Nadine's Evaluation

Introducing to the media industry

This is defiantly something that could be produced by a major Hollywood studio as it not only incorporates many thriller conventions – so we know it is the kind of thing that would work – but it also develops them – making it appear new and exciting. I am also led to believe this as the audience said that they “wanna find out what happens next”.
The target audience is one of the most marketable targets in the media industry as many Young adults are getting jobs while still being accommodated and feed by their parents. This means that they have more money to spend on luxury things, such as clothes, CDs and films.
Following the market idea – our product opens up a wide range of product ideas in the market. Many films, such as twilight, use their character’s faces and what they wear to sell merchandise. Our film could merchandise such products as:
• Character figures
• Camping chairs in the same style with ‘The Weasel’ printed
• Bima’s boots and hat
• Tents with ‘The Weasel’ printed

Anything can have the character’s faces on if the film became big enough. Using my previous example – Twilight now have shower curtains, plasters, pens, pencils, tops, calendars etc. with Robert Pattinson’s – Edward Cullen – face on. The possibilities are, just about, endless.

Lessons learnt and problems faced

Due to the bad things we noticed during filming, editing and after watching our preliminary we:
• Put more thought into the planning stage. We did our storyboard in more detail and thought about what to do about actors/actresses.
• We were more careful when sorting out the M-E-S.
• We thought more about continuity and were a lot more careful.
• We filmed the whole thing, being the same every time, from the different angles we had chosen. This was so we could change our minds as to what angle to use if need be and to more easily fit the takes together.
• Used a larger variety of angles and shots.

Bima and I accommodated for problems we found as we went along very well.
Our plot originally included a much larger number of actors but many told us last minute that they could not come. When we found out that Ben (whom we had already filmed the body scene with) could not make it on time we changed the plot so that he had already gone off before the movie had started and was caught by The Weasel then. On the day we found, as we were heading up to our filming location we found out that our main actress could not come due to illness, and so Bima filled in for her.
We found, as we were testing the cameras, that our HD camera that we had borrowed from school did not have a memory card. Luckily, Bima’s Mum had one that was compatible with the camera.
We realised, when we begun editing, that the footage we had of Bima stumbling through the woods while I filmed point of view shots were too dark to see when uploaded. We simply took the chair her character sat on and the one Matt’s character sat on, as well as a torch and re-filmed her getting up and going into the woods after the boys. This ended up making our opening more thrilling as it is when we came up with the idea of running around the woods in her character’s P.O.V and stumbling over to see The Weasel.
When we had completed our editing we found that our opening was too long and had to cut it down by a lot. It was very hard as we had to cut out things we were very pleased with and we thought to be very thrilling. However, we dealt with it and managed to cut about a minute or two out.
Our group did not get along very well at all and we felt that one of our members was not putting in any effort. It started arguments when Bima and I started to just issue the work between us. So Ms Menzies suggested that we tell/email Deanna the work assigned to her and if it was not done by a certain date then one of us would do it. We did the same thing with the filming dates; we came up with a fair date and did it with who ever turned up.

If I could do this project again I would arrange the dates more carefully and be sure not to leave anything to last minute. We found that by doing this we had to make do with certain things, thus not making the best opening thriller we could possibly do.

However, considering all of the problems we faced, I think we did exceedingly well.

Learning Technologies

I have not got anything to compare my abilities of using the camera as I had not done any camera work before. However, I have become more accustomed to using a video camera – especially the HD. Bima and I had to do a lot of fiddling around with it to create more space and I had a look at some of the effects it was capable of. By the end of the filming I felt very confident in handling a camera.
We did face a few problems while filming, for example – due to the time of year the lighting changed erratically. However, we managed to get around it while editing. We also forgot the tripod so it was very hard to keep steady while trying to pan for the second establishing shot.

The editing is very much the same story. Except I had used the editing software – Final Cut Express – before had while editing our preliminary.
Before editing the preliminary I watched the tutorial and then moved on to trial and error. By the end or our preliminary I was fairly confident in the basics of Final Cut Express. As I was quicker and more experienced at using the editing software Bima and I agreed that I would do all of the physical editing and she would make a creative input as to what to put where.
Due to the large amount of time I spent using the software I have become very confident in using it. I also spent many lunchtimes and study periods, using trial and error and asking other students, to work out what other effects I could use. One of the main things I learnt was rendering. For a long time I was stuck using the same type of test and same video/audio transitions, until one of the other groups taught me about rendering to make it work. This became very useful and let me use a wider range of transitions and sounds.

