Personal view on how filming went:

In my opinion, I think that our filming went well. When all of my group members arrived, we had to wait until it got dark since our opening was mainly set in a dark room. The scenery we had was good, we had enough time to get everything ready and to be shot. We all took turns in using the camera, teaching each other how things worked. This enabled us to work as a team and work progressively.

What was sometimes hard during filming was the amount of space we had in my room. Sometimes it felt like we were in the way of the camera, so we went outside of the room and waited until the scene was done.

Another thing is the fact that because we switched the lights off and only had a a dimmer, the room was still pretty dark. We could have made it more lighter, but to keep that light the same throughout all the scenes was tricky. When we reviewed some parts that we took, it seemed to be too dark to put in our opening and therefore had to be cut out.

Since we cut out a few scenes, just last week we had to go and film again, so that we hada sufficient amount of video to last. Me and my group member Ola, went back to my house so that we could film the street and then the hall way, then the doors to my room. We have already edited it and it looks pretty good. This was just another way of making our opening to our fim a little longer, because before it only lasted 1 minute. Now that we have added more to it, we have extended that time, (cannot give a estimate yet since we are still in the process of editing and putting in title sequences).

Opening of thriller: Editing so far

Personal Review of the filming so far

I think that we all have made so much progress in our week of filming, although it was challenging, we also learnt a lot of team work and encouragement helps.
The whole process of this was an eye opener as media work is not always easy to everyone. Filming also helped us learn different skills as we all took turns using the Camera and taking different shots, seeing how we can experiment with them.

Planning Story Board & Animatic

Planning our story board was challenging as we had so many ideas, but could not include them all. The story board consisted of our opening scene , and what blank spaces needed, till the end of the film. As we went on with our planning each picture was drawn accurately to how our scenes in the opening will occur.
In addition the animatic was an easy process as we have done it before, the only challenging thing is getting the timing right  and the speed correctly.

Planning Costume & Props

Although our initial idea of costume was a victorian white dress gown, to be very creative. It did not come together and we had to find an alternative which was a plain white shirt and leggings.

                                                         





Here is a snow ball/crystal ball we used to emphasise the character in our films innocence, and the progression of it, though it is slightly ironic. we also used it as it had a useful lullaby that could be used in our background sound.

Here we used a snow globe/crystal ball emphasising the  Actresses innocence, giving off a theme of slight innocence as well, which is fairly ironic. Also it has a lullaby with it that will come in handy with our sound.

These are other props we used, like the drawings, pencil, make-up etc.

Personal Review of Filming Process.

I thought the filming process was very fun, each of our ideas were listened to and we worked as a team to reach our final product. We all had a turn at working and setting up the camera, i took on the responsibility of photographing the filming process as it will help us when we were analysing the process. All our ideas were listened to which made the process more productive. We also filmed extra shots so that we wouldnt be short on scenes.

Thoughts on the filming process.

Day 4 of Filming

On the fourth and final day of shooting the thriller opening we shot the two very last scene, which is also a vital scene as it shows what the main character is capable of.

The mixture adds a gory feel to the peice.

We then filmed a final panning shot of the room.

We used acrylic paint mixed with water so that the colour would resemble blood, we then did a pan of the room in the morning, so that the audience could see that the bedroom was different to how it was after 3am.

Day 3 of Filming

On the third day of filming, we mainly shot the scenes that needed daylight in them. This included the scene where are main character wakes up and comes out of the room. We had to get a close up of the time, which showed 7am. We filmed her pressing the snooze button on the iPod dock that we used to tell the time. For sound we were planning to record another clocks' alarm so that it sounds more effective, because the dock we used did not have a loud alarm sound that fitted our expectations.

For extras we did a cutaway from the girls face to the train. We thought we could add this to our opening whilst editing if needed. We also did a cutaway to a snow-globe because the sound was very gothic and we thought it could add a nice effect to our piece

Whilst filming, we tried to get re-film some scenes if we saw something that looked odd or we left a prop out. We did this because in our preliminary we missed small mistakes which made the piece look very amateur. 

Editing the sound

Here I am trying out new sounds and effects for our opening film, I have including natural sounds and sounds from the examples given. The sound we are looking for is a dreary, dull, and frightening echoes and noises. Although we are going to be recording most of our sound ourselves, the background music will be quite tense and mysterious.

Day 2 of Filming.

On day 2 we shot the scenes where our actress was drawing out pictures in the night. We got close ups and medium shots of her face, as well as the pictures she drew. The pictures consisted of scribblings of eyes, random shapes and a person. The most significant one was the picture with the person, with the face scribbled. This was supposed to represent that she is not in her right state of mind, and out of control. This was one of the ideas that we thought we could add into the opening, but are still not sure whether or not it will definitely be in it.

Once that scene was done, we then shot the scenes where she walks around the room. We got her to go around the room, scrunching up the papers on the floor and slowly coming back up.

Day 1 of Filming.

We all met at City and Islington College at 2:30, and received our filming equipment. We then made our way to Derya's house in hackney where we were to film the thriller opening.  Derya's friend Lisa arrived at  3 o'clock , and then we started planning out what we were going to film for that day.

We first filmed the close ups on our actresses face. We did a close up to show the characters split personalities: Good and Evil. We had to put gothic make up on her face, for example, black eyeliner around her eyes and dark eyeshadow to make her eyes stand out, we also backcombed the actresses hair to make her look scary.  We got her dressed in to the clothes we picked out for her. Two of us helped out with preparing our actress and the other two prepared the cameras and other equipment we needed to use.

Overall, the first day of filming was very productive as we got alot of filming done and was able to set up the cameras and lights quickly.

Story board for thriller opening.

 Here is the storyboard for our thriller opening. Judging by the sketches there will be various camera angles and scenes.

 The storyboard also shows that our opening will take place mainly in the dark and our character's face will be shadowed by her hair.

The drawings of the clocks also show that something may happen during these times.

Our Schedule Time

Student Analysis Review

I am going to be reviewing The List opening series, that was made by students. This video looks like it was well planned out, since we see it going in order, the saucepan and wine glass, we can clearly see the drop of blood inside swirling. What I really liked was the fact that we could hear the butter sizzling and the chopping of the onions.






I also liked that they had a medium close up on the saucepan, then a close up on the butter, and finally an extreme close up of the butter sizzling.  Also the background music seemed like a low sound that goes through out the whole video. I heard the ringing of the wine glass when the blood was pouring into it, which was effective because it intensifies the whole scene.

What I disliked in this video was the scene when the wine class was being put on the table and I think it would have been better if we could hear it hit the table.

Also, when there was the dropping of water into the glass, it would have sounded better if we could hear water drops.

Analysis Student Film Openings

Personally I liked all of them but Victoria was the one that stood out for me. I liked the use of sound and the way different scenes layered into each other. The opening scene drew me in straight away as the use of a Ballerina really inspired me.

The title was different, i thought it was chosen due to the Doll used as it looks victorian so the name came form it. it was unique as well. The change of music also made a huge effect, it change up the mood and brought the effect of Thriller genre.

                                                            

Many scenes like this from the opening really brought out the thrill effect and the music helped me understand what is going on and brings in curiosity and intenseness  .

There also was a lot of layered shots showing different scenes, the effect of this was really good, drew the audience in, as it made the atmosphere more mysterious and curious.







This scene was a bit confusing but as it all came together i understood the outcome of what the character is doing. It was very intelligent to use and portrya some what of psychotic sense somehow through this opening.

Our Pitch