Production Roles - Miss Miller

Having people allocated to specific roles makes the filming process simpler and quicker. Each member gets given an role to focus on so that it is evenly spread out making the work less stressful. The one role to one person rule makes the planning and filming easier this is because they only have one subject to work on and don't have to worry about other parts of the film, they will not be as rushed and the whole filming work will more organised. In our group we were given these roles; Producers, director, actors, music producer, screen play writer, MES co-ordinator, editors and directors of photography.

We decided on these roles by discussing who had more experience and knowledge of which one. As a group we went round saying who would be better at which role and from their we shared out the work evenly so that each group member had the same amount of work and the roles that they would be best at. We decided on these; 

• Producers - Jess, Charlie and Ryan - This job was given to all three members of our group. We decided this because the film was a group effort, everyone has added something to the work and we all discussed everything making fair decision on what everyone wanted. This role meant we all had to over look to project and make sure it ran smoothly.
• Director - Charlie - We chose Charlie to be the director because he has a past with making films he has done it before meaning he know more about what looks bet in shot. The job in this role is to watch the actors and shot when filming and direct how they need to look and how the actors need to he portrayed
• Actors - Harry Osborne, Ella Sawtell, Morgan Boughey and Molly Van-Wijngaarden 
• Music producer - Ryan - Our music producer is Ryan, he was picked to do this job because he has an interest in music so everyone thought he would be best at picking the sound track that would suit our opening sequence. Ryan was in control of finding suitable soundtracks to emphasise the film and worked well.
• Screenplay writer - Jess - I am the screenplay writer because the narrative was based on my individual narrative. This means that I know what the film needs to look like and how it needs to be given to the audience, allowing to be easier for me than other group members to write the screen play.
• MES co-ordinates - Jess - I am also the MES co-ordinator because the group thought I would know the most effective element to emphasise on our film. Also I have previous experience with make-up, iconography and lighting because I have had to plan them for a school dance show meaning I know what looks good to the audience.
• Editors - Charlie and Jess - Charlie and I are the editors. We decided on this as Charlie has had experience of editing before from his previous course in GCSE when he had to make his own film. I have also been chosen to help Charlie with the because I have had a couple years experience on the equipment from school and home. Our role here was to add all the shots together adding credits, soundtracks and editing techniques so that the opening sequence became on hole thing.
• Director of photography - Ryan and Charlie - The group chose on Ryan and Charlie to be the cameramen this is because both of them have had experience with the equipment before also due to their previous media course in GCSE. They could run the shot smoother and quicker as they know how everything works. Director of photography is basically the camera men meaning they were in charge of positioning cameras and  filming the shots.

We each had to be given more than one job because our group is small but as it is not a full film, just and opening sequence it wasn't to difficult and we could still keep organised. Giving each role to a different person made the filming process a lot quicker and easier. most roles were allocated to a specific person who would be best at it due to experiences and their knowledge. This meant the work got done quicker with less mistakes as most people knew what they were doing within their roles. The different roles made the filming easier because the jobs were evenly spread out decreasing stress and the duration.
Everyone worked quite well with their roles, there were rarely any problems and it ran smoothly, we benefitted from having allocated roles because it spread the work across a load of people allowing the it to get done quickly. One of the issues we faced was with the music producer this was because of the technology, Ryan found some of the soundtracks we wanted but due to copy they was difficult to get into our sequence this meant we had to find other sound which was possibly less effective. If we could some parts within our opening sequence we would make the music producer in to a two man job so that it was done quicker matching with the other roles.






 

Group storyboard - Miss Miller

The point of a group story board is to have a final plan of shots to follow when filming. It is used to describe each shots micro elements and other asset like actors and description, this makes it easier to know how the film is going to look with all the shots put together. Each member of my group made a individual story board of how we pictured the opening sequence looking. We then took our separate ideas and merged them together taking the best assets to make our group storyboard. We went through each one deciding on what was most effective for a thriller film and what wasn't to important to include, from this we joined the parts we preferred together make the group storyboard best of the three individual ones.


We created a group storyboard so that the layout of our opening sequence is a joint effort incorporating everyone's ideas, advantages and disadvantages to make it the best it can be. An example of an advantage from one of our storyboards is an over the shoulder shot from Charlie's individual work. This was inspired by the research we did in class from a "Shutter Island" clip. We have picked this to be in our group idea because we thought it worked well with the other shots in the scene and follows good conventions for a thriller. The over should shot used was looking past the antagonist at Cathryn. It is effective because it shows the antagonist is targeting her it make it clear to the audience so that they can understand the intentions of him. This shot builds suspense because it is clear our victim is being watch and in possible danger.


Another idea we thought would be good to have was the handheld of Cathryn walking with her phone. This shot was from my individual storyboard and we chose it because is was effective for the audience as they could relate and react to the characters actions and situation. This shot was an inspiration from the research I did into "Mama" there was a lot of hand held work in the film which I thought added to the emotions. I have used this on our victim because it emphasises on her instability and weakness over the other character in the film. It is effective because the audience can relate to this and expect something bad to happen to her. This also show that it is conventional because the audience expect to see her get hurt or expect her to be target by the antagonist.


