Filming Main Task - Evaluation

Evaluation

As Media Studies Coursework

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Filming Main Task - Production

Our filming took us two days to film our thriller thoroughly. However our editing took us around 3 - 4 days because it was much more specific and detailed.

Filming Day 1

We began day 1 with myself meeting Ryan to go to his house to film. Unfortunately Mitchell was at work and Andrew was unavailable so it was just us two. We decided that

we probably wouldn't get much done so we went about arranging our setting, moving our props and drawing a risk assessment. Unfortunately we left our storyboard at home and we couldn't stick to our original plan. Once we set up our setting Mitchell arrived and we sat down and discussed how we were going to go about filming. We discussed that we needed to put in more of an effort and to make sure we have everything next time. We started to film our establishing shot at a long shot and using a panning movement while holding the camera steady to make sure the audience can see the room clearly. Also we shot a few other scenes such as our extreme close ups with an over the shoulder view of the killer cutting out newspapers. the effect of the mise-en-scene is to create a powerful menacing image of the killer so that he is represented as a formidable antagonist in the film. After a few hours we decided to call it a day and to buckle down for our second day of filming. To summarise what we achieve in day 1 we:

• Arranged our setting (moving furniture etc.)
• Created and moved props (placing weapons and cutting out newspaper clips)
• Drew risk assessment
• Thought out possible shots & angles
• Discussed what we planned to do the next day

Filming Day 2

Day 2 was much more promising everybody was present, we had everything we needed and we managed to finish all of our work. Once we managed to film every scene we wanted inside of our location we wanted to go and film at a cemetery in co ordinance to our storyboard. The only one we could think of that was local was Romford Cemetery. However we reviewed our filming and discovered that we had more than enough film, which was about 4 minutes of film to edit for our thriller and we decided we didn't need to film that particular scene and felt that it was inappropriate to the story we thought it would be best to leave it out. After alot of necessary changes to our setting such as covering up and changing the lighting as well as muffling the sounds from outside we managed to get the desired "look" for our film. Each shot went smoothly and we didn't have too many mistakes even though we went through the filming with a fine tooth comb to make sure there wasn't any shaking or jolts to make the film unrealistic. At the end of our filming we were all very pleased with our work and couldn't wait to edit it and see our finished product.

Editing

Once we uploaded our film onto the computers and the editing programme we began immediately. At first we had fun looking at what we could do with the different edits and then moved onto serious work. We wanted to look at each shot and consider the framing and the mise-en-scene and work out how we could edit some aspects of these shots to emphasize the tension and suspense. We thought that certain shot edits were inappropriate for our film such as wipe cuts and montages. We stuck to simple yet effective edits like, normal cuts, jump cuts, dissoles and fade outs. Once we eventually edited down our entire film we wanted to add music to really terrify our target audience. The music we chose came from http://www.newgrounds.com/ in the music section and we fell in love with it once we heard it. The track was just the right length for our film but we still needed to cut down certain parts so that the nondiegetic music was related to what was being seen. However we needed to include some diegetic sound which meant that we needed another scene at the end of our film to finish it all off. Fortunately we already shot this scene and the slam of the hand on the window really creeps the audience out and finishes our film spectacularly. We noticed that in some of the extreme close up shots the camera frame was not steady. We felt that this would be an advantage for us because the jolty, disorientated movements suggests a distorted psychological state from the point of view of this character. Once we had finished our film we needed to input our names to finish our production off. We decided to put these in the establishing shot and throughout certain shots in the film that were appropriate.

Filming Main Task - Risk Assessment

To ensure our health and safety is secure we needed to create a risk assessment. By looking at certain features of our settings and the props we use in our thriller we needed to access how dangerous they were and the potential hazards that surrounded us.


I have drawn a graph to highlight the risks and the risk level.

This graph represents my risk assessment for our filming task. I split the risks into four areas which are; the furniture, this includes all chairs tables and worktops within the location. Also the paint we used for one of our main scenes, the props we used in our film and lastly the camera equipment and how much of a risk they were.

I have assessed the risks into three areas: severity, danger and resolvability.

