Is this essay I will be evaluating on the work that my group and I put in to create the opening of a thriller. In September we started to study one of the video units in our BTEC. We had to plan, shoot and edit a 3 minute opening to a thriller. We had to work in groups of 3, my group was: Me, Sam and Lydia. We quickly decided what would happen in our opening and planned it out including storyboards. We then shot the opening of the thriller with a Sony Z1 camera. We had 6 and a half weeks to film and edit our thriller to get our final product which we named ‘Broken’.
To produce Broken we used Final Cut Pro to edit all of the footage we had shot, as I have used Final Cut Pro before I felt confident enough to work with it and help my group in using it when editing. In editing I feel that I may have done too much and not given the other two members of my group an equal chance in editing, even do we all did some editing I feel that because I was confident using the programme I rushed into the editing without checking how well the other members of my group knew final cut pro. Also while using Final Cut Pro I learnt how to deinterlace footage before exporting it, you have to deinterlace because we filmed in HD.
After editing we needed to make a soundtrack for ‘Broken’ to do this we decided to use Sound Track Pro, as I had not used this programme before I found it a bit harder to use this programme, as we had not used this programme before we decided to spend as much time on it as possible as we wanted our soundtrack to be as good as our editing but due to unfortunate events at school we only has two lessons to make our soundtrack. I don’t feel that I really worked on the soundtrack because I was not in the lesson that the soundtrack was made in but I think that the soundtrack works well within the finished sequence. I think that the soundtrack we have in the final version of ‘Broken’ fits well because it is tension building and changes with the shots.
After editing we needed to make a soundtrack for ‘Broken’ to do this we decided to use Sound Track Pro, as I had not used this programme before I found it a bit harder to use this programme, as we had not used this programme before we decided to spend as much time on it as possible as we wanted our soundtrack to be as good as our editing but due to unfortunate events at school we only has two lessons to make our soundtrack. I don’t feel that I really worked on the soundtrack because I was not in the lesson that the soundtrack was made in but I think that the soundtrack works well within the finished sequence. I think that the soundtrack we have in the final version of ‘Broken’ fits well because it is tension building and changes with the shots.
I think that a lot of stuff in ‘Broken’ worked, one of these things is the “Fridge Cam” and “Bag Cam” I think these two shots worked because they were filmed on a second, smaller, camera which gave us the opportunity to try out different shots where we couldn’t possibly put the camera, for example a fridge and the bottom of a bag. We feel confident about the camera shots we have in our final product because when we watched it back in class a lot of the feedback was about our shots. Another thing that I think worked really well was the acting from both of our characters, because they where such good friends they already had good chemistry with each other. Also, I feel that the way we planned our shot worked really well because we planned it shot by shot meaning that we had enough shots to work with and when we got to the shoot we didn’t sit around for an hour deciding what to do. Finally, one of the main factors of ‘Broken’ that works is the juxtaposition from the couple happy together to the violence that happens so quickly together, this was also another main factor of the feedback that was given back to us.
Also with all projects some things didn’t go well. I think the biggest thing that didn’t work well in our original shoot was the use of a baby because he was very tired by the time that we worked with him meaning we didn’t get the shots we needed from him. We got around this by deciding to re-shoot and changed the story so that there was not a baby in it. Another problem that we faced was during re-shooting, when we arrived on the set for the re-shoot we started to set up the kit when we discovered that we didn’t have a base plate for the tri-pod and also we didn’t have any tapes for the camera, we could work around the fact that we didn’t have a base plate but we could not work without tapes but the problem was easily fixed because I lived close to the house we were filming in I had some tapes so I went home and got cameras.
Also with all projects some things didn’t go well. I think the biggest thing that didn’t work well in our original shoot was the use of a baby because he was very tired by the time that we worked with him meaning we didn’t get the shots we needed from him. We got around this by deciding to re-shoot and changed the story so that there was not a baby in it. Another problem that we faced was during re-shooting, when we arrived on the set for the re-shoot we started to set up the kit when we discovered that we didn’t have a base plate for the tri-pod and also we didn’t have any tapes for the camera, we could work around the fact that we didn’t have a base plate but we could not work without tapes but the problem was easily fixed because I lived close to the house we were filming in I had some tapes so I went home and got cameras.
In our group I feel that we did swap roles well so that we all had a chance to do a bit of everything in the filming and post-production parts of this project. In filming I started off by being the boom operator for all of the scenes in the kitchen when our male actor, Joe, was making the cup of tea. When we moved onto shooting in the front room where Joe and Amy, our actress, watched TV and hugged for the scenes to symbolise a happy relationship I was on camera. Once we had finished filming in the front room we went up to the bedroom and took a break, after the break we started to film the violence scenes, for the shots we got showing violence we didn’t have set jobs but we took it in turns to be on camera, we felt this worked better because if one of us couldn’t get the angle that we wanted one of us would be able to. After the violence scene Amy did her fake blood makeup and then we got straight back into shooting, Sam and Lydia mainly did camera for the bedroom shots of Amy being dead and for this I mainly did sound. When we finished the bedroom shot we filmed the shots of Joe in the bathroom cleaning his hands, we each to equal chances at using the camera for this point. When it got to Joe walking down the stairs I was on camera for the first 6 shots and then we swapped again, once Joe walked out the door because it was only 3 shots I went outside and filmed them with Joe. I do feel that our group had more equal opportunities in the filming stage of ‘Broken’
I think that we used technology to our fullest because we used Final Cut Pro to make Freeze Frames of the dead body so that it looked more still and more like it was dead. Also we used Final Cut Pro to do the Ghost effect that you see at the end of our opening. Another reason why I feel that we used technology to its full potential because after we had edited we took our film into Soundtrack Pro and made a soundtrack to fit perfectly in with the final edit. Because of various reasons we could not all be together when the soundtrack was being made meaning in the morning Sam and Lydia made the soundtrack in the morning and the afternoon Lydia and I checked for audio peaks in the soundtrack and confirmed that the edit was finished. Also we used technology well with “Bag Cam” and “Fridge Cam” because we used a second camera to film this and then edited the shots together in post production.
If we did the shoot differently than I think that we would get the second set of actors the first time and shoot it without the baby from the start, also we would get more shots in the first shoot so that we would have less possibility of a re-shoot.
If we did the shoot differently than I think that we would get the second set of actors the first time and shoot it without the baby from the start, also we would get more shots in the first shoot so that we would have less possibility of a re-shoot.
I think that as thriller ‘Broken’ is conventional, the first convention we used was black background with white text. This worked because it built tension and it doesn’t give away a lot of clues to what is about to happen. I also think it is conventional because of the juxtaposition from love to violence. This works well because it starts with the couple looking all happy and in love and then it quickly shows the different side of the relationship. I think that if I could improve anything in the opening it would be that we concentrated more on what was in shot when filming because a couple of times we had packets of crisps and crew members. Also another I would improve was that if we could shoot the “Bag Cam” and “Fridge Cam” again I would film it in HD.
