• Close up – These were used when we see the character walking towards the camera. To show the tension in the characters face.
• Point Of View – Used at the very opening of the film to show the characters perspective of the setting.
• Long Shots – Used at the opening when we zoom back to a long shot of the building we will be walking into to establish the setting
• Over Shoulder Shot – When the main character walks into the room, we are looking of his shoulder at the action to see things from his view point
• Mid Shot – Used when we see the two characters confronting each other also with the section with the slap.
• Establishing shot - This shot is when we see the main building this is the location for one of our scenes.

Costumes – The costumes all stay the same in the opening as this would keep continuity:

• Man – Shirt, Jeans, Jacket, Trainers
• Woman – Shirt, Jeans, Cardigan, Shoes, Make Up
• Woman 2 – Hoodie, Jeans , Trainers

In our film we planned and used the following camera shots in our film:

• Long shot – Where you see both groups run away from the camera separately. (to establish who all characters are and establish setting)
• Mid Shot – (Head and shoulder shot) Where  all but Tom were preparing to fight (to emphasise the tension of the moment)
• Over Shoulder Shot – Behind Darren’s shoulder and you see Lauren from his viewpoint
• Close Up – On all but Tom’s face before the fight. Also on Darren’s hand when he steals the stone. And on Tom’s face during his dialogue “That’s not fair..” These are to show characters’ emotions and focus on key moments.
• Extreme Close up – On all but Tom’s eyes before the fight. This shows that the actors are in stale mate and neither side will give way.
• Establishing shot – Where both of us stood either side of the shot ready to fight as well as Darren and Jonny. (This shows the surroundings of the actors, and shows how much space they have in thier combat ‘arena’)

  To start off, we planned there would be a series of shots through a corridor whilst the student is running down it, in panic and someone stalking her. It is set in the past and this can be seen when the student is running through the door, with the date and location at the bottom of the screen. We have this because we use three different times and dates in the film, and thought this may confuse the audience. We used a point of view shot, whilst the student is running through the corridor to build tension and add action, we also had the students panting as she ran, to build a more realistic atmosphere and shows the student panicking. This connects with the Uses and Gratification theory for diversion as this film gives you an escape from a day to day life and gives a bit of excitement. The shot then changes to a point of view shot from the man chasing her; this gives the same effect as the first one but from his perspective.  After we see the girl running into a classroom, which has no light it gives a feeling of darkness and loneliness. She then runs towards and into the cupboard on the other side of room. As the door of the cupboard shuts the man that has been following her enters the room. He sees the door shutting and runs to the other side of the room to the cupboard and opens it. We intentionally hid the man’s face and kept it in darkness and shadow to build mystery and suspense. We then put in a close up of the student’s face, as the teacher walks past her hiding place in the cupboard, under a shelf. We did this to show the emotions of the student, as it helps the audience become emotionally attached to the girl. The emotions that we wanted to caputure was fear and horror. The man then finds her and this is the first time you see the man’s face. He smiles which gives a sinister feeling to the audience and reaches out with his hand towards the camera making the viewer feel threatened. The screen goes black. We used the hand over the camera to end this part of the film to build tension to find out what happen to the girl. This then turns to a black screen and the title ‘After Dark’ shows in white font and stays until it cuts to the next scene when it fades out. After the title there is the next location and time at the bottom of the screen, which is the present day, exactly 7 years after the event happened. In this scene you find out that the man was actually a teacher and you see him finishing up a lesson in the same classroom. Whilst the audience watches the class leaving, the edges of the screen show the credits which are shown in different corners, with the same font as the title. The teacher, after the class has gone, is left alone in his classroom sitting at his desk, when the lights turn off and the room is left in darkness. The teacher looks around, confused. Then there begins banging on the cupboard door which flies open, the same cupboard where the student hid in the scene before. This is key to the plot, as the audience would have realised that the room and cupboard were the same place, also the effect that this scene has on the audience is tension, drama and fear for what is going to happen. The teacher then gets up and goes to the cupboard and walks in to look around. The light is on in the cupboard, which gives a spectral, ghostly effect and illuminates itself out of the darkened room. The door slams behind him, and the key turns around in the lock. We filmed a close up of the key turning in the lock, which may mystify the audience, or make them suspicious. The teacher then bangs on the cupboard door, shouting for help. This then cuts out and finishes.