The severity means the consequences that may be faced after having an accident with these risks. The furniture has a low rating because they were old, not wanted pieces of furniture and they would not have been missed if broken and they did not pose a threat if we decided to climb on them. The paint had a slightly higher rating because there is alot of risk if the paint spilled or if it managed to get into one of our eyes. Our props have a very high severity rating because dealing with heavy and sharp objects could cause severe cuts or worst case scenario lose a finger. Lastly the camera equipment had a high severity rating because the equipment is not ours and is owned by the school. This means that we are liable for them and would need to pay them back so we took extra care with our equipment.

Danger means how much of a threat to our physical and/or mental health these risks could be. Furniture has a low danger rating because they are not sharp or in a dangerous place. The only major danger risk was when Ryan had to step onto a ladder to paint the wall or when Andrew and myself had to hold the curtains on top of a step. The paint had a slightly higher rating because of the same reasons for severity. The props had the highest rating again because of how hazardous the objects were to our physical bodies. Finally the camera equipment had a high danger rating because of how easily damaged the equipment could get. Also the log legs of the tripod could be dangerous if not folded up properly or not carried properly.

Resolvability is how easily the risk was sorted out and the steps taken necessary to deal with the issue. The furniture and paint had very high resolvability ratings because they could have easily been moved, put away or covered up which would have sorted out the risk. The props were difficult to resolve because they ere needed during filming and some had to even be used while filming. This was resolved by taking extra measures to ensure we were safe and knew what we were doing. Unfortunately the camera equipment was the most difficult to resolve because it took up alot of space and was easily broken.

Filming Main Task - Issues

During our filming we have come across many issues that need to be resolved so that our thriller can be effective.

The issues we have faced are:

• Lighting
• Amount of Space
• Acting skills
• Time and Location

We dealt with these issues individually as we came across them and discussed how we would do this.

Lighting

We discovered that there was not much light in Ryan's shed (where we was located) and found that this was an important problem. We tried to add more light by turning on the lights that were in the room but encountered a problem. The lighting the bulbs gave us was an orange glow that was not realistic to the film and reduced the feel of suspense and tension that is required in a thriller. After attempting to remove the blisteringly hot bulbs we covered the light with a newspaper to reduce the light. This was ineffective as there was still a faint orange glow. We soon discovered that by using the window we could use natural light for our film but unfortunately this was too bright for our sensitive camera so Ryan and myself grabbed a cloth and held it in front of the window which gave us the desired light for our thriller. Another issue with our lighting was the shadows created by the camera man, Ryan and myself so by adjusting the camera and ourselves we got rid of any unnecessary shadows cast.

Space

A less important issue that arose immediately before filming was the lack of space we were able to use inside our location. However looking at our storyboard this was not such a big problem as we were shooting alot of close ups and mid shots. The only long shot we initially intended to use was our establishing shot at the beginning to pan across the setting. To solve this issue we were extra careful when moving around the setting and were careful not to ruin the set.

Acting

Before we even began to plan our thriller we came across an obvious problem. None of our group were A-list Hollywood actors. We didn't feel that we could trust "hired" actors or actresses to be reliable and came to the conclusion that we wanted to have as little acting as possible. This would add terror and the theme of identity by encouraging the audience to ask "Who is this person?" By reducing the acting considerably we didn't want our thriller to be ruined by "cheesey" acting and stupid faces that are trying not to laugh while on camera.

Time and Location

While planning our thriller we decided to find out how long we had to complete our task. The answer was alarming and we found that one particular issue was the amount of time to film and edit our thriller. Also a joined problem is where Ryan's house is located. Unfortunately I live considerably far away and each member of our group have other important commitments to work around. It was difficult for all our group to come together at one time for long enough to film.

Filming Main Task - Introduction

To begin with we needed to collaborate our ideas together and decide where, when, and how we were going to film our thriller. My group started our initial filming on the 19th of March. However not all went as planned and one group member forgot to bring the storyboard which led to us not knowing what to do with our film. We needed a newspaper to be used for our props so we could use to cut out specific words that would be appropriate to our story plot. We arranged our set and placed our props to our needs and to improve our mise-en-scene.

