Filming Main Task- Evaluation

Media coursework evaluation

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Conventions of genre that we tryed to include

Theme
We got the theme of our work from the film “Se7en”, all the people in my group really was fascinated by the opening when we watched it in class and thought why not use that as our film. Of course we knew we couldn’t copy this, but we wanted to use features that it used, because they was so effective on us as an audience.
Camerawork
We tried to add as many shots as we could into our thriller, in some of our shots we had the camera hand held, but this was to create effect, when we got the film back and uploaded it onto the iMac we realized we may just of over done the shakiness of the camera but we still thought it worked well with the character.
Editing
While editing we decided to use a lot of jump cuts, we did this because we looked at Se7en and realized that the jump cuts seemed to increase the pace and tempo a bit more that a cross dissolve or something like that. We also tried to ad some non-digetic sound at the end with the hand banging against the window, we all thought that that was necessary to create the last bit of tension and mystery.
Lighting
We had a problem with the lighting at first because it was either to light in the room or to dark. We covered the big window at the front with a dust sheet that we was using for a prop so that solve that problem. The lights in the middle of the room were still too bright so we took three of the four bulbs out and got someone to stand there holding newspaper about 15cm away from the bulb to block the light, this worked so we could carry on filming.
Sound/music
We found the music on a site which was http://www.newgrounds.com/ , we was just browsing the web and luckily come across this site, it had the perfect music for our film and most of the filming fitting in straight away with the music which was great. We didn’t have any dialog in our thriller because non of us were good actors so we may of ruined the work by speaking.

Honour The Vanquished- Thriller Opening Sequence

This is our groups thriller opening. We based most of it around the opening of the film Se7en.

Fimlimg Main Task- Introduction

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
Newspper cut outs
Cloths
Paint
Flick knife
Screwdriver
Photos
Pieces of paper with writing

Filming- Day 2

We did most of our filming on this one day which was really good. The only shoot we have left to do is the shot of someone walking through a grave yard. While we was filming we said that we would like to do that shot in black and white. This is because it is going to be like a flashback so we are going to use that effect to emphasis it being in the past. We also had another problem with the lighting while filming on this day but not due to the lights in the room. The problem was that the window in the shed was letting to much light through as it was daytime and only about half past two in the afternoon. As you will see in our opening we used dust sheets to cover everything up in the shed so we decided to hang one of them up on the window to block the light from coming in, thankfully this worked and we could carry on filming. We took a picture of this to prove what we did, as we you can see on the right.
I have also said in the past that Mike was doing the little amount of acting that was needed in the opening, but on the day I found myself doing the acting while Mike was sorting out all the props and some of the camera angles.
This was a more sucessful day than day one, we now have some evidence of work and have some film to edit for the next lesson.

Filming- Day 1

On the first day of filming in Ryan's shed it was not the most productive day because we had to set up the set of the film and make sure that everything was inch perfect before turning on the camera and start the filming side of it. We had to do things in the set like block out certain light within the location because it was making the pictures to bright so we had to think of certain ways to block out the light so that it would make the images more dark and mysterious and spooky. When we set up the lighting and the other props in the setting of our thriller we began to film and it came out quite well.

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.