As a flashback we decided to add a scene where the student finds there teacher was ‘trying it on’ with another student. In this scene another student is talking with the teacher about her work, the teacher says that he can ‘help her out’. The way he says this, makes the audience feel like he does this often. He also runs his hand down the back of the other student, whilst walking her to the door. This was film by a medium shot, so the audience could see the involve student by the window. The involved student sees this from the door window and after the student leaves, she storms into the classroom saying that she’s going to tell his wife about what they were doing. He then tells her it was just a ’stupid fling’. At this point, we put in a close up of the student’s face, to reinforce the emotion of what she is saying and the reaction that she had about what he was saying to her. She then says ‘We’ll see about that’, and turns round and storms out of the room. We added this flashback in between the change of point of view shots when the student is being chased down the corridor, as it breaks up the action and show what happened to get to the chase through the corridor.

The music we used was from www.freeplaymusic.com and the track we used was called ’24′ it was very unnoticeable and was played over the chase scene to the teacher finding her in the cupboard. The track consists of a heartbeat that got a bit louder and faster at the end which helps give a tension building end. It helped having just a heartbeat that was just noticeable as you could easily concentrate on the dialogue and there own sounds e.g. breathing, panting and running.

For the end result, I think we did well as we had some problem with absences, equipment and filming which put strain on time we had. I think if we did this again we would try and get as much filming done as possible and take shots that we may not even use, just so we have them in case we needed more indept emotions and intake in the film. Also check more careful on the camera, as we lost some work too, which was a whole scene, was never reshot buthas worked well without it.

   In our film we have represented pirates and ninjas: pirates steal valuables and treasure from others; ninjas protect them from their enemies. Ninjas have hideouts in secretive places and it is almost impossible to stumble upon one.

     The conventions of our genre (action-adventure and fantasy) are traditionally aimed at males, and they feature physical action, violence, often based around a quest or military style mission. The conflict typically involves opposites, e.g. commandos vs. mercenaries, Special Forces vs. terrorists, smugglers, pirates and spies alike. The narratives often include elements such as technology, weaponry, and other hardware, but may also include unarmed combat. These sorts of films are still mainly aimed at males (for example, the James Bond series is often categorized as action-adventure). To be true to the conventions and microelements such as props, we either shared some or we brought our own separate props. In terms of macro elements such as lighting, location, setting etc we used natural lighting (because we didn’t have Steven Spielberg and his filming equipment!); our location was Catton Park, which was ideal because of its wooded area.   

     Our target audience for our film is teenagers at our age 16-18 year olds. This film is suitable for this age group because, like I said above action-adventure films are mainly aimed at the male age group.

During the making of our film all of our actors were in costume, in keeping with the characters portrayed. As we filmed & edited the film there were drastic continuity differences in a few areas:

• Lighting – the light levels on set kept dramatically increasing and decreasing.
• Weather – during one of the shoots snow started to fall.

Apart from the above the rest of the film is quite good for example, we were mostly on time to film at our location, were were all in costume, the filming was done quickly and efficiently (we didn’t rush filming) etc. 

     We made possibly 2 or 3 mistakes: the two continuity errors above, and the choice of people who we worked with.  However both Lauren and I agreed to work with them whether I wanted to or not; we found it quite difficult to get along during the filming. What we managed to improve on was the lighting: since we couldn’t easily edit the lighting better, Lauren and I restructured the narrative and near the end of the film we put a title in saying ‘earlier that day…’.

     When we were filming Lauren and I took it in turns to film so that we could both have experience and both of us could contribute to the direction and the filming. Also before the actors started acting both Lauren and me would start recording a few seconds earlier so that we could capture the acting perfectly without any distractions. To alert the actors that the camera was filming both of us would say ‘rolling’ so that the actors knew when to start. However if we were both in the same scene (which we were at one point) one of our colleagues filmed for us.

     When we were filming, the pair of us had a few friends joining us in our production. When we did our filming we had to do it out of school because it was practically impossible to take any of us or our friends out of lesson and it got dark after school very early. Filming could have been done out of lessons, or on the weekends.

1. Both of us instantly agreed to Catton Park as our location, because it was perfect for our film genre: in some martial arts films ninja/martial arts schools are based in thick forests or woods.

