Bringing the set to life- Day 2 of filming

Here is an image of our set that has been created and came to life. As you can see the collage has been put on the wall, we have got our correct lighting we need, and most of the props are situated on the desk now. This image will give you a feel of the way the full video will play out due to the expected tone, based on the lighting and mise en scene. We furthermore thought about the smaller details that take place in the scene such as the painting on his left. The painting has foreign writing and symbols on it that allude to our main character Joseph that revolves around other cultures and beliefs.

I have been assigned to be the Production manager for the project and so far I think everybody is doing great and doing their allocated jobs very well. Now that all our primary filming is completed, I'm looking forward very much to see the final edit of the cut and see how it all looks once all the editing and finalizing is completed,

The collage on the wall- Set

These are the images Benoit collected and printed off for the shoot. The main purpose of them is to try and give our character further meaning, when the audience sees these images they will begin to understand that our character is radical, and his views and interests are extreme, based on the images in his bedroom wall. They then can begin to expect how we wants to hurt people and cause terror, which adds to the thrilling aspect of the video as a whole.

Then here is an image with Aayush sitting at his desk with the collage on the wall. When the set was complete and we had sorted out the lighting, the set came to life and looked dark and eerie, which we were very happy with as it was exactly what we wanted.

Creating the main set

Before we shot the scene, we had to carefully create and think about our set. We had to make it so it was perfect for the tone and feel our video was trying to give off, so we carefully played around with the lighting and mise en scene to try and achieve this. 

This image showcases our group preparing and starting to build up our set we need for the scene. Jamie and Benoit are building up the desk area, with our primary props that they put there such as the lamp, documents and pieces of paper, the camera, the drink, the phone and so on. Me and Aayush are discussing the documents on the wall the character will interact with, and we also discussed the placement of these documents on the wall. After we had built the set we began filming right away.

Oblivious draft #1- Thriller opening- Our first draft

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This is our groups first official edit for our opening. The title, or title sequence, is yet to be made properly so that will be finished soon. The initial purpose of this edit is to give us an impression of how our footage actually looks when put together and slightly edited, and to see how it compares with out storyboard. This then enables us to see what we need to change, and what we are definitely going to keep.



For example this edit has shown to us our chosen mise en scene and lighting comes together very well and it looks great for our tone and feel we are trying to give off with this video.  So we know our lighting we tried to achieve worked, which we are very happy with. However the edit has shown us there are some mistakes with the shots and flow of the video. Some camera shots have a slight shake to them which disrupts our flow of the video as everything is shot on a tripod but this shot that is slightly shaky seems out of place, so we will change this in the final edit. Whether this is due to re-shooting or taking the shot out in general. We also found out a mistake where two shots are directly next to each other, and they are basically the same shot but one is more zoomed in. This is referring to the shot of the small medicine box on the desk. This does not look very good to the eye, and affects our continuity. So we will take out one of those shots.



To conclude this post, we are really happy with this first draft. It looks good, our lighting is what we wanted, our technical aspects are apparent in the video, and it has given us a great first insight on what we need to do better and what we need to change.

The classroom- Setting

This is the classroom we are filming the last scene of the opening in. You can only see the door area, this is because this shot is also an establishing shot that sees Aayush walking through this door and then sits down in the classroom with his peers. The classroom scene and this particular setting furthermore emphasizes the fact that this scene is taking place inside a school; which gives some more context to the viewers. The camera wills see Aayush's character Joseph walk in, and then track his movement to the right to see him sit down with this peers. The rest then unravels and the reveal is shown.

Day 1 of filming- First look

This is our first still from the project of Aayush in character walking down the corridor within our school. He is dressed in a formal attire to express the characteristics of a 'nerd', and this character doesn't really have any friends and we thought the way he's looking and the scene itself helps represent this. During the shoot we recorded all the footage we needed that take place inside the school, and we are all happy with the footage and feel things such as the colours and cinematography are suitable and fit the video well. We will resume filming soon which is exterior to school.

The Animatic- first draft

This is our first draft for our animatic. As you can see from my previous storyboard blog post, this animatic follows our guidelines from our storyboard. We also felt like changing up and diverting away from the conventional thriller guidelines, this meaning tense fast paced music as seen in the conventional thriller films. This is why we got a piece of religious orchestra music to play over the clip; to try and keep the audience drawn in whilst not being too familiar with the subject, also we aim that they'll feel uncomfortable and eerie. We also feel that a wide range of camera shots have been used to engage the audience, also the minimal amount of dialogue makes the premise of the opening seem more mysterious. Lastly, we so far really like the animatic and are going to carry it through and shoot the opening following this animatic and its structure.

The Storyboard for our Thriller

Here are the images that form our entire storyboard. These were developed and thought about by our group. Our two minute opening will be following the same structure and content as our storyboard. All the technical aspects such as camera shots and duration will be the same, along with the non-diegetic music in the background playing over. The animatic will be published soon so that will be on my blog fairly shortly.