Settings:

• Disturbing looking shed
• Disorganised/organised room
• Strange markings on walls
• Almost looks abandoned
• Graveyard setting

Props we want to use:

• Stanley Blade
• Newspaper cut outs
• Cloths
• Paint
• Flick knife
• Screwdriver
• Photos
• Pieces of paper with writing

By attempting to remember the storyboard we drifted away from our initial ideas and ended up coming up with new and improved ideas for different shots and scenes. After a lot of hard work we decided to call it a day without doing much filming. However I think this worked in our favour. This is because this led to us thinking about our film in detail and discussing it even further. We drew a plan of our location and studied areas of filming and possible issues that may crop up during our production.

Target Audience

We discussed that our target audience would be ranged from our own age, who are young adults mostly males. We wanted this target audience because we felt that this would make it easier for us to film something that would reach out to us and our target audience. Being young adults ourselves it gives us an advantage of what our target audience would want in a thriller and what we are expected to deliver. We chose males as our dominant gender in our target audience because this thriller may have gore and violence and this generally appeals more towards males than females. However we felt that we didn't want to just narrow ourselves down into that age group specifically and we felt that our thriller also appeals to slightly older adults. People in their early 20's would be hooked by our thriller and would want to come and see a terrifying, scary and suspenseful thriller.

Planning and Animatic

Planning our thriller

Firstly we had to organise ourselves into groups. Luckily there were four of us in the class that we all knew and got along with and we decided to come together. This meant that each of us would get an equal share of the workload and we would function as a team effectively. Next we would need to decide on how to share out the resources and how to set ourselves time deadlines and targets to reach. After deciding where we wanted to locate our film, who would be in charge of what etc. we needed to approach the issue of if we wanted to use actors or use ourselves and what props we could use etc. We decided to brainstorm our ideas.

Below is our brainstorm on what our basic ideas of what we wanted to do with our film.

To decide on what the title of our film would be was my first idea to give it a sophisticated yet terrifying phrase in the ancient language of Latin. By following this link we looked at famous Latin phrases of war. We looked at these in particular because the killer may have been an old war veteran or just has a particular interest in Latin. http://latin-phrases.co.uk/quotes/military/war/. We wanted to follow this brainstorm as closely as possible to avoid time wasting and conflicts of opinions.

This is our storyboard that has been made into our animatic. This is our idea that we have worked on so we could follow it as much as possible. This is our second attempt at our animatic because the cameras used to take the images became blurred and were not possible to make out. This did not take us long to do and this was not a problem for us.

Silence of the Lambs - Hannibal - Red Dragon

These films or the "Hannibal Lector" films are all spectacular thrillers. These are examples of psychological thrillers because the infamous Dr Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) plays the antagonist who is a psychotic genius who tries to get the upper hand psychologically of the detectives who study him and who require his help to figure out the minds of the other serial killers. Although all three of these have been directed by different people all have been successes. The films have been listed chronologically and the directors are: Jonathan Demme (1991), Brett Ratner (2001) and Ridley Scott (2002).

I feel that these films are masters of suspense and tension. The clip shown above is taken from one of the most famous scenes in film. The simple camera shots of close ups, extreme close ups, over the shoulder shots and mid shots together with the camera movement of panning, tilt shots, tracking shots, low angle shots and Steadicam. All of this camera work gives the impression of a disturbing place to be and that the killers who are behind bars and glass all have the higher status' and are in power mentally because the female detective is afraid and this decreases her psychological state.

When Dr Hannibal Lecter is standing as if waiting for the detective this gives a terrifying impression to the audience because Dr Lecter seemed to have known that she was coming. This gives a chilling feel and this freaks out the audience. This scene is a particularly effective thriller example. The tension is built up when the detective walks past all the other cells and the tracking shot along with the close up of the detectives face. The suspense is created in this scene through the dialogue between Dr Lecter and the detective. The way that the camera cuts between over the shoulder shots and then becomes normal cuts of extreme close ups that emphasize the confrontation between the two people. Eventually Dr. Lecter gets the upper hand psychologically and the audience knows this when the detective sits down and there is a high angle shot to represent the power Dr Lecter has over the detective and how much more superior he is than her.