     For storyboards we basically discussed what would happen & drew it, including comments re shot types, sound effects, etc. In our film the following would happen:

However a  couple of times we changed it. In one lesson a student who had been absent returned so we gave him a small part in case he left, which he did. We had planned for Lauren to trip over at one point in the narrative, but when we filmed it it was too dark on the tape, so we scrapped that idea. We also had a battle between Darren and Johnny but in an opening in the woods but because of light we abandoned this idea too. However this had a consequence: it caused the film to be a couple of seconds shorter. To compensate for this we included extra film of the two groups splitting up with two battles about to commence.  This also helped to maintain continuity.

     With the choices about camera angles Lauren and I did what we did for story boarding. We would first discuss which camera angle (e.g. establishing shot, long shot, over-the-shoulder shot etc) we would use and see if it would give the audience a feeling as if they were a part of the action. For our soundtrack we both wanted something dramatic, fast paced to create tension.

     With the division of tasks, Lauren and I did different things, not many though.  For example we both did storyboarding, discussion of props, costumes etc, sharing filming duties. However when we were posting things onto the blog we both had different duties. For example, I was responsible for props, location and state of location (muddy, dry, raining, cloudy etc), whereas Lauren was responsible for the script, and some of her props for the pirate actors.

1. After a while we got used to using the editing software and it became easier to use, so we managed to find some effects to change scene with. For example after I hit Tom the screen blacks out and shifts to Jonny and Darren and, when those two prepare to do battle, the screen splits into horizontal sliding panels revealing Lauren and I squinting at each other. However these also had problems because with some of the effects you can see small bits of clips that aren’t meant to be in the film. (This was because we didn’t realise we had filmed some shots in wide screen and others on a different camera with different settings, because all the groups were sharing equipment.)

     From my preliminary task, to the full product I have learnt that if you must work with others, make sure that you and your co-worker/s can all get along. Also the technique of filming a couple of seconds and then saying ‘rolling’ I learnt from a filming experience out of school. I signed up to do a film shoot for an anti-binge drinking campaign and noticed that the person filming the actors said rolling a couple of seconds after he started filming.

     If we could improve anything it would be the time and season we filmed in, so as to keep continuity, also I would improve the lighting on the film as best as possible so as not to distort the film picture. Finally I would also improve timing if at all possible so that we could have spent more time on the film on the one day rather than keep going out after work in near total darkness.

Film conventions

To research for my film, I have watched three different thriller films; ‘Leon’, ‘Phone Booth’ and ‘Panic Room’. In ‘Panic Room’, the doors to the house, the lift and the panic room are usually symbols of safety and security, until the thieves break-in, when they then turn into symbols of danger and imprisonment. We plan to use an adaptation of this in our film, where the teacher is locked in the cupboard.  This subverts the normal connotations linked with doors and locks, which are usually related to safety. ‘Phone Booth’ is not conventional to the thriller genre, in that there is no change of location, there is not a great amount of action and is more about the villain playing ‘mind-games’ with the victim. ‘Leon’ is quite a typical thriller film, as it contains a lot of action, and danger. This film challenges the stereotypical representation of villains, as a tough ‘hit-man’ takes in a twelve-year-old girl, and begins to think of her and lover her like a daughter. From these films, I learnt that the main conventions of Thriller films are:

-   Violence/a sense of jeopardy,

-   Mystery/a twist in the plot,

-   Audience knows the identity of the villain throughout the film,

-   Equilibrium, and a disruption of the equilibrium

-   Light and dark/shadows – light = safety, dark = danger,

-  Combination of shots: long shots for establishing, close-ups for emotion etc.

Target audience

Our target audience is around 15 plus. Because our target audience has such a wide range, and is not aimed at a certain niche audience, our end product would be shown in mainstream cinemas, for example UCI, Vue or Odeon.

Shot List

-          Point of view shot, to be used when the student is running down the corridor, to put the audience in the action.

-          Medium shots, to be used often, for example, when the teacher and the student are having a conversation to have a shot of both    characters and their emotions at the same time.

-          Close-ups, to be used when there is a lot of emotion, e.g. when the teacher and the student are arguing.

-          Shot reverse shot, to show the audience that the characters are having a conversation.

Location

Because our storyline is set in a school, we are choosing to film it in our school, Sewell Park College. We had a choice in whether to film in the main building or the Maths block, which is set apart from the rest of the school. We chose to use the Maths block because it is isolated from everything and everyone else in the school, which intensifies the sinister aspect of the film.

Costume

We are planning for the teacher in our film to wear typical, teacher-like clothing. He will wear black trousers, a shirt, a tie and black shoes. He will wear a similar costume in each of the scenes, just with a different shirt and tie to show the passage of time. The student he is chasing will be wearing a school uniform in the running scene, to show that she is a student and jeans and a coat in the confrontation scene, to show that it is after school. The second student and the students who leave the classroom will be wearing a school uniform to show that they are students.

