Second Preliminary Task

For this preliminary we wanted to practice creating something within the genre of thriller as this was the genre our film opening would be. We wanted to stay with a simple plot. It follows two young girls running away from an ominous figure, at the end they meet up and believe they are safe before they look up and see the figure looming over them.

The members in my group were the same people I worked with on the first preliminary, these were Molly Braggins, Jessica Underwood and Georgie Whitehouse). Similar to the last product, Georgie, Jess and Molly volunteered to act in the production as it worked well last time. We all contributed ideas and camera shots and angles that we could use. Discussion was an important element of our task as it was a more complex idea than our original preliminary as we wanted to present conventions of the thriller genre. One feature of this is representing a protagonist and antagonist. We represented this through following the two girls through shots such as POV shots, this builds a sense of empathy  from the audience for the character due to the situation they are in. Jess (the antagonist) was represented through dark gloomy lighting as we aimed to present her as an evil or dangerous character. We also added the prop of a hooded coat/jacket to introduce an element of enigma to the character as her face is never truly revealed. In the post-production stage we also added features such as filters to create a more dim, gloomy atmosphere. We also used fast paced editing and jump cuts to build up suspense and maintain the anticipation of the film.

We included a variety of different shots and angles as we felt that due to the fast pace of the film, it would be more interesting for the audience. This included over the shoulder shots, tracking shots, close ups, POV shots, long pans, low angles and high angles. This made it more interesting as the audience got to see the narrative from different perspectives. We use a high angle shot when the mysterious figure is looking down on the girls to represent her dominance, bringing danger to the scene.

Although some aspects of this film turned out well, some other parts didn't turn out as we wanted them to. Due to our limited time, we weren't able to shoot the scenes from different angles which was very negative towards the continuity. We also broke the 180 degree rule which could disrupt the  continuity of the piece and confuse our audience. For our final piece we will make sure we plan it out in detail so that we don't break the rule. We also had issues about making the shots as smooth as possible, during some scenes such as the opening scene, the shot is very shaky and jumpy. This was due to the tripod we used. for our main piece we will make sure we use a different tripod or a different method of getting the shot.