Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From our preliminary task we have learnt how to plan out what exactly we would need to film by planning in paper format. We wrote down what type of genre we were going to do which was for our main task a psychological thriller.

Locations were then discussed. We learnt what need to be in the scenes to convey that this is a psychological thriller therefore we used a scene in a graveyard to show this as graveyards look eerie and dark.
The Location was quite far so organising the days we would film was difficult we found out it would be hard to get all members together to film but managed through communication.










Long Shot of Graveyard.

We learnt how to fit the character to our films genre comparing to our preliminary task, we used a different genre. We had to research and learn a lot about the main tasks genre. Our character is inspired by the girl in “knowing”, we had to fit her more into the genre by using make up and her to wear school clothing.








Girl character from "Emily".









Girl character from "Knowing".


We found out that Psychological thrillers are a sub genre which contains some elements of horror.

Learning from our storyboard we had to change some scenes as there were problems to filming in the locations. An example of this is the swing scene, at the time many children would go to that park we filmed at, we found out this made the scene unconventional into our genre. We needed the park to look quite deserted but at a certain time because we did not want the recording to be too bright or dark. Comparing this to our preliminary task we filmed indoors. We did need to take the lighting into consideration as we did not want to use natural lighting because it made the room look too dark, we did not want to use natural lighting because we were new to filming and to keep the lighting constant we used artificial lighting. Diegetic and non- diegetic sounds were used in the main task. We learnt to make our own soundtrack with Garage Band; some of the sounds we found were very effective and were right for our film.

Deleted swing scene.

New opening scene.

During the filming process we discovered in both preliminary and main tasks that we added more camera shots. We used some of the camera shots from our preliminary task, we used the match cut from the close up of the hand in the first task and we used this when our character walks up the stairs and she puts her hand on the banister as she turns. We feel we have improved this shot, and we also experimented with other shots. From the preliminary we had to work with a written task where as in the main task we were free to use as many shots as we wanted but under a certain time. We tried camera shots we did not use and tried a high angle shot which worked well looking down at the character. From our preliminary task we were told to take note of the 180° rule. If the rule was not used the characters movement would look odd and this would make the footage not run smoothly.

Overall a lot of the skills we learnt from our preliminary task were very useful. We learnt how to use a variety of new camera shots and learnt a new genre of film, what the conventions in the genre were and how to find alternatives to problems we faced.

Analysis of the opening of Knowing

We chose this film to analyse its opening as it links to ours to an extend. It fits into the genre we are using in our opening sequence. Here, we will look at the credits and its title and how the film has used it. We will also be looking at what elements in the opening of this film shows its a thriller film. We will be using screenshots of the film in order to help us explain.

Knowing begins with the logo of the film studio that supports the film. Summit Entertainment is an independent American film studio.

This shot shows the directors name; Alex Proyas. He was also the producer and the screenwriter.








After the
director's
name, the main actor's name appears.








This is the title of the film. With the moon in the background, it shows the genre of the film (thriller) very clearly. You could also interpret that the film contains mysterious elements.






This shot is just after when the title appears. The camera zooms out of her face, showing her and her surrounding. The movie did well to show her lost and in her own thoughts while she is staring up at the sky. In our opening sequence, we showed the character looking mysterious too by beginning with a graveyard scene. The audience won't understand at the beginning what the character is doing there and that's the start of the mysterious.She is juxtaposed with the rest of the children in the background. She also looks hurt and mysterious which kicks off the start of the film because the beginning of the film connects to the other events happening after.

This screenshot is inside the class . You can see clearly the student's uniforms and that they are in a school. In our opening sequence, we put school uniform on the character to establish her vulnerability and young age.






Here is the opening of the film Knowing

Pictures of the locations

Whilst we were filmimg for our AS film production, we took pictures of the locations that we were using as our opening. The locations that we chose to film were important for the opening in terms of whether the audience would understand the genre of the film and also to the film opening itself.


Picture 1

Gate of the graveyard

This shot is the beginning of our film. We included the gates of the graveyard with the character standing in the middle, facing ahead. This single, wide shot shows the character wanting to open and go inside this deserted graveyard. From just watching this bit, it is not clear that it is a graveyard. It also looks like a park. There is no clue as to what she intends to do in this shot. This confusing is good result because we don't want the audience guessing what she is going to do right at the beginning.



Picture 2

long shot of the graveyard path



This is still in the graveyard. The character walks along this path. The reason we used this in our opening is because of surrounding. You can see the trees and the leaves on the floor. It creates a tense atmosphere because this scene leads to the part where she is visiting a grave.

