film days

On the two main days of filming my experience was good on the first day we used the meeting room as josh was the main character he tended to shoot less shots it was enjoyable but stressful as we had to remember continuity the main object was the clock as the time is significant to the story i had to keep setting the clock back it was frustrating but worth it we set up the room apropriatlyand kept tight to our storyboard there were a few things we have to tweek and we made a real effort setting up the room so it looked as authentic as possible because the clock was an important factor we had to keep resetting it, by shooting this i realised how much detail there has to be with certain objects.

Our Final Treatment

During the week I updated our treatment. I can now complete it with our new title and our change in synopsis.End Of The Line Production Treatment

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Our Thriller's Title

We had originally decided that our thriller would be entitled When The Cat Is Away, this was my original title and we couldn't think of anything with would suit it better. Whilst filming in the tunnel we saw a lamp which had been painted over, the lamp now read on it; End Of The Line. We all agreed that this would be a good title. Our titles would also have a more professional sense to it.

Filming Process

Today we have almost finished filming all of our footage so we can go into the editing suite in the week coming.

We started to film on tuesday. We set up in the meeting room and made it look like an office. We took things from the room and our teachers office to create the office atmosphere. We took a couple of shot but then we were told that it was quite dark. If our footage was too dark once we go into the edit suite our footage wouldn't look so good. We turned the lights on brighter and re shot most of what we had done, this only took an extra 10 minutes as we were sure of all the shots we needed. 

On Wednesday I went by myself down to South bank to film the London Eye. We decided tat for our titles we would film the London Eye in the evening from when it is light till dark. This would then be sped up. I encountered some problems whilst doing this shoot. I was approached by Police officers who enquired on what I was doing. I think I may have jogged the camera slightly while showing the officers what I was doing (I had the screen closed to save battery). Fortunately they did not make me stop recording when they spoke to me. Overall I think it will be OK.

On Sunday we did our shoot on location on the South bank. The entire shoot took about 3 hours to complete. We started at about 1 and did the shots on the street, our character coming out of a building and following him down the street. We then moved down the street into the tunnel where we shot the encounter with someone when the USB stick is stolen. On location we decided to change our plan. We decided that we wouldn't probably have enough for a good 5 minute clip. Luckily, Flanna was with a friend and we used him to steal the USB stick. We then decided that this man would give the USB to Flanna's character at a different location. We felt that this would make our opening much more interesting.

When we had finished shooting we sat down to review our footage. Unfortunately we had recorded over 2 or 3 minutes of footage we had filmed on tuesday. This was disappointing but we had earlier decided that we would need to film some extra footage anyway, we need to give the audience a sense of what was on the USB stick.

Tomorrow we are going to film our extra shots during our lunch time and that should be all the footage we need.

If all goes well we can start our edit in Tuesday's lesson.

Title Sequence

the title sequence to any thriller film is vital. it is the first part of the film the viewer see's and builds up and creates a mood for the film that you are about to see. 

we have decided on an idea for our titles. because of our location, waterloo area, we will film it near there by the london eye.

the idea is that we film the london eye from the grass at the bottom for a long period of time from about 4pm -6pm when the sun is setting. we then speed that up so it fits into a 20-30 second time scale and we play the credits over the top.

another idea was that we use the same basic idea of speeding a clip up. but we do it on a bridge over the thames filming the boats go past...:)

Our final idea - Synopsis

In class we wrote a brief synopsis of our opening. here it is:

Open with a man working at a laptop in an official looking building and office. The man is nervous, looking at the clock, waiting for the clock to reach a certain time so that he can leave. Clock reaches 6 PM and the man quickly closes his laptop, takes his USB stick and leaves hastily. Out side we follow the man down the street, the viewer will get the sense that he is being followed or watched. The pace is very fast, switching shots every couple of seconds to build suspense.

The pace slows as the man enters a tunnel but the tension is built again with the sound of footsteps as someone approaches our character. A woman bumps into the man, dropping everything she was holding, the man helps her collect her belongings and they connect. Shortly after the man leaves, anxious to get home. As the man leaves the woman stands up, smirks and we see she has the USB stick from earlier on. She walks off into the distance.

As you can see some camera shots have been worked into our synopsis, once we have a final shot list we can publish it and you can see how our thriller opening is coming together.

On Location

As I have explained in previous posts, the location is very important. Before we start to film we need to have a location in mind and we need to see what is achievable in that location.
I decided I would go to the locations we had chosen and to take some photographs so we had some visual reference when sitting around a table planning out our beginning.
The first location was on the Southbank in Waterloo. I liked this location as it has the official looking buildings but also the grimy underpasses. I think with the overpass across the road we can get some really nice high angle shots and we can use the pillars to create the feeling our character is being watched.

The second location is a conference room in the college staff room. We chose this because it is quite for most of the day so we can film for as long as we need. We also have a lot of space in there so we can fit our equipment into the room. Obviously though, we need to change some things around to build an appropriate mise en scene. We are fortunate as the room has black out blinds and dimmer lights. There is also a fan which could help us to build tension.