shown often. I think the thriller can be advertised through trailers in YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. Advertised through these websites has being successful and it is known that as a marketing techniques most informing is the most inviting.

I have learnt a lot about all sorts of technologies from constructing our thriller. My knowledge on the filming has increased it also helped me analyse films in different perspectives. When I meant the word 'different perspectives’, I mean that learnt all sorts of shots like establishing to POV and close-ups. I have learnt a lot on using the Final Cut Pro and it made the work became much easier about all the things that were difficult in the editing process. After Final Cut Pro the next step was to use Soundtrack Pro and it was a quite tough this one was. Soundtrack Pro took most of our time in editing because it was hard to find the correct music for the scene. After adding the music, it really worked well by dramatising some parts of the scenes and creates suspense on the other scenes. All the work we have produced was really enjoying and it really teached us a lot. We were also told to be blogging in order to keep up to date in our work; I have learnt that organisation was the key to the success. Our film was released first in Vimeo website and audiences had an easy access to watch the thriller. After the film was released, there were couple of feedbacks from the people that have watched our film.







To conclude, I think I have progressed a lot from Preliminary task to the Final product we produced. The 'match-cut' exercise was like a draft to our thriller and it really teached us about what to do and not to do in the thriller. I know that the quality of our shots was terrible in the preliminary task but then I have learnt about how to improve on them. We have made the storyboarding in our thriller detailed and drew pictures to annotate them. Before going to the filming, we have organised all the planning and maked sure that we have nothing wrong going so we would not stay baffled in the location we went to. The blogging really helped and all the steps in the Thriller production was fabulous. I think the planning we made before was the key to make it seem easier to produce the thriller. I liked each member of the group and will really like to work with the same people next year in the Music Video production. I am delighted with the final product and I think it was enough to be a good thriller.



I think that seeing it in the cinema made me realise that our film either would be a “made for TV” film or distributed in a number of UK 'art house' cinemas. This is because of the low budget that we would have to make the film a success, and the amateur nature of the project would make it harder to become a big Hollywood movie.

Here is the video that is published on the vimeo;

Tied from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Evaluation

It was highly important to me that the Thirller that we created had a realistic story line in order to scare the viewerintensely and i was aware from previous reasearch that this was a major aspect of thrillers that keep the audience on their toes. I was sure that in order for our opening to be successful it had to be unique and different from the usual narrative but as thoughts and ideas started to be explored there was a narrative that came to catch my attention even though it was similar to previous students work.

During the stages of planning our ideas on the films that the thriller could be based on there was a specific topic surrounding news which was the abduction of Shannon Matthews and Maddie Mccann. I found these two cases very inspirational when considering the narrative of the Thriller as this was a topic that is increasing all around the world, the group and i thought that this would be a great stimulus for our thriller and we would base our Thriller on this as many people are aware and very concerned with the subject matter and although similar narratives surrounding this subject have been use previously we thought that we could perfect it and make it an extremely good viewing.

Having this as our stimulas made us have a clear idea of the Genre conventions that we would be included as there were two obvious characters and storyline that form from this narrative which are a villian (kidnapper), bueatiful victim, and a hero. In the case of our thriller opening we thought that we would include the two main characters which are the villian and the victim. These characters reacure in the majority of films of this Genre and this will help the audience sense the idea of what is going on and assist them with the understanding of what the narrative is

This meant that these to characters needed to be clearly identifiable and we did this by placing a scary mask on the hooded villians face which is a clear visual representation of someone that is a trouble maker allowing the audience to interpretate the opening in the correct way. It was highly important that the thriller created suspence and tension. This can be created through many different media techiniques, such as close ups, for example, somebodys face or hands. The music creates most suspence by using eerie or tension creating music, it reflects the mind of character, this is to make the spectator uncomfortable. Lighting to reflect mood and create the mise-en-scene, usually dim lighting etc. We feel that in our sequence suspence and tension is created. As a group we also decided that Flashbacks could be used to create suspense and create the effect of confusion to keep the spectator interested and wanting more.

These are all key ideas of thriller conventions and the group and i wished to carry each of them into our opening and use it to help us create a successful thriller opening.

When deciding which members of the group would star in the thriller it came apparent that we all instently agreed to a male being the villian within the thriller opening, this really interested me as it showed the fact that most of people see the evil person as a male image .

And it showed within other movies as the majority of the villians within films are men and it seems that the victim surrounding them is a female character.
We used this to our advantage and placed the only male in our group as the kidnapper thankfully he was happy to play the role.


I feel the audience of our thrller would be some what of a variety aged and gender although the spect of the capturing is not as bloody as some males may enjoy therefore i feel the target audience of out thriller would be female of a very wide age span as i feel that a variety of people will be able to watch the scenes as unlike other thrillers it is not very gruesome and repulsive to watch.

The name Tied was really inspired by the title Saw as we found this extremely catchy and shows a lot about the type of film that it is and both of the titles are homophones wich we mimicked and made it into our own

I feel the opening is very successful and i can see this being a world wide movie as i can allready visualise the rest of the film. I feel that the opening that we do have sets a clear narrative of what is going on and a sense of continuousness is felt when watching thew scenes. There is a built suspense created in the opening and i feel that the music is a key element to this and this was done by the group and i using a software on the imac computers that allowed us to create the sound at various stages and change it up in different ways at different areas.

I was also very inspired by the sound of one instrumental that i found whilst doing research for the thriller opening on youtube which was titled Enya Instrumental- Tempus Veruum

I found this Music very effective and found it full of suspense and this is what i aimed to mimk whe

n preparing our own music for our opening thriller. youtube came to be a big help when looking for research on our thriller opening as there were numerous videos of thrillers that were very interesting and inspiring.

Along with the soundtrack pro on the Imacs i feel that i have also learnt about nerw technologies and how to do certain things for example i have learnt more about logging and capturing; and being an amatuer in the media department i think that i have done extremely well, i have also learnt more about placing together shots and learning how to make them work together. using equpiment such as the camera and triopod are the most beneficial aspects of filming that as i found them useful in things outside of college classes.

Along with the music that i had found i also found the film opening of Arlington road very helpful as identified various techniques that the group and i actually used in our thriller opening, the techniques that we used included the fades between the shots and the layering of shots. as you can see below the opening is very effective in creating a confusing atmosphere of what is actually happening keeping the viewer content and making them want to know more.

Looking back at the task that i was given i do think that i have achievedcreating a successful thriller opening and although there were numerous things that i feel that could have been done better i feel over

all i have a chieved the best possible standared opening and gained a lot of skills and knowledge that i am very thankful for. and having the ability to look back on previous blogs that i have done really allows me to see just how much i have grown and the amount that i have learnt from this process

Tied from 283goswell on Vimeo.

