our first thriller experience

On the first filming of our thriller all the characters, props and location were ready and filming was ready. The characters in this thriller were Taoheed Bamidele and Stephanie De Asancao. Filming took place at an alley way near William Bellamy School and the idea of thriller was a boyfriend and girlfriend walking home from the park, the boyfriend played by Taoheed Bamidele dropped his girlfriend played by Stephanie De Asancao at the alley way near her house, she then starts walking home then all off a sudden she screams! Taoheed then goes running back to see if she is still there and only her shoes are left and she has been kidnapped. Unfortunately, this thriller was not up standard according to our teacher so we had to re film in a short period of time and do the thriller a lot better than how it was.

Our preliminary task

There was three people involved in my preliminary task which included; Frankie McFarlene, Michael matute and Myself. Before we was giving the permission to carry on with the filming, we had to complete a storyboard which outlined what was going to happen in the scene and the duties of each character.

Below is the copy of our storyboard which we had to do individually but however, we all had thesame plan.....

Preliminary Task

-  In lesson, we was thought that the Preliminary task is a demonstration of continuity editing.
- We was also told that that the aim of this task is for us to be able to sow that we can successfully do the following......

• Match Action
• Shot/ Reverse shot
• 180 Degrees

Key Edits

Match-On- Action.... This is when we see a character start an action in one shot and then see them continue it in the next.

The 180 Degree Rule......  This is a basic guideline that states that two characters in thesame scene should always have thesame left and right relationship to each other.

Above is an example of the 180 degree rule. According to this diagram, if the camera is placed on the right hand- side , then the character in the yellow will be seen by the audience as being on the left hand side of the screen while the blue character will be seen on the right. However, if this is changed and we decide to put the camera on the left, then the characters would be in opposite positions and this would unfortunately confuse the audience. Therefore, this is why the 180ndegree rule is highly important as it makes the audience aware of the positions in which the characters are in. In additio to this, applying the 180 degree rule into the sequence will also ensure that the characters stay in position 

Shot/ Reverse shot....

This video basically explains and gives a demonstration of what a Shot reverse shot is.

- If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called Crossing the line.

This is the Brief plan for the task we are going to carry out with our group

• Character A walks towards a closed door
• Character A enters through the door and crosses a room to where character B is sitted
• Character A and B exchange a few lines or Dialogue
• Either characters A or B exits the room.

This is our own video

Health and Safety Risk Assessment

Before we went off to do our filming we had to agree on the following rules and conditions;

• No filming in inappropriate locations
• Check safety of locations
• Minimise risk of theft of equipment
• When filming on location ensure teacher or responsible adult know where you are and have telephone number and details of when you will return
• Check that all equipment is working before we leave to shoot 
• Ensure we have permission to film if necessary
• Always film with at least one person
• Ensure we have permission of those we are filming

               

Audience Research (Survey Monkey)

We had to carry out an audience research by designing our own questionnaire on survey monkey. The survey basically included questions which explored the interest of different audiences in terms of the types of films they watch, if they like thrillers, their opinions on what makes a thriller, etc. The whole point of this research was to enable myself and my partner (michael matute) to understand and know peoples interest and come up with ideas for our thriller, which would interest our audience. We didn't just give out questionnaires but however, we also carried out other interviews by actually taking a video of the whole process.

Below are some of our videos;

Our audience research was mainly done on adults and this is basically they are the ones that are more likely to want to sit in an interview unlike the students, they prefered going online and post comments on the website 'www.wallwisher.com' which i set up, but for the audience feeback instead.

Thriller openings worksheet

Momento Conventions The flashback Represents a change of time. Especially when they have purposely used the colour black and white. Enigma- What is the man looking for, or who? Gives us a lot of questions Flashbacks to earlier dates in the past, important to the film Camera The opening of the sequence is filmed backwards Close up on the characters to show their emotions and the object they are holding Editing  Its slow so therefore it builds tension and creates suspense Reverse shot Shots become faster in the building Sound There is a voice over in this sequence Background music that is long and has long lasting notes Ringing sound when something shocking is realised Mis en scene-  Bright light Broken window- Suggests that there has been some form of violence Guns Bullet Picture (porleriot)- Becomes less clear which then, makes it confusing Characters are dresssed like they are un kept Car window is smashed up	Brick     Conventions          Shock, Early Murder   Camera Shows his eyes to see what he is looking at close up of the girl face down Editing Shows at the end that he is a school boy Sound Xylophone style music Alarm bells ringing in his head Mis en scene The girl is dead- in the ditch Looks like shes been dead for a while	Zodiac Conventions Early murder Shock, Tension Camera Shot from the window of the car shows celebration elsewhere Editing Long shots Sound Relaxed music suggests a different vibe in the action on screen Mis en scene Dark woods is a change from the bright vibrancy of the town and dinner

In lesson today, we had to look at the thriller openings of three differnt films and jot down brief points on the camera work, Mis en scene, editing, sound and conventions.

As coursework

Marks are awarded for demonstrating excellence in the following criteria

• holding a shot steady
• framing a shot
• using a variety of shot distances
• shooting material appropriate to the task set