Question 7

Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in

the progression from it to the full product?

Preliminary task

For our new unit in media we was studying thriller films. To start us of and get using the cameras we were asked to do a preliminary tasks. A preliminary task is where you go a shot a short film using lots of different camera shots and angels such as, close ups, over the shoulder ECT.

Before going out and filming our preliminary task, we created a short story board. This was good as it gave us a plan to what shots we was going to use during this clip and where they was going to come. It always good to plan ahead like this as it wouldn’t put as on the spot while filming.

As the was only a short clip, we did not really have to put any amazing acting or fall blown conversations. We decided as a group that we was going to stick to an everyday conversation such as “hi, how are you”, “ What have you been doing” e.c.t

We decided to film our short clip in the colleges lunch hall as this is a place people would have this sort of conversations everyday and gave us a wide range on same to play around with the camera and get the correct camera shots.

While editing our short clip, we added a few editing skills into it such as basic cuts and transitions that leaded into the next clip.

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From doing the preliminary task as a group we could see that our shot range was not brilliant. Looking back at the clip we always used over the shoulder shots, this is not good as we planned out all the different shots we knew and could have used in this. This gave us the encouragement to make sure that in our shot film we was going to include as many shot types as we could.

To get a basic idea for our thriller film we researched recent thriller movies. We looked deeply into there opening sequences and noted down what we thought was strong about them and what the audience looks for in thrillers. We done this so we got a better picture of what we was going crate as a group.

We looked at many different films but two films we looked very closely at were “Vertigo” and “Memento”, this was because as a group we felt they had very strong openings and related to what we wanted to put across in our film.

We done a lot of research about thriller films and found there was 4 main sub genres that come up quite a bit, these were • Crime Thriller• Psychological Thriller•Political thriller •Action Thriller

•We decided as a group it would be good to focus on one of these for our thriller.

Crime thriller conventions

Mystery that the protagonist has to solve atmosphere that is created through natural elements for example the weather protagonist is in danger most of the time

Matching editing pace to sound pace to make more tension Characters keep secrets from protagonist so that the story is not given away

Chase scenes Praying on the protagonists weaknesses a lot

A lot of repetition Always someone searching for an answer Supporting characters that support the main detective Money

Conventions of a Psychological Thriller:

Character has a fear or fascination with deathOne or more character characters preying on each others mindCharacter in conflict with their own mindCharacters are trying to discover their own purposeDanger on a mental level rather than a physical level Drama and mystery includedCharacter is lonely/isolated

Political conventions

Conventions of a Political Thriller:Threat is set against a backdrop of a power struggle Threat sometimes expresses current news or social fearsStrong male and female leadsMore locations/countriesOpponents try to prevent the protagonists successInnocent people drawn into the threatThemes of proving innocence and deceit

For our film as a group we decided to use Crime Thriller. This was because the ideas we already came up with would fit around this nicely.

We thought of our main plan very quickly, we used everyone's ideas and worked them together to make our short clip. We didn’t know any of the conversations at this point but our make priority was to get the basic plan for the clip.

When we knew what we wanted to do we planned it out on a story board, the idea consisted of a detective sitting at his work desk with lots of papers thinking about what has been going on, on the scene he is investigating. He then looks into a picture in more detail and this starts to give him lots of flashbacks of the location that in happen in. Then later on in the clip going to this location.

As a group we decided we was going to base our film around our day, so the audience could relate to it more. This made our props and customs easy to think of and get hold of.

We didn’t need to play around with lighting to much, it was just going to be the natural lighting from inside and around and if need we can edited it later on.

We didn’t have to buy any props for our film as everybody already had them, things that we needed were:

• a mobile phone•Photos of the crime scene• a board of evidence

We decided to film our in in one of the boys house and garden that was in our group. The scenes with him in the office was in the office in his house this was good because it was the right lay-out already for what we needed. Also he had a abandon cow shed right at the end off his garden this was a good place to use for the crime scene.

Picture of location

Picture of story board

Shot list• Shot 1 - Desk with notes about crime, linking to the murder (Close Up)

Shot 2 - Detective looking down at his notes (Close Up)Shot 3 - Detective sitting at desk and his phone rings (Long Shot) (Close Up)Shot 4 - Phone Ringing (Close UpShot 5 - Walking to get the phone from the desk (Panning Shot)Shot 6 - Detective picking up the phone (Close Up)Shot 7 - Person saying hello (Medium Shot)Shot 8 - Other detective 'Its Me' (Close up)Shot 9 - Detective number 1 standing and talking on the phone (Medium Shot)Shot 10 - Detective number 2, standing, talking to detective number 1 (Close Up)Shot 11 - Detective walking to the window looking over at the cowsheds (Panning Shot) Shot 12 - More conversation (Close Up)Shot 13 - Detective waling towards his desk (Panning Shot)Shot 14 - Person getting picture of the murder victim (Close Up)Shot 15 - Person examining photo (Medium Shot)Shot 16 - Looking at picture talking to detective 2 (Close Up)Shot 17 - Flash back of what happened or what 'could have' happened (POV Shot)Shot 18 - 24 - six repeats of flashback and detective (Close Up) (POV Shot)Shot 25 - Shadow, and you can see the body behind a wall (POV Shot)Shot 26 - Phone Call (Close Up)Shot 27 - Body gradually gets further away, whilst fading slowly, when we see the whole body the screen cuts to black. Title appears then credits follow (Zoom Out Shot)

Detective1: Ohhhhh -head in his hands-(phone rings) *bring bring*Detective1: Hmm, i wonder who this could be.. *Clears Throat*" Good afternoon, Michael Moosey here”Detective 2:"Hello its me, Dan, I am down at the Cow Shed now Detective 1: "What you doing over there?”Detective 2: "I've found something”Detective 1: " But what, what could it be? nothing was found when we were down there earlier.." (looking out of the window, and promptly returning to his notes on his desk) (picks up a photograph taken at the scene of the crime of the dead body)*Silence*Detective 2: " Michael are you there?"(Detective 1 goes into a flashback of what could have happened, loads of snip-it pictures and flash backs this leads into flashing images of dead body behind wall and the detectives in the two locations staring and looking puzzled at the notes) *Music getting louder, building up lots of tension as it gets faster*(The final image of the dead body in black and white, zooming out into a fading effect, cuts to black very sharply with the title appearing in a bright bold colour. Credits will the follow)

Our script

From our preliminary task I didn’t feel that confident with our camera shots and final cut due to the fact that the cinematography was poor, plus we only used basic editing techniques such as basic cuts to shots in our task. Looking back at it was a good way for us as a group to make sure that in our clip we used a lot more shots and editing skills. For example, we included more shots, such as panning and POV shots, also we used advanced uses of editing by using motion keys for our opening credits. I feel that from doing this thriller opening sequence, I have got a lot more confident with editing in final cut as I have learned to used advanced editing skills and making sure we are using different camera shots.

When I do something like this again I will make sure that I use all of the editing techniques I learnt from doing this opening sequence and include all camera shots I know to make it more advanced. Also I will hopefully learn a lot more skills.