C O U N T D O W N

6 scenes to go...


patiently waiting for the weather to assist me.

HalfTerm filming

As follow-up in conjunction with my production schedule, the programme shows the days in which I had planned to begin and proceed with filming. However, because of the weather conditions I have been unable to do so.

During this half term holiday I’ve been able to film and complete all of the scenes based inside the house because they do not rely on any natural light from outside.

When my production crew had to use the space in my bedroom for example; the filming did indicate problems because we had a difficulty moving around and co-ordinating with each other. It caused the filming quality to come off shaky and crammed in quickly. This lead to a few disagreements between myself and my crew, in the end we agreed to disagree and decided that the fewer people helping at curtain points in filming would be beneficial and we decided to re-film and save the last cuts as bloopers to evaluate our mistakes and take on note how we improved our filming, communication and performance skills to create a realistic enough scene.

Filming: Day 1

I started filming today and we took off by attempting to co-ordinate with the weather to film the opening scene of the film were as the camera woman (nor) we follow a leafy trail towards the cemetery. As mentioned before we chose to film out in the open any space would have worked as long it was path like and either covered in leaves or in our terms we had to cover a path with leaves. We used a path we found near the park. It wasn’t surrounded with many spectators and it was a great representation of the kind of path I was going for. It was short but wide and the leaves created the right atmosphere as the scene was quite peaceful from the hush of the spot.

 When we finished filming the opening scene we decided to take advantage of the fact that we were right by a church and use it as an opportunity to record a church bell ringing if they had one. As lucky as we ever are, we were in luck as they had a bell and were ‘’more than happy to assist such aspiring good students to make use of any useful utilities the church could offer’’. We had fun with it and tried recording it at different lengths at varying paces to expand our bandwidth of sounds to choose from later on when the sound meets the video overlay.  After many tries to record it without external interference and finally meeting success we packed up our equipment for lunch and made a group rendezvous for celebratory Starbucks at a good start to our filming.

When we were sated enough we decided to go to the next location of filming which was the park. As I couldn’t find an accommodating cemetery gate to which I could consider representing what I wanted I stumbled upon this gate on my way home once upon a time. It is the gate to Durant’s park in Ponders End, Enfiled. To film here played difficulty due to the many passer byers and constant interference from people entering or leaving the park through the gate which had to be clear and shut. To cater for this we stationed ourselves at a fast food restaurant across the street from the location and waited for an opening. As the day began to settle it seemed less and less people were out so we chose this time before we lost the advantage of the natural light to film out second scene. The background sounds were not a cause of concern and the filming was simple camera work enough so the process did not take up too much time to prefect to my liking.   

When we finished there we felt that as it was only the first day we could stop at just two shots and planned to film more the next day. Hence, everyone made their way home AND SHOOTING WAS DONE FOR THE DAY!

Health and Safety

As the manager of this project I'm rsponsible for the helath and safety of my production crew. 

The First film site is a cemetery. Keeping in account that we will be shooting mid afternoon taking advantage of the natural light, there is still a danger of injury/ safety problems. This is why I have planned to create a clear path for the character to walk on during filming and instructed the filming crew to wear appropriate shoes. I have also prompted the filming crew to take extra care when handling the equipment and seek assistance if neccesary. 

Another safety precaution in place referring to the handling of the equipment refers to possible cases of theft. At th risk of this happening I have employed the assistance of my mother as secure and guard and she will help maintain peace while filming.

Symbolism & Macro elements

I beleive that my thriller film reflects considerably well the conventions set for the thriller genre. This is because of the way I mapped out my ideas for the film and devised my storyboard using the research material I found on the thriller movie conventions, all to construct something befitting the title.

For example, the idea for my movie has been created through the observation and deconstruction of three thriller movies. It holds key elements I found crutial in each film which made it appear thrilling and major similarities occuring, that I felt kept cropping up in each film e.g. close up camera shots, and music.

I have yet to identify anything that challenges the conventions of the genre. Due to my extensive planning and research I believe I have succeeded in only using the appropriate material needed in producing a thriller film.

Hopefully, my evaluation proves that I have attempted to keep the expectations of the genre without subverting eitherwise.

Micro-Macro Strategy

At a micro, technical level, I observed the conventions of continuity for my preliminary task. I achieved this by ensuring that the appearance of both the characters and the scene itself remained constant. I had to approach this while contending with the different camera shot changes. Which included a match on action shot, a shot reverse shot and the 180 rule shot. I ensured the maintanace of continuity by keeping essential elements used in the filming constant when needed. This meaning that i kept the costume, dialogue, lighting , props, music, narrative and perfomance fluid and constant when needed.

I believe we observed the language of film well because through filming and editing I was able to produce a realistic enough piece of motion picture to apply as a tangable frame of work to be published for viewing and be quality enough to gain an audiences response fit of positive feedback.
It carried established characters and settings which I believed helped help the audience understand better what was hapening in each scene, who was involded and gave them a reason to find interest in the piece. Hence, why I think I met the grammar of the edit in its simplest form and slightly beyond that.

From the conventions of making a thriller film described as the micro elements - it has added up to appropriate and specific representations of the genre.
This means each genre has its own appropriate shooting material. The reserch before filming helped me study the thriller conventions with help from the micro-macro strategy. Then the process of producing dialogue that will be recognisable to the audience as a semblence of the genre also helped. Lastly, the filming and editing should also be set in the genre's usual particulars in terms of appearance of the film and editing job

Production Schelule Amendment

This is my updated production schedule. I had to revise my dates due to the fact that I had no camera to borrow. Since this year’s students decided to opt out of group filming, as myself and went for the independent route to this coursework there has been a strain on the number of cameras being shared out. The fact that this trend of individuality is visible in both year twelve and thirteen leaves the possibility of a strain on the resources, hence why some are pending use or have opted to have a joint use of a camera between classmates.

The joint use of a camera is what has led me to be able to be able to resume with my filming. My classmate Kirsty has offered to share her camera with me as to the fact that she is not yet using it and is willing to spare it for the weekend I will only need (hopefully) to shoot my scenes.

The planning as shown doesn’t always work according to schedule hence why I foresee the possibility of an extended joint share of the camera with Kirsty as it is my first time filming without assistance though I will have support from my friends as part of the production crew.

The dates have changed to suit both myself and Kirsty’s schedule however, the times have remained the same because they are the most appropriate times to film taking advantage of the natural light outside without being held back by the dark of night. Also it seemed to suit the cast in terms of being able to attend and stay before it got too late to film and retake if necessary.