Mid shot of Darren running towards Lauren (behind shoulder shot of Darren)

Lauren: Did you get it?

Darren: Eye

Lauren: Let’s go

Behind shot of Lauren and Darren running off in different directions. Then the same shot but with Jonny running to where Darren went and Connor and Tom running to where Lauren went.

Jonny: Look! Points in front of him

Connor: Which one has it?

Tom: I don’t know!

Long shot of Connor and Tom running and Tom takes over Connor. Mid-shot of Darren hiding behind a tree as Jonny run past. There’s a mid side shot of Connor about to hit Tom then it cuts to a mid-shot of Jonny stopping then a close up of him turning around slowly. Then the camera changes to a mid-shot of Tom falling as Connor runs past.

Long shot of Lauren running then stopping, and Connor following then stopping. Mid-shot of Jonny preparing to fight with his fists, then a close up pan on Darren’s face to his sword. Then there’s a zoom out from a close up on Connor’s face to see him holding his nun-chucks, and a close up pan on Lauren’s sword to her face.

Extreme close up on Jonny’s eyes then on Darren’s eyes. Also a extreme shot on Lauren’s then Connor’s eyes. Long shot of one of the couples facing each other, then the other. Quick long shot of Darren and Jonny running towards each other about to strike one another. Also a quick long shot of Lauren and Connor running towards each other about to strike one another.

“Earlier that day”

The ninjas are hidden, deep in the woods.

Connor: Since I am the leader I think I should look after the stone of eternal life

Jonny: Well I think I’m more reliable than you to look after such a precious artifact

Tom: Just because you are the tallest out of us doesn’t mean you have to be the most trustworthy, remember what happened in Egypt? In the Pharaoh’s tomb?

Jonny: That was a misunderstanding!

Connor: Quiet, the both of you! You two do realize the consequences of breaking this stone; an unforgiving curse will be unleashed upon your souls!

Tom: And where did you get that from?

Connor: It’s a well known legend that was passed down my fore fathers

Jonny: I never heard of this “well known legend”

Tom: Yeah, you’re just trying to scare us!

Connor: You will listen to me and understand that I need to keep this stone in my possession

Darren sneaks through the trees reaches for the Stone, grabs it and flees

At the same time-

Jonny: But that means we won’t have eternal life, and you’ll live for eternity doing great things

Tom: That’s not fair, just because you’re the leader doesn’t mean that you have to keep all the good stuff

Connor talks over the two-

Connor: Shut up Jonny and Tom goes quite the stone is missing you fools!

Long shot from in the trees where Darren was on all three, Tom and Jonny gasp and all three run through the tress towards the camera to follow Darren.

When making our film, we did run into a lot of technical difficulties, which made it very hard for us to keep up with deadlines. There was quite a lot of illness in our group, which also made it difficult to meet deadlines and also to find time to re-film.  Both Megan and myself had a part to play in the film, and each of our group filmed part of the film. It was very difficult for us to stick to our storyboard, as we had to add in scenes in the middle of the film, becuase we thought the scenes we planned to film would last longer. Also when filming, we tried other shots, and sometimes found that they worked better than the ones we had planned to shoot.

