Thursday 18th December

This lesson with Gez was quite similar to the last lesson with Rebecca. Instead of watching short clips from thriller films we watched the thrillers that past students have done. It was an effective lesson as we were able to make notes on what it is that makes a good thriller. I found it really insightful because aspects I thought would have to be included you get no marks for whatsoever. For example I felt that if you didn’t have very good acting in your thriller then it could make your film and all your camera work and editing look quite bad. I was really shocked when Annabel, our teacher taking over Gez, told me that one of the films that I thought had quite bad acting in, got top marks. We analysed everything from the camera work to the editing to the lighting and the positioning of props. This lesson was really helpful and extremely useful because now we know what exactly needs to be done and to what standard. We also found out that having effective fonts for the title and naming the producer director ect is also really effective and that time needs to also be taken on this as well. Before we left Annabel gave us the task of watching some thrillers and coming back and explaining what made them so good.

Blogging Task- What I Learned from the Practice

For our practice filming session we were given the task to make a newspaper thrilling through the use of good camera work and editing. Each group was given one newspaper, a camera and a tripod for their filming. Before we started we had to storyboard our idea so that we had something to follow and that we weren’t filming of the top of our heads.
I was quite pleased with the majority of our camera work because most of it seemed to work really well considering it was our first time filming. I felt that the close up of Salone’s eyes didn’t look as professional as the rest. I think it’s because when I filmed this part the camera wasn’t on a tripod but hand held. When looking back it looked quite wobbly and unprofessional. If I could change something it would be to have done that shot again but using a tripod instead.
The editing for our group didn’t go quite according to plan. This was because whilst editing we forgot to save and the computer crashed. We had lost all our work. Our group then had to go back to a lunchtime workshop to try and quickly edit it all together. The first part of our editing went really well because everything was match cut quite accurately. However where we started to run out of time the ending didn’t look as good and ruined what had been done. We also didn’t have time to put any sound over the top so all you can hear is sound of us talking or people in the background which sounds really unprofessional. I do feel though that the short film made sense and was completely all over the place however there was room for improvement.
I learnt that the placing of all small things that you might think are irrelevant are actually extremely important. When we were filming Salone’s leg in the background was another group and you could also see their legs. By being able to also see their legs distracts you from looking at Salone and focusing solely on her. I feel that it also made it look slightly tacky. Your background plays an important part in presenting your story and if that’s not right then neither is your film.
Our group was really good in remembering the 5 seconds before and after the main filming. We managed to do it every time. The only thing that we did forget was to save our work while editing. Which was one of the worst things to do but we most definitely learnt from our mistake.
I am so glad that we were given the chance to have a practice filming session because it really familiarised us with the camera and editing process. I think if we had gone straight into filming our main thriller it really wouldn’t come out how we’d want it to. It also gave us the chance to make all the mistakes in the practice session to learn not to make them in the real thing. I also really enjoyed the practice as it was a good experience and a fun one.

Monday 15th December

In this lesson with Rebecca we watched short clips from five different films, "What lies beneath", "28 Days Later", "The Shinning", "Arlington Road" and "Collateral". We were also given a table that we had to fill in whilst watching the clips. We had to make notes on the lighting, use of camera, music/sound effects, editing and setting and location. This task was actually very beneficial as it gave us insight into what makes a good suspense thriller. Its not how complex and detailed an idea is but more often taking a very simple idea and adding in effective camera work. The Shinning is a very good example of this. A very simple idea of a boy riding his bike through a hotel corridor, no suspense. However place the camera behind the young boy following him, places the audience in a very vulnerable position as they are unaware of what is going on. Also the way in which that part of the scene was edited was also effective as it was just one long scene so you felt as though you were going along with the young boy.

We also brainstormed the different genres of thriller, which we all found quite difficult. It can be quite confusing when to class a film as a thriller or a horror. It was actually quite surprising how many different genres there are to a thriller and can be so opposite.