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Evaluation

My thriller is called 'Tied' and the main storyline shows a girl leaving her friend to walk down the canal on her way home. Little does she know that she is not alone on this pathway. She is followed by an masked man and later grabbed and drugged. We see this as a flashback in our movie. This will seem as if these parts of the film are the victims memories and we see it from her perspective, hopefully making the audience sympathise with her more. What is happening in the present is shown in normal colour and the flashbacks are in black and white to show the time difference. This was possible by editing the colour of the clips that we wanted to be viewed as in the past. What is happening “now” is the victim is alone, in a dark room tied up to the ceiling by her hands, being held hostage for still an unknown reason. This gives reason for the name of our thriller “tied”. This has the connotations that she is not only tied up literally in this room, yet she is tied in the form of entrapment. She is in a situation that seems hard to escape from. After the victim’s flashbacks, we see her gaining consciousness and this is when the end of the thriller comes in. We used the lighting in the studio room to make it obvious to the audience what is happening as we can see the shadow of her being brutally murdered. By doing this, it allowed us to show the actions of the killer, without it looking unprofessional or unrealistic. This part of the thriller causes the mood to change and make it much more dramatic at this point. It is the climax and everything else that we have seen before leads up to this specific point. I think that the structure of our thriller made it look believable and cleverly done. Also, the reoccurance of the mask that the killer wears is a continuous theme throughout the whole thriller. This is an image that we wanted the audience to remember along with the rope which ties the hands.

I did alot of research before starting our project because thriller films are not my personal favourite genre of film. I wanted to get the main idea of what makes a certain film a thriller. The definition of a thriller is: Noun. a book, film, or play depicting crime, mystery, or espionage in an atmosphere of excitement and suspense. This helped me get the idea that we should convey some mystery and suspence, in a form of entertainment for the audiencce.

The conventions of thriller films that we tried to use in our media product are a storyline that is scary and the scenario that one of the characters is in a bad situation, or at risk because of someone. We did not want to move too far away from this convention because looking at other thrillers; I found that this idea never failed to get the audience engaged. My thriller film is set in two locations, a canal side, surrounded by daunting trees in a quiet, possibly deserted area. The second is a dark room, which leaves the audience guessing about its specific location. I hoped that it would look dangerous enough to make the audience think that the character would be unsafe there. Thrillers are often more in depth than what our plot gives off, so this may seem like it is challenging the typical thriller idea. As it is only a short film, I did not think that the storyline should have been too overpowering so hopefully this idea paid off.

My media product is focusing on the younger generation, teenagers at around 16-18 years old, so I think that a 15 certificate would fit it perfectly. This is because the character that is at risk is a young girl and I think that possibly anyone under this age would find thriller films abit too disturbing. This is suggesting that this particular age group of people need to be more careful in dangerous areas, and that as the “killer” is a boy, there is also a -divide between males and females too. This is suggesting young girls are more likely to be in danger. Although these connotations may not necessarily be the opinions of everyone, it is just one representation of a social group, sending the audience unpleasant ideas, allowing them to find the film thrilling.

The media institution that might distribute my media product would probably be a small independent UK release, because I think this is the audience that it would appeal to, British people of all ages. This is because thrillers are more attractive when you are watching them in the cinema because the darkness and silence dramatises what you are going to see on the screen. We got the chance to watch the film in the cinema, and the audience that were watching were the sort of audience that my film is targeted at.
This was very helpful in making the decisions about media institutions because we got first hand feedback on the film. It was perceived in a good way and the audience seemed to react to it well so I was pleased with this. I also learnt that my film definitely works best in the cinema environment and this is the decision I would make for it. I do not think that it would work well going straight to DVD or even on the internet, the cinema surroundings would definitely show off our film as we hope for it to look. I think that it would be successful as an independent UK release, because thriller films are not shown too often, so there would not be competition that is hard to handle. In addition, I think that there may be a niche in the market for this kind of film, because there are not many thrillers that are featuring younger people. So I definitely think that it would attract the right audience and be successful in the cinema.

Concerning the marketing side of it, I think that using the genre would definitely attract people to it because the target audience would already have made their minds up about what sort of films they would be interested in seeing, so thriller fans would be drawn to ours if the specific genre was made clear. I think that it would be most successful if we were to advertise in cinemas with a trailer of the film, highlighting the main points to convince the public to come see it. This would be important because I think it is necessary to advertise somewhere that you want your media product to be viewed. I would preferably want the film to be advertised on TV too and billboards too, because this ensures a wide range of people hearing about the film and remembering it if they are seeing it in different places, at home, in the cinema, on the side of buses, etc. These types of advertising have been proven successful and I know from experience that these specific marketing techniques make the film easy to remember, as I find these the most informing yet also the most inviting.

I have learnt a massive amount about technologies from the process of constructing our thriller, because I have experienced all the different sides of making a media product. My knowledge on how to do filming effectively has been widened and it has helped me to realise how to film things cleverly, so that this transfers onto the screen. By this I mean the different shots, from establishing to close ups, I have realised that the filming process, if completed properly, allows everything else to run smoothly. Moreover, using Final Cut pro has become much easier now and working out all of the things that are difficult in this editing process builds your confidence to edit effectively.Adding the soundtrack using Soundtrack Pro was harder than I expected it to be, yet all of the time and effort that we put into making the soundtrack definitely added a lot to our film, dramatising specific parts and creating suspense at others. It has definitely been a huge learning experience for me. All of the production that we did on the internet was really rewarding. Also, the blogging process noted our progress and kept everything in order, so we knew where we was up to and what we had left to complete. This proved to me, organisation is key. Being able to release the film on Vimeo means that the audience for our product has been widened and it felt good to have the final product somewhere that can be accessed easily. I also found it helpful that we could get feedback from the people that have watched our film on Vimeo, so this allowed me to learn even more once everything had been completed, so it became apparent that improvements could always be made.

Looking back at the preliminary task, I feel that I have progressed a lot since then and the final product shows this. The ‘match cut’ exercise did help us to widen our ideas but showed us what not to do as well.

We knew that the quality of shots that we filmed was very important, and after the preliminary task, I watched it and noted what was good about it and bad about it, in order to improve our next media product. When storyboarding our thriller film, we knew that it had to be very clear and detailed to make the filming process run a lot smoother. Before we went out to film, we made sure that this was completed in as much detail as possible because I do not think that it would have worked as well if we were just making it up as we went along.

Finally, each step in the production process of the film has been rewarding yet very hard work. I think that all of the planning made the production a lot easier to handle. I definitely think that our group did our film to the best of our ability and put a lot into it. I am happy with the final product and think that it has enough conventions in it to be a good thriller film.

