Filming Session: 15/02

This filming session went well, however when we do our next filming session we must have a clear idea of what shots we are going to use and how the audience will respond to this as this will convey a suspenseful atmosphere at the start of the film which is shown in many Thrillers. In this session we started to film the next 30/40 seconds of the next killing, we used a mixture of shots for example LS’s and MS’s were used to add variety and place emphasis on important characters.  In the next session we must have a key target of what needs to be done and how we are going to convey this in our opening. Another key point which we learnt from this session is that the continuity must be flawless and that we must not break the 180 degree rule when filming.  The level of the camera when using the tripod must be completely straight otherwise we will be marked down.

Aspects of consider when next filming:

ü  Continuity must be flawless (180 degree rule, keeping the camera perpendicular.)

ü  Having a plan, avoid losing time.

Editing session: 14/02

I feel this Editing Session went well, as we were able to edit the first 40 second in and put the footage in the right position making it look as smooth as possible.  This will make the project move forward and then we will be able to move onto the next task. We managed to put the titles in over the top of the footage, which was our main aim. A difficulty we had was changing the footage to black and white within the post-production stage of our project, however we re-evaluated what we were doing and managed to work out how to change the footage’s colour. We had a lot of footage so the difficulty we had was choosing the right shots to use, it was helpful to have variety to choose from, so therefore this reinforces the fact that our filming was good as we had plenty of shots to work with. Therefore we learnt from this editing session that the more increasing number of shots you have makes it easier in the post-production stage when editing as you have more choice.

In the editing stage of the post production, we changed the second shot at the beginning as we feel this is an improvement to our opening. We were initially going to track over the dead bodies on the stair case and then cut to the flashback, however after re-evaluating this with my peers we have decided to go straight into the flashback and use a ‘dip to black’ to show the body at the end. This means that the action will start right at the beginning of the opening, catching the audience’s attention and enhancing the quality of our opening.

Filming- 07/02

As this was our second filming session we achieved advice from our first shooting, this meant that time was spent doing a lot more productive filming rather than wasting time. In this session we filmed the first 15 seconds- 30seconds of our opening, as we had to re-shoot this again. However this time the high-key lighting was much better which meant the footage was clear and of high-quality. This was because we used a small lamp and moved the light about to see the different effects we obtained. As I said in my last evaluation we took back the feedback from the first filming session and used a variety of different shots, we took close ups and mid shots of the actors as we felt this would increase the audiences attention. Once this scene was done, we were able to move forward and shot another scene, this was of the main antagonist character. We wanted to make sure he had the dominance of the scene as he is the foremost character; therefore we made sure he had the most screen time as this connotes this importance in the rest of the film to the audience. In this scene we will be using back and white as it’s a flashback, we feel this indexically implies that it happen in the past connoting that it had already happened.  We used a variety of shots in this scene including mid-shots, long-shots and Point-of-view shot to add diversity within our opening.  Overall I feel as if it was a good filming session, whereby a lot of high-quality material was produced. However when we next film all of our shots we will have a purpose to the variety that we use, to keep the audience engaged. We will also set a time during the day that will be suitable, for example light weather no rain/ darkness. We will guide are actors so they know exactly what they have to achieve in each scene.

Aspects to consider for the next filming session:

ü Guide the actors so they understand exactly what to do in their scenes.

ü   Make sure the continuity of our opening is of high-quality.

Filming 31/01

In our first filming session we tried to shoot the first 15 seconds of our opening, this is the part in the animatic located in the corridor/stairs scene, where the camera tracks along the dead bodies. As a group we realised that we could use new shots such as close ups and mid shots to create more variety, we began to consider our audience more and what would suit the genre more superiorly. We used a variety of shots to help engage the audience and avoid repetition and help them "guess" what they are seeing rather than being too obvious.  The location is a basement; therefore we wanted the lighting to be high-key artificial lighting, when filming it was noted that the shots were dark and burry because we were shooting in a dark room. This meant that we had to re-evaluate the lighting that we shot in and look at a way to solve the problem. We therefore came to the conclusion to use a small lamp to light the stairs well enough to see the faces and bodies of the actors in the scene. When we next film we must make sure the lighting is good enough to see the bodies and the footage isn’t burry, this means that we won’t be wasting too much time and hopefully the shots will not be too time consuming as we will know what to do. Also it will mean we can focus and direct are concentration on the smaller features of our opening such as the continuity and stability of our piece.

Aspects to Consider for the next Filming sessions:

ü  Lighting- making sure the footage is of high quality and the lighting is good enough for our opening.

ü  Using a variety of shots, such as close ups and mid-shots.

ü  Having a plan for the filming session to waste less time.

Evaluation of Animatic:

When evaluating our animatic, I feel that if I was to do the animatic again, more shots/drawings would need to be included. This is because we have roughly 20 shots whereas it was recommended to have 30. We found it hard to include more with the idea we had come up with for our film. This could suggest that more planning was needed so we came up with more ideas to include extra shots without changing our film idea too much. this would make it easier when filming as we would have a clear idea of what shots to use. We used a combination of drawings in order to show the narrative of our animatic. A Sound clip has been used so that we get a better idea of how our final extract will appear. We also used a sound clip at the end to see whether our opening gave of the right level of tension and suspense and kept the audience watching.It also enabled us to distinguish any negative problems in the extract; this helped us make various improvements.

I feel the animatic, has both good and bad points qualities. The length of the animatic is roughly two minutes. Our aim was to have an animatic which lasted two minutes so even though it is not exact, it is acceptable. Furthermore, the drawings show a clear thriller genre, although it is a hybrid so the opening is a thriller, horror. The music used links in with the story my group our aiming to put across and also creates a tense atmosphere for watchers as it is fairly scary, commonly done in thriller horror films. The titles will be editing in, during the post-production of our filming this will be edited in while the camera is tracking over the dead bodies.  We learnt that it vital to design each shot specifically to the storyboard so it is clear what the narrative is supposed to suggest to the audience. This task also enabled us to establish our strongest and weakest abilities when working in a group to deliver the most effective piece.