Changes 3/4/09

After reviewing our footage and storyboard, we realised that the enigma was not big enough to hook our audience. This meant a total rethink for our story. As our clip is a flash forward, we decided to have narration from our protagonist, questioning how he got there. We also decided to try out freeze frames to go along with it. Following this we have decided to use a rewind of the entire reel, back to the beginning (the present). We have now been out shooting three times. Some footage we have had to reshoot and some we have rejected. However, most of the footage has been used. Hannah's brother used to be in a band 'Threedaysnotice' and allowed us to use one of his non copyright tracks 'Welcome to the UK'. The band are also unsigned. The song sounds quite aggressive, which goes with the emotions of our main protagonist being chased by someone and not wanting to be caught.

Hannah and Matt

Filming 1

We started our filming on thursday. We got four shots of our main character running along a street and down an alley, but we didn't check what we had filmed afterwards. In our lesson, on friday, we noticed that there was something wrong with every shot. So on friday night we went out and filmed those shots again and did a lot more of our opening sequence. We have also checked these shots to make sure they are good and ready to be edited in our next lesson.

Matt and Hannah

Storyboard

Matt and Hannah

Feedback 26/3/09

A very good prelim task Matt and Hannah! Well done!
Now you need to keep blogging on your progress.
Scan and upload your storyboard and discuss what is happening in them and your plans for filming.
Miss McNulty

The USP

From research, we noticed that there isn't many teen thriller films, so that will be our selling point. In one way it will be similar to the average thriller, but it will be different as it is a teen thriller where the protagonist is a teenager. This will attract a teen audience, the biggest age range at the cinema.

Matt and Hannah

The godfather opening analysis

I found it difficult to find a teen thriller clip so I decided to use a crime thriller movie clip instead, to talk about the effective use fo film language.

The use of low key lighting on the mans face creates a mysterious sense for the audience as his features look abstract. a typical generic convention of the thriller genre. This lighting also blacks out the background causing the audience to question where he is, an enigma from an opening sequence used to keep the audience hooked.

There is no music or any sound (diegetic or non diegetic) other than the man talking. The background silence is typical of a thriller, as all is silent before something happens. The man seems to be telling a story and it helps the audience to listen to him and understand what he is saying. This also creates an enigma because the audience are not sure exactly what he's talking about.

As the shot slowly zooms out, it reveals another character, closer to the camera and in silouette. This creates a mysterious sense again as the character is enigmatic because the audience cannot see him properly. This is a typical convention of the thriller genre.

Even though this is a slightly different kind of thriller film to ours, it definitely uses the rules of an opening sequence, such as enigmas and characterisation and genre. These are the rules that our film will follow in order to keep our audience watching. This clip also uses typical generic conventions of the thriller genre, ones in which we will also be using in our film, such as low key lighting.

Hannah

Preliminary task - Room 215

                                                    

• We did the video preliminary task (as you can see above).
  
• Hannah was the cinematographer and Matt acted in it along with Daniel Hodgson.
• The success arose from the conversion of dialogue between the two protagonists. We will be using this technique of point of view shot again, as it is an effective use of film language.
• The low angled shot of Matt's feet, was rather difficult to accomplish. The reason for this is that it was hard for hannah (the cinematographer) to move and keep low.
• We have consolidated our knowledge of camera control and editing skills. An example of this is that we have learned how to connect the camera to the computer and upload the video, successfully. This meant that the editing process was achievable with ease. Along side this we have also learned how to do continuity editing in order to achieve flow within our film allowing the audience to be drawn into the diegesis.

Matt and Hannah