Contents of Our Blog

Welcome to our blog, This blog is for AS group 1 and is made up of Alex Pickering, Darryl Taylor and Dan Haycocks.

Below is all of our posts on our blog ordered from the oldest to newest posts that we have made on our blog.

Welcome Post

Analysis of thriller openings (Dan)

Analysis of thriller openings (Alex)

Analysis of thriller openings (Darryl)

Storyboard For Continuity Exercise

Treatment for Thriller (Dan)

Continuity Exercise

Decision of What Treatment to Use 

Risk Assessment

Thriller Storyboard

Shooting Schedule

News Animatic

Practice Camera Shots

Practice Camera Shots of Picking up Keys

Animatic

Rough Cut

Location Shots And Filming Evidence

Final Edit of Video

Personal Reviews of Our Thriller

Final Cut Effect

Audiance Feedback

Final Group Evaluation

Group Evaluation

Audience Feedback

Video Feedback from members of the class

Final Cut Effect

Here is a video of one of the video filters we used on our media video

Personal Reviews

Here are our reviews on our thriller opening. We have talked about what went wrong & right when creating the video. We also talk about editing techniques.

Final Video

This is our completed Final Video

To get the full viewing experience on our video, click the fullscreen button and change the mode to 720p or 1080p. (You may need to give it a little longer to buffer)

Location Photos and Filming Evidence

Rough cut

For our thiller while we were creating the video we uploaded a rough version of our work so we could collect feedback on what people liked and dident like about it. The feedback we got back was that people liked our variety of shots but wernt to keen on the story as well as the quality of our video in some places.

The footage we showed this people has been embedded below.

To fix our criticisms that we received we decided the best way to fix would be to reshoot the footage, because of this it also meant we could change our story.

Anamatic

This is our anamatic for our thriller, we created a anamatic as a mockup of what our video will look like when its filmed. We used some sound effects in the anamatic as well as trying to make sure that the clips were about the same length in the anamatic as they would be in the actual video. We have also included a commentry as well on the video explaining what is going on in the video.

Dummy Footage - Picking up the Keys

In our thriller opening we have a shot where the man picks up his keys to leave the house, At the time of planing for our storyboard we were unsure of what shot we wanted and as a result we created some dummy footage to see what shot would look best for when we shot the actual shot used in our opening.

Camera shots

Before we shot our video, we had a practice using different camera angels that could be featured in our video. There is no audio to this video

We liked the close ups of the door handle and the feet shot, so we were going to use these shots in our video.

News Annamatic

This is our annamatic for our news bit of the thriller trailer. This is shown on the TV as part of our thriller, because of this we decided that we would need a storyboard for it as it plays a important part in out thriller.

As well as a storyboard we also wrote a script so that when we recorded it we knew what to say

Thanks Bob,

In the small town of Wem shropshire in the last 6 days there have been 9 reported murders. The latest happened in the property on the screen now just past the railway. With me now is PC Adam Jones from Wem police station, Thanks for joining us Adam.

Thanks darryl, At the moment we are unsure of why these murders of happened and not aware of any connection between the victims and why they have been murdered.

Is there any suspicions on who might be next adam ?

At this moment in time we have no clues on if the murderer will strike again or if he does who the victim will be, we can assure you though we are doing our best to find the murder.

Thanks adam, the police are doing there best here in Wem and advise all people to say vidulent, thats all from me in wem and now back to the studio with bob.

Shooting Schedule

For Our Thriller we decided that before we went out to film we needed to have a shooting schedule so that we knew what to shoot and when. This is different to the story board as with the shooting schedule this just tells us what day we are filming what part and also any equipment and parts we need.

I have included a copy of the schedule below:

Storyboard

These are our storyboards that we created for our thriller, the reason we created these is so that we would have some guidance when recording our thriller what shots we need as well as any props we may need on the shoot. The storyboard was also created to help us in editing as it also has information such as any effects or transitions as well as any sound we will use on the clips.

As well as a storyboard for our thriller we also created a storyboard for a news program that would appear on the TV in our thriller. The reason we did this is again so when we were shooting the news video we should know what shots we would need as well as in the editing process so we would know what editing would need to be done.

Risk Assessment

Talk about which sequence we are going to use

Here is a video of us talking which sequence we were going to use for out thriller and why.

Continuity Exercise

Here is our Continuity Exercise

Continuity Evaluation

On our continuity exercise we had both good and bad points to our final exported version we have looked at our video and evaluated what we have done.

The first bit of our production was a establishing shot, we think this was a good shot to start our exercise as it set the scene for were it was being filmed and showed the viewer that we were in a school. After this shot we went to a mid shot of Dan our first actor walking down a corridor, Again I think this was a good shot to pick as it showed our actor and showed the viewer about the person in the video.

