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Researched Thriller Genre
Before we began any filming, it was important for us to independently research the Thriller genre so that our eventual creation of the O.T.S would use some of these specific technical aspects.
We therefore researched many Thriller film O.T.S' and scenes within the Thriller genre and then created numerous presentations explaining what we had seen.
I analysed scenes within 'Casino Royale' and 'Terminator' and then created a powerpoint presentation to show what I had analysed. -
Forming groups and filming preliminary part 1
After identifying technical aspects within the Thriller genre, we were placed into groups to film our preliminary exercise. The reason for doing the preliminary exercise was to show that we had understood Thriller genre concepts and could then prove this by our eventual product.
Our group began discussing ideas and delegated who would be doing what in the preliminary exercise.
There were no problems delegating tasks and everyone worked hard to get the task done to the best of their abilities. -
Forming groups and filming preliminary part 2
When eventually filming our preliminary exercise after drawing storyboards and writing shot lists, we set out to our delegated filming area and began to film the sequence of shots that we had listed.
We made sure that the continuity in our piece was accurate and kept to the 180 degree rule.
We had to alter particular shots that did not work when we arrived at the shooting site.
Each member of our group worked well together and we learnt the importance of continuity when filming. -
Forming new groups and planned O.T.S part 1
After the success of our preliminary exercise, each of us felt confident about creating our O.T.S. We were delegated into new groups and set out to plan our O.T.S.
We worked hard for a few weeks, looking back over the Thriller films we had analysed and took conepts to do with mise-en-scene, camera shots and narrative parts and eventually wrote many of them into the plan for our own O.T.S. -
Forming new groups and planning O.T.S part 2
After several lessons of planning, we finished all the blog entries linked to the planning of our O.T.S.
We had costumes and props ready for the filming day and had each shot story boarded and written into a shot list.
Furtermore, we had written a complete synopsis of what our films' narrative was, even though we were just filming the O.T.S.
Everyone in our group contributed equally to ensure the planning was completed and thorough. -
Filming O.T.S part 1
We were now ready to film our O.T.S, so we set out to the location that we would start filming at. However, unluckily for us it had begun to snow and was below freezing temperatures outside. The snow was highly likely to interfere with the continuity of our O.T.S, and the freezing temperature made it very difficult for us to work in and decreased the battery life of our camera. -
Filming O.T.S part 2
We were outside in the snow and freezing cold for a few hours until eventually our camera's battery died and we were forced to return even though we had only filmed a few of our shots.
We then charged our camera for an hour and used this time to completely change one of the locations of our O.T.S from outside to the College. This meant that we could film within the warm College and also ensure that the snow would not effect the continuity of our piece. -
Filming O.T.S part 3
As a result of the terrible weather conditions, we had to have a second day of filming to complete out O.T.S. We set out to the location again, which luckily was much warmer and finished filming all of the scenes that we could not finish on the first day of filming.
We had to alter many of the shots and locations within our O.T.S, but did this very quickly as a group and managed to get very good shots at each location.
We have many Thriller-like shots, such as match on action and POV shots. -
Editing part 1
We then had to edit our O.T.S shots to create the final piece. Luckily me and another member of the group had already previous experience with using the Adobe Premier editing software and therefore were the delegated editors.
We spent a long time placing our shots into an order that would suit the narrative of our film. After doing so, we could start adding effects and editing each shot. -
Editing part 2
We started adding effects to our shots using Adobe Premier, such as editing the colour of the images. We wanted our flashback scenes to look like they were set in the past and decided to tint the shots with a black and white effect to show this. We also wanted to have eerie and unsettling music to be playing, so we found a website that would let us download music legally.
We then added the music and edited the pace and tone in order to make the music sound more eerie to suit the narrative. -
Editing part 3
We also wanted the shot transitions in our piece to run smoothly and elegantly, so we added effects such as 'fade to black' and the edited the speed of the transition so that it would run smoothly but also match the Thrilelr genre.
We also needed to add titles to our piece, and therefore searched for specific fonts that matched the tone of our piece. We then added the titles to negative space within our shots, similar to the title sequences of existing products that we had analysed. -
Editing part 4
We finally completed our O.T.S and uploaded it onto youtube.
We all worked very hard as a group and were equally pleased with the fnished product.
We learnt how much work goes into making simple film pieces such as ours and how many technical aspects such as editing go into finishing the piece.