To begin with, we planned that there would be shots of the student running down the corridor with the man chasing her. It is set in the past, and the first shot is of the girl running through a door, with the date and the location written in plain white writing in the bottom corner. This is because we have used 3 different time periods in the film, and thought it might confuse the audience. We used a point of view shot, as it puts the audience in the action, and we also had the sound of the girl breathing as she ran, instead of a soundtrack, which makes the scene sound more realistic. This relates to the Uses and Gratifications Theory, which states that an audience could use a film for diversion, as an escape from reality. If given the opportunity, we may have used a tracking shot to film the girl running down the corridor, however we did not have this equipment. On the other hand, I do believe that by using the hand-held camera effect as we did, we created a more chaotic effect, which draws the audience in. The shot then changes to the point of view of the man chasing her down the corridor, which has the same effect as the first shot, but gives the audience a different point of view, that of the man. We then see a shot of the girl running into a classroom, with the lights off, which gives an indication of mystery and darkness. She then runs into the cupboard on the other side of room. As she shuts the door of the cupboard the teacher enters the room. He sees the door shutting and runs across the room to the cupboard and opens it. We purposefully hid the man’s face and kept it in darkness, as it adds to the feeling of mystery, and creates suspense, as the audience would be wanting to know who the man was. We put in a close up of the student’s face, as the teacher walks past her hiding place, under a shelf. We did this to show the emotions of the student, as it reinforces them in the mind of the audience. The teacher then finds her, and puts his hand over the camera. The screen goes blank. This we used as it adds to the tension and drama, as the audience does not see what happens to the girl. The titles then come up on the black screen, ‘After Dark’ in white writing in a neutral font. We chose to use white writing in a neutral font as it stands out against the black screen. It then cuts to the present day, with the date and location in the bottom corner, exactly 7 years after the first flashback. In this scene, the teacher from the previous scene is teaching a class, in the same classroom. The bell rings, and the teacher dismisses the class, they get up and pack up their things. The teacher is left on his own sitting at his desk, the lights flick off and the room is left in darkness. This gives more of a mysterious and sinister effect. The teacher looks around, confused. There is then a banging on the cupboard door which flies open, the same cupboard in which the student hid in the previous scene. This is key to the story, as the audience would have realised that the room and cupboard are the same. The teacher gets up and goes to the cupboard and walks in looking around. The light is on in the cupboard, to create a ghostly effect. The door slams behind him, and the key turns in the lock. We filmed a close up of the key turning in the lock, which may puzzle the audience, as they cannot see who is turning the key. The teacher bangs on the door, shouting for help. We filmed and edited this plan.

However, this film was too short, at only approximately 1 minute and 45 seconds long. We then decided to add a flashback scene into the film to lengthen it. At the beginning and end of this flshback, we added a fade/blur transistion, which we did not plan to do in our storyboard, which made the flashback more obvious. This is when we decided to add in the student catching the teacher ‘trying it on’ with another student. In this scene, the teacher is talking to another student, saying that she is failing, and that he can ‘help her out’. The way the teacher says this makes the audience suspicious of him. He runs his hand down her back as he leads her out of the classroom. The student who the teacher is having a relationship with sees this, as she had walked past the classroom seconds before and noticed the student and teacher talking. We filmed this as a medium shot, so the audience could see the student looking through the door in the background.  She bursts into the classroom and confronts him, saying that she’s going to tell his wife about their affair. He then tells her it was just a ‘stupid fling’. At this point, we put in a close up of the student’s face, to reinforce the emotion of what she is saying. She then says ‘We’ll see about that!’ and turns round and storms out of the room. We added this flashback in between the change of point of view shots when the student is being chased down the corridor, as it breaks up the action. This creates a confusing effect, as the film jumps from a scene filled with action, to one with very little action and back to action again. As well as making the trailer longer, this scene adds more suspense to the film, and also gives the audience more information, and would make the film make more sense.

This film opposes Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which says that humans have the need to feel secure and free from danger. This film does not make the audience feel this way. Our target audience is 15 plus. This is because the film may be seen as offensive to some, and there is also some violence. The representation of teachers in our film may be seen as offensive to some, as it is not an accurate representation. The teacher in this film is shown as a paedophile, and he also kills the student he is sleeping with. However, this film allows an audience to live vicariously through the charactersm, whilst still feeling safe in their own home.

The music we chose for our film is from www.freeplaymusic.com, and is called ’24′. This soundtrack features a heartbeat at the end. The majority of this piece sounds like a drone, nothing much happens so the attention is drawn more to the dialogue of the characters. The music is only playing over the scene where the teacher is chasing the student, and also comes on again when the lights flash off in the classroom. We chose to play the music over these scenes, because these are the most tense parts of the film, and we wanted to reinforce this fact.

To shoot our film, we used a hand-held camcorder, which enabled us to create the chaotic effect in the ‘running’ scene, but however did make our film seem a little unprofessional, as it made it difficult to hold the camera still when filming. To edit, we used Adobe Premier Pro. We were not planning on adding transitions into our film, however whilst looking through this programme and experimenting with it when making our preliminary excercise, we found that we could use transitions. I think that these effects improved our film, as it made it look more professional and made the film flow more smoothly. We also learnt about continuity with our preliminary excercise

I am pleased with our final result, considering the amount of difficulties we had, with having to re-film and add extras. To improve our film, I think that we should have included more close-ups. I think that we did have a few problems with continuity, as we did have to film a few shots out of sequence, as we had to add more scenes in to the film.  I also think that we could have had more technical equipment, which would have made our film seem more professional.

