I think that I have improved a lot since my preliminary task compared to my thriller opening, especially as I used a range of different shots, editing and techniques. I have also developed a lot in my editing skills, as I have made sure not to over-do it with editing, such as adding too many sound effect or transitions when they are not needed so that it still looks realistic, but editing the product enough so that it looks finished to a good standard. We also created plans, storyboards and shot lists for our thriller opening as we found that it helped us a lot in the organisation of both of the products.
We also created a presentation before filming, on what we wanted to include and some potential ideas for our opening. We thought about who will play each role (e.g. Detective, wife etc.), what costumes the actors will wear and where we will film (Location).We didn’t do this in the preliminary, which is why it wasn’t dramatic or tense enough, so we thought that it may help if we plan more for our main production:
This planning acted as a base for our main production, during the filming we changed certain aspects such as the props used, and some of the ideas for shots and when we got to our location we found better shots that could be used for a much more dramatic feel:
As we didn’t originally plan to use this shot, but we thought it would look much better than just face on (which is what we had planned). I thought from this angle it added mystery and tension as the phone rang, as you can’t see his face.
During the filming we also decided to add still images into our product, such as close ups on newspaper articles, photos of the cast and the area surrounding the house.
I feel the filming of our opening went well because the location was perfect for what we wanted, which was an old looking house on the outskirts of a village/town, and this worked really well to fit in with the story. There were also certain parts of the house we had not planned to film in, such as the garden, as we had planned to do the ‘gun scene’ in the corridor or living room but the layout of the house made it too difficult and interfered with the 180 degree rule. But I think this shot probably would have looked better than the planned one anyway. The continuity and match on action also flowed very well as in our preliminary we were very careful about these two concepts, so in our thriller opening we were “experts” in the field of continuity, this helped the opening look more professional and it also makes the editor look good too (which was me).
I think this shot of the car turning off its front lights, looks really good as it shows the audience that a person has just arrived at a location without showing the car actually moving
I also think this shot works well too; as it shows the identity of the killer as in the earlier shots of him his identity is concealed.
Some of the problems we came across when filming were:
· Authentic Props – Some props in the house didn’t look authentic to that period in which the film was set, as we had to cover up a built in digital clock above the stove with a table cloth. We also ended up re-arranging the whole layout of the attic, so there would be better continuity and so the character didn’t have to stumble across dozens of cardboard boxes whilst walking from one end to the other.
· Battery Life – We found out the hard way that the camera didn’t have a very long battery life, so half way through we had to recharge it and find something to do in the meantime. This didn’t affect us massively as we still got all the footage we had set out to get; it was just more annoying than anything.
· Acting – Certain members of the group couldn’t act very well, so we had to figure out a way to show the audience what the character was doing without showing them the actor.
· Forgotten shots – On the day of filming, we had planned to do certain shots but ended up forgetting to do them. As we had planned, that the thief would steal something and kill the wife accidently in the process rather than just going straight to her and killing her. But I don’t think this affected the opening that much as we wanted to portray that the detective wanted revenge and I feel we still managed that without the forgotten shot. We could have overcame this by making and bringing shooting scripts with us rather than just having them uploaded to our Blogs, we may have remembered the shot I we made a script.
Over all I think that the filming went really well and we got a wide variety of shots. The location worked really well for us and our group worked really well together each putting in our own opinions in how we thought each shot could be improved. I have learnt that to produce a short film it takes a lot more work than I first thought and a lot more planning and time. If I were to redo this product I would make sure that I was much more organized in my planning by making note of all the shots we needed and checking them off one by one as we filmed, this would help us a lot as we wouldn’t of forgot any shots. I would also try to get a range of different shots for each scene as when we came to edit our production we found that we did not have enough of a variety of shots to put into the final product as some didn’t look good enough to be in the final product.
I thought that the members of my group and I worked well together, we discussed each decision and came to a joint conclusion, we also all worked on every part of the filming and editing not have set roles so that both could put out own ideas into the final product.
I feel that looking back at our preliminary task we have improved our skills a great deal, in the way that we frame the shots and the mise-en-scene that we created for each of the shots. For this production we put a lot more thought into the smaller details, such as what was in the background of each shot, making sure that nothing looked out of place, this is something that we didn't consider too much during the making of our preliminary task.
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