We also got some other ideas from Ryans individual storyboard, one was the establishing shot he used at the beginning of his storyboard he has an establishing shot of the forest. We decided this shot would set the feel for whole film, showing the mystery from the low key lighting and isolation of the forest. This is effective because the audience become immediately intrigued into what the film is about and why it is set in a forest. The establishing shot show all the conventional assets of our film before any characters are involved giving of an enigma for the audience making them want to continue watching.


Each shot we chose to use is picked because it adds to our narrative, the group story board will have different shots to create different emotions and meanings. Each shot will be incorporated together to make the film runs smoothly, they will be made to fit in with everyone's ideas.




I think our group storyboard went well, we included as many of eachothers ideas as possible. We analysed each individual storyboard to make sure we used the best assets from each one. The end result was extremely good it included everything we needed to know about each shot and also had them in a good order. We did have to make a few changes to some of the shots because they didn't look as good when actually trying to perform them for example the establishing shot couldn't be a high angle because we didn't have the equipment need to make the shot, in stead we have to do a low angle looking up at the forest because it was easier to film. If we had the chance to do the storyboard again I would the duration of some of the shots and also some of the cinematography assets of the shot to the frames more effective and conventional.

Opening scene narration - Miss Miller

The narrative brief for our thriller opening sequence is about a girl who is left walk him eon her won through a forest and gets kidnapped by a murderer. Here it is in depth -

The first image shown is an establishing shot of the forest, this immediately sets the low key lighting for the whole film. Next there is a group of friends walking through a forest on there way home from a night out. They are all alone, well they think they are. As they walk down the main pathway they are talking and laughing, everything is normal. Having the girls whole bodies in shot shows the mise-en-scene, their hair and make up is very natural and their costume is light colours to show innocence. Our main character Cathryn is placed in the middle of the friends to show she is important in the film and needs to be watched closely. There are lots of shadows and dark areas due to the low key lighting we used to create mystery. This scene has an extreme long shot to show the girls situation, which is them being set in an isolated setting inform the audience they are far from help. The editing for this scene is slow editing so suspense builds. When the girls come to the end of the path they all say goodbye and venture of. Cathryn, our victim goes down a different smaller path than her friends. For this scene it is still low-key lighting and most cinematography shots are used to show her vulnerability for example high angle and long shots, also starting here is non-diegetic sound of slow eerie music. As Cathryn walks down the path further away from her friends she beings to get slightly scared, so the slow editing stop and changes in to normal straight cuts, she continues walking whilst texting on her phone not looking at her surroundings. All of a sudden she hears a twig snap, this is off screen sound, she looks around to see a dark shadowed figure in the middle of the trees. Invisible editing is used here to emphasise her panic. As Cathryn turns her head the shot changes with her and moves with her face. This scene is when the timing of shot begins, the more panicked she gets the fast the editing becomes. When she sees the antagonists silhouette she gets scared and walks away quickly trying not to show that she is worried. The non-diegetic music start again and this time it pace is fast rapid. This shot shows the antagonist for the first time, he is wearing dark clothing to show death and evil, also he is higher up in the frame to show strength and power. As she is fast pace walking up the path the camera is hand held to empathise her movements and actions clearer. The antagonist follows her so she starts running away, she drops her phone, the antagonist is faster than her so soon catches up. This is when the iconography is used the antagonist has a knife in his hand and when he gets close enough to Cathryn he uses the handle of it to hit her on the head. The fast editing ends hear suddenly to emphasise her being hit. The scene goes quiet silence is used the foreshadow Cathryn unhopeful future. Cathryn is knocked out and falls the ground, a canted angle is used looking though a high angle down on her to show her instability and weakness over the antagonist. Last she gets dragged away semi conscious leaving the audience unaware of her outcome. A fade to black is used and then her phone which was dropped further on in the sequence is shown in a close up. The lighting here is extremely low key, a message appears on her phone and the screen again fades to black.

Risk assessment - Miss Georgiou

Risk Assessment

When filming the risks should always be discussed and considered, this is to prevent any mishaps. It is important to consider risks so that when the filming is taking place all the right precautions are taken to avoid mistakes and accidents. We examine the dangers before filming so that when we actually film we are prepared to deal with the issues making the process smoother and safer.

Our risk assessment will help my group when we are filming by not only making the set safe but making sure nothing goes wrong in the shots. An example of the precaution we have taken to keep the set safe is to do with knife prop, having a knife around a large amount of people could cause a potentially life threating accident if the knife was to hurt someone. To prevent this we have are going to make sure the knife is put away safely when it is not in use, it will be keep away for the production team and cast so that their is a smaller chance of injury. A major example of how we are going to make sure nothing goes wrong with the camera equipment and shots is to keep the camera charged. If the camera was to run out of battery it would cause a big issue meaning we wouldn't be able to finish filming, elongating the finish date. To prevent this we are going to make sure every time we film the camera is fully charged and maybe even take a spare battery. The risk assessment to asset us when filming our opening sequence by preparing us for issues that we could face meaning we can deal with hem quickly without wasting unnecessary time. When filming we did encounter an issue that could have been a risk to filming which was passers by getting in the shots. Because we were in a forest filming on a public footpath it meant anyone could walk through. To stop this from happening we had to have someone looking out asking them to wait or telling the filming to stop until it was safe to continue filming. We knew how to over come this risk by looking at our risk assessment to find a solution to the problem.