Picture 3

inside the house

This third picture shows the living room of the charater. We included the living room in the opening of the film because it helps connect the graveyard and the character's bedroom. The graveyard scene is an important scene in the opening as it gives clues as to what the whole film could be about and the bedroom scene features significant key points about the character's story eventhough we approached it in a subtle way. In order for the character to get to her bedroom, she enters the living room.





Picture 4



bedroom


This picture was taken in the bedroom. The bedroom is important in our opening film like the graveyard. Here, the character looks at a doll which has connections with the graveyard. The connections are again not obvious as it is only the opening of the film. Also, it is at this scene that elements of the film's genre (thriller) can be noticed with the character hearing unexplainable voices. The picture also shows the contrast between the film and the character. As the story is meant to be dark, the picture shows a bedroom which could belong to any 11-year-old girl. We wanted to show that she is a normal girl but with problems.

Quick Overview of filming work

This post will be a quick overview of the problems we encountered during filming, also discussing the positive things we have learnt.

Whilst filming we found out that some scenes would require a lot of planning to do. We had to re-film some of the scenes again because of the change in lighting or the position of the character did not match in matched shots. At one point the character Emily's clothing changed so we had to re-film. In order to reduce these mistakes we planned ahead of what we would do for each filming day, looked back on what we filmed and discussed with all the group how we could improve the clip.

We found out during the filming work that it was hard to have everyone available to work as most of filming was done after college hours, also the location was quite far to get to.

We learnt how to use different shots to make the clips link effectively, we also added more shots during filming to make the film seem more suited to the horror genre we added close ups of objects.

Introduction of our main task

Draft of shot list


1) Black screen as titles are shown, we will show who is starred in the film, the director and who is assoccitated in the film. The title will not appear yet.

2) From the black screen an eerie sound bridge is going to be used to connect this to where we first see Emily, Also a fade into this scene will be used to connect the scenes seamlessly. Emily will be shown by using a mid shot.

3) There will be a wide shot of Emily on the swing while we also see the surroundings.

4) There will be another mid shot of Emily on the swing and this scene will lead on to the next scene.

5)Here we have a close up of Emily's face as she is walking to a grave and a tracking shot will be used after the close up.

6) There will be an over the shoulder shot of Emily looking into the graveyard.

7) Point of view shot of looking at the graveyard

8) Close up of her feet while walking

9) Distance point of view shot (camera is shaky) NB. someone else is watching her

10) Close up on Emily's face (capturing her reaction)

11) Long shot of her running (camera is behind her)

12) Point of view running

13) midshot of her coming out of graveyard, panting

14) fade

15) over the shoulder shot of Emily opening the door

16) mid shot of her coming in the door (match cut)

17) mid shot of mum watching tv

18) mid shot back to Emily walking up the stairs

19) mid shot back to mom standing up

20) mid shot of Emily closing her bedroom door (camera follows her to the window)

21) low angle shot of Emily looking through her bedroom window (the camera is outside)

22) mid shot of Emily shutting her curtains very quickly

23) Emily walks over to her bed and pull out a box (over the shoulder shot)

24) low angle of Emily opening the box

25) panning of the camera towards the door as Emily hears her mother's voice

26) close up on her mother

27) mid shot of Emily putting the box back under the bed

28) there is a side shot/close up of Emily looking back out of the window

29) over the shoulder shot of Emily, turns around looking angry

30) close up of her hand pulling her drawer open and grabbing a pen and paper

31) over the shoulder shot (but the viewers cannot see the paper) of Emily drawing violently

32) low angle of Emily as the camera captures her expression while her mom shouts her name out again)

33) high angle shot of her mom looking up the stairs

34) mid shot of her mom signing (the camera is on the same level as her) and walking away from the stairs. She hears a bang from Emily's room and pauses

35) mid shot of Emily's door while still hearing bangs

36) high angle shot of Emily's mom coming up the stairs

37) wide shot focusing on Emily (her room is became messy) standing up very quickly and getting out of her room)

38) camera zooms to her drawing

39) black screen with the title of the film (Emily...)

