First day of filming

Over the half term we had our first day of filming and we got all that we needed done which we were all very pleased about. We shot the middle part of our film opening which was at a house down Sarah's road. In our film we used Charlotte to act as our victim as we knew she would be reliable as she is part of our group and we also used Sarah's dad as the stalker as we again knew he would be reliable and it was convenient as we were shooting down Sarah's road.

We ended up filming a lot more than we needed for each shot as we thought it would be a better idea to have more than less. As Charlotte was acting, it was me, Sarah and Molly behind the camera who filmed, made sure the shot looked right and directed the scenes as this way every group member had a fair role in the making of the film and we all had our say.

We started off by filming an establishing shot of the house which was a wide shot from the other side of the road and showed Sarah's dad walking into the scene and placing himself down the alley at the side of the house where he could see Charlotte but she couldn't see him.

The next shot was from right outside the house when we showed Charlotte coming out from the front door and walking towards the second alley and then Sarah's dad walking across the camera after her. We then filmed this same part but from a different angle. We placed the camera upstairs and filmed out of the window to give a different perspective. This also gives the feeling that Charlotte is vulnerable as is it from a high angle.


We then filmed a shot of inside the house and Charlotte walking out to give another view.

Next we filmed the part where Sarah's dad follwed Charlotte down the alley. At one point we showed Charlotte turning around and realising there is someone behind her and Sarah's dad putting his head down so she cannot see his face. After they walked a little but further Sarah's dad then put his hand out as if to grab Charlotte from behind. For this part we filmed it in two different ways. First we filmed a handheld point of view shot without the tripod and then we used the tripod again to film Charlotte walking towards the camera with Sarah's dad close behind her.


We managed to film everything that we needed to this day and we all really enjoyed it and can't wait to film some more when we get back to school so we can use the dark room. We learnt however that filming does take some time and you have to be patient with setting up the shots and be aware of your surroundings so no people or cars cut through your shots.

Stalker research for our film - Skoda car advert

I saw this advert and thought it would be good for our research. The camera shots used in it are point of view and close ups of the people in the car who could be seen as the "victims". We could use these types of shots in our own film. I also liked the idea that in this you cannot see who or what is following and watching them, you can only hear noises which leaves it to the viewers imagination to who it is and what they look like. I think we should use this in our own film and not show the stalkers face so the viewer can make up their own mind on what he looks like.
Although this advert is not a scary one we want to make our film more mysterious and edgey.

Ideas for our 2 minute film and practising with the equipment

Our group finally decided on an idea for our 2 minute film that we all agreed on. We expanded on our stalker idea and decided we could use the dark room in school used for photography lessons to show how obsessed the stalker is by showing him developing photographs of all his victims.

Our opening shot is going to be of the victim walking through a park with a friend and then make an effect using imovie that looks like the stalker is taking photos of her as he watches.
Then we will show the stalker in the old dark room at school developing the photos he has just taken. We will also use certain camera shots such as a pan to show the stalkers many photos of previous victims he has stuck around the room.
Our next shot will be at Sarah's house where we will show the victim leaving the house and walking down an alleyway. We are going to use a point of view shot of the stalker as he follows closely behind her. He will then put out his hand as if to grab his victim but before he touches her the screen will go black and you will hear a muffled scream as we think that if we show the victim being grabbed we wont be able to make the reactions look realistic and if we show the screen going black it leaves it to the viewers imagination.
Our final shot will be once again be in the dark room where the stalker will replace the previous photo of his victim for a photo of the victim dead.
We are also hoping to include our credits in the dark room scene by having photos of our group up to show we were once his victims with our names underneath.



In our last lesson before half term each group was given all the equipment we needed to shoot our film over the next 3 weeks. We were then given the oppertunity to practise using the camera and tripod. Our group went into the playground and started practising a pan show and zoom which we want to include in the first scene of our film. We were also getting used to different types of lighting as we had to place the camera in certain positions to be able to see the characters clearly.
We also discovered the old dark room that nobody uses anymore which we thought would be really good to use in our film as it is only small, really old and really creepy which would add to our atmosphere we want in our film. It also looks like it could be a room in his house or possibly a garage he has converted into a dark room to develop photos of his victims.

