blogging

Monday, 1 December 2008

In today’s lesson with Tony we were introduced into our new section of the course which is making our thriller.
Fist we went to the IC room and watched a tutorial for using a program called Final Cut.
We were shown the most common effects that we might consider using and how to put clips together and make meaning out of them. This was very helpful as we would be using Final Cut for editing our footage later on and I was confident in using the program.

For our next task we were given a brief for what we were supposed to do for our filming practice.
It was to film a card game using props that we were given and we were also allowed to bring in some props if we wished to. The main thing was to create the right atmosphere of suspense and mystery which will be done by carefully choosing our shot types. We have a minimum of 12 shots in which we have to include an ECU, A tracking shot and an over the shoulder shot.

After reading the brief with my group we brainstormed some ideas.



Wednesday, 3 December 2008

In today’s lesson we were given a tutorial on how to use the camera, turn it on, put in the battery and film and put the camera on the tri-pod.
Once everybody was checked that they can do these main things with the camera our shot I was put in a different group with Lauren, Bien, Rashpal and Grace because nobody from my original group turned up. They told me their story line and we started to plan the shot types and did a brief story board. We made shore that we included compulsory shots (ECU, tracking shot & over the shoulder shot)

Our first shot was set in the main hall and was a low angle panning shot of our main character Bien walking past the camera. We chose this type of shot so that we could start building suspense for the audience. Everybody was given the opportunity to take a few shots so that we could become more confident in using the camera.

At the end we had 14 min of filming which we were happy with as we had a lot to work with and we managed to get lots of different shots that we could later on experiment with.



Monday, 8 December 2008

In today’s lesson we were send to the editing suit to put our filming together.
Firstly we were given a hard drive and uploaded all of our filming, we then started to cut the clips up into small sections and naming them. This was done so that we could easily find a clip that we are looking for.

Wednesday, 10 December 2008

At the begging of today’s lesson we were shown everybody’s films and discussed what we liked about them. I enjoyed watching all of the films as they were all very different from one another but really good.
After this we all went to out classroom and brainstormed about thrillers and the main conventions of thrillers and which films are thrillers.
After completing our brainstorm we watched a thriller called The Shining by Stanley Kubrick which I enjoyed a lot. We were also given a task while watching the film to pick up on sertain scenes that build up tension.



Evaluation

Our task for over the past couple of lessons was, in groups to film a card game creating tension and suspense.
The original ideas of my group was not used as I moved to a different group but I really liked their idea and went along with it. As I joined them we started putting together a story board and considering different shot types and angles which would suit our scenes and create the tension that we are aiming for. While filming we made sure that we took a various amount of shots so that we had different angles and views. At the end we were happy with all of the filming that we did and we went on to editing.

The editing which I am also very pleased with went particularly well and the shots fitted in nicely and we didn’t need to use many effects to cover up any mistakes that we made. We used a transition which faded into black to show that time has passed by.

A shot which I and I think everyone in my group is very pleased with is the close up of Biens glasses where you can see her eyes and also see the reflection of the cards in the glasses. It sort of misleads the audience and almost gives them a clue on who might be winning. This was a shot that we didn’t intend on doing but it turned out very nicely.

There were a few shots which I am not particularly happy with but it is something that we can improve on in future projects. The background sound in some shots don’t go with the mood that we are trying to create but it is probably because of the locations in which we were filming. We could have considered a more quiet and dark area.

The shots of the two players where the camera jumps from one character to another I think creates a lot of suspense as the camera in focused on the characters face and their eyes this makes the audience want to know who the winner is.

Overall I enjoyed making this film and also enjoyed working with the people I was put with as we all shared and considered each others ideas. The outcome of our film I think is up to standards as we followed all of the instructions that the teachers gave us and asked for their opinion on some of the things that we were doing.
I can now say that I am confident in using the camera and know what shot angles I might be considering in making our final thriller film.