A shot that we didn’t think was to good was the zoom over the shoulder shot, while this was a good idea before we filmed it after filming it we weren’t that happy with the shot but decided to put it in as we decided if we kept with the mid shot it would be not very exciting.

Another shot we were very happy with was the close up of the door handle, we thought this added more action to the sequence and thought that this was a good shot to include in the sequence. We also thought this was a good shot as we then went to a long shot showing the other person (Alex) in the room.

We thought this was good as it added a nice contrast in shots and thought this made the sequence flow well.

In our video we were partially happy with our cross cutting shots in the talking, we thought this livened up the sequence and it made the sequence seem a lot more interesting and made the sequence seem to be quite at a fast paste. In this though we thought we could of improved on the subject we had talked on and made it so the convocation lasted a bit longer and didn’t repeat itself.

After the talking we went to a long shot of Dan getting up and leaving the room, we thought this was good as it showed both people in the room and Dan walking to the door. This then contracted well with the close up we did of Dan opening the door as it showed how we used a range of different shots while keeping the sequence flowing well.

While filming a shot we were partially happy with was the door opening with the low angle shot as this shot is not usually used and this made our sequence look better as it shows how we can use many different shots. While doing this though we found we had a problem with he audio as the door made 2 creek noises making it sound like we had added some sort of effect. If we were to do the sequence again we would have edited this different in the editing stage.

Overall we are very pleased with our exercise and think that we overall had a high standard of video. If we were to do this again I think that we would have a better storyline for the talking so that we could talk longer making the video have more different shots. We also think that if we did it again then we could improve the audio so that it is more clear for the viewer to hear.

Thriller Treatment (Dan)

The thriller will start with a over the shoulder shot of someone looking over old film photos on a table. The room has very low lighting and is only a single light source such as a desk lamp. The camera moves round from the shoulder to a side few of the person sitting in the chair with his shadow in the background. We then see a close up of the person ripping up a bunch of the photos.

From here we then cut to a girl walking down the street this starts off with the camera being behind her but this camera then goes past her and shows the front of her. In the background we see a man looking “dodgy” taking photos of this women wearing a dark overcoat/jacket. As the women gets closer this person disappears into the alleyway, the women then follows goes down the same allay as the person went down. We see a small shot of the women going into the ally. From this we see he alleyway to be quite dark, the camera stops here and freezes. Seconds later we hear a scream come from the alleyway.This quickly then cuts first to a over the shoulder of a person watching the news and then a full frame of the news. In this we see a story about a girl that has gone missing, they show a photo on the tv and explain she is missing, this photo matches the girl we had earlier seen walking down the street as soon as this story finishes we go to a over the shoulder again and the tv is immediately switched off. We then have a flash effect and go straight into titles.

Establishing shot

Long shot

Mid shots

Close ups

These shots will be at different angles such as low and high angled shots. In this I would also like to include a great deal of movement this can be achieved using a dolly or even if possible a jib. This would make the film a lot more life like and make it seem more realistic.The music would be a ghostly pad to add suspense to the film. To do this I would create a ordinary pad synth and then add large amounts of reverb and delay.In my film I will use many different Diagetic sounds including ripping noises, foot steps and also screams. I using a shotgun microphone on a pistol grip or downloaded royalty free could record this. I would also be using some non-diagetic sound for the titles, this would be a “Bass shot” this can be done using sequencing software easily and would add a lot of suspense to the film. This would also sound even more realistic if played on a system that uses a subwoofer.

Taken opening sequence

In my presentation I talked about the opening sequence of Taken because of the use of sounds and lighting.

At the start of the opening sequence there is an old camera which gives the effect of someones watching a home video.

It then cuts to a man a sleep on a sofa and he is just waking up so we the audience thinks that the man was dreaming about the old video we have just seen. It then cuts to a close up of an instruction manual of a karaoke machine.

Then we see a shot of the title of the film and a photo of a girl on a horse which makes up believe that she is his daughter. Then the shot changes to street and the title of the film stays there.

A man then goes into a shop and takes a look at a karaoke machine so then we know why he had an instruction manual for one. The man then buys the machine and it then the shot cuts to the man wrapping it up in birthday wrapping paper and then the film starts.

Story Board For Continuity Exercise

This is the story board for continuity exercise, we each did a page each using the draft plan we wrote down on lined paper.

As you can see we are using a range of different shots such as; long shots, mid shots, close ups and establishing shots.

We also used camera movement by including a pan shot and zoom shot in our plan.