Group Meetings - Miss Georgiou

Group meetings are meetings in which the groups get together at specific points in the production process of the sequence to discuss this process. The purpose of these meetings is to be able to develop on ideas which have been discussed and find a way how to develop the idea even further to make the thriller as successful as possible as well as planning the filming and the content of it s as to make final decisions together. This is essential as team skills are developed through this which is key when working on a production with a group. It helped our sequence to take shape as we were able to benefit from each other's ideas for specific points within the thriller and incorporate both of these into our final piece in order to create a sequence that is thrilling and engaging for our audience therefore both Kate and I were extremely pleased with how the sequence looks overall. It also enabled us to properly think about our ideas and which idea could be used for a greater effect at particular parts ensuring we knew exactly what to include. A main strength from our group meetings is that we made room to incorporate an equal amount of each other's ideas into the final sequence so that we were both considering one another which was a positive outcome regarding our teamwork skills.

When carrying out group meetings, I have learnt that you need to think extremely carefully about the content and considering the final outcome of what you are filming. For example, on the first round of our filming, we were very unorganised and therefore a majority of our shots came out looking very out of focus and blurry forcing us to scrap all of the footage and start again. This was a major set back for my partner and I as our confidence levels were destroyed and we had no faith that we could produce a thriller sequence of a high standard. I have also learnt that when working in a pair, I need to listen to my partner more and her ideas as I could be missing out on a golden opportunity which could possibly make our sequence look very professional and improve our chances of getting a higher grade. When working with Kate, we had some stressful times for example, when the filming went wrong and the editing wasn't going according to plan we would get extremely stressed due to the strict deadlines we have to meet which caused some argument. Next time, in order to improve this, I will ensure that I know exactly what I am doing such as asking the teacher for help if I don't know how to use the tripod or the camera itself. I will also make sure that actors are hired which take their role seriously as, if we had used Harry from the beginning, we wouldn't have had to film the entire sequence all over again and we could have possibly had more time to edit resulting in there being no stress or arguments and we could have possibly met the deadlines sooner. When reflecting back on the production, I would only change some aspects within the planning stages such as during our research and planning, we wasted a lot of time on our blog posts and therefore had less time to film and edit however I am glad we had the setbacks that we had due to eventually producing a media piece we are very proud of and looks professional. I believe that this was because after we failed with the filming the first time, it made us more determined to do it in the correct way and produce the best thriller we possibly could.

Production Roles - Miss Miller

Within the creation of a film, specific roles will need to be assigned to ensure who is doing what job in order to be fully organised when filming and so both cast and crew are completely focused on their role. Stress is also taken away from the situation as one person will not have to be responsible for a number of different roles as well as not having to worry about roles carried out by other peers. Within the film industry, there are a wide variety of different roles which are each significant when creating a film both on and off screen. For example, the most significant of these being the director and producer. A director's job is to watch everything which is happening on set and be responsible for organising the actors in the way he/she wants to achieve the most successful shot. The producer works alongside the director and takes care of the finance side of things as well as managing the specific way each shot is coordinated and also how the film looks as a whole.

When creating my own thriller sequence, both my partner and I alternated the roles between us and ensured that we were doing equal amounts of work as well as working together in some circumstances to help one another. This allowed for us to work calmly and efficiently which made our filming time a lot shorter. In order to decide which role was to be undertaken by each of us, we discussed our strengths and weaknesses with each other to achieve an understanding of who could do which role. For example, if one of our weaknesses was achieving particular camera shots, the other person would do the harder shots and the other doing the easier ones in order to make the most successful and professional looking thriller. From this point, as I was one of the actresses within the film, we decided that Kate should do most of the filming however I would  give help wherever needed so as to not place all responsibility of filming on her. When filming the first time around, Kate struggled considerably and we were often arguing as she kept asking for help on how she could achieve each shot which made the filming environment extremely stressful. Our main problem was that we only used a tripod within the murder scene and forgot to focus the camera before we began filming therefore many of our shots were constantly out of focus and the entire sequence looked extremely unprofessional and messy so we were asked to film again. Although both Kate and I were extremely disheartened at this point, we were able to find another actor who took the role much more seriously and we began to have hope again that our sequence could actually turn out at a good standard.

