Continuity Task

We were given the task to create a short 1 minute film with minimum 15 shots, we were given a shotlist to follow but we made up the scene/setting/dialogue etc.


1.Person A walks up to a door
2.Handle is opened / pulled
3.Shot of person A walking through the door
4.Shot of person B sat down
5.Shot of person A sitting down next to them.
6.Shot of person A asking person B if they are ok?
7.Reverse shot (CU) of person B replying?
8.Two shot of person A and B – person B asks person A a question
9.Shot of person A’s reaction and answer
10.Shot of person B’s response.
11.This may be reapeated and varied as conversation develops – think carefully about this part. The scripting is important here!
12.Shot of person A getting up.
13.Shot of person A walking away.
14.(Possible) shot of Person B.
15.Person A exits through same door as entrance. (Do NOT break the 180 degree rule!)

We filmed in one of the music practise rooms, we had a problem with space in that room. also we had issues with our camera and couldn't get it to focus. we were allowed to shoots some shots again on a different day and turn a blind eye to the bad continuity of clothes etc.
...As it was our first experience of filming...

Brainstorm

This is a brain storm, my group and i made to develop our ideas for our thriller opening task

Results from survey

I sent my survey link to via email to a selection of friends and family:
The responses i recieved as a reply to 'What is a Thriller?' were fairly similar:
In general my audience wish to be either scared/thrilled/action based/tension/engaging storyline/suspense

I also asked 'What makes a good thriller?', to try and provoke more detail into what the audience actually want from their thrillers:
i recieved answers such as 'jumpy scenes'/adrenaline/suspense/'build up to pinicle point'/moving/depth/realism

This will help me for when i go on to filming my own thriller extract.

Thriller Openings Conclusion

After looking at a selection of thriller film openings, i can conclude that most, not all, thrillers follow a list of semiotics that are iconic to the genre. For example the majority of the opening sequences i've studied or seen or spoke about are generally very simple; dim lighting, white on black composition/text, and very little (if any) storyline to the first 2 minutes of the film, as it is not needed. the director would use typical camera/editing/sound/mise en scene techniques to portray the genre in the opening sequence and establish the rest of the film.

BBFC: What makes a 15 and 18 certificate

The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is the agency which classifies the certificate rating of films in britian, they rate all films and judge what certificate they should be by whether the content is suitable.
The BBFC rates films into the following catorgories: U PG 12 12A 15 18 R18.

15:
15 rated certificate majoritively allow moderate violence, gore and sexual activity, but not too frequent and must be relevant. Drug taking is not banned but should not be promoted.

18:
18 rated certificates allow gore, violence, sexual activity and drug taking. again, not to be promoted. The difference between the two certificates is diciphered by it's explicity.

Details found from: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

Questionnaire

Click Here to take survey
this is my survey i created as part of my research into the thriller genre

Walk On The Wild Side

The sequence begins zooming into a black cats face until the cats eyes centralised. To the viewer this connotes that cat will serve some importance in the upcoming scene or further on in the film. The use of low key lighting creates a mysterious sense about the whole sequence, what we see is very limited, just backgroud walls/pipes whilst tracking the cat walking, use of slow pace dissolves at different points of the cats journey, parts inbetween are not nessacery therefore at skipped. Iconic Thriller convention, Binary Opposition is used in the opening, with the black cat on the majoritively white background.
Non-Diegetically added brassband added is iconic of the thriller genre, coincides with the drums building up pace, indexical of something about to happen, when the tension builds the audience know that there will be some climax to come. This is reinforced by the editing, fades and dissolves are used to slow the pace of the opening down until it gets closer to the cats fighting when the editing speeds up. The other cat is a white cat, symbolic of the enemy, as the other cat is different to the one which has been in shot until that point. At this point aspects of an action thriller become apparent, and the pace is much quicker and music louder. This sequence connotes the forthcoming film in that there will be some form of confrontation between the 'goodies and baddies' and we will see the build up.

Using HD Camera's

We had one lesson in which, in our coursework groups we were given a HD camera and a tripod to spend some time practising filming, we practised shots such as LS, CU, ECU, MS as well as angles like LA, HA, Birds eye view and worms eye view. also practiced zooms, pans, and tracks.
This was good practise for when we start filming our openings and continuety tasks.
We didn't however have the chance to upload them onto the computers as they werent working at the time.