Preliminary Animatic

Preliminary Animatic

Storyboard Diary

Storyboard Diary

My section of the group storyboard were the first 16 shots of our shot list.

I am really bad at drawing so I really struggled to get the right amount of detail and to make it obvious what the shots were supposed to be showing. I added some colour to the peoples hair to show the obvious change in characters and to make it obvious who was in what shot. 

We have to stick exactly to what our storyboard shows when it comes to shooting our Preliminary task so I had to make sure all the camera tracking and camera movement was obvious in each picture. 

I finished it over half term so that when we came back to school I could help Emily and Aisling with their's and so we were ahead of the tasks.

Shots For Preliminary

Shot List

THE CLASSROOM SCENE

1. Establishing shot of school – TBGS sign
2. Shot of classroom – from door looking in
3. POV from A opening the door
4. Match on action with opening the door
5. Camera at back of class showing all students
6. Shot reverse shot of Miss Moore and A
7. M close up
8. E close up
9. Matt and Harry close up
10. In front of back bench all laughing
11. Close up on A’s face
12. See A blurred in front showing all of back bench in focus
13. All getting up to leave showing M and A as M pushes A over

OUTSIDE SCENE

1. M and E walking towards camera - camera backing away
2. Close up on M and E
3. Camera goes past E and follows M into school

CORRIDOR SCENE

1. Camera far away from door at an angle to the left

CLASSROOM SCENE 2

1. Camera in doorway so M can walk past
2. Camera in line with back bench
3. Camera showing lit doorway with A in it
4. Shot of E outside as she runs into school hearing M scream
5. Close up shot of M under desk
6. Doorway shot showing E running in and M
7. Shot on floor of E’s phone hand reaching for it showing E and M’s feet walking away

TOILET SCENE

1. Shot of E and M walking round a corner
2. Shot of E walking into toilet
3. Match on action entering toilet
4. Close up on M eye line shot with pan to show A
5. 180 of E leaving toilet showing M staring at stairs
6. Follow E eye line – nothing there
7. Close up on E and M talking – 180 degree
8. Showing A at top of stairs

RUNNING SCENE AND HALL SCENE

1. Shot showing from A POV showing running different ways and A sending text
2. Shot of M running towards camera 
3. M checks phone 
4. M runs towards Hall
5. Shot of M entering hall
6. Shot of A entering Hall
7. Shot reverse shot of conversation
8. Shot of A walking over chairs with knife
9. Shot of E entering hall
10. Shot reverse shot of E and M ‘RUN”

RUNNING SCENE 2

1. Hand held following E run
2. 180 of corridor as E runs around corner
3. Shot showing M on floor
4. Shot showing A behind M
5. Black screen as E screams

Aisling

Emily

Maddie

Preliminary Planning

Preliminary Planning

Preliminary Ideas

Storyline

• Starts with a classroom scene with M and E and the guys at the back of the class, A walks in late and E,M&boys laugh at her as she sits at the front of the class on her own. Miss Moore says "Why are you late again Aisling?" A,"I was _________" (EXAM BOARD SHOT*) 
• M throws a pen at A's head (MATCH ON ACTION)
• Talking about internal fears, E says "I'm scared of spiders" M says "I'm scared of the dark" Matt says "Oh Harry is scared of girls miss!"  all laugh, then A says "I'm not scared of anything" (ZOOM ON A'S FACE) 
• (SOUND OF SCHOOL BELL) At the end of class, (ZOOM ON FOLDER LEFT ON THE FLOOR) M pushes A to the floor and E and M walk out of the school laughing about A, show clip of "Torquay Boys Grammar School"...M realises she forgot her folder so goes back inside while E waits outside
• Then films M inside the school, lights are flickering. When light is on, filming behind M, light goes off (SOUND OF DOOR CREAKING) and when goes back on, filming facing M and can see A behind her (SHOT REVERSE SHOT) 
• M walks inside the classroom to get the folder, lights flick off. Camera is in the corner of the room facing the door, can see M in the foreground looking scared, A in the doorway creating a silhouette, face unshown. M ducks under the desk and screams
• Cuts to E outside texting M "Where are you? What's taking you so long?" (MATCH ON ACTION) hears M screaming from inside, runs inside after her
• E runs into the classroom with M under the desk, lights on and no sign of A, "What's wrong with you?' M  is speechless
• Both leave classroom and E drops phone on the floor, camera zooms on phone as they walk away, filmed from the floor. See a hand pick it up - A as they walk away. 
• E "I need the loo, wait a sec" while E is gone the lights flicker again when A appears. E comes back and sees M pointing and looking scared, lights go off, E looks to wear M points, lights back on and nothing there. 
• E and M walk away a bit, with A behind them, lights flicker again so they look behind their shoulders (OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT) both run in different directions (FROM A'S POV) 
• Running scene with them both 
• A texts M from E's phone "come to the centenery hall, it's safe here" , to lure her in
• M walks into the hall, conversation with A, A reveals knife, M screams
• E runs into the hall, A is charging towards M, E&M running different ways again
• M screams...E walks round corner, sees M dead, lights off & on again, A stood over M with knife dripping with blood, lights off, E screams 