When filming for the second time, we shared each role in order to relieve stress that had been evident when filming previously. As Kate had struggled with the camera work, I made sure that I was helping her with the shots which I weren't in for example the first scene in which the hit man/hostage is seen waking up from his unconscious state. I made a lot of suggestions so as to improve the appearance of each individual shot which we succeeded with and was able to make this half of the sequence look very professional and smooth. I think that we both felt that this time round, the filming ran much more smoothly and we were able to work better together so there was no stress evident. Both Kate and I enjoyed the filming as we were well coordinated and made a number of suggestions for ways that the film could be altered to make it even better which it did. Within the editing process, we also took on separate roles in which I was mainly responsible for editing the sound onto the clips, detaching the audio and making sure that the sequence flowed with the correct pace. Kate did a majority of the cropping so we were able to edit out additional parts off some of the clips to shorten the sequence and make it more realistic for us to achieve a sequence which would be at least 2 minutes long, a minimum time which we were given. I was also responsible for creating the opening credits which we would be showing over the images that we had already filmed, I also chose appropriate editing styles for the text to evoke certain emotions from the audience and get them hooked on the narrative straight away. Both myself and Harry Donoghue were the main actors within the film. We had to completely scrap the idea of having an antagonist character within the sequence as the original actor who was supposed to be playing this role backed out at the last minute so we decided to not include an antagonist at all which was very effective as it helped to keep his identity hidden. Harry is a drama student and he was therefore able to get into his actor and take the role seriously which made filming a lot easier and also helped the thriller to look very realistic due to the acting being natural and professional. Both Kate and I were very pleased to have Harry be a part of our film as we believe that he helped us to create a sequence which is significantly better than our first take and would therefore aid us in getting a much higher grade which is a positive outcome. The role of director was taken out by both Kate and myself as we worked together on placing Harry in the positions of where we wanted him to be in each shot as well as guiding him of what to do to achieve the effect we had planned. I also took on some crew roles such as makeup artist in which I applied Harry's fake blood to make it look realistic that he had been kidnapped and held hostage as well as applying my own within my murder scene in which I was slit across the throat. I think that this makeup also helped the sequence to look much more thrilling and realistic as it gives the audience a visual representation of the injury inflicted upon these particular characters which would evoke key elements of shock, surprise, tension and suspense. We also both took on the Producer role as we both combined each of our ideas, using our individual storyboards, to gather an overall feel of what we wanted the sequence to look like when constructing our group storyboard.

To conclude, I believe that Kate and I worked well together in carrying out our specific roles and believed that we correctly assigned these and was efficient when working on the filming. We also believe that we were both suited to the particular roles as we were doing things that we enjoyed and were good at which enabled our thriller sequence to look as professional as can be. Both cast and crew all got along really well therefore we were all able to work together which made filming the second time around much more efficient and easy. As previously stated, it was a delight to have Harry working on our film as he was the best possible actor to have as he took the role seriously and the whole sequence is of a high standard in our own opinion.

Filming Schedule - Miss Georgiou

Filming schedules are created in order to enable everyone in the group to have an understanding of when and where each frame will be shot at specific times to set out the organisation of the film. It will also help to determine which equipment and iconography will be used in order to be organised prior to the filming stages so the filming will take place smoothly and reduce the time taken to film all of the frames. It also includes the cast and crew which will be involved so that we are able to provide roles to each of the actors we have decided to have within our sequence. A narrative description with camera shots and the duration of which they will last is shown in the filming schedule so we are able to film efficiently and know exactly what we are doing.

When partaking in the filming process of the creation of our thriller sequence, my partner and I ensured that we remained as closely to it as possible in order to be well organised and efficient. By doing this, we were able to film a majority of the scenes in one day therefore enabling us to spend more time editing all of the clips together as we had planned to use a lot of varied editing techniques. One obstacle we came across when filming however was that we only used the tripod due to not following the filming schedule at certain times and therefore many of our shots were constantly in and out of focus meaning that we had to re film the entire sequence at a later date. This was because we forgot to focus the camera beforehand and without the use of the tripod, this caused the camera to be very shaky which then caused the shots to constantly be out of focus. We also had to cast a new antagonist and hit man as the actors we used before did not take it seriously enough and were messing around when we were meant to be filming. For example, in between shots, our male actors would mess around with the props and the costumes such as the ski mask used to hide the antagonist's identity and fighting with one another as well as laughing during many of the shots meaning that we had to retake a majority of the shots which then took up a lot of filming time. To rectify this, we will set aside a day to re film the sequence and we now know to use the tripod for every shot within the thriller so as to achieve focused and steady shots which will make the narrative much more clearer to our target audience. We will also make sure that we follow every point stated on our filming schedule so, this time round, we are more organised and the situation when filming is much calmer as Kate and I did get a little stressed and a few disagreements came about which we are aiming to avoid when re filming.

Since this, I have learnt that the role of a filming schedule is extremely significant when filming as it helps to keep you organised and on track to finish the filming in time for the editing stage. If we had followed the schedule even further, we may not have got blurry images and would have therefore not had to re film the entire sequence which is a negative outcome as we now have less time to edit therefore things are getting very stressful as Kate and I are trying to have our final sequence edited in time.