For our first test shoot, we couldn’t find other students of the right gender to be actors so I volunteered to play one part and we found another girl in the year above to be our other actress. We filmed on Harry’s phone because it has the best quality out of all of our phones. This meant that all our shots were rather shaky because they were handheld which, although we probably won’t us in our actual thriller, went quite well with the plot because it added an element of uncertainty and unease.
Overall, we were happy with the footage. Harry had altered the white balance when we were filming, making it seem like we were filming at a later time in the day and also worked well with the orange tint of autumn which complimented the colours of the trees and general natural landscape. We lowered the ISO because the background was very bright meaning that I, our actress, was more of a silhouette so you couldn’t see my facial expressions very well which we didn’t want. It was difficult but we managed to find an appropriate balance so that we could see both the background and my facial expressions clearly.
The overall shoot went well but it was the editing that made us question our idea. Harry was the only one in the group who had easy access to editing software and was also the most enthusiastic about taking on the task. However, the shots seemed forced and rather unnatural when they were put together, which was no fault of Harry but our shots dimly didn’t work very well. The end result wasn’t great and non of us were particularly pleased but we knew that we weren’t going to have our idea finalised instantly and that this shoot would help us realise what it is we need to alter or and if we’re happy pursuing this idea. The ‘fight’ section was very short and unrealistic that it actually added an element of comedy which we didn’t intend. I knew before that the fight wasn’t going to look particularly exciting visually because we didn’t really have the time or another actress who was comfortable doing it. I was still optimistic about the fight but other members of the group weren’t so I don’t know if it’ll be something we carry on through into our final idea. One of the main issues was that it was very very short. Our thriller will have to be about 2 minutes long but our test shoot was only _____. This shoot helped us to develop our idea more by presenting certain questions within our narrative that we have left unanswered but made us relies that we need to rethink our idea and develop it a lot more so that we know exactly what we’re doing next time.
Test Shoot 2
After getting feedback about an alternative narrative from our teacher from our first test shoot, we decided to try again to eliminate all the problems presented form the first shoot. When filming we realised ghat we could play around with a larger range of more visually appealing shots. The idea was to have a police officer pointing a gun at a young woman who is standing by a ledge panicking. He approaches her and tells her to ‘put the gun down’. She would then turn around suddenly and say ‘I didn’t do it’. A short dialogue would follow where we see how distressed and scared she is. We used tracking shots to establish the tension within the two characters and also to increase tension as a body is also revealed. The officer convinces the girl to drop the weapon and she does so. He takes her away.
Even after this shoot, there were a lot of questions that I felt were unanswered. It was slightly annoying in the post-production process when I tried to bring this into conversation but some members of the group were quite reluctant to answer because they were trying to edit. Hopefully, when it comes to filming and editing we establish priorities because some of the questions needed to be answered to help with the editing process.
