Preliminary Task Evaluation

We were given a preliminary media task to help us understand the process involved of planning the film, creating a story board, the filming itself and editing of our work. Our brief was to make a short film of someone opening a door, walking through, sitting down and having a few lines of dialogue with another character lasting up to about thirty seconds and at least eight to ten frames. We were also told we had to include a ‘shot reverse shot’, the ‘180 degree rule’ and a ‘match on action’. We were shown how to story board our film to include a drawing or picture of what will be in the shot, labelled with details of the shot angle and size. Firstly we did this with drawings and then progressed to pictures taken on my camera phone. However as this had to be completed within lesson time and inside school we felt our plot and setting was restricted; something we will be able to develop in the main task as we are filming in our own time and therefore can vary our setting and props.
After completing our story board we filmed each shot up to three times to give a range of shots to choose from when it came to editing. We then transferred our film from the camera’s cassette tape to the Apple Mac computer, using the Mac film editing programme to pick out the perfect shots and fit them together. If we had had more time to spend on this project we would have added music as this will add to the atmosphere and in turn help to create the correct features of our genre.
Overall I was pleased with this preliminary task as I felt we demonstrated the ‘180 degree rule’ consistently throughout always filming from the same side of the characters. I also felt our ‘match on action’ as the first character sits down and ‘shot reverse shot’ as the two characters exchanged dialogue. I found the task useful as I learnt how to story board, film and edit in preparation for the final task. However I did not feel we conveyed the genre of a thriller successfully. In terms of ‘mise en scene’ I felt that filming during the day and in a school did not connote fear and suspense as we hope to show in the final project through filming outside when it is dark in a secluded setting. Using minimal props meant that we could not use any clear signifiers to denote the genre, another aspect we will build on in the final piece. For example we plan to have the female protagonist answer a phone call alone in her flat, an iconic signifier used in thriller/horror films connoting danger. We did however use a close up of the hand opening the door and of the feet walking inside before we revealed the characters face to increase the suspense, adding to the theme of a thriller by connoting risk and foreshadowing a possible danger to come.