We did all editing – video and audio – on Final Cut Express. I was introduced to an audio editing software called Garageband on the last day of editing but decided to stick with doing it on Final Cu Express as we were pressed for time and I don’t know Garageband very well. However, I now know of it so I can look into it for my next project.

Social groups

We have used a mixture of genders, two boys and one girl. This is the usual seen in many young adult films, e.g. Harry Potter, Twilight sequel: New Moon, and Hancock. We did not mean to have little variety in races – that was purely due to lack of actors.

We have represented gender in a very stereotypical way by showing Matt’s character having dominance over Bima’s. This was especially prominent when they hear something from the wood and matt jokes it is a bear to scare Bima. Bima falls for it very quickly showing her as a typical girly girl – being gullible and not knowing much about what really lives in the countryside in that area. When she gets scared Matt promises to protect her.
The female is also represented as an easy target as The Weasel goes after her.

Our use of stereotype is good for our target audience as Young adults generally prefer protagonists that they can link to and are realistic. Boys teasing girls is a very common behaviour in teens.

Mise-En-Scene

(to look more closely after clicking it hold Ctrl and scroll forward)

I had practiced doing the mae-up for Ben's injuries on Bima. We both decided what would make it look more realistic untill we worked out a way to make it look perfect.

I created a similar injury to this Ben's arm and then created bruises on his face and thin red scratches on any showing skin.

This is an image is taken from where the camp was set up, it would have been shown in the second establishing shot, when the camera paned 360 from the fire place. Shows the isolation.


This is a picture of when we were setting up. Bima and I swapped boots to add to her girly character. You can see from here the contrast between Bima and Max. Bima is bright her clothes look nicly fitting, whereas Max is wearing duller colours and his clothes are baggy.

Camera Techniques

The P.O.V shots do not just allow the audience to see the protagonist, it allows them to know what the antagonist is doing - watching/following Bima. This gives them the advantage of knowledge that the protagonist does not have. This builds suspense as the audience are aware that Bima is being watched and know from past thrilling horrors that something bad will happen next. Due to the conventions of thrillers, a P.O.V shot of unaware people will instantly have the audience sitting on the edge of their seat.

Generic conventions

Techniques we incorporated from thrillers that we looked at before and during our planning period:
Our plot develops part of Hannibal as the setting uses dark lighting to give the audience a sense of discomfort; we have developed this by having it set in late evening/night. We are also using short takes which – due to the common use I a majority of thrillers and horrors – builds tension, the audience know that something is going to happen.
Our plot is a bit like the opening of Disturbia, in that it starts with a very cheerful atmosphere which is then changed, saddened by the death of someone. The music we have chosen when the body is found slightly resembles the music used at the end of the opening in Disturbia as it is quite sad. The setting we are using is a development of the setting used in Disturbia. They start in the country side – likewise in the Strangers – which shows isolation and ours is in the woods, also portraying isolation. The woods give the sense of confusion and misdirection. However, we do challenge Disturbia – like Hannibal – in the time of day that it is set, ours is sat in late evening/night and Disturbia in the day.
We challenged The Strangers beginning in the dialogue used. The Strangers start with a man talking very slow and tense, whereas ours is a group of young adults laughing and joking. The strangers – like Hannibal – starts with a tense atmosphere whereas our is very much relaxed – like Disturbia. Ours has kind of developed the sequence in which the events are shown as it opens up choices. The Strangers starts at the end and goes back to show how it happened. Our opening can be done in the same way as Ben is found and the rest of them film could be going back to show how it happened and then carry on to find out what happens to Bima’s character. However, ours could also carry on to only find out what happens to Bima’s character.

The biggest thriller conventions that our group use to create tension are the music we have used and POV shots. The music has a deep, rhythmic base which resembles the heart, as that gets faster the audience gets more panicked. Often they would get the sense that it is their heart beat that has raised, which is a convention of tense atmospheres. When a POV shot of unaware people/person is introduced the atmosphere is instantly tense for the audience. This is because so many thrillers and horrors use POV to show that someone is being watched by an antagonist – it also hides the identity of the antagonist, making them appear more mysterious and dangerous, people are made uncomfortable by the knowledge of not knowing.

We looked at and incorporated the conventions used in films for Young adults – our target audience.
Young adults like to have a protagonist/s that they can connect with. A protagonist that is their age and doing something that the typical young adult is thought to do. We use 16-17 year old characters and we have them out on a group camp.

