2. Negotiating skills in team work
Since doing my preliminary I had learned the importance of many factors and skills
that go into making a short film, that I previously had little knowledge of. One of
these is that working together as a team is the best approach because everyone in
my group had valid and creative contributions to our final production. This meant
we could all put our best individual ideas into a single one, that involved aspects in
it that without each other wouldn’t have been in there. Like Isaac had the idea for
the underwater shot as he had the technology, and without this it wouldn’t have
even occurred to me that this is a possibility; or Harry my editing partner came up
with the idea of quickly cutting to several shots of looking down the barrel of a gun
to make it intense. one of the reasons I think teamwork is best is because we’ve all
seen different thriller films so we all have different knowledge of inter-textual
references so can contribute this variety. Also my group involved both males and
females which was part of our target audience therefore we could reflect the
knowledge of how to appeal to them into our thriller. Our preliminary task
introduced us to these important points as we worked in the same group so already
had good group dynamics.

3. Initial ideas we all worked together
to come up with.

4. Polishing camera skills
Doing the preliminary task familiarised myself with camera skills for example camera
angles, it made me realise the importance that I needed to involve a variety of different
angles to make it more interesting and visually stimulating for the viewer. Furthermore,
when doing the evaluation on my preliminary task and case studies I improved my
knowledge on implications and inferences of these angles like an over the shoulder shot (a)
depending on if it’s a high or low angle, usually always positions us in the point of view of
the character usually so we are on “their side” and empathize with them. Also close ups
and extreme close ups so we can see a character’s emotions or to see something of
importance, this was especially important as it was a convention of thrillers Additionally,
the preliminary task developed my knowledge and skills of camera movements, such as
tracking and panning shots, usually used so we could see all the composition of the shot or
to follow/go to something of importance. We attempted to do a tracking shot (b) in our
preliminary however it didn’t go very well because it wasn’t very smooth and level, and
harder than we initially thought. But when it came to shooting our thriller and we did a
tracking shot and it went a lot better because it was smoother and didn’t tremor, this was
because we discovered it was easier using a tripod for it and you needed to be gentle when
recording it, we also needed to get our actor to time his run/movements better with the
camera.

6. Generic Conventions
Doing case studies and watching thriller films helped me establish and develop my knowledge of the genre. For
example, before doing case studies I had no idea what chiaroscuro lighting was and how it was commonly
found within the genre, but when investigating films such as Essex Boys (c) and Se7en (d). I found that it was
very common and is one of the biggest signifiers to the genre. Moreover cliff hangers were often used at the
end of openings specifically to create uncertainty and keep the audience on the edge of their seats because
this adds to conventions of the genre. For example in Heavenly Creatures or The Third Man. In our preliminary
task we didn’t have to involve conventions of thrillers so it was something we really had to extensively research
in class and in case studies so we could convey these and show our knowledge within our final production.
Creating conventional tension and anxiety is something we really struggled with when first starting our thriller
as we didn’t have to do this much in our preliminary. With our first rough cut we decided we needed more
footage so had to do this twice in order to progress to the end product we desired that did construct tension
and anxiety, once again on the forest and in a house, the teacher feedback really helped us achieve this. The
lack of contrasting locations didn't allow for authenticity. Thus we decided to add extra footage of the runner in
a recognisable situation doing the washing up in a kitchen with flash backs or a premonition to being hunted in
the woods..This is what I learned from this first edit, that thrillers work best when they represent ordinary
people doing recognisable chores with cuts to a desolate trackless forest where the boy doing the washing up
is represented as prey. This use of opposing locations adds suspense and realism and visual appeal. Within our
production we had to be careful because I discovered through case studies, thrillers must be realistic,
otherwise they turn more into horror or fantasy films. Overall conducting research into other thriller films gave
us inspiration to make our opening as creative and exciting as possible through inter textual references and
storyline ideas.

8. Techniques
 180 Degree Rule (e): This is when the camera MUST stay on one side, and that there is an
invisible axis that it cannot cross, but in some cases it can be crossed if the transition is
shown on screen. The preliminary task introduced me to the importance of this rule
because if you ignore this rule you break continuity and disrupt the viewer. And
establishing how to use it easily use and apply it within planning and shooting.
 Continuity while shooting: This is a rule we soon learnt the use of when filming our
preliminary task, as we discovered it was more efficient to film all the shots we desired in
one location all at the same time. Knowledge of this learnt from the preliminary task
came in helpful when doing our thriller. This is because we have a lot of shots in a forest,
and going from the house to the forest back and forth would have been a waste of time
and energy.
 Match on action (f): Is an editing technique of when you cut to what the focus of
something is then cut back. We chose to do this within our final production because it
showed the new skills we had learned and gained knowledge of when researching case
studies. As it adds variety to our shots and makes it more visually stimulating for the
viewer.