Ocean's 11 Opening Sequence Timeline

Ocean's 11 Opening Sequence Timeline

Preliminary Task Analysis

Analysis of a Previous Preliminary Task

The Fellowship

From the start there was a clear underlining story flowing through it which made it easy for the audience to follow however I couldn't obviously make it out to be a thriller convention. I would put it more as action or violence as there wasn't much of the typical thriller convention ideas running through it. 

Also, the lighting in some of the scenes makes the actors appear really dark which made me squint at the screen so this would detract from the effect of that particular scene. However, the light in the interview room looked really affective as it eliminated the people in it and the flicker of the light on worked really well within that scene.

My Preliminary 

I would avoid slipping into other genres of film if we'd been given a specific theme to look at as this would confuse the audience and make the film difficult to follow. Also, I would try to use lighting to the best of my ability as this would reinforce the ideas and themes of a typical thriller for example creating suspense and tension. I would try to do a vary of camera angles including low angle shots and high angle shots to keep it interesting and I would also include some kind of sound effects because otherwise it can make it drag on quite a lot without sound effects/music.

Match-on-action

This is a really good example of the Match-on-action.

Shot Reverse Shot

This is the example of the Shot Reverse Shot in the film.

180 Degree Rule

This is the example of the 180 degree rule without breaking it.

Film Practice

Practice Filming

This is our first practice of filming. We have 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot in it. It was really difficult to not laugh when filming so we had to do each shot about 3 times. We had a lot of fun as we could experiment with characters and different camera shots. I am really happy with the final product.

Next time I would add dialogue to make it a bit easier to follow the storyline and to add a bit more interest to it. I've learnt that it is quite difficult to get all the right camera angles in but it is also a lot of fun acting and playing around with a story. Emily was the camera person and she had a very controlled way of filming so that worked really well and made it look very professional. I have also learnt that it takes a lot of takes to get the perfect filming section done as it took us at least 3 attempts at each because we kept laughing so I would work really hard on keeping professional.

I would add a more obvious match-on-action because it wasn't obvious we had one.

Thriller Write Up

Thriller Film Write Up

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS - 1990
In the scene we watched, the main protagonist is a female training FBI agent who has been sent to interview a cannibal who is in prison. He is kept behind a glass wall which is the physical barrier separating the two, however, in the scene we learn that he gets into peoples head so doesn't need to be able to touch them. In this particular scene, for once, the antagonist has the upper hand which creates fear in the audience for the protagonist. During this scene, there is a lot of eye contacting made and held which makes the antagonist appear very intense and creepy, further helped by the fact he's standing up against the glass so he's standing as close to the women as he can, making him appear even more creepy. The camera shots use lots of shot reverse shots and match on action to make the scene flow easily but to also make it slightly disjointed which adds to the tension and pace of the scene.

BLACK SWAN - 2010
In this film, the protagonist is psychologically challenged which makes the audience intrigued as to what is going on inside her head. She's a women training to play the parts of the white swan and the black swan in a ballet. She becomes very confused and starts to take on a double personality. In the scenes we watched, there was a lot of duel rolling and mirroring/reflecting which supports the double personality idea. The mirrored or reflected women is ding echoed actions which further confuses both the protagonist and the audience. The use of the lighting adds shadows so the audience isn't 100% sure of whether they saw her or a women who looked like her. Also, the use of a hand held camera adds pace and creates tension to the scenes.