Newspaper Practical

Monday 1st December

In this lesson with Rebecca we had a tutorial with Mickey. He went through how to use final cut pro with us and how to plug in the camera and hard drive. On final cut pro was some clips from an already existing film, however they were un-edited. What we had to do was cut and edit them into a sequence that made sense and looked professional. It was a bit fiddly at first but I soon got the hang of it and began to really enjoy it. It was at the end of this tutorial that we were told about our newspaper practice.

Thursday 4th December

In this lesson we were given the task to make someone reading a newspaper look exciting and thrilling. The idea was to make something as simple as reading a newspaper more exciting through the use of good camera work. Before we could start filming, in our groups we had to storyboard our ideas. This got a bit confusing because once we finished our storyboard we kept coming up with new ideas and having to try to find a place for them to fit in. It did make it a bit confusing when we came to filming because we started to get confused where to each clip should go.

When we did start to film I found that really exciting and enjoyed it considerably. I also was placed in a group where we all got on considerably well. This made it far easier when filming. Our idea was centered around a woman murderer, who then reads the newspaper to find her face and story on the front page. I feel that our group did really well in this task because we used a variety of camera angle's and shots. Throughout the whole short film we kept the identity of the woman hidden because we felt that this added far more suspense. One shot which i found particularly interesting was when we did an extreme close up of Solone's eye's. It was a bit tricky trying to keep the camera as still as possible whilst filming free hand.

It did also take us a while to get the hang of where to place the camera for the particular bits we wanted. One major mistake we done was when we were filming Solone walking through glass doors. When the doors were slid shut you could see the reflection of us and the camera, so we had to redo it. This practice filming helped a lot because it familiarised us with the camera and tripod and made us far more confident.

Monday 8th December

In this lesson with Rebecca we had to edit what we had filmed in Geralds lesson. Our group learned a valuble lesson from this. Because we hadn't finished all of our filming and had the last clip to film we had less editing time. We rushed the last little bit and it didnt look as good as the rest of the filming. As soon as we finished our filming we began to edit it all together. We first started by uploading all the clips, which was pretty straight forward, we just had to get the timing right of when to press capture. Once we had uploaded all the clips we started to edit the first few together. All was going well and we all took it in turns to do something. However the one thing none of us done was save our work. Our computer then all of a sudden crashed and we lost everything that we edited. There was a moral to that lesson, save your work everytime you do even a little bit. We had no time to start again as it was the end of the lesson. We had nothing to show fo all the filming we done. So we all decided to go to the afternoon workshop the next day.

Thursday 12th December

Today's lesson was quite relaxed. We had to watch the film 'The Bourne Identity' starring Matt Damon. We had to make notes on moments where suspense is created.

Thriller

We have started to start our thriller project, we were all put into groups and began a tutorial on hour to use final cut pro. We were then told we were going to have to film and edit a practice test of a simple thriller. The next lesson Mickey our technician gave us a lesson on how to prepare and use the cameras and tripods. After the introduction we started to film our trial film, we had to use 12 different shots and we had no limit to what we could do. Our story was a based on a woman who we didn’t see her face through out the whole piece until she exited the room at the end of the scene the camera then pans down on to the newspaper we see throughout and the front page headline is “killer on the loose”. I think our short film was successful as it fulfilled the brief. We also used all twelve camera shots. Most of the shots were successful as we managed to match cut the film together so it flowed easily. One of the best Shots we did was when the lift opened and she walked out as it looked realistic as there was a person in the background, also you can see imagine the lift going up with out having to see it actually moving.

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To start the process of making our thriller openings we had to look at different examples of how to make a good thriller. In lesson we watched several different clips of different types of thrillers. I have chosen The Shining to analyse as I think it’s a good example of a psychological thriller. The lighting contributes to the scene as when the boy is cycling down the hall way the lighting is bright, which adds to the shock of the twins. As the dark is considered to be scary, so people feel a sense of security. The use of the camera makes the audience believe something is going to happen to the boy as the camera is following behind him, it is also shot as a low angle to highlight he’s in control in the shot. When he’s opening the door the camera is on the same level as him to build suspension and to make the audience think something is about to happen. The music also causes tension as its slow piano and violin music, which creates an eerie tension that, builds up until the picture of the twin’s flashes up scaring the audience. We watched the clip with the sound off and it wasn’t as scary, as the music builds the tension.