Preliminary Task

In this preliminary task, we learned some useful things which we could apply in our main task. With regards to the camera, we learned how to set up the camera on a tripod and how a tripod can help us use a panning shot as the camera could move without difficulty side to side. Simple things such as how to put a battery or a tape in the camera seemed to be useful for us too. We learned that when filming, we need to film more than we need to so that when it comes to the editing, we can delete the bits we do not need and use what we do. Therefore, we counted to 5 seconds and then started acting so that the 5 seconds at the beginnign can be deleted when editing. The editing software was at first hard to use as it was a new piece of equipment to us but after a few trials, we got the hang of it. We learned how to capture everything we filmed and then from there, take the bits we want and use it in our preliminary. What was really hard was achieving continuity editing. We had to match the actions so that it looked continiuous and confortable to watch. This meant that there shoudn't be any jump cuts. The good thing about a preliminary task is that it allowed us to explore the use of cameras and the editing software so that we can be prepared for the main task. Also, it allowed us to make the mistakes that we do not to make in the main task.

Before filming, we made a shot list of the different types of shots we wanted in our film. However, we did make some changes to it. This is because we realised after been given the camera and the equipments, some of the shots did not look like they would fit together and create a continuity film. This then would overcomplicate the short film and bring us difficulties when editing. When we were editing our film, we realised that we didn't film the part where Ismahan was sitting down as we paused the camera to quick. This result in us having to film it quickly again which was time consuming. What we learned from this mistake was that we need to be sure we got the whole shot taped before stopping or pausing the camera. What did work well was the editing of the door scene. The shot shows Ismahan opening the door and entering from the other side. The opening of the door and the entering were two different shots so we had to match both those scenes up to make it look like one flows into the other. We were suprised of how well and quick we managed to match it up. That was an example of a good use of match cut in our film. What also went well than expected was our use of shot/reverse/shot. We used this when Ling and Ismahan were having the conversation where you see the camera switching from one person to another. At this point we also used over the shoulder combined with shot/reverse/shot in order to expand our use of shots.

We also made sure that the 180 degree rule was not broken by staying on one side of the line, this meant that we had to film from one side keeping the camera on the same side to make sure the characters are not suddenly swapped. If we did break this rule, it would have created disturbance in the film.

Opening sequence analysis

Bhaji On The Beach

Bhaji on the beach starts with a tracking shot showing us an English butcher juxtaposed with an Asian Indian shop. This shows us that in the film, us as the audience will see how the family that the film is focused on will experience life in a white British environment. This gives us hints about the theme of the film; social realism. This is seen when we see graffiti on the walls of Nazi signs and NF. Everything in this film suggests dual culture, such as in this scene, we hear English western music which merges into an Indian song. We also hear a voiceover of a radio station first talking in Indian and then in English. This could connote that the film is about two different cultures and maybe about the views that they have of each other. The camera shots such as cutaways show us that Asha has a hard life distinguishing between her Asian culture and the English culture. We see cutaways of her family where she is trying her best to help each one of them with their problems. From this we can also see that she is devoted to her family, and because there is an Indian god statue she is also devoted to her religion. There is a high angle where the statue god is looking down at her. This connotes that she has forgotten about her culture back home and the god is reminding her to do her duties as a devoted Indian. When the mail man came in, he used subtle racist remarks to Asha about the weather being sunny and that she is already used to the heat because of where she comes from. The newspapers heading states ‘they curried my budgie’ which could also be interpreted as a racist remark. Her difficulties are further shown when her husband asks for his breakfast with an typical Indian accent suggesting he has not been in England for long and also shows dual culture. Her son asks for his shirt to be ironed. This is juxtaposition with the father as the son has a British accent while the father has an Indian accent.

The usual Suspects

The usual suspects
The beginning of ‘The usual suspects’ suggests that it is a thriller. Firstly the scene opens with a tracking shot of the river to the eerie setting of the ship. The lighting is low key which connotes mystery and suspense. The music played is eerie and suspenseful. A mid shot of a man who we don’t know if he is an antagonist is then later killed by Keyser. The setting is set on a ship which adds to the eerie feel of the film. A dead body is shown at the beginning which then shows the man holding a cigarette case and a lighter. The props used suggest violence and at this point we would think he is the villain.
The fire implies danger and death as it leads to Keyser. The camera shows a mid shot of Keyser but does not reveal his face as it hidden in the darkness. He is shown wearing dark clothing which connotes a traditional 50’s “film noir” gangster film. This is a convention of a thriller. The lack of talking builds suspense. As he talks to the other man his mode of address is tense and a close up of the man’s face is shown at a high angle; showing his lack of power. At this point the audience may now think Keyser is the antagonist. As he holds up his gun which is used as a key prop, this again suggests danger and death. A sound bridge as then used for the gun shots. This allows the audience to imagine the scene inside the ship, which creates suspense. Keyser then sets the ship on fire and flees. A figure of his silhouette is shown walking down the ladders making him look mysterious.