Audience Reaction

The audience reaction went very well. I had a young adult watch while I filmed his reaction – to see his immediate response to each part of the opening – and asked him what his overall look on my project was.
He was amused by the banter and when Matt and Max’s characters tried to scare Bima’s. This was good as it was meant to make the audience feel connected with the protagonists.
Jonny looked as if he felt very comfortable, this acted as a good comparison to the way in which he feels when the antagonist is introduced. When ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’ is hummed I can see his face slowly getting more serious and he moves less. His breathing looks as if it is getting heavier which shows his anticipation for what is to come. By the time the clip has finished Jonny looks very immersed init.

Jonny’s overall reaction also supports our opening – in being successful in fulfilling our task.
His big smile at the end shows me that he liked it.
He found Matt (one of the actors) funny, which is good as – like I said before – we wanted the audience to connect with the protagonist. The main factor is that Jonny wanted to see what happened next – our opening pulled the audience in.

Other ‘Young adults’ that had seen our opening were excited by the fact that Ben Morris was in it. He is like our star celebrity.

Evaluation, Bima Loxley

The task for our coursework was to produce a thriller opening in which to thrill the audience and see whether what we produce could be a genuine idea for a film, by doing this we worked in groups, came up with a story board and filmed a 2 minute sequence. Whilst setting up our props, we took pictures of the set and things we thought important that could be used.

In my thriller opening, a lot of conventions such as mise-en-scene, sound and different types of shots are used.

Within mise-en-scene the area in which we filmed was a small wood. We thought this appropriate as other thrillers we watched also used this type of area. We developed this from both Disturbia and The strangers. This was useful as it created a sense of being alone in a dark place where anything could happen. We also developed a part of Hannibal, as they used low key lighting to create a sense of disco

mfort, whereas we used night light for this effect. It is commonly thought that bad things are most likely to happen at night. We challenged the idea of Disturbia as they filmed in the day showing bad things happen at any time. However filming at night was a challenge, as we did not have any lights to help us see a huge amount, but we still managed it. We did this by re-filming some parts of our film on another day when it was a bit lighter.

With regards to make up, we only used it on Ben, the character who got killed. We put a cut on his arm and a few bruises on his face. We had practised with the make up before, on myself. The people who watched the film reacted positively as they showed that they understood Ben was dead and it looked realistic.

For the effect of music and sound we had to add in most things. Whilst walking around the woods, as the girl was being followed, most sounds were produced naturally, like ambient noises of the birds, the wind and snapping of wood on the ground. These types of noises were useful and gave a sense of being more alone and that everything that was happening could be heard, even when being followed, which increases the tension. We had to dub in the song 'Pop Goes The Weasel' as it is a vital part of the film which helps to understand why the title of our film is 'The Weasel' and what the antagonist sings before he kills. We also dubbed in the sound of a snapping twig as this sound represents the antagonist stepping on one whilst watching the teenagers, which makes them look round in fright.

For the background music we had already found some songs on a website - http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/horror.html - which had free un-copywrited music on it. We used two songs and edited them to fit our film. We also thought that one of the songs is similar to one of Disturbia's. When Ben's body is found sad and slow music comes on, making us realize that he's dead.

When thinking about certain camera shots, we thought of some specific ones to use, which connect with these thriller conventions. We decided to use a lot of point of view shots, which is portrayed as the antagonist spying on the protagonists. These types of shots, we used both for the antagonist's and the protagonist's view, the change being shown subtly with a fade and change of music. We also had an establishing shot at the beginning, showing all the characters and setting and that they were in the middle of nowhere, portraying isolation.

It has been noticed that we have developed a sub-genre for our thriller. This is because the setting, lighting and make up used is quite similar to a horror movie, making ours a thriller-horror film. This isn't a bad thing though, as a lot of people are keen on these types of films; they like the scare and excitement given. I feel that the way Ben looks, lying on the ground really connects to what a horror would have, gory dead victims. Also with our chosen plot, a sequel could easily be made and still be popular and get good reviews, as this happens all the time.

Our media product represents young adults, from our research, the chosen target audience for our product would be 15 to 21 year olds, both male and female, connecting our characters to the audience. We had a problem with a lack of actors and the ones we finally could use were white British and of middle class. Using two boys and one girl in our thriller makes it a typical movie, for example, Twilight and Hancock similarly have this feature. We also felt this appropriate as this is what audiences can relate to. A role of dominance from the males is shown where both boys make fun of the girl when she is scared and they leave her in the woods alone.