Monday, 5 January 2009

In today’s lesson we watched a documentary on film openings and were given a sheet with questions that we had to answer while watching.
The teacher showed us some very different film openings and we discussed what worked and how the directors created the emotion that they were aiming for.
The reason we watched these film openings was to give an idea of the different ways we can start the our film.


Director Jean Jacques Beineix believes that by having a strong beginning that would wow the audience you would have to then build up the standard of the film so that it doesnt turn out to be a disappointment but if you have a normal beginning you can then build suspense to the end.

Thomas Sutcliffe says: "Films need to seduce their audience into long term commitment. While there are many types of seduction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is almost irresistible." This means
That you have to grab the audience attention at the begging to give them an excitement and have them craving for more.


In the documentary Stanley Kauffmann describes how a classic opening would first have an establishing shot following into a window, an office and then a character. This works very well as it is neatly structured out and everything is in order.

Kyle Cooper's title sequence to the film "Seven" is highly effective as it creates a great amount of tension it makes the audience want to see the whole film by just watching a few minutes of the opening. In the title sequence there were shots of blade cutting, sewing using a needle, and pieces of things teared apart. Most of the shots were close up and many effects and transitions were added on in editing.
After this we watched a few of the best Thriller openings that students did in the previous year.
This gave me an idea of the standard of work that is expected and I was also inspired by a few of the openings.


Wednesday, 7 January 2009

Today we were given a work sheet on a person who was transferring confidential files onto a CD. We had to figure out how to start the scene; camera angles, shot types and so on. The aim was for us to learn how match cuts are used.
After we were put in our groups and our task was to film a character opening a door, walking into a room and sitting on a chair with a person opposite them. A few lines of dialogue were required.
A reverse shot must be included to show the understanding of the 180 degree rule which is about camera angels and making sure once you film the character from one angle you can't film the character from the other side because the character would then look like the person has changed side on the screen



Monday, 12 January 2009

In today’s lesson our task was to edit the clips that we shot on our Wednesday and to practice match cuts. We used the in and out key to cut up section that we wanted to use. We used cross transition in our footage to make the clips flow together. When we were happy with our film we made sure we had enough match cuts in it. After that we started adding in some sounds to create a mood.


Wednesday , 14 January 2009

In today’s lesson we had to complete our Preliminary Task. Firstly we watched our film a few times and commented on what we had to work on to achieve the best result. We decided to add in some more appropriate sounds. Once we were happy with our film it was uploaded onto our blog. I personally am very pleased with the outcome and I also think we mastered the match cut technique.

In the second half of the lesson the final project brief was handed out which is to make a 2 minutes opening to a Thriller Film. In our group we started to brain storm some ideas. We all decided that it should be an 18+ simply because it gives us a wide range of issues that we can focus on. We then started to consider possible narratives so that it would be easier for us to create our opening.



Monday, 19 January 2009

In today’s lesson we continued to think of different opening scenes and so far we have come up with a few but we are still building on them.
The first idea that we had was about a woman pushing her child on a swing in a park. The woman’s phone would ring and she would turn around the pick it up and after finishing her conversation she would turn back to the child to see it out of the swing and staring into space. The main problem with this was that there was nobody that we could use as our child actor.
Our second idea was to show short clips of newspaper reports of missing girls, then cut to a woman in her bed and as soon as she closes her eyes it cuts to the same woman but much younger opening her eyes and gasping for air. We all liked this idea but again we had a problem with how we would make the woman (one of us) look much younger.
Another idea that we had was of a toilet tap that sucks people up we were a bit confused on how we would make someone go up a tap and make it look realistic but we expanded this idea in to a toilet that flushes blood meaning that there would be something in the toilet system .



