continuity exercise - filming it maaayne

We set up the scene with two chairs for us to sit on and a table in between. We had three cameras to use: one used for low angle, another for high angle, the other for a normal angle (and also used for the match on action shot). Close-ups also used on me and Eve.


We filmed it two times roughly, and then doing the match on action part. Eve did her scream twice, each of which were louder than an 808 bass pumping its loudest out of a set of all-surround fat speakers. Despite the rest of us nearly dying from heart-attacks in reaction to Eve's screams, the whole process seemed to go fairly standard!

continuity exercise - editing it meng! mexican

Two lessons we spent on editing which I personally thought was quite tricky! The setting for editing wasn't ideal either: it was rather cramped so only one and a half (..?) people could be sat by the actual computer and also as it was quite loud in the room, it was hard to hear us speaking from the speaker which made it harder to see when we had to cut clips.


an editing programme (though not the one we used)

It was quite confusing sorting out all the clips and putting them in order, we haven't even finished that yet. We also have to add in sound effects/music to give a more kinda trippy atmosphere to it. We noticed a continuity error in that the cute toy thing I pass over to Eve isn't on the table at the start which is our mistake. We are also unlucky that there are quite a few seagulls flying around in the background, though they are natural they are also funny for some reason and that does ruin the clip slightly.

some more info on the actual two-minute opening

Here is how our opening is gonna be...for now!

We will have a man sat in a jail cell (we thought of the first shot being from the POV of a surveillance camera) and he is sat there all sad and lonely and reflective and looking at a picture of his lay-deh. We will have a series of quick 'flashbacks' intercutting. These will reveal what landed this dude in custody: what happened is basically he arrived home one night and discovered that his girlfriend had an affair with a friend of his. In a moment of impulsive anger, he fatally stabbed the friend.



After this, he will be led to an interrogation room where he is introduced to his interrogator (who will remain faceless - this will give this character a sense of mysterious/intimidating authority. This is also good because the lad who will play the interrogator is Kurt and looks like a happy bear which would not pull off well with a serious interrogator). It will end there (we are unsure of the actual 'end part' i.e. what will be said.



This opening falls under the crime drama genre now as there aren't any thriller aspects to it.

cast and characters!...for now...

The prisoner (lead character) is being played by Louis Owen. Originally, he was gonna be the friend who gets killed and after having no-one available who could look threatening enough, we were gonna have me as the prisoner (yours truly baby!) but then we had him and another guy turn up at my house for filming (one spare) so we just had louis owen play the main guy. We ended up naming the character Jay. This character is the type you get in many films - the hard man who is emotionally vulnerable and has to redeem himself by the end of the film for something bad he did.

The unfaithful gally is played by catherine and the friend who gets killed is ben.


Bunyamin, who plays the role of 'Wasteman Who Gets Shanked'

Results from the questionnaire (thanks sophie)

Here are the results we got from the questionnaires we handed out to people. Firstly, here is a sample answered questionnaire:

1. Do you enjoy watching crime thrillers?
Yes
If yes, why?
...

2. Name your favourite films of the genre?
The Bone Collector; The Book of Eli; Midsomer Murders

3. What do you like about them?
They are tense

4. Are there any particular crime cliches you like?
No I hate cliches

5. Are there any particular actors/actresses you like which star in films of this genre?
Samuel L. Jackson

6. What is a favourite 'twist' of yours from a film you have seen?
?

7. What kind of setting do you like?
Forests - they're scary

8. What sort of music do you like in a film of this genre?
Classical - it sets the scene

9. What kind of opening would grab your attention?
A death

10. Do you prefer being shocked/surprise by a film, or knowing what's going to happen?
Figure it out first

Sophie took the questionnaires home and processed them into these charts below. Well done Sophie! I got these from hers, though unfortunately not all questions were answered properly or answered at all, not to mention one which talked about Poirot throughout the whole thing. grr!




Though we meant what crime drama FILM was their favourite, people answered with what crime drama TELEVISION SHOW was. Hmm, it seems the block with the largest proportion isn't actually listed on the right, so I'll have to ask sophie about that..




So the setting of a city is the most popular, could be that a more modern/urban setting/style is the most preferred (unless it's a period film)




It seems most people prefer a film to be free of cliches (me too), they enjoy twists (makes sense) and prefer a murder to take place in the opening (fair enough)

All in all, the type of results weren't unusual, kind of expected (apart from the poirot one)

Storyboard

Here are the two storyboards, which sophie scanned through. oh and don't be fooled by the artistic drawings, we didn't hire a professional it was actually me




As you can see, the first shot is of Louis sat at the interrogation table and it is from a surveillance camera point of view. We then mix the flashbacks with shots of him in the room waiting to be seen (in these two storyboards we have him walking about and with a guard in the background, but when it came to doing the filming we saw the room was too small and we couldn't show too much of the room or you'd see a bunch of school shelves and other things which would look unrealistic so we just had it all from the surveillance pov).

The flashbacks on this one show him entering the house, seeing his gally and his mate running upstairs, and him looking in on the room and seeing them go at it.

Unfortunately, the second storyboard sheet got lost. But it showed shots of him sat some more in the room, and the flashbacks of him stood by the mirror depressed, and the vital part when he kills his friend. The last one shows the interrogator entering the room, about to start.

When it came to a quick discussion of possible titles, I suggested Lethal Affair and the others seemed to like it so it could end up being called that

Filming at school - interrogation/jail room

Hola mi gente!!

Well on tuesday we went to the music department in the secondary school of redcliffe where they had a couple of rooms which looked good enough for the interrogation room. So we chose the one without the window and had to move a whole load of things out including drums, tables, keyboards and speakers. We then realised the room was quite small and there were some fat shelves packed with books and files and stuff that we weren't going to move. So we decided we were gonna have the whole sequence when Louis is sat on his own shot from the pov of a surveillance camera, as there was no room for him to be walking around and then the fat shelves were behind the camera too.

I borrowed a prisoner outfit (orange jumpsuit) from a friend of mine for Louis to wear, as well as shirt/shoes/trousers for police interrogator. I also went on amazon to order some handcuffs and a police badge, and brought in a (squeaky) truncheon for the police interrogator, I guess make it kind of realistic. We were equipped with two cameras: one from school and Sophie's.




We placed the tripod camera on top of a table so that it was high and obviously looking down at Louis as a surveillance camera would. Chelsea came up with the idea that whoever would be filming (stood up on a chair) should shine a torch at Louis as a spotlight - this seemed like a good idea as it really put Louis in the spotlight and gave a representation of him being surrounded by darkness (you know, cos his character's future looks pretty dark/bleak, as well as the ). It's also good it was dark because there were quite a lot of holes on the wall, and the floor was dirty every here and there (needed a hoover)

About four or five shots of Louis on his own were filmed, and then we switched cameras for when the interrogator dude enters. Now, the lad who was gonna be the interrogator had to go somewhere so I stepped in for that role (get in!). We had Chelsea kneel down behind Louis I think or by him, and filming me entering the room and telling Louis to talk, without showing my face. Then we had an over-the shoulder of him about to start and a final surveillance pov showing the two of us.


Here is Chelsea filming the over-the-shoulder
shot. Now I look at this it's kinda funny I look
more like a prisoner than him with that haircut haha

It took an amount of surprisingly short time to do all this, about half an hour. Though perhaps because it took a couple of hours to do the filming at my house (to be re-done), we were expecting this to take longer. Anyway, we moved everything back in but then I had to take the school camera back to mine which was awkward cos of the danger of dropping the tripods and camera.