If our media product were to be released by a major institution it would probably be turned into Mainstream, which means our film could become very successful as it gets released into cinemas and then onto DVD. We hope that, like with any other thriller, our idea would be appreciated as the story line is captivating and the mystery in it could end up with any type of plot twist. Also the fact that our film is a thriller-horror, as people enjoy these genres similar films have done well, for example The Ring, The Shining and Signs.

Our film offers opportunities for merchandise as well as a sequel. For example the girl's hat and Wellington boots are quite attractive and stylish for teenagers at the moment. Also anything could be made with the faces of the characters on them, like posters, calendars and clothes.

From our questionnaire, we discovered who our target audience would be and with this in mind, worked out what people of this age and others would like. There are parts in our thriller that can scare the audience, which can raise adrenaline levels and make them unsure of what could happen. Point of view shots can be terrifying as they put you in position of the character, which is both the antagonist and protagonist. When feeling as if you are being watched or watching someone it makes the audience feel tense. It is also hard to know who is who, as when the camera view is someone running it could be either character. You then realize that it is the victim running and when she looks at a dark figure in the woods, it sends shivers up people’s spines and makes them know she is going to be the next victim. 

Most shots in this film are point of view and it really makes the audience feel as if they are taking part in the film themselves. I feel that we have improved since our preliminary task, as we know a lot more about how to film and the meanings of it. There were problems during filming, for example as time went quickly by it became really dark very quickly, making the quality of our filming worsen. So we had to re-film another day. Also because we had a lack of actors, we had to change the storyboard. This could have been a big risk as it could have ruined the film, however fortunately our new idea turned out to be better. One safety problem was that we found a wire on the floor which could not be removed and as it was dark we had to be very careful as to not trip over it, we warned everyone and fortunately no one was hurt.

When editing, we used Final Cut Express. I have learnt a lot more about how to use it, even though I didn't use it as much as Nadine, I learnt by watching her use it. We found new effects to use such as fades, to make our film less jumpy, also when part of our film was too dark we made it brighter.

We also used Garage Band. This was useful as we could cut some of the songs as we didn't need the whole track. It took us a while to find out how to use the programme but once we worked it out, we found it very effective.

Looking back at our preliminary task, I feel that we have improved. Our final product could have been planned a little better, as we did have problems. Our story board was good, as we made it on time and knew what we were going to do. Although the planning of our preliminary made us too complacent for our main task. We knew all the shots and details we needed, but we didn't put them on paper, which was a mistake. From this we realised that we could have improved so much more in a few months since our preliminary, but I think that the pressure from our problems before filming made the practical harder to do.

Over all, taking the audience's reaction and the problems we faced into consideration, we fulfilled our task in thrilling the audience very well.

Deanna's evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real media products ?

Our thriller includes generic conventions to show the genre of the thriller in specific scenes. This is shown in the ending of the film where you see the lad laying on the floor with injuries in the woods, we have used slow panning so that the viewer can see the boy and begin to imagine how he became injured. The film also shows many cuts, we had to include fades from one shot to the other this is because of the change of the lighting from when we were filming and also when a different person is speaking. We used point of view and over the shoulder shots this was when people where talking this is so that the audience can feel like there are there and are watching what everyone is doing.
Our thriller develops these conventions because it shows that because we decided to film the thriller in the evening we wanted to make it more scary, however this also makes the film seem more like a horror because of the time of the day. We filmed over two days in which on the first filming it was darker so the film generally came out really dark and on the second day of filming we decided that we would start to film the film earlier and then use different transactions to make the film more consistent.
To get the idea of our thriller we watched many different thrillers to get ideas after watching the thrillers we then had to analyse them.
Each member of the group had to create a story board we organically decided we wanted to use the carver barracks as our location but it became very difficult to get permission so we ended up ringing the council and asking if it was possible to use the location in Newport this meant that the chosen story line which was my idea had to be changed but only the location and a small part of the story line. We had to think about getting to the location and if it was possible for the actors to get to the location as carver barracks was hard to get to for everyone besides Nadine because she lived on site. It was then easier to use Newport as all the actors lived in Newport and we filmed after school so we would all be in Newport anyway. I came up with the idea from watching other thrillers and it gave me the idea of having someone being watched and then killed. The idea of camping also came from other thrillers.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social groups of our thriller is white males and females and the age range is 16+. This is because the actors in the film are all 16 or above.