Curtain call

Everybodya had finished there Films and it was now time to go to the cimema and watch everyones i felt that this was a great wasy to see the crowdes reaction and to see how well or bad some groups have done. Everybodys was fantastic some where really clever and was done perfectly. when our names came on the screen it was quite nerver reacking as i wanted everyone to enjoy it and did not want and bad comments said about it. thankfully teverybody was hgappy with how ours looked and the group and i were very thankfull that the work that we had done had paid off. hopefully this will be shown in the grade that we recieve.

Evaluate

The time at VUE(Thursday 12th March)

Today was the day for us to watch what type of thriller we have produced. The thrillers started in an ascending order which tells us that our film were going to be shown near the end because we were the 37th group out of 45 groups. We have watched all the thrillers for AS and I was satisfied with each of them because all of them had different ideas and different techniques. Our thriller was done well and had a big applause after the tittle sequence. I think it was a good organisation which the media department has done by making us watch what we have done in a cinema, i think it is a good credit for our effort.
I am looking forward for the next practical work which is next year, the music video.

Sound

It was the final day of preparing ouR thriller opening and the group and i had only a coUple of hours to nail the sound, this was quite scary and although we didnt want to have to, we had no choice but to rush in order to get the job done in the time we had.
We began by scanning thruough the sounds available and noting down the sounds that we found would work in our scenes we found some good sounds that would work and we began placing them in our scene to see whethr they were really effective.
Luckilly they were and with just a few adjustments to them and adding small sounds to twirk them up just a little bit the job was nearly complete.
We began searching through the sounds to see if we could find the perfect scream which was extremely neccessary to have in our scene but unfortuantely they all sounded quite fake and did not match the sound that would be coming for the hanged lady.
The only way to fix this problem was to record a scream quickly, i came forward and said that i would be willing to scream so the girls and i went to the toilets wihich was the only quiet place nearby at that time and recorded me screaming.
We then added it to the scene and it worked fantastically i was so happy that we where nearly finished all that was left now was to add the prerecorded sound of the location that we shot the footage in over the back to add a great efeect to the film. This was done within minutes and with 30 minutes to spare the thriller opening was finally COMPLETE!!!!!!

The DEADline(Friday 27TH February)

As we finished most of the parts in our thriller, there was only one major part left and that was to add the right music. I was told by other people that the music takes a lot of time, so I and the group has met at lunchtime and started then. We have put together our soundtracks that we were planning to use and added to the thriller which had effects like heavy breathing, heartbeat etc.

We were looking for the right scream in the programme but we weren't happy with them, so as girls planned they went to the girls toilet and recorded Karess when she was screaming. We have added that sound in our film and it worked out really well.

We were finally finished, saved our soudntracks and added them to the thriller, watched the whole 2 minutes. I was satisfied with the work that was done and happy that it was finished just before the deadline. I think that our group had put a lot of effort in this work we all really worked hard in this project. I am looking forward to watch our thriller in the VUE on Thursday the 12th.

Completing 'Tied'

On Friday 27th February, our group met up at lunch before our lesson to make a start on the finishing touches of our thriller film. We needed to add our soundtrack which took longer than we expected it to so we're lucky we decided to meet before the lesson started. We put together our soundtrack that included music that would set the intended atmosphere of our thriller film and also sound effects such as heavy breathing and a heartbeat to match our clips.

Also, we had to do some last minute recording of a scream because we were not happy with the ones that were available to us on the programme. We went into the girls toilets where it was quiet and used the camera to catch the sound of Karess screaming as if she was in pain, to add more realism to what is going on in our film. This worked out really well and we was happy that it fitted with our filming. Also, it made us feel more independant about finalising our film because we did more complex things on the soundtrack programme and I think that we all felt happy with it.

When we finally saved our soundtrack and watched our whole 2minutes with the music, etc, I was really happy with the outcome and I felt really relieved to have finished it before the deadline. I felt like we really put lots of time and effort into completing our editing so when we finally could confirm that we had finished, I was very happy and glad that all our work seemed to have paid off and Mary was impressed with the final piece. I'm also looking forward to seeing the rest of the groups films because everyone has worked really hard on

Editing continues

In order to finish the film in the time that we had i began to coe to workshops and complete the editing process it was in the workshop that i identified the problem within our scene. i fact there was a couple of things that needed to be added to make it perfect.
I realised that there was no clear contrast between the flashback and the prsent scene of the women hanging and secondly the scenes cut form one another very agressively showing no flow whithin the scene. i handled this by addign a colour contrast of black ad white onto the flash back allowing the viewer to really see the past anfd present and to make the film flow more i added fades between the shots to allow a much more calm and steady change between scenes and shots.
Thgis change in the footage worked wonders and the change was visiblew intantly. i was very happy that my work ahd paid off and that the group would beneift for the workshop and my contributions.
In class we then added the titles in which didnt take to long as everybody knew the role that they had in the group atherefore it was not difficult when deciding the name to match the role. We wanted this to be completed in a few minutes and begin the soujnd but the group and i were not happy with the quality of the font; it looked really average and we wanted it to be bold and quite scary looking, luckily a teacher was free to give us a hand and help us make it perfect. she showed us exactly what to do and we followed and thankfully got he job done but unfortunately with nbo time to spare ffor the music
This was now complete finally and i was extremely happy but i knew that the sound needed to be done on the last day and i was aware that this would take a large amount of time that we may not even have

Editing

The filming was all done and complete now it was time for the editing to take place, i knew this would take a long tie as it needed to be perfected and unfortunately this is the least enjoyable stage of making a film. We began byu watching back the footage that we had filmed and we were overall happy with how it came out; the only thingthat we did worry about was how scary it was. we did not let this hold us back as we began capturing shots that we thought would work in the scene. this took a very, very long time and we all had different ideas on what looked good and what should be used, to keep everybody at peace we captured a wide range of shots at everybodys shots but we still had to choose. this was sdiffuicult as peoples opinions did slightly get in the way of the work and because we only had 2 minutes of film to produce it was quite hard to have everyones choice of shots in the film. As time past memebrs of the grooup came to understand that and it showed in the work as we all particiapted well and it was now time to peicew the clips together and make the thriller.
This shockingly was done impressively as there were no uneccessary arguments or discussions instead we just cracked on with the editing and it came to my attention that we had finnally all had the same vision. Int his time three lessons thad passed and we had placed all of the shots together in a way that we thought was succesfull and was very happy with but there was still an element to the film that we thought needed improvement but could not identify what it was exactly. We thought that it could have been the music as that was not done yet as it is the last stage that we sould carry out so we felt happy thatwe had got as far as we did but time was runningout and a lot of things still needed to be done

