Being the examiner

Hi everyone, in todays blog post I will be talking about a lesson we did a few weeks ago when we looked at some other schools AS Media thriller openings.

This got us more familiar with the way that the marking scheme works so we know what we are doing when we film and edit our own thriller opening.

This helped by us watching the openings and having a class discussion on what we thought the grade of it might have been. We were then told what the thriller opening got out of 50marks and then talked more about why it got the particular mark which helped us understand what needed to be included for a successfull thriller opening.

This first example got a mark of 47 out of a possible 60, meaning that it achived a level 3.

Although i prediced that this film would be more in the level 2 range, I then got to see why it achived the mark that it did and how the people used different techniques to get the mark that they did.

This helped me to understand the mark scheme better as it heleped me understand what we need to include in our own opening in order to get the mark that we want to achieve.

I predidced that this film would get a mark far above the others that we watched, however it got only one more mark than the last piece making it have 48 out of 60 and therefore placing it just in the level 4 area. Overall, i found this the best opening as it used many effects on vedio and aslo sound such as a voiceover throughout the clip. Also the camera shots were steady and looked prefessional and the continuity meant that the whole clip flowed and looked real to me as an audience member. To achive a better mark, this needed to show a bigger variety of things such as locations and camera shots/angles.

This last film that we watched got the highest out of the 3 openings as it was given a 56 out of 60 for a mark placing it in the level 4 section. (I also prediced this to be in more of the range as the first clip i talked about). This made me understand what we had to include as although overall I belivied that it didn't look as professional as the last one, it still achived a better mark. This showed us that things such as our acting in the film is not so important, as long as it is clear and uses different technuiqes that are on the mark scheme it can achive an outstanding mark.

Issues around representation

Filming, day 3!

Day 3 of filming!

Hi everyone, yesterday was our last 

schedueled day of filing and I thought

that I should let you all know how it went!

Today was a fun day as me and Tammy went 

to the graveyard as we thought that it would be 

a good idea to film some pieces for our titles part

in our opening. When we were there we mainly

shot clips of me walking through the graveyard

and some of me running, including some different 

types of angles. We shot quite a lot of footage at

the graveyard as we needed to make sure we had 

enough, otherwise it would mean the trouble of 

walking there again ;).

On this day we also mannaged to film the scene when 

the girl goes to her Grandmas house, however this did

turn out differently than we planned on our storyboard 

as we didn't want out opening to drag on for too long or

seem more like a trailer... find out how it changed later in

our finished production!

Thank you for reading!!

Filming, day 2!

Day 2 of filming!

Hi everyone, today i would like to 

talk about yesterdays filming and how 

it went. Yesterday we mannaged to get a 

lot more of the filming done which 

included the argument that the girl has 

with her Dad, the girl walking up the stairs,

grabbing her coat and bag, and walking 

outside in the dark to her Grandmas house,

although we didnt shoot the scene with the 

Grandma in today as we planned to do it the

next. However we shot the scene again when

the girl finds the old article of her Grandad.

filming, Day 1!

The 17th of Febuary- Filming Day Number 1!

Hi everyone, today I will be talking about the first day that we 

spent filming for our thriller and what we did on this day. I will

post these the day after each filming day to keep you all updated!

On the first day of filming we didn't actually do as much filming as the other

days that we had planned. This is because on the first day, me and Tammy 

decided that it would be the best choice to get on with making the props and 

asking some of the people me needed (My Grandma and Dad) when they 

were exactly able to film, therefore it was easier as we could plan ahead which 

gave us more time to do other important things.

We started off our "filming day" by getting out props together with began with 

making the fake article that the girl finds in the attic whilst at her Grandmas 

house. 

This prop actually took a long time

to make as it took a while to dry after

we had made it, however while we 

were waiting we discussed scenes that

we were not fully sure on and some of 

them in the final product were changed

 a bit.

We then got an old looking photo from 

Google of a young man dressed in a 

Military uniform which we used for the 

picture in the frame which the girl carries

with her in the opening of our thriller. 

(We then put this in a old looking frame 

and so as it was ready for us we put it 

where it is placed for when we were 

filming).

Although we didn't use this on the fist day

of out filming, we decided to put a box 

together to use as the box filled with the

girls Grandads old belongings. To do this 

we just put the fake article in the bottom

and some old looking books and random 

items that we could find.

Filming: Like i already said, on the fist day we 

didn't do too much filming as we were preparing 

everything we needed first. 

When it came to filming, we did the scenes without 

the Dad or Grandma needed as they were more avalible

on other days. 

Some parts that we managed to get filmed on this day was 

the part when the girl is packing her bag, when she finds 

the old article, when she picks up the photo of her Grandad,

although we didn't have my Dad we were able to film the 

girl walking out of the door after the argument with her Dad 

and then we filmed a few whots of the location in case needed!

I hope that you enjoyed this blog post and I will Keep you up to date on the other filming days, thankyou!

Practice shots/lighting

Hi everyone, here are some practice still shots that me and Tammy have taken in preperation for the rest of our filming. This will therefore let us see what ever shot is going to look like when we put it together and we will be able to change anythig we want to at any point if we think that we can make it look better. 
Some of these may later be used in our finished film.

Here are some location shots of a graveyard that me and Tammy are planning to use in the opening of  our thriller. As you can see we have used natural light to create shadows and highlightes on certain areas (as on the first photo we have used the sun behind the object we were photographing to create a shiloette effect).

Here is a shot that we took of when 'The girl' is walking to her Grandmas house. The one below this would be of when the girl is knocking on the front door of her Grandmas house before she answers and lets her in.

Here is an example of the shot reverse shot that we will be using at the begining of our thriller opening.

Short scnene practice...

Hi everyone,

here is a very quick practice scene that we did for the begining of our thriller opening before we started filming of when the Dad is angry with the girl, hope you enjoy :)

Now here is the practice that went not so well ;)