For our creative project we made a short thriller film which showed many examples of a thriller, and we also challenged the conventions of a thriller. We would aim our film at 15-29 year olds of both genders, because we found out that people around this age like thrillers. Our film is a bit scary and tests the audience’s thoughts; it is complex for anyone younger to maybe understand and thus would be more appropriate for our chosen age range.
As we started to edit our film we realised our footage wasn’t going to cut together and look right, as the lighting and positioning of the different shots weren’t right. As a result of this we had to re-shoot, but because of the short time scale we decided to change our idea and incorporate bits of our original footage into our new film. This was helpful for us as we could learn from our mistakes and make sure we did it right the second time. As a result of this change, we made our paperwork more precise and we made sure we stuck to it when filming. Doing a shot list order guided us when we were filming, as we could plan which shots we were filming next. We made up the shot list order so we did all of our close ups together plus all the shots with the masked man at the beginning, so he didn’t have to be there for the whole shoot.
In our first idea for our film we shot it all in Siobhan’s house in Herne Bay, this worked extremely well as the layout was exactly how we wanted it, whereas the layout in my house wasn’t the same and wouldn’t have the same effect. For the second version of our film we used the school, as this was an easy place for all of us to be and use. We made the classroom look like an office/edit suite with just the actress sitting at one computer editing whilst the other workstations were empty and switched off. We were able to cut to a wide shot of the room to show that the room was actually empty.
I had many roles in our production, but my main roles were as Director and Editor. I was directing whilst Lottie and Jonathan were acting. I had to show the actors what I wanted them to do, and I had to tell them how I wanted them to show their expressions. For the masked man I just had to show him how he needed to walk and show him where to walk as he didn’t have to show any facial expressions. For Lottie, I had to show her where and when to walk, and I had to tell her how I wanted her to act for example to show confusion in her expressions. After each shot, I asked both the camera operator and sound operator how the shot appeared, and if either of them said it wasn’t good for any reason such as the actors' actions were wrong or there was something in shot which shouldn’t be or if the sound operator could hear a noise or talking in the background then we would have to shoot that shot again. I also asked the actors if they were happy with their acting.
On the day of the shoot Sam was in charge of the paperwork and made sure everything was all okay. She also did the sound and camera sheets which were extremely helpful when it came to editing. I edited the images, and Siobhan did the sound editing. In our film studies lessons we had both input to writing the proposal and treatment and the paperwork. We had to write about the idea of our film and the story line. We also made out the schedule and equipment list; we wrote the shooting schedule out in a table, saying the date we were going to film, where we were going to film and the shots which we were going to film and who needed to be there when we were filming. I had to be there every time we filmed as I was the director. The masked man only had to be there for the first hour of filming and the main actress had to be there for the whole shoot. For the equipment list we wrote which camera we would use and that we needed a taz cam every time we filmed. We also listed the props we needed as bullet points. As Director I worked closely with the camera operator and sound operator making sure we got all the shots we needed to ensure there was no unwanted sound or the action was wrong. We also took our time in shooting as we didn’t want to rush it and get bad shots.
We chose to use our old footage in our new film as we didn’t want to waste the good footage we had; so we worked it into the film. We hope we have made the audience question our film as they may not know which parts are real and which part the actress in our film was editing. We chose to do this to heighten the tension as our genre is a thriller.
We used different types of angles in our sequence such as mid-shots and close ups. We used a close up to show the face expression of when Lottie was at the computer editing and when she sees the masked man. We used mid-shots to show both the characters and their relationship and body language and their costumes. We also bridged the sound over two different shots to show the reaction from Lottie, but when the camera remained on the masked man. Even though we have made films before I felt this was a new experience as we were shooting using new equipment this year, for example new cameras, we used clapper boards and we also used a taz cam as we were shooting sync sound. This was all new to us as we hadn’t had the equipment to use in the past years. In the edit stage I had to get used to synchronising the camera footage with the sound footage.
We challenged the conventions of a thriller by making a thriller film within a thriller film. Overall our production was extremely successful and we all worked well as a team and coped very well with the different roles.
In conclusion the proud feeling that comes with finishing this production is astonishing. We all like the film that we have made between us. It’s remarkable to achieve the experience of film making and knowing that we all contributed as a group to come up with all the ideas to make this film work. Although we made a few vital mistakes, it was important that as a group we didn’t give up, we all knew that this production had to be complete so we all stuck by each other helping one another out. It is important as a group to work together. By making mistakes it gives you the advantage to know the faults that can go wrong and can give you the knowledge of what went wrong so you can do a better job at it in future productions.