Wednesday, 21 January 2009

In today’s lesson we had to complete our plan and pitch it to Tony, Marissa, Andrew and Mickey.
We all settled with the toilet flushing blood idea and started to do a story board and thinking of different ways that we can shoot our scenes and what shot types would be mostly appropriate.
We did a list of props that we need to use, which are a plastic hand and red food die that we would need to pour in the toilet system to make it flush red.

In the second half of the lesson everyone prepared their pitch and the four judges made comments on what is good and what wouldn’t work so well and how we can improve. We took into account everything that our teachers told us as they have much experience in doing this and an outside view is always helpful.



Monday, 26 January 2009

Today was our first filming lesson . Firstly we took a camera, tri-pod and a film tape.
It took us a while to find a toilet with an old system but we finally managed to find one which was perfect. The area in which it was set was very eerie and it would be easier for us to achieve the mood that we want and build up tension.

Our first shots were of Lauren, our actress walking through the arch to get to the place where the toilet is. We took lots of different shots from different angles and also used tracking shots so that when it comes to editing we had a lot of film to work with to make our sequence good.
Lauren was dressed in a going out outfit to help build a part of our narrative. We also started shooting when it was starting to get dark to make it seem as if it is early in the morning.



Wednesday, 28 January 2009

Today we ran into some trouble as the café that we were supposed to film in opened at 12 so we couldn’t film during lesson time. What we planned on doing was meeting up at 3 o’clock to get some filming done. We also couldn’t risk filming early in the morning as the sun was out and it would be a completely different atmosphere to the one we had on Monday.
What we did in our spare time was go back to collage and upload the footage that we have shot so far and start to log and capture. So far I feel confident in the work that we have done but we have a long way to go to complete everything and I hope we don’t run into any more complications.



Monday , 2 February 2009

Due to weather conditions we were unable to carry on with our filming.





Wednesday, 4 February 2009

Today was another unsuccessful day for us as we couldn’t go out and film due to the snow so the
mise-en-scene again wouldn’t be right. We stayed in collage and uploaded all of the footage from the Wednesday that we got together to film after school. We began to log and capture and this was a good time for us to see if we needed to take some more clips of Lauren in the toilet. We realised that some of the footage didn’t match up so we considered using ‘slugs’ where we could insert our title sequence.
We played about with some of the effect and saw what worked and what didn’t. so far I am happy with the footage that we have and we are not behind on anything.



Monday, 9 February 2009

In today’s lesson Lauren didn’t bring her outfit so we chose to stay in collage and film the shot of her looking down into the toilet system and seeing the hand.
This was a difficult shot to take but we managed to come up with some good footage.
First we filled up a big bow with water and poured red die in it to make it look like blood. We then put the bow in between two tables and had the camera underneath the table but we couldn’t manage to get the tri pod so the camera had to be hand held. After some unsuccessful shots we called Mickey to come and help us.
He helped us put two tables on top of each other and also brought in a light to give It a better effect. This worked much better and I am happy with the outcome.



Wednesday, 11 February 2009

In today’s lesson we went out to do some more filming in the N1 centre of Lauren and her friend walking out of a bar and splitting direction. We used some zoom ins and long shots to give some detail to the audience of where there are coming from.
Our second scene was Lauren walking past the camera and having a newspaper fly into the screen so that you can see what is written on it but we found this a bit difficult to do so we went back to collage and log and captured the work we did so far.


Monday, 23 February 2009

In today’s lesson we continued editing our film but due to some technical problems we lost some of our work so we had to start over again. We chose not to use the footage of Lauren and Bien walking out of the club as the mise-en-scene was not good and we also didn’t add in the footage of the newspaper as we couldn’t get any good clips. We put together the film and started adding slugs in places where the clips didn’t follow up.



Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Today we continued with our editing and started to work on sound . We recorded a scream to put in with the film. We added some more animated sequence. When we put the scream on we realised that it was too short so we lowered the speed and it fit perfectly. We also added a heart beat at the end and made the beat go faster as Lauren lifts the top of the toilet system we done this to build up more tension.