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We were given the task to do another practice but for match cut so we could learn how to make our thrillers streamline. I was happy with my film work as it looks good and we had many different angels, although we didn’t get a lot of our filming done as we could not get some of the angles right. One of the best shots we had was an over the shoulder as she walks through the door as you can see the environment where she’s about to walk into. The editing was fairly easy as we shot our film according to when and where we wanted to edit our footage together. Our short film made sense as the opening shot were self explanatory. We created an element of suspense as when Georgina sits down the room is empty and doesn’t give anything away, although we could have created more suspense by finishing our piece, as we didn’t finish we couldn’t completely tell a story. Although we have learnt from this as in our thriller we aren’t going to waste time so we can complete it. We did remember to wait the 5 seconds on each side of the film, but we edited with our sound off, so when we turned it on and the beginning of the film we can hear ‘action’. The feedback from our teacher was that it was well filmed and edited. She also said we had successfully used match cut.

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In the lesson on the 12th of January, we were told we were going to have to make a pitch for our thriller ideas to the class and the teacher. We started by discussing our ideas in the group and come up with a story line. After that we then made a shot list, of each shot we would do and how we would use the camera to show this. Today we discussed our story board further and decided on locations and props. We then planned our pitch for tomorrow’s lesson, as we have to talk about lighting camera angles, location and music to the rest of our class.

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In the lesson on thursday 15th january, we were told to prepare a pitch for a thriller that we will present to the class. Although when we had nearly finished preparing out pitch, we got told our idea was to complicated and that we had to change it and make a new pitch. In our pitch we spoke about, the music, setting, lighting, use of camera and editing. Our pitch was successful even though we had to change our pitch at the last minute.

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In Monday’s lesson, we had to learn how to make a soundtrack for our thriller. To begin we did an online tutorial for the Quantum of Solace film. We did different activities throughout the tutorial. One activity was we were given a scene from the film and different sounds. We had to play the sounds that were appropriate tot he situation an example of this was when we were given a picture of a casino and we had the noises we thought would be part of that scene, I added the card shuffling, bar ambiance, talking and the playing chips. After this, we were given a task to add noise to a piece of film; the film was James Bond climbing on to a truck, beating up the driver. The track then collided and blew up. We then started to get used to using the sound track software. We began by uploading our short film we filmed last week, we then added the sound effects such as doors opening and footsteps, as we were told to add the music on last so we could make sure all the effects sounded correct. I then found a guitar noise that made the piece seem suspicious I then added a bass beat on top.

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In Thursday’s lesson, we began filming out thriller, to do this we went to Kats house as we were filming in her attic, as we had rented the equipment out from the night before. We chose an attic as we thought it would give an element of suspicions to our film. To begin we set up the camera and lighting. We then started filming our project by filming the opening shot of our thriller, which was filming Solone tying her shoe laces, it took a few attempt to get the shot right but we got it right in the end, we also filmed walking over to turn her phone alarm off. We had aimed to film a shot of the alarm going off on the phone although when we started filming this shot we noticed we could not see the picture on the phone. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and had to get back to college for 12.15, so we arranged to meet on Sunday to catch up on the filming.

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When we met up on Sunday, we continued filming from Thursday’s lesson. We re-filmed the phone alarm, as we had problems trying to get the alarm to work properly, we could not see the picture and the alarm sound was not loud enough to hear on camera. Therefore, we decided we were going to make our own alarm by just putting a picture up on the screen and we said we would use an alarm noise from soundtrack pro. We then filmed Solone walking out of the room which took a few attempts as we couldn’t get the lighting right and she kept falling down the stairs as they were very small. Although we did get our shot and it looked very effective.

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We decided we were going to edit on Mondays as it is the shorter lesson and we would not be able to get much filming done. On Monday, we edited our work from Thursday and Sunday. The editing process was relatively easy, as we had decided how we were going to edit the piece together as we were filming. Although when we got to the end of our footage we noticed that the lighting is dramatically different on the Thursday to the Sunday, we then decided we were going to re-film some of Sunday’s footage this Thursday when it is brighter.

