My Skills audit at the beginning of A2

Production Schedule

Third Filming Session - 24th March 2010

We filmed for the third time due to the problems we faced while filming the second time round. We however completed our filming and got the necessary camera shots needed. We also improved better on the lighting and sound, so you could hear the characters when they are talking instead of the interference of the wind. Improvement was seen through these camera shots and our filming as we used a tripod, this gave us good camera shots.

However we still faced certain obstacles such as one of the boys still did not turn up to film. So one of our members of the group Imani had to take his place.

Storyboard for our Thriller Film

Improvements for thriller film

When filming the second time we came across many obstacles. However we are going to film again.

This scene is supposed to be effective cause it was the last one. We were supposed to finish this with a close up, consequently creating immense suspense. We wanted it to be slow so it could create the most tension. However the character who played the role did the scene too fast and is seemed quite rushed. By filming this again we can overcome this obstacle and improve it by getting the character too look directly at the camera and to decrease the speed.

When we were filming we decided to use a torch due to it being dark. However the problems we faced while filming this scene is that, when the three characters were walking the lighting of the torch was very mainly focused on one character, and therefore it did not look professional. We can improve this by filming the scene again and not using the torch. We can also put the characters standing under the street light which will act like a 'spotlight.'

Although the red lightning in the background looks good as it creates tension, and the red background is quite symbolic as it creates a sense of danger and makes the audience feel quite unsettled.

The problems we faced here were that the lightning was extremely too dark. Also when we were zooming into the hand the camera angles were shaky as we did not use a tripod, which also made it look unprofessional. We could overcome this by getting one of the characters to use a light on their phone to shine on the hand and blood, or maybe a torch light that one of the characters are holding to focus in on the hand and blood. We can also use a tripod when doing the close up and when zooming in, this will make it look more steady and professional.

Second Fiming Session - 10th February 2010

We filmed for a second time because we needed to start the filming again and needed to make the improvements to our previous attempt, as the main camera shots were mainly focused on one character and the camera was in various places quite jerky. We managed to finish the majority of the filming this time.

However we did face some obstacles filming the second time around. We got to the Park and it was snowing quite heavily. However it did not last long and consequently we could continue our plans of filming. When we were filming in some parts of it the quality of the sound was not that good, this was because the sound of the wind was very loud and it cancelled out the dialogue made from the characters. Consequently we will have to dub over this in order to hear the charcters talking so the audience can understand the storyline.

We also had some problems when we had to make the fake blood by using flour, water, red colouring and ketchup. The first time around it did not go to plan as it was too thick, however the second time around it worked. We also made sure the battery was completely charged as during our previous attempt at filming the battery had died and we could not finish.

First filming session - 7th Febuary 2010

The filming did'nt go as well as planned.
All entrances of Broomfield Park were locked. We ended up having to relocate the whole scene to Pymms Park.

There were a few problems with getting the camera ready, e.g. assembly the tripod correctly and making sure the picture was bright enough to film.

We covered the first part of the opening, with the 3 boys walking towards the camera, spotting the hand and the blood on the boxes as well as them recognizing the tramp and deciding to steal the bottle.

Improvements to make: For the next filming sessions we will need to improve our timing of recording, e.g. make sure everyone is ready before recording to ensure unecessary bits are not filmed, we will need to practice familiarizing ourselves more with the camera so that we master how to perform basic functions, we should also make sure the actors practise their lines as well as practising acting actively so that the filming process will run a lot more smoothly.