The gender in our film is stereotypical way as there are more men to women and in the thriller the men are more dominant to women as there appear to be the stronger sex. As the female appears to be more vulnerable to the males In the thriller.

In the beginning we made a questionnaire to ask our target audience what type of thrillers they liked and how we could use the feedback from the audience in deciding what type of thriller to do.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I would like to think that our film can be produced by a major Hollywood studio because its not similar to existing products as when I decided on the story line I got my ideas from many different thrillers so the film wouldn’t be the same. I would like to think that the film would be a tv movie this is because I feel that the film is would be watched more than it being on the internet.

Who would be the audience for your media product ?

Our film is aimed at people aged 16+ I think that the film is aimed at both males and females. There are not any other films that are similar to our thriller this is because the story line is very different as the ideas are taken from many different films so this would mean that our film would never be the same as any others.

How did you attract/ address your audience?
Our audience profile is aged 16+ this is because our characters are of the same age and that they are both male and female.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When it came to the filming we had a camera but after testing it when we got home we found out that the camera didn’t work so we had to come back into school and see if we could get another camera and the only camera that was available was the HD camera, this became a problem because the camera didn’t catch the fast movement of the filming and became blurry and it wasn’t as good as standards as what we were expecting.

The problems that we had when filming is that our group didn’t get on as well as we wanted to, we had many disagreements and no matter what we done someone wasn’t happy with it. Another problem we had was with our actors, the actors that said they would be happy to help we busy on the days in which we wanted to film, we also had some problems on when we were going to do the filming and when everyone was free, it took some time and we finally got it done but we had some difficulties in the timing of the filming as we had to film on separate days and the timing of the filming on the days.

I have only briefly used the final cut because I didn’t know how to use the software so I thought that it would be easier to get someone else in the group who knew what they where doing to do the work and then I would just give my input. I have looked at the tutorials about final cut express and I have now become more knowledgeable and I will now be able to help more when editing. I now know how to create a decent quality film by using transactions and how to cut the film using different clips.

We also used garage band to create parts of the song that we wanted because we didn’t want to use the whole song. We hadn’t had any experience of the software so we found it hard to use but soon got the hang of it.

Looking back on your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From our preliminary task we have learnt a lot from the planning we realised we needed to do more in order to get a good result. The story board for the preliminary task was good and detailed so we knew we had to keep the standard the same in order to get on target and complete what we needed to do.

I fell more confident with the camera as I have used it the most but I fell that I could do more and learn more on the final cut express.

I think that the final product is good but we could have planned better and got a much better result. I also fell that our group could have worked better together and we might have got a better product at the end.

Preliminary video

This is our preliminary filming which we did to get use to using the equipment, it also shows us how our skills have developed over time.

12th March

Today we spent a majority of the lesson trying to find our preliminary work. We were sure we had uploaded it onto the blog. However, we could not find it anywhere. Near the end of the lesson Bima and I realised that we had uploaded and edited our preliminary project onto a different mac. We managed to find it just as the bell went so we decided to leave uploading it till next lesson.
We also exported our finished thriller opening. However, we did not have time to burn it to disk as we spent the rest of the lesson trying to find the preliminary so we decided to do it next lesson aswell.

Everyone was in today so it gave us a good chance to watch over it all as a group and discuss what we all thought of it.

8th March

On Monday Bima and I spent the morning off timeteble to finish our editing. We only had to add the music and some credits. This did not take us long as I had gone in during lunch the previous Friday while the other group were out having lunch and I added in some music roughly as well as shortening parts as our opening was still too long.
However, after we had completed it and were watching it through, we realized that our 'Pop Goes The Weasle' track was missing and could not find it on the audio time line. So we tried to add it in again but when we tried to delete the video, the audio deleted as well.
After a while we gave up and when Bima left someone from another group asked to see our thriller opening. When I showed them I realized that some of the footage - of Ben dead - at the end had also gone.
I tried again to add it in but gave up near the end of lunch so that one of the other groups could add the final touches to theirs.

I came on to the blog, after missing a few days at school, to find out what the rest of the group have been up to and how our work has been progressing - had they sorted out the problem of not being able to movie audio sepratly? Had they completed it yet?
Bima has completed the project, so when I go in tomorrow (12th) we will be probably carrying on with the evaluation. As well as burning it on to disk - if not already done.