Script

Megan walks a few steps down a corridor, opens the door and enters the room. Marcus will be sitting at a table, writing. He looks up at Megan as she enters and gestures the chair in front of him. She takes it and they talk.

Marcus:  (Angrily) Where’ve you been?

Megan: (Calmly) You know where I’ve been.

Marcus: (Shouts, bangs fist on table, stands up) What’ve you done?!

Megan: (Whispers) I did it for us.

Close-up of Megan crying.

Pirates, Ninjas and the Stone.

For the main task we had to create an intro to a film that was to last approximately two minutes. For my film I worked with Connor Laurie. We called ourselves ‘Laur Productions’ because it’s the beginning of my first name and the beginning of Connor’s last name. We were inspired to make an action-adventure fantasy film about pirates and ninjas because of our debates about which is better. For the cast we had Darren Stapleton and I who were pirates and Connor, Tom High and Jonny Ellis who were ninjas. We needed to have something that the two rivals were fighting for, instead of just mindless fighting so we chose to have a special stone. The stone is called “the stone of eternal life” and contains power to keep the group who hold it alive forever and immune from pain. I did some research for a symbol to put on the stone. A phoenix represents immortality and I thought this would be perfect for the stone and it fits in with the fantasy of the film. To edit our film we used video editing software called Premiere Pro.

The location we chose for our film is Catton Park in Old Catton, Norwich. We looked at some micro elements for action-adventure fantasy films such as ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and noticed that some tense, affective chase scenes are based in woodland/field areas so we wanted to do the same. Also we needed a place for the Ninjas to hide as they are arguing over who keeps the stone, we originally wanted to have a secret base for them and film it in a shed but we were not able to gain access to a shed so we changed it so they were hidden deep in a forest.

We did our best to maintain continuity in our film; we filmed in the correct order following the script. But unfortunately we had to re-film twice because of lighting difficulties this is because during our first time filming it got dark too quickly, we were filming in the afternoon and it was getting dark by 3:30 because of the time of the year, which was November. The next two times we filmed we planned our time better, we filmed earlier in the day and the lighting was perfect. But this became a problem whilst editing because of the lighting in the different shots was too different. We tried to edit the brightness and contrast but this made the quality of the film very bad, the colours were dull and because the original footage was dark everything was blending in with each other. We decided to swap the end and the beginning around so instead of having the dialogue then the chase it was vice versa but in the middle there is a black out and it then says “earlier that day”, this is so it shows the audience a flash back of how this chase was evolved, this turned out very well. There is hardly any dialogue in this film so it’s hard to decide on what the language we used was but if I were to give it a language I would say it would be modern and childish because we used sentences like “that‘s no fair“ that was said with a winy tone. If we were to use the language at the time it would be a completely different language all together that no one would understand.

We made a few mistakes, first of all with the different lighting whilst filming at different times. We also made the mistake of using different cameras whilst filming at different times, we used two wide screen cameras and one that wasn’t wide screen, this made a problem when it came to editing because the screen sizes were different, to solve this we had to change the size of the screen on the editing screen. Unfortunately we had lack of technical support due to the technician’s illness, so we had to learn by ourselves how to use the programme. If we were to do this again I’d make sure we film it all in one day preferably in the morning so it doesn’t get dark too quickly, this will also save time with editing and keep the continuity. Also, if we had to re-film, make sure we use the same camera as before so we don’t cause difficulties for editing. I think we have improved from making errors in the preliminary exercise because you can hear the music better, it was better planned, the location suited to the plot. Although we made the same mistake by not taking multiple shots in case of errors whilst editing, for example because of the problem with the screen sizes you cant see me and Connor standing both sides of the screen and instead you see us run along then Connor stopping and not me.

We followed the storyboard as much as we could but we had difficulties with some of it. We had a third member in our group but due to his lack of punctuation we gave him a small part in our storyboard. Unfortunately he stopped attending lessons and we couldn’t get in contact with him so we cancelled him out. We had to change the location for when you see the Ninjas arguing, we originally wanted them to have a secret base and film it in a shed but we were not able to gain access to a shed so we changed it so they were hidden deep in a forest. There is one part of the storyboard where I am supposed to trip over a log, but due to lack of lighting we had to abandon this. That caused a problem with the length of our film so we filmed more of the chase where Connor hits Tom with the nun-chucks, this was changed from an accident to Connor doing this on purpose so he could get the stone for himself. Also we filmed extra bits for the build up before we all attacked each other.