THE SHINING - 1980'S
In this film, the protagonist becomes the antagonist, which is very rare for thrillers so this adds confusion and intrigues the audience further. One scenes we watched was where the female character is very clearly victimised which creates a stereotype of the women being the weaker sex and the other scene we watched was where the little boy sees two twins and the scene switches from them being alive, to them being dead and bleeding everywhere. This is a clever camera skill as it confuses the audience as we don't know which is real. The close ups on Danny's face really show his emotions and because he's only a child, we feel extreme sympathy and fear for him.

FATAL ATTRACTION - 1987
In this film, a one night stand goes horribly wrong and the main protagonist ends up with a obsessive stalker. In the scene we watched, there is really intense eye contacting, almost as if they're testing each other, which puts the audience on the edge of their seats because we don't know who's going to break first. In another scene, the expression of an obsessive ex being called a 'Bunny Boiler' comes from this scene as the obsessive one night stand kills and boils the family bunny which is really disgusting so it makes the audience dislike the antagonist much more. This creates tension as in this scene the use of cross cutting creates the sense that something is waiting in the house, which is typical of thrillers.

Shot Types

Shot Types

MATCH ON ACTION

Match on action means that when something happens in a scene, when there is a cut, the same piece on action must be going on.

This is an example of continuity editing and is very important in helping the audience continually understand exactly what is happening.

SHOT REVERSE SHOT

Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the audience assume they are looking at each other.

This is commonly featured in the 'classic' Hollywood style of continuity editing.

180 DEGREE RULE

The rule states that the camera should remain the same side of an imaginary line and that the line is drawn perpendicular to the camera's viewpoint in the establishing shot of the scene. The rule enforces continuity of the film.

The Birds Commentary

The Birds Commentary

The Conventions of a Thriller

Conventions of a Thriller

The Aim of a Thriller: to create suspense and excitement for the audience.

The thriller often uses busy streets and the environment is usually urban or suburban.



The narrative revolves around the investigation of an enigma or the hero is the only person able to solve the enigma and reveal the truth.

Violence is central to most thriller films as well as it often reveals the workings of particular institutions such as the police, the army or the government. 

There will be rational rather than supernatural explanations of the puzzle.

The hero and the villain, although on opposing sides, share some characteristics. The hero is often an outsider, isolated, secretive but moral. The enigma of the thriller will be solves by the hero/s

The thriller centres on injustice in society but solves these wrongs.

Sound is used to create tension with eerie or intense music being played either as diegetic or non-diegetic material within a scene. High pitched sound is often used as it makes the audience uncomfortable and shows how the scene might not be pleasant or something unexpected might happen. Many other sounds are used in thrillers and even within dialogue. This makes it unique to other genres as inner monologues or perhaps narrators can be found in many thriller films, which creates a more direct tension to the audience.

Cinematography depicts the different camera shots and angles and when the thriller genre is concerned, these shots and angles are used in greater doses and with faster transitions from on to the next. In conventional thriller films, such as Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’, camera angles are used more excessively such as within the scene where Marion Crane is murdered in the shower. The camera is used to show the front view of Marion as if we ourselves are taking the perspective of the murderer adding tension and disgust to the scene.

Title Sequence Analysis

Mission Impossible Title Sequence

I have chosen this title sequence because it is very clever and follows with the theme of the movie. During this scene, the camera follows along a fuse line which has been lit in the section of the movie before. This makes the introduction very exciting and will make the audience want to watch the entire film due to the immediate interest.

This scene shows sections from the film which will happen later, making the audience intrigued. The font is bold and white and contrasts with the black background in most of the sequence. This makes it bold and it also stands out.

The angle of the camera changes to make the scene like a roll-a-coaster. It also makes it come alive and you feel involved with the story.

This particular angle of the camera heightens the anticipation and suggests the building is involved in the plot later in the film.

It also immediately shows the audience all the different places that will be visited during the rest of the film.

These establishing shots set the scene straight away and allows the audience to feel like they already know how the film will go, giving them a sense of power.