Preliminary task

We were told to film a basic, storyboarded scene which had to be shot in at least five different shots. Wide first, then one set of over the shoulder, close ups and then the reverse of these two shots. After we completed the basic shoot, we were then able to film any additional shots that we might want to have in our sequence, to make it more interesting.

On set we used the terms:

Standby

Rolling

Action

Cut

We used a story board to direct the film. I was one of the actors and my friends placed the cameras within the 180 degree rule.

I thought the process went really well, the camera angles were very good, but we needed experienced actors, as in the sequence it was a bit awkward to film inexperienced actors, they were uncomfortable to film in front of a camera. Next time, we should film in a more professional area, so we didn't have bad lighting and no objects in the background to distract the audience.

When completing my thriller sequence, I will go back to this preliminary task and take advice from it as well as what Matt taught us about the 180 degree rule. This will also help me with the variety of shot angles we learned to create, giving new perspectives which will give more effect on the thriller sequence.

I should be prepared for bad shots, out of focus actors and a repetition of the same shots over and over. My group shall counteract that by being professional and organised.

Analysis: We constructed the sequence according to the story board, and added in some of our own skills on top. We used over wide shots, mid shots, over the shoulder, close ups and extreme close ups.

We kept the angles at eye level, to not make any of the actors seem more powerful than the other. We were trying to represent a tense scene between two people and have a cliff hanger at the end. I thought we were quite successful in the fact that we used two inexperienced actors and have only shot one sequence before this one. The skills I have learned from this while filming is to always focus the shot before filming (one of our scenes is out of focus). Using the camera gear was easier than I thought, but it was very heavy to move around. The software was easy to use and edit our sequence, we had no technical problems during the editing process. We achieved the representation by having an extreme close up of Ollie, to show the emotion in his eyes and get the audience to feel sympathy for him.