Horror Thriller - Initial ideas

 These are mine and my groups first ideas for our horror thriller for our main task.

Conventions of a thriller

Textual Analysis ~ 'Se7en'

Lighting Practice

 

Textual Analysis using 'Art of the Title'

 This is the textual analysis of a film on artofthetitle.com

Q6 - Evaluate your contribution to the group's work

Q5 - Feedback from others

Hello,

So another group watched and reviewed our film and came to this conclusion:

Positives

-Continuity

-Shot types i.e. the sweat one and track close up

-Audio - heartbeat, clock ticking and tension effects

Negatives

-Expand on the plot

-Shot reverse shots were a bit slow

-Dialogue audio levels

Q4 - How well did you meet the brief?

 

Q3 - Areas for Development

 

Q2 - Areas of Success

Q1 - Preliminary Task Evaluation

Hello,
           My group and I have recently completed our preliminary task with great success and I know that we really enjoyed producing this film.

The first question that needs answering for this evaluation is: What have you learned during the making of your preliminary task?

- Technical aspects
For me and my group, equipment wise everything was completely new to us which for me was a good thing as this gave us all the opportunity to learn things at the same pace as each other. We quickly adapted to the features on the camera and how to adjust things like tripods, shoulder mounts etc to how we wanted. I had never used things like this before so was completely new to me personally. In terms of editing our group was fairly new to editing, I myself had used an editing program before but to a minority so Premier Pro was completely new to me. My group and I really enjoyed learning how to use the software properly.

- Story-boarding
Managing time is crucial to meet the deadline, and so our group organised our time very carefully. For the first few lessons we took time to plan what was going to happen in the film and by producing our ideas onto a storyboard. Once that the storyboard was completed, we were ready to start filming and actually producing our ideas.

- How to manage time
We used our storyboard as a baseline of what we were going to do in terms of shots, camera angles and the actual story that we wanted to produce. As there was a deadline to meet, at the end of each session me and my group would discuss what we were going to do the next lesson so that everyone was ready and planned for the lesson. Also as one of the most time consuming stages of the preliminary task was editing, we allocated the final week before the deadline to allow time for editing and checking over the footage to make sure everything was how we wanted.

- Group work 
Me and my group decided that it would be best to decide who was doing what in the film to make things a lot easier once it came to filming and editing so that people knew exactly what they were doing. From the beginning we all decided that we would all have a say in regards of the production and editing as we felt that it was crucial for all of us to try out the new equipment and editing software. Although there was only two people in the film, there was also work to be done behind the camera, with all these efforts put into one we are proud to come out with the film that we have come out with. Also once the filming had taken place, we all contributed together towards the editing so that we all had a say on what came out as the final product. Overall, throughout the task our group worked with a very positive attitude which was key to being able to meet the deadline and produce something that we are proud of.

- Issues around continuity 
This as a group was one of the main things that we worried about; we wanted to try and keep the continuity errors to a minimum. However, we did make one mistake but only a minor one which luckily is hard to notice. There was nothing that we could do about this as the deadline had already passed. Apart from that there was no other continuity errors and things like the 180 degree rule and match on action turned out really well.

Preliminary Task Finsihed Version

This is my finished version of the film that we made for my preliminary task.

Preliminary Task ~ Storyboard

In this presentation contains each and every shot for our film for the preliminary task. There is a a slide for each shot so you can see clearly what me and my group are planning to do in our film. As you will find the shots are also clearly numbered.

My Preliminary Task

Hello,


For our upcoming preliminary task we will be making a short film by going through the process of planning, filming, and editing. The film will involve two characters meeting each other and then exchanging a few lines of dialogue.


Within the task we will have to demonstrate on how to perform things such as match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. Also while taking on this task me and my group will ensure that things such as hair, clothing, and background is all the same on the days of filming. By doing this, it will ensure that there is no problems in terms of continuity.


Match on action

• This refers to film editing and video editing techniques where the editor would cut from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action. The most common example of this is a man walking up to a door and then reaching for the door knob.

Shot/Reverse shot

• This shot is a film technique that is commonly used in films and programmes. It is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character who is off the screen and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. This usually happens during conversations in a film or programme.

180 degree rule

• This is an imaginary line called the axis which connects the characters, and by keeping the camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the first character is always right of the second character, who is then always left of the first character.

My group to undertake this task is made up of three people. These three people are myself, Dane Buckley and I will be focusing on mainly camera work along with the help of others in my group, then there is Daniel Winn who will be taking part in the film and finally along with Daniel Haywood who will also take part in the film. We feel that we should all have a part in the planning, storyboarding and editing as it is our project so we should all decide together what happens in the story and how the project plans out as well as how to edit the footage that we have captured.

Camera Shots and Practice

Last week me and my group took a series of photographs with a variety of effective camera angles which are shown in the PowerPoint below. We thought carefully about each shot and chose the right type of shot to create effect to the audience. Enjoy!

 

My First Blog!

Hey! My name is Dane and I am 17 years old and I believe that Media is a lot more enjoyable than most subjects around which is probably one of the main reasons that I am interested in this subject because I believe that if you have fun doing something, then why not do it?

Like most people, I have many interests that are involved with the media. These things include things like listening to music, watching to programmes and movies. I also love to watch YouTube;I watch it at least once a day for a few hours at least! I also have many other hobbies which are not anything to do with media at all. For example, I like to socialise and go out with friends as well as play football on a weekend.

I am looking forward to a few things in Media studies. I am looking forward to being able to use many different camera equipment and more importantly using different types of editing software because this allows you to be creative with whatever task you are undertaking and you can give it a lot of originality to it.