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While filming one of the girls became ill and had to go to hospital for two weeks, so in this time the rest of the group did the title sequence and the soundtrack. We used a plain theme for out credits, as we did not want to draw the attention away from the film we had made. The soundtrack was a hard task as we have only filmed 20 seconds of our thriller, although we came up with a basic idea for the music, so when we have our thriller finished we can go back to soundtrack pro and edit the music we have already created to fit the film.

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On Monday of half term, we were told we could take a camera out so that we catch up on our filming. We started by re-filming a previous shot that did not work in our thriller due to the lighting being different. We then began to shoot the rest of our thriller outside. We did certain shots, which did not work, and we would re-film them until they looked right. We also found it difficult shooting on the main road due to the traffic and people crossing the road. We also had a problem with people looking into the camera, meaning we could not use that take. We only have to film one more shot to put at the end of our thriller.

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In our Thursday lesson we then finished editing the rest of our film together, we had already though of the match cuts and transitions we were to use between different shots. After we finished editing our film together, we had to put in the credits and film titles. We decided to have a black page with white writing on, as it was simple yet effective. All that was left was to create edit the music we had already made; although after we added the edited music on to our film we realised that the music did not match the thriller. Therefore, we started again with the music now we knew how the thriller went we could match the music to what was going on in the film. Georgina and Solone then edit the music to fit our thriller.

First practice filming session

Homework

Clip for homework

On the 1st December we started our thrillers. We were formed into groups of four, had a tutorial of how to use the editing on the computers and then we were given a storyboard. The storyboard was given for the group to do a practice thriller. It was to show a mystery person using minimum camera shots of 12. Which leads to thursdays lesson 4th December.

On thursday in Gez's lesson we were given another tutorial by Mickey on how to use the camers and the tripods. We learned how to put in and how to take out the battery,how to put them on the tripod without breaking the camera, we also learnt how to do stuff like recording, putting it off and on standby, how to do mid-shot long-shot and so on. We then went into our groups and started to film our mystery characters. We used the camera and the tripod safely whilst filming. But at the same time it was fun and my group have got a lot of bloopers with laughter and such. Throughout the whole camera shots as a whole we never see the characters face. As i had to play the person on the other side of the camera i never got a chance to do much camera work but the other members of the group did a good job. Although i didn't get to do a lot of camera i did get to position the camera a lot onto the tripod. We got our idea that was on paper on through to the camera. The shorts that were most successful was mainly the mid shots and the long shots even though we didn't have a lot of the long angle shots the ones we used were very successful. My most favourite part of filming was the mistakes that happened alot throughout. Mistakes like the lift not coming when you want it to, or it coming on time and someone is in it or even when you're shooting and someone doesn't realise and they end up walking past in the shot. But its fun to look back on when rewinding the tape because it looks funny when seeing the person the the other side of the camera laughing when they're not suppose to and stuff like that. Which reminded me of bloopers you get on a dvd. It showed how much we listened in tutorial because we didn't forget to use the 5 second rule in the process of filming. I learnt a lot about mise-en-scene, because there was times where we had to re shoot somthing because we had a different background than before and its suppose to be set in the same place. So i've learned a different side of mise-en-scene when filming than looking at a movie and analysing. It is harder than it looks because of the clothes and the setting. As we did't get to finish all our shots we had to finish the rest off in todays lesson.

8th December as my group were behind in the filming we had to finish off a couple of more shots. Then we went to the computer room to start the editing. As we did a lot of work on the computer we didn't save by using the command s every 2minutes. Which then bad luck kicked in and the computer crashed and we lost all our work. But on the bright side our group has learnt from our mistakes and now it deffinately wont happen for the actual coursework. Next day lunch time my group managed to fix the short clip and finished the editing.

On the 11th December we watched an action thriller in class. We got the chane to watch Bourne Identity, but we got given a sheet to fill. We had to write down three scenes that show suspence by the mise-en-scene, sound and by the camerra works.

15th December the whole class learnt all the possible differtent thrillers and we learnt what kind of characters will be in each of them and where they usually take place. Then we got to watch 5 short clips of thrillers and we had to write down the camera works, the editing, sound and the mise-en-scene.