10. Techniques
 Elliptical editing (g): this is when we used techniques within editing that omit part of an
event, causing ellipsis in the plot and story. We used this when Billy is thinking about
Holly, by superimposing the clip of Holly pointing the gun over the top of a close up of
Billy’s face. Which is something we learned how to do in the editing process of our
preliminary task, and then went further to do this in our thriller as we felt more
confident in doing it from our preliminary. And this made our thriller more appealing to
the viewer because it makes it more visually attention-grabbing for the audience to look
at.
 Shot reverse shot (h) : Is where the camera slightly copies a characters eye sight, say for
example their was a conversation the camera would go from one character to another
and then return to the first character all on the same sort of angle as the character. We
found this harder to do than we initially thought in our preliminary, so we kept it as
simple as possible placing the camera generally in the exact position of each character
using a simple mid shot. However when it came to the thriller opening we had gained
these skills and could use them in a more complex way, so we opted to over the shoulder
shots, and varying our angles in our shot reverse shot, to make it more visually
stimulating for the audience.

12. Importance of cliff hanger
When watching thriller films and researching case studies the cliff hanger at the
end of the opening, was essentially important in grabbing the audiences attention
and make them engage into the film by making them want to find out more. For
our preliminary we took a more comedic approach to it so we didn’t feel a cliff
hanger was very important at the time. But when watching thriller films I found
that I judged the film and made a preconception on it from the quality of the
opening and its cliff hanger, if it was gripping, exciting and thrilling then I did want
to watch more, like out of LA Confidential. For our cliff hanger the audience want to
find out if Billy's murdered and which scene is reality and which is the
vision/nightmare. In our final 10 seconds the camera is moving a lot and we edit a
lot of cuts, but then we finish in slow motion with high diegetic sound of unsettling
breathing and then finally fade to black. This fast past editing and camera
movements and editing disorientates and obscures the viewer (i), but then when it
goes to slow motion of a close up on Billy’s face (j); they get to take in what just
happened; see Billy’s scared emotions, and are left waiting and anticipating to find
out happens next, but instead of finding out it dips to black.

13. Quickly cuts from each of these
two match cuts back to each
other

14. Importance of research and case studies
Looking into other thriller films really helped establish and apply generic
conventions of thrillers into my production. For example thrillers such as The Third
man was very inspirational because its an iconic and well known thriller that have
many signifiers to its genre like using black and white (k) or chiaroscuro lighting.
Therefore we chose to reference this because it would be easily recognisable due
to its popularity therefore reinforce the thriller genre conventions into our
production. Furthermore another thriller that we found inspiring was Kill Bill 1 (l),
this was because it was a more contemporary thriller, and represented gender and
ethnicity in a better and more diverse way. We wanted to also do this within our
thriller as our target audience would have preferred this view, they are more likely
to have seen and liked other films like this also, and would have recognised the
inter textual references in our production more likely- making them feel clever.
Overall researching the genre not only broadened my knowledge of camera and
editing techniques, and ones specific for the genre, it established and developed
my knowledge of conventions that we had to apply into our production in order for
it to be recognisable as a thriller.

16. Importance of the soundtrack
Most of the soundtracks within in thriller films are for creating a certain
mood or feeling, often anxiety and tension, commonly using percussion
instruments, which I found out through research, like the one out of
Psychos iconic shower scene. Additionally soundtracks are suited to the
narrative and are frequently serve the purpose of constructing power
for certain characters by it being synchronised with them. Trying to find
the right soundtrack was a difficult process looking at free music
websites simply wasn’t enough. I discovered through our preliminary
that you can do customized searches on these websites. Typing in key
words, such as ‘tension’ which narrowed the search so we could find
the right soundtrack for our narrative.

17. Importance of feedback
Through our blogs our tutor could comment on our posts and tell us what to
improve upon. This was very helpful because it could help us improve on the
piece of work the comment was on (m), and give us knowledge of the
standard for next time to achieve this grade. For example when we first
started doing case studies I focused more on the general analysis of the clip
and its effects. But through comments I understood that I needed to do this
and link it to the conventions of the genre and how it does this. I realise now
that this was very helpful so I have the knowledge of the genre and could
apply this in our production. Also giving questionnaires to our target
audience helped with what to improve (n) and how to focus these
improvements to our target audience. I discovered that this was very useful
as they noticed things I didn’t, because when editing I am watching it so
many times I often became desensitised to it and miss aspects that they
wouldn’t have, the viewer often notice micro details I missed.