Filming, Filming and more Filming

Now it was time to really begin and start the filming process. The first thing that we did when we where in class was making sure that we had all the equipment needed and this was done perfectly as everyone brought in exactly what was needed thankfully meaning that we could move on and begin filming.
After hearing about what sounded like a perfect location for the film we were all so keen on wanting to start so as soon as we all knew we had the props we let the teacher know exactly where we would be and we went straight there with the equipment and storyboard to tell us the exact scenes that we would shoot.
as we walked anxiously to the park it was coming into sight and it was perfect and was quiet just like imagined which ment that we didnt have to waste anytime trying to find other alternatives instead we began setting up the equipment and getting ready to shoot the first scene(the flash back of Shannon getting snatched by a masked man).
The flash back scene scene was shot in about Two hours; i didnt think that it would take us this long but we needed to make sure that we had all of the shots needed to make the Thriller successful. Whilst filming we did have some difficulties communicating with one another and gettingacross exactly what was needed to be done even with the storyboard being there; this could have been the downfallx of the long time spent but we didnt let that hold us back instead we learnt that in the next scene that we would shoot everyone should understand exactly what we are doing before hand in order to minimize the amount of time we dpend talking during filming. Me and Shannen naturally becam the women behind the camera and this was based on the fact that the other two menbers of the group were acting in front of the camera this made it quite easy as we all knew the roles that we played in the group and iwas more than happy as filming is one of the most enjoyable aspects of media for me; it was important that all mebers of the goroup had an idea of how it was going and how the footage was looking so we frequently all looked back at the footage to gain feedback form anyone that had any comments on how to make it better.
We moved swiftly on to try and film the second scene ( Woman hanging byt the arms and being killed by the abductor)we wanted this scene to be done in the night time as we thought it would be much more spooky and scary if it was in the dark and add meaning to te narrative; in order for this to happen we had to sit around for quite a while waiting for the sun to go down. This took a while and the amount of time that we had left to film was shortening. We decided to seek help from a teacher as the sun was still not down and time was running out. she gave us a great idea of filming on the set indoors which is just as dark; we decided this would be great as it meant that we could dil this anytime of day. unfortunately we were unable to film this scene that day on the set as time had run out and there was allready a group using the resources in the room. This was not that big of a roblem because we had identified that we needed more props that could make this last scene much more effectinve which was candles. i had the responsibility of bringing this in to our next lesson and i could not wait.
The lesson had arrived and it was finally time to start filming our final scene. we had the room to ourselves do we could begin immediately and film with no distractions. Before we could fim we had to set the scene with the props. we lit the candles and placed it around the table which Lauren would be 'hanging' above, our media teacher would come in frewuently to check up on us as he was worried about the safety as the candles were lit and a memeber of our group had been tied to a bar on the cielling. this jind of made us uneasy as we where afraid that he may tell us to change the layout of the scene but in order for it to be howw we imagined and successful this was the only way optional. Unfortunately a group member had forgotton the mask that was needed in this scene but we did not let this cause to much trouble as she4 didnt eave to far fro college soshe just went home and got it and in that time we were filming the hanging women.
Despite this we filmed successfully and there was not a large amount of problems that we ran into.
We felt relieved that the filming was done but i new that the film really relies o the editing and how well it is done.

Lets Begin

Now that our idea has been given the okay me and the group decided to crack on right away and not waste anytime at all on unecessary discussions.A memeber of our group (Shannen) new of a perfect near by location that would be absoloutely perfect for the scene; she explained it as a quiet park with a a river side walk minutes away. this was perfect for the Thriller and the river would add an extra uneasy astmosphere. Having an idea of where we would film it was now time to draw a story board so that we knew the range of shots we would have which would help us stay on task and get an understanding of exactly what we are doing. We included a variety of shots includin:
-Long shots
-Close ups
-Establishing shots
-Match cuts and
-Pan
The gorrup and i really wanted to fous on using match cuts as it was something that we had learnt to do very recently and found that it made a scene much more successful and we also had fun filming match cuts as it was a slight challenge to be done perfecftly buit really showed our skills in filming.
After finishing our Story board we then noticced that we needed to get hold of some props; the department didnt have a wide range of props that we could useso we decided that it was only best if we bought in our own; this wwasy we would know thatit is exactly what we ant and do not have to settle for less. unfortunately this ment that we could not begin filmoing in this lesson instead we had to wait until the next lesson but this did not worry us as we knew exactly what need to be done and we felt secured knowing that the majkority of people are in the same position as us.
Most members of the group had the responsibilty to bring a prop in to the next lesson and in ordee for us all to remeber this we transfered numbers so that we could remid one alonther and also contact one another if there was a problem i.e an emergency at home meaning a member of the group can not come in to film; but we hoped this would not be the case.
But we will just have to wait till the next lesson to see wwhether we do run into any problems.

Sound is everything

It has come to my attention that whilst we were planning our pitch we did not focus a lot on Sound in facet we only mention a couple of points on this subject unlike other elements of the Thriller.
Looking back on a media lesson that took place whilst preparing our practice films i remember thinking how important music is for a film and the difference it makes in a scene. In this lesson we where able to work on a programme which enabled us to hear about and watch the elements of sound and the impact that it has on watching a scene. After hearing thoughts and views of sound from professional executive editors we where then able to put our talents into action.
We did this by looking at a wide range of sounds that depending on how you see the scene could be placed and used for the sound. This really showed me the importance of very little noises that i once thought were not necessary.
For example I was told to do the sound for a particu;ar scene in Casino royal and this scene had the narrative of a woman and a man getting in and out of a car. the sounds that i had available to choose from ranged from wind, breath, moving trees and birds. I found this interesting as not only did it enable me to gain understanding of what sounds are valid in this scene but it also helped me identify some sounds that really aren't necessary and could make the scene stronger with them erased.
Whilst looking through the lists of sounds that were available I noticed a particular sound that really worked but unfortunately i was not able to identify what it was exactly. Very keen on knowing exactly what this sound was i asked a teacher to tell me more about this sound, i was told that this is the sound crwated by recording the sound of the area that the scene is being filmed in which is then added to the scene to add the right atmosphere and to allow the viewer to gain more about the surroundings of the scene. All groups had to prerecord this sound if they so wished to and later add it onto the scene during the editing stages .

Looking back on this lesson now i most definately found the programme useful and it will definately take that particular sound onboard when editing and let my group know that i feel this would make our Thriller opening much more succesful especially with the setting being in an open public area.