We tried out different ligthing in this room too but thought the best way to film it would be with the night mode on because you can see everything clearly and it still gives a scary atmosphere.
We then went back to the media room and uploaded what we had filmed onto the Mac. We tried out our idea of the stalker taking photos by editing it on imovie and it turned out really well.
Were now really excited to start filming and look forward to start editing everything!

Audience Response to our Preliminary exercise

In our lesson on Friday, as a class we all watched eachothers Prelim exercises and gave our responses to them.

The feedback that we gained from the class was that there wasn't much continuity as we missed out a shot because we should of filmed Charlotte sitting down on the chair after she entered the room. As we were filming this we did realise and tried to fix it by putting an extra shot of Sarah's suprised face in but we really needed the shot of Charlotte sitting down to make it look more realistic and keep the continuity.

This feedback from the audience response has helped us because it has taught us to be more careful about our filming and make sure we have every shot we need before sitting down to edit. It means we will make sure our storyboard is perfect and includes every shot we need before we start filming for anything else, especially our 2 minute film opening coursework task.

Our film research

Our group has been thinking of some ideas for our 2 minute film opening and have come up with something which we are looking to further research.

We thought that we could do a stalker type film where we could have point of view shots from someone watching a girl as she gets ready to leave the house and follow them down the road.

We have decided to research other stalker films that we know about such as Prom Night, The Watcher and Scream and see if we can get any more ideas from them and progress with our film opening.

Jaws Shot By Shot - Part 1

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The Jaws shot by shot was a lot more indepth and detailed compared to my analysis of James Bond.
The Jaws one starts out by looking at other films that have similar parts in it which I did not do in my analysis. This was good because it meant that they could then compare certain bits of Jaws to other films and say how effective that was.
The Jaws analysis also included the credits saying who was in the film and some background research about the film like on slide 4 and 5 that gave statistics and facts about how well the film did in the box office and the budget the film had. This was good because it gave the veiwer some background knowledge of it before they started their main anaysis incase the veiwer had not seen the film before.
Next time I analyse a film I will take tips from this slideshow to improve mine and consider writing about the credits, present screen shots to make it easier for the veiwer to follow and to write more indepth and expand my points. I also liked the way that the Jaws analysis looked at symbolism and the reason for why things happened like they did.

Completed preliminary exercise

This is our final preliminary exercise after we edited it. From this we learnt the importance of the 180° rule, how to shoot various camera angles and how to direct actors in a short film.

Our script:
Charlotte: (Walks past door of room outside and cannot be seen, reappears in the middle of the door from below looks at Sarah angrily through window of door)
Sarah: (Looks shocked/scared as of seeing Charlotte)
Charlotte: (Storms into room and sits down opposite Sarah) Wanna be startin' somethin'?
Sarah: You've got to be startin' somethin'!
Charlotte: Wanna be startin' somethin'?
Sarah: You've got to be startin' somethin'!
Charlotte: Your too high to get over..?
Sarah: Yeah, yeah..
Charlotte: Your too low to get under..?
Sarah: Yeah, yeah..
Charlotte: Your stuck in the middle..?
Sarah: And the pain is thunda'!

And this is one slide from our original storyboard which we used to help film and edit our preliminary task. Once we started fliming we made minor changes to our storyboard as we came up with better ideas but this was one that we stuck to.

Our preliminary task

In last Wednesday's lesson we discussed the preliminary task that we had to complete and within our groups made a storyboard to fit our own. The preliminary task is a simple 30 second film that must include two actors having a conversation. One must walk through a door and sit at a table where the other actor is already sitting and exchange a few lines of dialogue. The main focus of the preliminary task is to show that we understand the 180° rule. We watched past years preliminary tasks and then our group decided to use song lyrics rather than a made up conversation as we thought this would be easier. Sarah and Charlotte were the two actors in our task and decided on the song "Got to be starting something" by Michael Jackson. Myself and Molly were directing and filming the task and so thought about the camera shots we wanted to use.

In Friday's lesson we were the first group to shoot our preliminary task. As we started shooting we started to make changes to our original story board as we had newer better ideas and we ended up with 5 different shots all using the 180° rule. Overall it took 17 takes to get them perfect but we ended up with one two shot, two over the shoulder shots from different angles, a long shot of Charlotte walking through the door and one close up shot of Sarahs face. The filming of our task took longer than I thought and I did not think we would have had to do so many takes but I enjoyed the lesson and look forward to editing our task and putting it all together.