After shooting the film on our digital video camera, we are going to load it onto the editing software at school.
In order to decide on the narrative of our film, my group and I did some research about thriller film. We did this by watching some of our favourite thriller films that influenced us and also inspired us. One of these films was the thriller film called Phone booth. We watched this and analysed the way the director used suspense within the film and how it affected us as an audience. We create suspense in the film by withholding back information about the narrative of the film in the first 2 minutes. So, we did not give out too information about the narrative of the film. This made the audience wonder and want more of the film.
PLANNING AND ANNOTATION
In our group we decided on production roles for each member, thus dividing up the work. I was production manager, Amalia was the director, Martina the cinematographer and Anastasia was the sound designer. Anastasia and Amalia will star in the film. All members of my group contributed in the editing of the film. In one of our media lessons, we were given the chance to sit in our groups to discuss the narrative of our film. Once this was done, we discuss the equipments needed to shoot our film. We required the use of a digital video canan camera, tripod, the editing software, fire wire cable to load our shots onto the editing software and all the props needed to shoot the film. These props were all the mise-en-scenes used in the making of the film.
We decided to shoot the film at Moorgate, where Amalia’s dad works. However, we needed to get permission from her dad in order to get access to the building. We also
needed permission from our teacher to allow us to go out of school to film at the building. Another location in which we decided to shoot part of our film was at Amalia’s house.
We were originally given our deadline for the brief on the 23rd of February. One of our objectives was to finish shooting all the scenes of the film by the 18th of February. By doing this, we will have more time in which to edit our film and to correct any major mistake in the film. Our plan was to go to Amalia’s house to shoot the necessary scenes there on the 16th of February. The scenes that were to be shot at Amalia’s house were the dart board scenes and the glove scenes. Our objective was to shoot these scenes u-within the two media sessions we had that day. This went according to plan. Our next objective will be to shoot the rest of the scenes at Amalia’s fathers work building the following day. This will be done within another two media lessons we had that day. This was carried out as planned. We also planned to carry out an audience research survey. This will be given out to the target audience to complete.
We planned to start the editing process straight after we have completed collecting all the footage we needed for our film.
CONSTRUCTION
The 16th February was the day we planned to shoot part of our film at Amalia’s house within our two media lessons. This was carried out as planned. We got Amalia’s house and began shooting our film as planned using our storyboard. However, this session took longer than planned. This was because we shot longer scenes than actually planned. This did not bother us however because we thought that the more footage we have, the more easily the editing process is going to be.
One of the location in which my group and I planned to shoot part of our film was at Amalia’s fathers work building. We needed permission from her father and the school to go to central London to go and film at the building. The day we actually planned to go and film at the building was not possible for us. The reason for this was because Amalia’s father was not going to be at work that day and we could only get access to the building with the supervision of Amalia’s father. This was a problem because the deadline for our film was the following week and that is the week Amalia’s father is only going to back at work. We told our teacher about this problem and thankfully she took pity on us and gave us 2 weeks extension.
The day came when we had to go to Moorgate to film at Amalia’s father’s work building. Unfortunately, I was unable to go because only three members of the group were allowed inside the building. So the rest of my group went to shot the remaining scenes of our film at the building. I was told about the session and how they spent their time at the building the next day. There was also a time when we had to go back to the building to re-shoot some of the footage they took at the building. This was because the footage was not stable enough. A day, we planned to get the Moorgate to Amalia’s fathers work building again to re-shoot. We encounter some problems during that time. When we got to the building, re realized that our digital video camera was low in battery. Amalia called her father to tell her about this problem and also asked him if we could go into the building and ask if we could charge our camera in there. Unfortunately we were not allowed to charge our camera there. However, lucky for us there was an art school near by and we thought we might try and go there and ask if they could help us. We then called our teacher and told her about our problem and ask permission to be bit late because we wanted go to the art school. She agreed but told us to shot the remaining scenes as quickly as possible so that we could get back to school in time for our next lessons. Fortunately the art school did allow us to charge our camera there. After that, we went to back to the building and started filming the remaining scenes. We then got back to school and started editing our film at school.
We used a fire wire cable to load our film from our digital video camera onto the editing software at school. We then started separating our film into different clips. Then loading our film onto the editing software, we encountered a problem. The film brief is supposed to be two minutes long and our film was over six minutes long already. So we had to really condense our film down a lot. This I thought was challenging for us as a group because we thought that almost all the footage of the film we had was necessary and could not be cut out of the film. Nevertheless, we managed to condense it with the help of our teachers. As we went though our film, we began cutting out some clips of the film that we thought was not necessary. By doing this, we noticed some parts that needed re-shooting because some the clips were not stable enough to use. We also began cutting out some parts that we thought would contribute to suspense we were trying to create within the two minutes opening. The planning of our thriller film was essential to us and has been useful. We did not do everything according to planning that my group and I constructed at first. In the end some of shots of our thriller film we planned on shooting were not shot because we thought that they were not necessary. We also ended up changing parts of our narratives for our film. The reason why we did this was because as the actual shooting of the film took place, we started changing our ideas and also putting in new ones in. This was because we decided not to show the full narrative of the full film in that two minutes opening sequence we were given. Instead, we decided make the audience wonder what is going to happen next in the film. We did this by creating suspense in the two minutes opening sequences and making the film seem like something dramatic is going to happen in the end. Something dramatic did happen in our film but information was withheld during the two minutes which will keep the audience wondering and asking questions. As a result our planning evolves during the actual shooting of our film.
As we were editing, we used a variety of transition and other effects that we thought was appropriate for our film. We also succeed in using sound effectively in our film. At first my group and I found the editing of sound difficult. This was because we did not want our film to look or sound like a music video using the music we had. So we decided to choose music without words in it. We wanted the sound to create mood during the two minute opening amongst the audience. We also managed to hold the shots steady in most of the clips we had. We also managed to use different shot distances wherever we thought was appropriate.
EVALUATION
In the end, the finish products of our film went according to plan. I was overjoyed when we finally all agreed to film being complete. I am pleased with our finished product and I think everything that we thought of doing at first did not quite fall into place but the finished product is everything we planned on doing. I believe that we worked well together as a group and we all contributed something during the making of our film. The reason why I say this is because we all shared our ideas in a group and objected to anything we thought was not suitable for our film. We all worked together as a team and also gave it our all. I also found the task useful and enjoyable. We did a close reading on the film called Donny Dako. This film is similar to what we want our film to feel and look like. The film creates suspense and keeps the audience wondering throughout the film which is what we want our film to be like. We also did some audience research on some of our class mates. What we did was allowed a sample of them to watch our film and then give us feedback. They gave us some and helped us with the title of our film. As a whole, I found this task challenging because I have never edited a thriller film before and was a bit sceptical when it came to the editing stage but I had the support from my team and they taught everything there is to know about the editing software. I thought it was a great experience because I got the chance to work with filming equipments and also to think like an editor. I also found the task useful and enjoyable.
