Progression From Prelim To Final

Thriller FilmToby Taylor

In the prelim, the camerawork was done well as it met the requirements of our storyboard. The prelim consisted of a few angles, that were all still and not handheld either. In our thriller however we added these handheld shots to put some movement in our shot.

Our thriller consisted of many shots; handheld; panning; tracking and stills, whist the prelim was only about 4 static shots.

In our prelim, the whole thing was shot inside a small office that didn’t really relate to the plotline or create an atmosphere of any kind. Our thriller however had many locations that followed one after another to show the progression of the killer moving throughout the school. The different camera angles and techniques used made each scene different from the other whilst still keeping the action and terror intense.

Camera

Mise En Scene played a much bigger and more impactful part in our thriller because was able to set the scene how we wanted to present it. In the preliminary task, there were no props, costumes etc, to identify the characters or show relevance and create a context for the scene.

The prelim was shot only in a small office room, which was quite bland and irrelevant to what was happening in the scene. In our thriller, we made use of the whole school, to show how the killer went round a school building, killing everywhere till he reached his final point. A high school massacre would only be appropriate if it was shot in a school.

In the preliminary, our actors were normal people we used, put into a situation where they just recite lines and not be able to put an emotion into a character. In the thriller our actors were more believable as they had purpose and an actual roll to fill in the scenes. Each actor knew what they had to act with the context that went with it, meaning they could relate more to the audience.

The Mise En Scene was much more through and useful in our thriller to help build the scene, create an atmosphere and keep tension high throughout. The progression we created with the killer moving around a school left the audience what would happen next.

Mise En Scene

In the prelim, all the sounds were diegetic. However in our thriller, we made heavy use of the sound, primarily through the use of binary oppositions. We inserted sound effects such as gunshots and screaming, which are meant to be diegetic in the film world.

In our preliminary task, there was only diegetic dialogue, which made the scene dull and boring.

The thriller had a variety of sounds, which included the non-diegetic gunshots, screaming and also the use of contrapuntal sound; with the non-diegetic classical and rock music. This was used to add; tension; mystery and suspense, as it confuses the audience, whilst also maintaining the high levels of tension due to the rapid and continuous killings taking place.

The sound was better and more effective in our thriller than prelim as it drastically added to the realism and created that sense of action and confusion with the binary opposite non-diegetic musical changes.

Sound

The editing in the thriller was much better and improved as we spent many more hours on it. For the prelim, we just cut down the footage into a few shots, then spliced them all together in After Effects, but the thriller contained numerous sound and editing techniques to make it look as professional as possible.

We ended up using 3 programs to edit our thriller, as they both had their individual pros and cons.

Adobe premier was initially used to upload our footage onto and render into a much smaller and easier file to edit.

Sony Vegas was then used to cut and trim all the clips, then sort them all together. Once we were happy with the progression of the film sequence, we then added the title and credits using Vegas. The non-diegetic was also added and edited through Vegas.

Finally, Adobe After Effects, the most powerful software out of the three, was used to add all the visual effects. This included; the gun muzzles flashes and the lighting which changed with each shot fired. I also spent a lot of time trying to add in blood splatters from where each victim is shot. However, as mentioned in the account of editing, the camera work was very shaky and therefore made it very hard for the blood to track a body, whilst looking professional. As the program was easy and intuitive to use, after feedback, I was easily able to turn off the blood effects I added and re-render in only a couple of minutes. The most time was spent on After Effects as well, to insure we were happy with how everything looked.

Editing

Storyboard ComparisonPreliminary

Storyboard ComparisonThriller

The preliminary task storyboard was already given to us, meaning we had no input into the task.

In our thriller however, we came up with the idea and made our own storyboard. Although the storyboard before was of our initial idea, we did change the actual thriller slightly due to various bits of feedback and what we thought was best. For example, the whole basketball scenario to add mystery and a duck mask instead of clown etc.

Storyboard Comparison

Although my group for the prelim and thriller was different, I think the teamwork in the thriller was well organised and productive, as we each had our own separate area to work on, meaning everyone contributed in their own way.

We were also able to help each other out if needed, such as the editing, where I had help at various points as my friend was able to show me editing shortcuts and what to do at various points, such as green screening the muzzle effects as one example.

Teamwork