The genre for this film is action/adventure fantasy. I think what we have done is typical for the genre because there does tend to be a chase scene in these sort of movies, such as in ‘Indiana Jones – Temple of the Crystal Skull’ there’s a chase with jeeps driving through a jungle and to make it even more tense there’s a sword fight on top of the moving jeeps. For our chase we wanted to make it not as outrages than Indiana Jones and keep it simple so it’s more realistic and believable. There are also fight scenes in action/adventure movies, we did follow this but the all of the fight was shown, because we only had to film the two minutes into the film, we wanted to make it so the audience want to watch more and by doing this we showed the characters starting their fights then ending with the title of the movie. If we were to continue to film after the title of the movie is shown I’d have it go straight into the fights but with close ups of their weapons, faces and injuries at first so the audience can’t see completely what’s happening and creates tension and suspense.

Our film had no elements of deliberate pastiche or parody from other movies or historical events because this didn’t fit with the genre. We chose not to do this because we wanted to create our own material.

We wanted to create suspense and confusing for the audience at the beginning of the film, because the film starts with the chase the audience doesn’t know why it is happening. We also flicked from one chase the other to create suspense. With the dialogue we wanted to create tension and comedy for the audience, we had the characters arguing and for comedy we added childish comments like from when Tom says “Just because you are the tallest out of us doesn’t mean you have to be the most trustworthy, remember what happened in Egypt? In the Pharaoh’s tomb?” we did this to show that Toms’ character isn’t as mature as the other two.

We named the film Jex. In the opening of this film we experience being one of the characters as from his own point of view we begin to walk toward a building. The camera then zooms in onto the point of interest. This tells the audience that this is the main focus of the character and this is where he needs to be. The next shot we see is a man slowly walking towards the camera, he seems to be upset and is fixed looking straight into the camera. This makes the audience begin to wonder what has happened to this character or what this character is thinking. We then suddenly jump to see two girls sitting at a table talking to one another. A man then enters the room (this is the same man we saw staring into the camera at the beginning of the film) as one of the two girl’s leaves. We then suddenly flash back to the man walking towards the camera again. The next shot we see is the man leaning over the table arguing with the girl sitting behind. We do not hear what is being said as all we can hear is the music over the top of the piece. The man then reacts in a vicious way when the woman assaults him by slapping him. Then again it changes back to the man walking down. However this time we don’t see him walking towards the camera, instead we see the man walking past the camera this is taken with a long shot. The last shot is of the girl’s face lifeless as the man walks out of the room behind her. We then flash back to the shot where we see the man walking away from the camera. Then we flash back to a point of view shot with the man running out of the room then knocking into the girl’s friend. The last action shot we see is again the man walking towards the camera with no expression on his face. This then fades to black and the title JEX appears.

In the early stages of this production Lee and I both wanted to produce an opening to a thriller film. We both liked this genre and really wanted to try to produce our own take on one of our favorite thriller films. Once we had written our storyline and changed it a number of times we did decide in the end to make a thriller film as we believe this genre would suit our story and would attract the types of audience which do enjoy watching thriller films. When we started filming we were unsure about the location. We both wanted to use a cafe of some kind, however in the end we decided to use our media classroom. This was not the ideal place to shoot this scene but it did have everything we wanted for the opening of the film, like a table, chairs and also for one shot in particular the door was in the right place for the final death scene. For font we used Birch Standard as this font stood out to us, however for the title of the film we use Brush Script Ltd as this made the title stand out to the audience and allow the audience according to the Uses and Gratifications theory to create a diversion into another person’s life. This could also be used for when talking about the point of view shots also used in the opening of our film.

The opening to our film is created to have a fast pace and also gives our audience the feeling that they are being thrown straight into the action. The interjection of shots also gives us that quick paced feel as these shots appear. These shots show different parts of the story. This attracts the audience and makes them want to watch more. Furthermore little information is being given in the opening this is because with the pace of the opening the audience is only given a brief look at events which took place; this is because we wanted to keep the audience on their toes guessing what will happen next.