Story Line

The story line that me and my group planned on creating is as follows:
An unconciuos woman appears on the screen (Lauren) looking distraught and looks to be hanging on a rope. her breathing is rapid and is heard loudly as her body swings side to side. This image then becomes transparent an fades in a flash back of of two young woman (Me and Lauren) saying goodbye to one another on wooden stairs nearby an abandoned lake. The girls walk away from one another leaving the main character( Lauren) walking down the stairs onto the side of the lake alone listening to music. As she stops to change the track a tall masked figure is seen suddenly in the background walking and slowly approaching her. as she continues to walk the masked man (Ufuk) grabs hold of her roughly placing a drugged cloth around her face. the girl falls unconcious into the mans arms.
This flashback will have a colour effect added toitto signify the cahnge in time and setting in comparison to the first scene and to enhance the subject of it being a flashback. while this scene is being played it will occasionally fade into the origianl scene of the distraught hanging woman to show that they are the same person and to almost make it seem as if she is dreaming of the past in her unconcious state.
The original scene will then appear and the woman now begins to awaken and looks bewildered as to where she is and why. She becomes histerical looking around her. As her breathing becomes much more heavy she looks directly at the camera and acts more frightened than ever as if to show that there is a frightening figure in front of her. The Masked man then appears holding a weapon and suddenly hits the woman with it.
As this happens a scream will be heard and the scene will cut to a black screen with the title of our thriller.....TIDE

Pitch

It was now time for the group and i to think about OUR thriller opening and start the real filming process but before we could even recieve equipment to carry this out it was highly important that we recieve approval from the Media teachers and executives. We did this by performing a presentation with our ideas and plans on how wer'e going to carry out the filming of the thriller, what the narrative is and the exact plans on where and when the scenes would be filmed.
The group and i all had very different individual ideas on what the thriller should be based on so it was quite dififficult to come to a decision on the final idea but due to our skills in communicating with one another this did not lead to unnecassary arguments and prolonged discussions and we listed all our ideas and intwined them with one another to result in a final conclusion on what the thriller would be.
After long deliberation it was now time to share our ideas with the teachers and hope to recieve approval. Thankfully after answering some tough but helpful questions from the teachers and students we were then able to begin as we had been successful and the executives were happy with the planning of our Thriller giving us the ability to move a step forward and focus on making the thriller the best that it can be.

Filming the Thriller part 6(Tuesday 24th February)

In today's lesson we had to carry on with the editing. We had done a lot of editing in the workshop which was held on the first day of the half-term. We used loads of techniques such as fade in/out, slow motion and flashbacks in order to make the thriller more interesting. I, personally think that our editing is finished but still need to find a suitable music to go with the thriller. We had improved on the tittle sequence in todays lesson and finded some interesting fonts and shapes. The deadline is getting more closer and I is getting more anxious as the deadline is just in 3 days time. I need to go to workshop tomorrow in order to save more time for Fridays lesson. We as a group are planning to do the music in Friday's lesson and need to take one more shoot for to improve one of the scene.

Inspiration

During our previous lesson we had watched numerous openings of filmes hich included Arlington road, Collateral and the shining and we were told to upload one of the several openings onto oour blogs. I chose Arlington Road and now watching it back it has come to my attenetion that there are various techniques within this opening that thrill the viewer and make it extremely successful.
I chose this video as i thought that out of all of the rest this was the most interesting and i remeber thinking at the time there are numerous techniques that the group and i have the ability to use and place into our thriller opening as i feel they would really make the scene so much more interesetig and amazing to watch .
The technique that really showed great effectiveness was the blurry faded affect where the shots where faded and somewhat luminous and faded into the next shot this emphisised the dizziness and confision of both the viewer and character within the scene and created quit e an uneasy atmosphere when watching it and i this in our thriller opening will allow us to really add effect on the viewer and increase the marks that we get.

Editing

We began editing immediately after completitng our film and we new that we had to put our full focus into this as this is where the scene is really created.
The group and i did the editing together and worked excellently as a group as we where able to pick out things that we did not want and what we thought worked well and it was important that everyone shared there opinion and made decisions within the group which would later add a big impact on the work.
The footage came out well and the match cuts definately worked well in the scen but in order for them to be perfected they needed to be edited expertly in order for the several shots used to match. We made sure that this looked good not only to us but others by frequently asking class mates and the teacher to watch the work that we had produced and ask for opinions on any good points and critisism. this enabled us to gain understanding on how to improve the work that we had produced and what elements made it a good scene.
In the little ciritisism that we did recieve there was one in particular that we really wanted to improve and alter and this was where the two characters are talking to one another the footage cuts to show both of there faces but on one of these transactions the lighting changes due to the time of day and although this is not highly noticable the group and i did not want this to be seen in the footage.
Due to i and the groups want of perfection in the footage and spending a long time on othere areas within the scene we had run out of time to change this problem and we where not able to alternate this which showed us that we needed to make time to focus on different areas of the scene and always make sure that we have a planned time to film again if necessary.
Other thn this i do feel that the footage came out okay and it did show the skills that the group and i do have, but due to this minor mistake the group and i felt that this was good but could be better.

Editing stages

Todays lesson, Tuesday 24th February, we continued our thriller film editing because although in workshop on the half term we made alot of progress, there was still a fair amount to do. We finished adding our credits and making a few minor adjustments to our shots that needed little things done to them. Todays lesson taught me how to make text look much more interesting, by using another program on the computer then importing it into our editing program to make the title of our film stand out from the rest of the text that is shown before. This will hopefully make people remember the name of our film and end it dramatically. We learnt how to make our thrillers look a little bit more professional by doing this which I think is a good point for our film.

Our group are meeting up Friday lunch time to get on with the last bits of our editing before our lesson. We still need to add our music and we dont think that Friday afternoon in our lesson, that will allow us to do this in the short time we have. We cant risk not finishing our editing on Fridays lesson because the deadline is at 3pm on Friday. I think that when it is finished our film 'Tied' will look very impressive and I'm looking forward to seeing the final product.

Preliminary match cut task - Filming part 2, (Tue 20 Jan)

Today’s Lesson (Tuesday 20th January), We continued Editing our ‘Preliminary Match Cut Task’, this went well, we shortened the clips that needed shorting by cutting off un-necessary footage and made our match-cuts become apparent.
All in all I think we did a good job in completing our Task. We used a wide variety of features including, close-ups, medium shots, extreme close-ups, long shots, we shot from a variety of angles including high angel, low angel and eye level. We also used pans. We used a variety of shots to express the characters emotions, with close-ups and extreme close ups pushing it that further. We used a variety of camera angles effectively as we showed Ufuk, who in the film, has a higher status than me; to show this we had the camera at a high angle shot, looking down on me – making me look weak, whereas we had the camera on Ufuk at a low angle shot – presenting power.
We used pans and match-cut shots to show movement, using these along with the 180 degree rule, made the film all that more clearer to the audience and helped the film easily glide from one scene to another.

