Preliminary Task

For this task we had to film and edit a scene in which a character had to open a door, cross a room and sit down in a chair opposite another character. These characters then engage in a short conversation. This task was to get us used to various different camera shots such as

• 180 Degree Rule



• Long Shots



• Mid Shots



• High Angle Shots



• Close up Shots



• Panning Shots



• Over the Shoulder



• Tracking Shot



The film itself had to last a maximum two minutes



In our groups we had to come up with a short script for the characters to say in the scene. Me, Curtis Morgan, Nick Griffiths and Calum Martin felt that taking and adapting a small piece of dialogue from the video game 'Resident Evil 4,' would be extremely fitting due to its dark and eerie nature. It was set that me and Nick were going to be in the scene but because of his absence on the day of shooting, Calum had to take his place. We shot the second half of the film first as the corridor in the first half was in use by another group. We filmed it many times from various different angles causing us to cut some of the footage from the final piece.

The original script for our film. The dialogue was altered during filming.

The first scene started with our establishing shot of the main doors where the main character enters. Then there is a panning shot up my body, but fades to black before it reaches my head. We then alternated between low angled and high angled shots starting with a shot looking directly down at my feet. We then switched to an over the shoulder shot before going to a shot of my feet as I walked along the corridor.

We tried to be as creative as possible with the shots we captured. One of the main things we did was keep the first half in colour and the second in black & white to show the contrast between the past (B&W) and the present (colour). We included a shot in the second scene where it looks like its being filmed through a CCTV camera. We felt this gave a ‘fly on the wall’ feel and makes the audience feel unwelcome. The extreme close up on my face gives a sinister feel and makes it more shocking.

Main Task - Opening to a Thriller - The Package

CREDITS
Zack Silcox - Writer, Actor (Man #1)
Curtis Morgan - Director, Director of Photography, Story, Editor
Calum Martin - Actor (Man #2), Co-Producer
Adam Smardon - Co-Producer, Lighting, Actor

PLANNING THE FILM

January 12th

We started planning with the script. Curt had already come up with the first draft prior to the lesson and he passed it onto me. I really liked the story but felt the dialogue lacked impact and apprehension. I then took the liberty of coming up with the second draft. This was the script we agreed on as a group. Whilst I was adapting, finalizing and rehearsing the screenplay with Calum and Adam, Curt started storyboarding the first sequence.

January 19th

Both the script and the storyboard of the film had been completed. At this point we started discussing the music we were going to use. We chose the music from LOST (Composed by Michael Giacchino) as it was fitting to the kind of thriller we wanted to create. Much like our preliminary task, we used LOST as our main inspiration. We decided that we wanted to use a non-linear style for our film as we wanted to make it more confusing and mysterious and leave the audience asking questions.

Evaluation

In our opening, we tried to include as many conventions as a thriller as possible such as:

• Putting the film in a non-linear order
• Shrouding faces in shadow
• Using dark and eerie music
• Contrasting long shots with short shots
• Unanswered questions

In using these key elements we wanted to build as much tension and suspense as possible but also wanted the audience to go away feeling confused and asking questions.

Though we never completed the storyboard, it was still a good starting point to envisioning the shots and actions we wanted to use. Hence, we felt it was un-neccessary to finish. The fact we had also worked on the preliminary task together meant we had become accustom to each others techniques and inspirations, so we were all on the same page from the very beginning. We have had extremly positive feedback from the people we have showed it to.

'Very well shot and I really enjoyed it' - Will Anderson

'Very entertaining' - Martin Silcox

'Fantastic. Really well made' - Sam Balch

Getting this feedback was extremly gratifying but we never recieved any constructive critisism, so we did not know how to improve it.

We used basic software such as Microsoft Word & Excel for the planning of our film. With this we rendered our script and our schedule for construction. We were able to obtain a Sony XD CAM EX Hi Def camera to shoot our film. Getting a camera that shot in such good quality was extremly beneficial to our thriller as it allowed us to focus in on detail that a regualar DV camcorder could not pick up. We used Adobe Premier Pro CS3 to edit our movie. Being able to use top of the range editing software like this meant we were able to include effects we could not have included with standard software such as changing the contrast and colour to give a more realistic look to the final product.