We did a lot of research into a number of different thriller films, like ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Psycho’,  to find out what the conventions of this genre were and to also find out some of the micro elements.This film both follows and challenges the conventions of a thriller film. Some conventions include exotic setting, jeopardy and violent conflict, overlap of stories and the identity of the murderer is always known. Our film does and doesn’t follow these conventions. In some cases like the conflict which we see when the women slaps the man and the arguments between them, and the overlap of stories, which happens throughout the opening, the conventions do apply to our film. However our film does not have a very exotic setting. One convention in the thriller genre is men are usually the main characters and the heroes; however we have tried to include more of a female input into our film to balance this out. This challenges the conventions of a thriller and also draws in the audience (especially women) as finally there is a woman in a thriller film and they are not the ‘damsel in distresses. At the beginning of the film we are unsure of what has happened in the past so the audience not completely sure how to take this character which is slowly walking towards them. However the next shot we see contrasts to the conventions and to the previous shot. We see two females sitting down, talking and laughing with each other. This provides a short break between the high amount of tension and intimidating, freakish manner of the main character walking towards the audience.

For research we watched the amazing ‘The Dark Knight’ directed by Christopher Nolan. The target audiecne for this film was early teens upwards with a certification of PG-13. This film follows the main conventions of a thriller film by having a male hero, being set in a exotic location and letting the audiecne know who the killer is right from the beginning. There is also a massive amount of violence and confrontations in this film as it is also a common convention of the Batman institution itself. There is also a sense of murder on a grander scale, in one scene we see the joker threating to blow up a hospital full of people. This follows the common convention of mass murder in thriller films.

The titles we produced were written in Birch Standard font. The first titles we see are names of the actors in the film as they appear in the film, Marcus Wiseman, Megan Howitt and Sarah Turney. This is a convention of a thriller film, as it tells the audience the names of the actors in a way which will allow them to be recognized. The next title we see is the quote ~ this was put in to build atmosphere and to give the audience a little clue to what might have happened in the past and what is going to happen in the future. This then makes the audience feel more superior to the characters in the film as the audience will now have a clue about what will happen in the future. However the characters are clueless. It then flashes to the main title of the film JEX. This is shown in capitals to emphasize its importance to the whole film. We later find out that this is in fact the name of the male character in the film opening. However in the opening itself we do not even find out this. It is produced in a different font Brush Script Ltd to again show its importance.

We used as many different camera angles as we could in the filming of this opening. This is because we wanted to Close ups, panning shots, point of view shots and medium long shots were used in this film. An over-the-shoulder shot was used in one of the opening shots when the man enters the room. This allows the audience to know what is happening in the conversation and makes them feel part of the story as they are getting every piece of information they require. Close ups were used for the present parts in the opening when the man is walking toward the camera. Although there is minor camera shake in the shots including the man walking into the cafe and the man walking towards the camera this does not lose the atmosphere built by these scenes. The audience here almost feels intimidated by the character as he slowly walks towards them. At the opening of the film we see a building and we feel as though the audience is walking towards this building. The shot used here is a point of view shot. Using this camera shot and, also with the massive amount of camera shake, it makes the audience feel as though they are that character.

Flashbacks are used to show transitions from the present to the past. The past events are in black and white this also enables us to tell the future from the past. When we first started editing this piece of work we did not have a slow motion effect but found this worked well unlike the ghosting effect which we originally used, which did not work well as it made the film feel jumpy which is what we didn’t want for this particular scene.

An atmosphere of mystery in this genre is one of the most important conventions so we both tried our best to create this. The scene with the man walking towards the camera was left with the background noise still on them. This in some ways makes the audience feel rather uncomfortable and rather intimidated with someone looking at them in the eyes and walking towards them. This would allow the audience, according to the Uses and Gratifications theory, to share the experience with others when watching and also to see villains in action while not being in any danger.

Music is heard over the flashbacks. We felt that the frequent cuts between the music and the background noise worked well. We took the difficult decision to mute the overwhelmingly realistic sound of the man being slapped by the woman in one of the flashbacks. This was also because during this our classmates were laughing between shots and this could be heard on the film. The music is from http://freeplaymusic.com/ . This is a reliable site which we are able to download unsigned bands music. This piece is a very minor key piece of music. Minor music is usually heard in sad powerful scenes in films and plays.

Considering the amount of problems we encountered we did really well to actually film this piece. The lack of technical equipment was not helpful when attempting to film and also edit our film. We also learnt how to use a new type of editing equipment (Adobe Premiere Pro) to improve our editing techinque from our first task. From our preliminary task we also learnt how to keep continuity, with costumes and actors in particular shots and also what shots to use in our main task which would work well. We could improve this film by using a better location when filming this as our location was not really the ideal location for this to be filmed.