From this short filming experience, I have learnt how to use the editing software all that more effectively and am now looking forward to filming and editing our actual Thriller.

Preliminary match cut task - Filming. (Fri 16th Jan)

In today’s lesson (Friday 16th January) our task was to plan and shoot our ‘Preliminary Match Cut Task’. In doing this we were told to include three specific features which were: Match cuts, a shot/Reverse shot and to keep the 180 degree rule. In order to do this, we were given a storyboard and were to use this to plan out our task. It was on this storyboard where we drew rough sketches of each scene, wrote in the amount of seconds that each scene would take and wrote in any specific dialogue or special effects that were to be used. As a group we decided on a storyline and came to a decision on who was to play what, myself and Ufuk were the two on screen characters where as Karess was managing the camera.

We got given the location of ‘The Store room’ although we were quite unsure at first, we put together our ideas and in all it became the perfect location for us, as it was quiet, small, and had an office theme throughout – perfect. It took us about 30 minutes to complete all the filming; we repeated the same scene quite a few times in order for us to move the camera around from in front of the characters to behind , we done this, so when we were to start editing it would become a match cut. We used a tripod to shoot everything, as we were afraid handheld would have made it too un-easy and perhaps confusing to the audience. We also shot from several different angles and used the function ‘Zoom’ to include close-ups and medium shots of the characters; we used these to help express the characters emotions more fluently to the audience.

After filming we moved to the editing suite where we were to start editing our film clip. At first we split up each of the scenes one by one, we then placed them in order and named them, due to lack of time we saved our progress and decided to continue next lesson.

Analysing previous Thriller clips (Friday 9th January)

In Today’s lesson, (Friday 9th January) we watched several clips from the Thriller movies made last year by the previous AS Media students. The aim of this lesson was to receive ideas on how to construct our own Thriller movies, we were to recognise their mistakes and prevent them from appearing in out own. We were also given a sheet of paper and were told to jot down anything used in the clip that came under the title ‘Mise en scene’. This included the likes of, Costumes, location, props, lighting, special effects, characters and many more important features.

From watching the clips I learnt several things. I learnt that a key element into having a successful Thriller is to seduce the audience into long term commitment, to not give to much information away enabling the audience to want to keep watching in order to find out, what happens next? To keep them questioning and gripped to the screen.
Another thing I learnt was to use your camera shots effectively, an example of this would be an establishing shot, in order to make this shot effective, I would use it at the very beginning of the clip and would perhaps have it from a birds eye view, to show and tell the audience the location, where the following scene, if not the whole film, will be set.

In conclusion watching the past A level students clips was time well spent as I learnt a lot and can take these new skills and place them in to my own Thriller movie clip

Sound Editing. (Tuesday 6th January)

In today’s Lesson (Tuesday 6th January) we learnt about Sound Layers and how they were put together to make a scene more realistic, exciting and more importantly to attract the audience’s attention and keep them on the edge of their seat. To do this we were given four clips from the film “The Casino Royale 007”. Neither of the four contained sound as we had to do that our selves. At first we were given just a picture and had to imagine what might have been going on; sound wise. We had to place on the different sound layers, for example: I placed Dialogue in front of the two men stood there and I placed the sound of a truck reversing on the truck.

After doing so, we were given an actual scene from the movie, this however contained no sound. We had to add the sound landscape our selves, in order to make the clip more exciting and once again – realistic. As the scene contained lots of action and fast moving vehicles, I added loud fast paced music, as well as the sound effects of ‘skids’ from the tyres of the vehicles and grunting as the characters were in a fight. All in all I didn’t have any difficulties in managing the sound track and thoroughly enjoyed doing so.

Filming the Thriller part 5(Tuesday 10th February)

As we were planning, we had started a bit of editing in todays lesson after finishing the log and capture in the previous lesson. I am satisfied that we have finished doing the filming early because due to the weather reasons some of the groups are having difficulties to do the filming.
We had a lot of shots, and we had to do what we were planning to do and it looked like it is going to take our time and it did because we are still not finished.
Firstly we had started to put the shots which has happened in the daylights, where all the story is happened, but then we've decided that we should put what happens at the end at the beginning. The reason we've decided this is because to get audiences attention and then show what has happened before and why is she 'tied' like that. Basically we will be using the technique from 'Slumdog Millionare' movie which has being released lately.
We went to the workshop on Wednesday in order to save a bit of time for our project because deadline is due on the week we are back from half-term. In the workshop I have learnt how to use some of the effects which we will be planning to use in our thriller i.e. the slow motion, the mountain fading etc. We have used the slow motion effect on the opening shots.
I will be planning to come to the workshop in the half-term in order to don't fell behind in my work.

Filming the thriller part 4(Friday 7th February)

Due to the snow, we have missed our lesson on Tuesday, so we did not started the editing yet. In today's lesson somehow we had to start doing the editing because less amount of time has being left for the deadline.

We were planning to start our editing today but our driver wasn't working properly so we had to keep changing computers. After about a hour later it had started to work so we had to get going on now. We have watched all the shots and I can say there were a lot of shots which were unusual, I think personally. It took us a lot of time to log and capture the shots which we were planning to use for the thriller. We only had time to log and capture the shots so we are planning to sacrifice our time in the lunchtimes and do editing then. We got Tuesdays lesson to do the editing, so it looks like we do not have much time for the deadline which is due in 27th February. I personally thinkg the deadline should extent to 6th March which is one week later because we had missed our lesson on Tuesday and it looks like we are going to miss our lesson on Friday lesson next week so this equals to a lack of media lesson for a week.

Filming the Thriller part 3(Tuesday 3 February)

In todays lesson we were planning to start the editing for the shots we have took from last week but due to the lack of transport link and weatheral reasons college was cancelled today. I am looking forward to Friday for me and the group to do the editing because deadline is coming soon.

Filming the Thriller part 2(Friday 30th January)

We have carried on doing the shooting for the thriller in todays lesson. Previously on Tuesday we have filmed the part which we were planning to be on daylight. In todays lesson we filmed inside the classroom and add affects from the dark curtains in order to make it more darker and gloomy. Firstly it wasn't working well because we were getting distracted by the lamp at the ceiling and that was adding a light into the scence. For to resolve this problem we called the technician guy and it was sorted. We've used props such as candles in order to have an effect of light in the dark lighting and mask for the hid the face of the murderer. Basically we have filmed Lauren getting tied with her hands and repetitively having flashbacks. As she wakes up she sees then course she gets scared and I start killing her through using the shadow skill in order to make it better for the audience. We have used match-cut and the 180 technique in this shooting. I think we are all over and only got editing to do for Tuesday, then to add a thriller music.

