Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Siobhan Sheridan

Prelim Task In our preliminary task, we had to create a short sequence which included match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. Filming this, we had take quite a lot of shots to get it right. This was useful when editing, though, because we were able to intertwine different shots, without the audience being able to tell. We decided if we ever did the shot, reverse, shot again, we would film over-the-shoulder shots to help the feeling of conversation flow. The prelim task also helped us to learn about how final cut worked. We learnt the basic tools and the layout here. We also learnt that having a detailed plan was important and will save time as we spent a lot of time in our location trying to figure out which shots to take.

Research From the start, it was decided that we would try to create a physiological thriller as it appealed to use the most. To do this we did lots of research on other well known physiological thrillers. We looked at films like Se7ev, Six feet under and the panic room. This gave us ideas for camera shots, editing techniques, mise en scene features and sound. We also looked at films that were names after the protagonists weakness, for example vertigo and insomnia and decided to name ours after a weakness too, as a base idea for our thriller. Our favourite phobias we found were… Spectophobia: the fear of mirrors Athazagoraphobia: the fear of being forgotten Mnemophobia: the fear of memories All of these stood out to us because they gave us a lot of options. In the end, we went with the fear of memories as using flashbacks to create enigmas was something we definitely wanted to try.

Titles For filming the footage for are titles, we decided that we wanted to look at ‘to kill a mocking bird’. This was because the framing helps focus in on significant objects and the titles are edited in around the objects, to look natural. This is something we wanted to do, so we could show the significance of the objects we put in the frame. In the image above, we practised putting in text to fit in with the surrounding buildings on After effects. We also looked at other films like seven for the font of our credits. We liked the look of capital letters as they were bold and came across strongly. Also the colour of the wording was important as it needed to stand out in the background. Black and White were the best colours we found that worked. This was because any bright colours took away from the mood of our thriller.

Camerawork For inspiration on camerawork, Se7en was the main film we based our ideas on. We tried to recreate a shot, and it worked quite well. All of the other shots were different, but based around how se7en lit the objects shown and how close they all were to the camera. All of our objects in the opening sequence when the titles were shown, the objects were all positioned close to the camera and lighting helped for it all to stand out. Because of this research, we learned about how to light objects using the torch, natural light and bounce boards. After experimenting, we found ways of creating shadows and making objects stand out

Planning Having a story board, shot list and plan helped us to shoot our thriller defiantly and quickly. As we were writing it as helped us to figure out what we would need to research. For example, when we were making story board, it helped us to figure out which order we would film our shots in. This saved us wasting time going back and forth between two locations.