9th March 2010

Today in lesson I was the only one here, we found that yesterday as me and Nadine came in on our free time that part of our film had been lost, but not a lot. Today i fixed the problem and finished our product.
The problem was that part of our audio had been deleted and also the end images being shown had disappeared. To fix this I went onto our other saved product, which we fortunately had, and copy and pasted our needed images onto our final product. I also added in the audio needed which wasn't too hard.

4th March 2010

Today is our editing day where we are off timetable and spend the whole day on editing our thriller beginning.

Deanna and Bima also went and filmed the snapping of the stick and a scream that we have to dub in after the actual filming. We also filmed us humming the tune 'pop goes the weasel', which we need to add in afterwards.
For the editing Bima and Nadine agreed that Nadine should do the edting physically while Bima sits with her and gives input on what should be done. Nadine did the physical editing as she had understood the technology more and had watched - and understood - the 'Final Cut Express Tutorial' videos. However, everyone did give MUCH creative input and ideas as how to solve some of the problems we faced while editing.
After 6 hours of editing, we still needed more time, so we stayed after school for another hour. Hopefully we can edit a bit more another day, we just have to add in music and make sure the final outcome is perfect.

All-in-all, I thought we had a very productive day of editing.

3rd March 2010

Today afterschool myself and Nadine went to our filming location and filmed some more shots, this was because we needed to re-film the part where I am walking around alone looking for the other actors and also when we use the camera as a point of view shot running around. We added in the idea that adding a dark figure around the woods (myself in a hoodie) while Nadine was running around filming, giving the audience more of a feel what it was like to be in the woods, and gives them more of a scare.
We had to re-film these parts as when we did them before, it turned out it was too dark and the quality had gone down, but now we've done this it looks better.
We also thought about continuity so I wore the same clothes as before and we brought back up two chairs that we needed, but we didn't need the tents.

Health and Safety

This is the main Risk Assesment Sheet, which Bima and I did togeather on site. We went through - one-by-one, discussing which hazards were or were not there. We also decided what the likelyhood of each danger occuring and the priority of them.
We both discussed what actions we would take in order to prevent and/or reduce these dangers.
We also considered what actions to take upon occurance of these accidents.

Our main ideas were to brief the cast and crew on the dangers, keep an eye out for symptoms/opportunities for these dangers to take place. I am also medically trained to 3* level (Army Cadets/Red cross).

We both agreed that it was getting to cold and that the rest of the work would be better done inside. Bima and I discussed what each of us would do after the meeting and I was assigned the health and safety sheets as I knew what must be done in more detail.

2nd March 2010

In todays lesson Nadine carried on editing the film,

we also went through the evaluation, going through it in detail on how to write it and when would be the time to do it.

Changes to the Storyboard

Our main reason for changing was because our lack of actors and the time we had left.
We firstly had 2 girls and 6 boys, but some of them couldn't do the days we asked for and in the end we had little time to film and had to use what we had, meaning 2 boys and 1 girl.
We were going to film in Carver Barracks, but we didn't get the permission so we had to film in Newport, which did end up quite good as it was easier to travel to and the woods came in handy.
One problem we had was the camp fire, firstly it would have been a problem for health and safety but also with the bad weather we had, we were not able to start one. So we put in the script about Ben going to get some wood, but he disappears. This also solved the problem that we had, because Ben couldn't be there for the main filming day.

Filming Day 24th February 2010

Today after school Me and Nadine filmed the whole of our thriller beginning. We had a few problems as we had lost three actors, but when Nadine arrived at my house we sorted out what we were going to do and sorted our problems. We had decided to use Matt and Max and myself as actors and as we had already filmed Ben on Monday dead, we decided to still use this footage and change the script asking where Ben had gone, meaning that they find him later on solving their question.
Nadine filmed us acting and was good at directing us what to do, as the script had changed a bit we found it hard to think of new things to say, but we managed and I think the outcome was good, considering the pressure we were under.
We all set up the tents and chairs where we had assigned them when we did our risk assessment and showed the boys where we wanted them to be. Filming started at 5pm giving us an hour to film as the light went away quite quickly. We just about managed to film all the shots in time, but we found out that we can re-film myself walking around in the woods looking around as we didn't have enough light and the camera quality had gone down. We have also decided to re-film the bit where were running around with camera as a point of view shot as when we did it on the filming day it wasn't as good.

1st March

I spent the lesson cutting the filming we had done into the different scenes. I did this to make it easier and quicker to put everything together. We will be able to flick through to which scene we need and then which shot/angle we want to use.