Filming our thriller- 'Tied'

Tuesday's lesson allowed us to begin filming our thriller film. We explained our story and plans for filming to Mary, and had to do a complete storyboard showing each shot that we were going to film, in order to be let out to go to our location. We already had a clear idea of everything that we wanted to do with our filming, so it was quite easy to create a detailed storyboard although it was quite time consuming. When this was done, and Mary was happy with our storyboard, we got all of the equipment we needed, which included the lighting kit that we were going to use so that our film didnt have a grainy colour to it due to the darkness we wanted to film our story in.
We went to our location which was a canal thats situated closeby to the college and got everything set up ready for filming. By the time the lesson was finished we had only done about half of our shots that we wanted. We found that it was much more time consuming than we expected. However, it wasnt a problem because we got all of the shots we wanted, and in all of the different ways we wanted to shoot it, in order to do our match cuts and prepare for filming.

I think that we were all happy with what we filmed and I can see alot that we can do, concerning the editing, to finish it up and make it look as realistic as possible. Lauren and Ufuk did a good job with the acting, and myself and Karess did lots of filming that we were happy with, and I think that it is going to look very professional. Tomorrow's lesson, if we are happy with all of the shots that we took, we will begin editing, which I think will be a very difficult process because we have lots that we want to do with it and plenty of ideas but I'm looking forward to seeing the final product.

Filming the thriller part 1(Tuesday 27th January)

In today’s lesson we were told to film our thriller as we have planned on Friday. Firstly we had to do our storyboard so after finishing the storyboard we went to the location where we were planning to do the shooting. We went to the local park which had a canal and couple of trees. We have done a small piece in the filming because we’ve finished our storyboarding about 20 minutes till the lesson finish, so we sacrificed our time in order to try to get as many shots we can in that day so it won’t be a waste. We have only took the shots which we were planning to do in the morning. There were shots like Lauren and Karess saying bye to each other and going in different directions, which shows establishing shot of the location. Later on we take shots of Lauren walking in the park then myself following her. Finally we done the shot when I was grabbing her and make her faint and used the match-cut technique. I think we have to improve in some of the shots but overall I am satisfied with the effort that has being done today.

Thriller Film Preparation- Pitch.

On Friday's lesson, we gathered all of our final ideas for our thriller film, showed eachother our ideas and used all of this to put our pitch together that we showed to 'a panel' and the rest of the class, in the second part of the lesson. We made a spider diagram which included all of our plans for filming and editing. This included the synopsis, camerawork, lighting, jobs for filming and many more. We also brought in a few probs that we are going to use, to give everyone an idea about what to expect from our film. This included the scary white mask that our 'killer' will be wearing, and a few candles to show how we will use lighting to create the mood that we will try to put across.

The title for our film is 'Tied' and this agrees with our plot for our thriller, which uses the main image of the victim being tied to a tree by her hands. Also, we liked this title because it also has the connotation that she is also tied up mentally, and she is entrappred in her situation. We thought this would be a very intruiging title for our film, and would allow us to do alot so that our filming could live up to this connotation too.

Dan gave us permission to do our filming, as our pitch was quite successful, and we will put all of our planning into good use when we start filming in Mary's lesson on Tuesday. We think that we have done enough planning to make sure that everything goes smoothly when we come to film, and we hope that our hard work shines through in our film.

The Pitch(23rd January 2009)

In todays lesson our task was to pitch our ideas to Micky, Dan and Marissa. We were told in the previous to pitch our ideas to the class. As a group each of us had different roles to organise till the presentation. We had concentrated on topics such as :
-The synopsis
-The camerawork
-The lighting
-The music
-The audience
We have all gathered our ideas in the sugar paper then wrote the things we are going to say in a different paper. My role was to concentrate more in the music and the lighting. We were brave enough to be the first group to the presentation and I think the judges were quite pleased with us. The only thing that Dan has pointed at is the lighting because we were thinking about the majorly shooting will be in a dark lighting.
Our thriller is named 'TIED'. The character who will be taking role is myself and Lauren. I will be the killer and Lauren will be the victim. Lauren will be tied in a tree and they will be flashbacks going forward and backward. They will be props such as candles, mask and rope to be used in the scene in order to add more effectiveness and make it more dramatic.

Preliminary film (2)

This preliminary film task also allowed us to get more adventurous about our ideas for our Thriller film that we will be filming very soon. As we are going to be doing a pitch on our lesson on Friday 23rd, we can be confident that after this experience of filming and editing, our group will be able to carry out our film very professionally and put our ideas into action!

Preliminary Film

The lesson of 16th January, the group completed filming all that was needed for our preliminary match cut task. Using all of the shots that we had, Tuesday's lesson gave us the oppertunity to edit these shots which we did to the best of our ability in the time that we had. We made sure that each shot went smoothly together, and that we selected the shots that showed the various different camera angles that were filmed. Also, we wanted to make sure that the shots where dialogue was involved, were very clear and put the point of this practice film across. We thought that although it is a fairly simple film, it put enough across to the audience and told what was going on in a very effective way. We edited it so that it was believable, but also so that suspence could be added. This stage went very well and the group worked well together to make sure that the best was made out of the good filming that was done on Friday.

Everybody has definitely progressed in their skills, from the first to the sencond practise films as it seemed more natural to use a variety of different things in both the filming and editing work. Also, I think that it was much easier to edit the second film because we knew exactly how to use all of the programs in order to make the editing very effective. Also, I think that I have gained a much better understanding generally, about the productive side to media and everyone in our group definitely have grown in knowledge and skill.

To some extent, I do feel like we followed the conventions of real films but also challenging them too. By this I mean that although our film was only meant to be short, we used realistic looking props, good dialogue, a clear structure and a wide range of different camera shots- all of which you would expect from a real film. However, as we were limited as to what we could do with this preliminary film, we challenged the forms of real films because there were limits. However, we made the best out of what we had and I think it paid off. Our location was cleverly chosen because of the amount of light that we could have in that room, and the use of chairs and tables made our film look more realistic. This location allowed us to walk in and out of the scene and gave us a big enough space to shoot in.

I think that our practice film does allow us to make any comments about representation because the two characters in the film are of the opposite sex, so we had to think about how we were going to represent each person. We decided to use low angle shots to present the male character, stereotypically, as the superior, in order to make the audience aware that he is the one they should be more weary of. The girl, on the other hand, looked to be inferior because of the high angle shots she was mostly filmed at. This showed the different representations of gender and allowed us to use this to our advantage in our practice film.

After seeing the final product of this preliminary film, I think that our group did very well although we would have liked to have got the chance to add music and add a few more tweaks, concerning our editing. However, I think that it went very well and the actors and camera woman did a very good job.

