Evaluation
Question 7
Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel that you have learnt in
the progression from it to the full product?
working collectively on the
project:
We began planning our film by doing a spider diagram of all our initial ideas. We came
to a quick conclusion that we wanted to do a psychological thriller and then all came
up with 2 main ideas we liked. We all said our ideas and how they would work and
after discussing them all we merged a few different ideas together to form our final
one. We used one idea of having a woman with a mental illness, another idea was to
have secretive mass murders and another was to have one main character who was
both the protagonist and the antagonist, so by using all three of these ideas we
created the main body for our film.
We were very good and coming up with all our different roles during the films overall
process. Two of the group members had previous experience with drama therefore
were the actors in our film, a different person had experience with cameras so was the
camera man and the final group member enjoyed planning the film and finding good
locations, so they were the director. These were also our roles during our prelim which
meant we all had good experience when working in that role. By working in a group
that co-operated with each other well it meant we were all doing even amounts of
work, and we were also doing things that suited our skills and interests. During the
filming process we all worked well as a group and split jobs evenly, but after this, during
the editing process, it seemed to be that the editors were doing more work. This
became challenging for us as we did not want to compromise our groups friendship,
but we had to, as not enough work was being put in by the other people. After
speaking as a group we resolved this and the work was spread out evenly.
Preliminary Exercise: a filming
and editing continuity exercise
The preliminary exercise taught us a lot about continuity filming and editing. Whilst filming our
preliminary exercise we had to include: the 180 degree rule; shot reverse shot and match on
action. This is all part of continuity filming. We also did continuity editing, as when we edited
our prelim we put all of shots in the correct order to create a continuing narrative where you
do not realise the shots are different, as they are only from different angles. We had to do this
preliminary exercise as most of us were completely new to filming, and editing. Many of us
found that by practically doing the exercise we learnt much more about the cameras and
how to shoot in this way, and we learnt more about the editing software by seeing the results
edited together. Before filming we had to divide up the roles in order for everyone to be
doing the same amount of work, but also so that we all felt comfortable in what we were
doing. We felt the majority of our preliminary exercise went well for us but there were some
problems with our shots. We had to add in some shots that weren’t on our story board and
we also got rid of some of the shots we had planned to do. There were complications with
our storyboard when filming as some of our shots did not fit with the layout of the college,
which is where we were filming. We had to add in shots of the girl opening the door and
running again to make the story fit together. To make up for the deleted shots we added in
an extra shot of her before she opened the door, looking scared, and we added a shot of
the door handle shaking before she entered the room. Another problem that occurred was
eye line. When filming the speech using the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot, the girl did
not look like she was directly looking at the man, but because of the time limit we did not
have time to re shoot. We thought our best shot was the dolly shot. This worked well as it
showed her emotions and it created more tension in the scene. Overall, from our prelim we
learnt what shots worked well in thrillers and what roles suited us the best. We used many of
the shot types from our prelim in our OTS, such as close ups and over the shoulder shots, as we
found these showed emotions well and created more tension. We kept the roles we had
during our prelim whilst shooting our OTS, as we all had experience in these roles and knew
how to do them well, so we all felt comfortable with what we were doing.
Thriller Opening Title
Sequence
When we started our actual OTS, because of our prelim, we were able to plan it with
more of a filmmaker’s eye. We thought about how are shots would move from one to
the other and we looked at how the mise-en-scene would effect, and create more of
an atmosphere, in each shot. By story boarding our initial ideas we were able to have
more clarity on what we were going to shoot. Things like the recce, shot list and filming
schedule also helped with this as we were able to see what we were filming, where we
were filing it and at what time. We thought a lot about which costumes and props we
should use as they can change a lot about one shot. In the end we went for simple
everyday clothing to give more familiarity to the characters and show that they were
normal everyday people. The costumes also showed it was a modern day film. All of
our props helped viewers to understand our film and what was going on. They also
gave clues to the narrative, such as the ring showed there was some sort of divorce or
marriage within the story. Because of our filming schedule and our recce, our filming
day went very smoothly. We deviated from some of our original locations and became
more experimental with the types of shots we used. This was because we felt more
experienced after our prelim so we became a bit more ambitious with our ideas..
Thriller Opening Title
Sequence
During filming we were most proud of our establishing shot used to open our film. We felt the
lighting and colours in this shot made it clear that something bad was going on and it gave
the audience an insight into two of our main characters and the roles they would play within
our film. After looking at all of our shots we noticed that some of them needed to be re filmed
and edited to change the colours and length of the shots. From this we learnt how difficult it
was t get a perfect shot and how long the process would take overall. We re filmed our last
shot of the girl tied up as we felt it wasn’t very dramatic and the facial expressions didn’t
make it clear how distressed she was. Also we filmed some new shots which were ECU’s of the
antagonists face, in order to reveal part of their identity but still keep them hidden. This
created more mystery and suspense in our OTS. We used match on action during our OTS in
our first two shots. We went from a long shot of the argument to an over the shoulder shot. This
was so that you could see the facial expressions more clearly and understand that something
bad and upsetting just happened, giving clues that this may effect the narrative of the story.
Although we also learnt about the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot, we decided not to
use them in our OTS as we didn’t want to reveal as much about the characters, but more of
the narrative. After creating our end product we felt it was very successful when creating a
confusion about what is going to happen, but also giving a few clues that by the end would
all be put together. We also feel that it fits with the thriller genre and is a very dark piece with
lots of suspense and discomfort in the shots and in the soundtrack that goes with it. If we were
to re film our OTS I think it would be improved by having slightly more insight into the
characters of Martha and Tom, so that the audience would understand their roles more, but
apart from that I feel our opening title sequence was very successful.
Overall, from doing the preliminary exercise, we learnt how to be a lot more professional
during filming and editing and also how to use a range of shots, lighting and shot types to
create a more interesting, informative and complex opening title sequence.