Preliminary Task- Filming

Filming the Thriller opening for our Preliminary Task



On the day of filming, we decided the location to which we wanted to film our thriller opening, and all the equipment required. However, half way through filming, the camera battery died, and so we only had half the footage. We also had a limited time frame to film on that day, and so we thought it would be logical to film the next day.
However, the next day we all had different outfits, and so we had to completely re film due the footage not looking consistent. This worked in our favour, as we realised the footage would look more professional with studio lighting with a black curtain behind the actors, to really emphasise the thriller genre.

The location, with the lighting and camera in position.

Due to having to re-film, we had to be even more efficient with our extremely limited time frame, as we were already eating into our editing time. So, we allocated different roles to the members in the group. I was one of the actresses in the film, along with Amy, whilst Harriet and Chloe filmed. We all had a go at filming eventually, and learnt how to use the studio lighting. We worked well as a group, deciding which camera angles would be the most appropriate as well as using the equipment responsibly.

Here I am focusing the camera.

As we had thoroughly planned what we wanted to film, this made the process sleek and enjoyable, as we had a strong direction of exactly what we wanted the film to look like which avoided and conflict within the group. Naturally, there were aspects of filming which we could only sort on the day, such as choosing how much lighting we wanted, the appropriate back drop and setting up the 'interview table'. In the long run, this saved us time as we were very well organised and flexible if something didn't quite look right or work. Another thing to note is as we were filming, we changed the dialogue slightly and some of the camera angles we had written down on the story board were adapted, as when filming we thought of camera angles which would be more appropriate for the storyline.

To conclude, after the first day of filming, the second day went well, and we were able to film multiple parts of one scene, to enable us to choose the best footage when editing that had the best lighting, or wasn't out of focus, making the editing task much easier. The only problem we faced was sometimes the camera wouldn't focus, but this was easily resolved when we got used to filming and refocusing on objects.