Preliminary Film(Tuesday 20th January)

In todays task we were told to carry on editing our work from last lesson. In our second filming we had a different task to do and I think it went well. The second practise film, I personally think was much better than the first practise because the lighting wise first practise film was a bit dark and didn't let us see the scene properly whereas in the second practice it went well. I think the location for the second practise was better than the first one because we had a great variety of space and more quite. I think Camera-shots has being done good and gave us the right understanding of what is going on by using the techniques such as 180 reverse shot, match cut and the close-ups has being done in order to show the characters feelings.

preliminary Match Cut Task

Making a short film(Friday 16th December)

In today’s lesson, our task was film a short scene where a person walks into a room and shares conversation with another person. We had to include elements like Match Cuts, Shot/Reverse Shot and keeping the 180 degree rule. Lauren was the one who walked inside the room and start talking to me whereas Karess was the one using the camera.

We have had planned our work last week so we had plenty of time to the shooting and then editing. It took us about 20 minutes to finish the shooting because we were well organised. After shooting a small scene, we had to edit what we have done in order to make the scene make sense. The shooting went well because we were filming in the storeroom, which was a quite place to film. After the filming, it was time to the editing. Editing at the beginning took a bit time because of the lack of organisation. We have started the editing but we could not finish because we had less time and editing took more time then I was expecting.

I have learnt a lot filming with a group because we all got different ideas and we bring all into one then it creates a good idea. I am pleased with my group except the absence that occurs a lot for the members in my group. I’m a bit nervous about the thriller though.

Film Practice

In todays lesson we learnt more about different types of shots that we could use in our Thriller. The shots included a match cut which is where a transition that involves a direct cut from one shot to another, which "matches" it in action, subject matter, or actual composition. This kind of transition is commonly used to follow a character as s/he moves or appears to move continuously. Film continuity is often dependent on match cutting. Match cutting can also be used in a montage sequence, to show a similar activity occurring over a passage of time.
We used this today in our film practice frequently and found that it made the seen much more interesting for example as shown previously in the viedo the actress (Lauren) walks into a room but instead of showing this from one standared shot we used a match cut which also enabled the group and i to include various types of angled shots which we thought would increase the quality of our work. I personally thought that this would make the scene much more interesting and enjoyable to watch instead of using the average one shot as we could see the scene from several angles and learn a lot of key elements to the scene which in our case included a bag in the actresses hand which was a crucial part of our short scene.
Unforunately due to previous absenses and complications this was the first time that this final group and i had worked together unlike other groups in the class. I initially thought that this would be an issue as it takes some time for people to work well with one another and communicate sufficiently together but this did not come to be an issue within this group as we all knew what was needed to be done and the roles that we played.
Filming comes quite naturally for me so i thought that it was vital that my role was behind the camera so that the group could do the best and this also allowed me to grow in the filming department. This was approved by my group which meant that we could promptly begin filming giving us more time with editing which is for me the hardest part of producing a film scene.
We continued filming quickly as we had planned the shots that we were going to take and filmed them instantly. The group and i then had half of the lesson to begin editing and it was here that we wanted to get a headstart and hopefully complete all of our editing at once, but we were aware that many problems can sometimes appear on the footage making the editing process that much more difficult and we remained cautious just in case any did show up on our work increasing the time that we had to spend on it.
But we were still unaware of what was yet to come.

The Editing Continues

Continuing from the previous lesson the group and i remained editing our short film. As simple as i found it, it had come to our attention the that the footage was quite too dark which we were not able to identify whilst filming as the quality on the camera and on the computers are some what different. This really made the group and I wary that the rating of our footage would decrease but we still pushed on to complete the editing as we felt that the teacher could still identify the range of shots that we used and see our strengths in filming.
As the editing continued we finally managed to complete our practice filming excersise and we were able to look fully at it and analyse the strengths and weaknesses that we feel about the footage. After a long ananlysis on my work i came up with this conclusion

Strengths: I feel that me being behind the camera enabled me to take control and gain a lot of experience. I feel that i worked quite well and managed to include a variety of shots. As a group i feel we worked fantastically together as we all had our roles and knew exactly what we where to do and i feel this played a big part in the success of the footage. Although the panning shot that we certainly wanted in our footage came to be quite difficult i thought fast and came up with a solution that made it possible and worked hard to achieve great footage

Weaknesses: I feel that planning was a key weakness in the group as there was a large amount of things that we should have thought about thoroughly before we began filming but due to our eagerness in wanting to start as quickly as possible it led to several issues that we had to recover from very quickly including the lighting which i have spoken about previously. The location that we where going to film in also came to be a weakness in filming as we couldnt find the appropriate location that was suitable for the style and mood that we wanted to create.

Overall the group and i managed to overcome the troubles that we came across and pull through to create a good peice of footage, although there are a large number of things that i wish to change i feel i did he best that i could do and showed the skills that i have as a director

Storyboard Tutorial(Tuesday 12th January)

In today's lesson our task was to create a shot list for the storyboard which we had and the Match Cut Exercise.

We had a story of a guy who chain smokes while copying the confidential files to the computer and plans to a CD. He packages them and is seen posting them. To show this story board we have listed the shot types, angles etc to show it in the storyboard. After doing the task we get to watch the short film they done and we saw our mistakes which we wouldn't of done. After watching the short film we've learnt about a shot called match cut. As we were showned in the short film we had to produce a match cut with story we had being given.

To conclude this, we've done a shot list exercise then learnt the match cut shot. After doing the task we had being given an another task to show if we really can use match cut with the story that was given.

Watching Thrillers(Friday 9th January)

In today's lesson our task was to gain ideas from the previous A level students who made thrillers last year. We have watched about 6 of their videos and analysed on the mise-en-scene.

The elements that will make a good thriller is to seduce the audience into long term commitment. The reason for this is because if we knew much information about the film, we wouldn't bother to watch. The other element which will make a good thriller is the camera shots being used correctly, i.e. can be an establishing shot at the beginning to inform the location.

The videos I have watched from the previous A level students has being done well, especially the soundtracks which has being used good in the scenes. In one of the videos I've watched the flashback which they showed was well done because the camera shots has helped a lot.

Sound Editing(Tuesday 6th January)

Our task in today's lesson was to watch a scene from 'The Casino Royale 007' and to analyse the soundtracks. We have watched the scene then later on enter the section 'Sound Landscape' which gave us more information about how their manage the soundtracks in the film.
After learning about how to manage the soundtracks in the movie, everyone had an opportunity choose one scene out of the four. I have chosed the casino scene and I didn't have any diffuculties about managing the soundtrack.
After doing the editing on the sound for a film after we get to edit on our short scene with the limited soundtracks.