We set out to make a Thriller and came away with a Thriller. We are happy with our success although there were a few mistakes and problems.
We wanted our film to change the forms and conventions of the genre in some ways. We challenged it to make it orginal. We made sure that the continuity was correct such as when Ollie near the beginning of the film was stirring a cup of coffee the camera moved to a close up shot and he was still seen to be stirring the coffee and all the props were in their original position. We felt that the script was not too long but long enough to explain the action. We wanted to break the 'Thriller' mould and make a film that was not predictable and thus would help to make the film stand out from others. We used a conventional thiller situation stalker/missing person. We used a tripod to steady the shots.
Looking back at the preliminary task, I have learnt just how much work goes into creating, planning and producing just a 2 minute part of a film. We had to come up with a story, expand it, create a story board, compile a shot list, organise sound and special effects, edit, shoot it and 101 more tasks.
We designed the film to engage the audience with the story and I think that if we had made the whole film we would have achieved that. The character of the boyfriend was introduced by showing him waking up at the beginning of a normal day and the girlfriend was introduced shortly after being shown having breakfast downstairs. This established them as a couple in a normal situation. The boyfriend goes back upstairs and notices a note on the stairs saying the girlfriend has been kidnapped. The boyfriend is then also kidnapped and we cut to an interrogation scene in a darkened room. We used a medium close up shot at the eye level of the kidnapped boyfriend with kidnappers circling round him in a menacing manner. Within the 2
minute extract we had to introduce the characters and the situation and then create a scenario from which the rest of the film would develop. This is difficult to achieve as there is always the risk that the outcome is hinted at too early which would ruin the suspense and the audience would have no interest in watching the rest of the film.
Distribution
I think that film will be showen at a film convention as it is not big enough to stand on its own like Hollywood films.
Silence of the lambs which was distributed by Orion Pictures Corporations as they knew that people would pay to watch it. We would not put it on DVD as we are not know amounst the Movie world and would not make a profit.
Our film involded a parked car. This could have been dangerous for any of our team to drive it to the destination as we cant drive so we got the car owner (Oli's Dad) to drive it.
The Location was easy to manage as not alot of people go there but there were one or two dog walkers about so we had to be careful to keep them out of frame. The storyboard and Shooting script came into use when we could not remeber what we had to shoot next.
We tried to manage our time but it was very difficult as we film in the winter so the light deteriorated quickly. This played havok on the continuity as some shots would be light then dark in the next one. We resorted to using a powerful touch light but this was also a problems as in some shots is was very noticible due to glare or reflection on the car. As the shadows that were cast we noticible aswell.
Creative Tools
In this project i have learnt how important all the tools such as lighting, sound boom etc are. When they work properly you do not relise that they are there but when the are absent or positioned wrong it is very noticible.
The digital Technolgy enable us to work alot easier. The came that we used had a anti shake feature that reduced the shaking. If it did not have this feature then the outcome would have been alot more wobbily than it is. It also had a built in Micophone so we did not need to buy or carry an external one such as a sound boom. The autofocus feature made sure that the charaters were in clear focus but when the light stuarted to fade the auto focus became confussed and would focus in and out making it hard to see what was happening.Audience
From the questionnaire that we handed out, we noticed the most common answers such as isolation, dark, cold etc and applied this in to our film. This made sure that our film featured their idea of a thiller.
In the filming and editing we made sure that the meaning of the film was always there but keep checking the story board and the plan. This made sure we didnt wander of and produce somthing differant to what we we set out to make. In the editing the sound and transitions added to the atmospere and mood of the film aswell has making it easy for the audience to understand.
When we showed our film to the rest of the class we had a mixed feedback. The end of the film where Tom (the mad man) is dressed like Oli (dead boyfriend) was hard to film due to the light. The out come was Tom looking almost identical to Oli and this made the audience believe that it was Oli instead of Tom. Big confussion!
That was my Filming process all sum up in my blogs. Thanks for reading!
