Research and Planning 3.1 Preliminary Task 2009

We began by assigning each other with different roles to play in our opening sequence, which was all about the theme horror. Mohammed was given the task of acting , along with Idris and i was given the role of cameraman. We did not have an overall director because we all had input into what shots/scenes we wanted to use and make. We began by find a specific room which had to consist of being dark and mysterious along with there being a small space to work in, which would emphasize the theme of horror. We had chosen the film Saw II, which Mohammed and Jodie would be watching during the filming exercise because of its use of horror and explicit scenes of torture.

When we began filming we started with an over the shoulder shot of Idris walking into the room and going through the door to where Mohammed was sitting. We used this shot to show that maybe someone was watching Idris and he was being followed into the room that he was going into. We then chose the shot of Idris twisting the door handle and switched the camera view so that we were in the room that Mohammed was watching the film in. This created an air of scariness and suspense which we tried to show on Mohammed's face but failed to. When Idris had opened the door it created a more surprising scenario which we intended from the start. The shot that followed was that of an over the shoulder shot from Mohammed's view speaking to Idris, whilst watching the film at the same time. This shot was extremely hard to get right because of two factors. The first factor was that light from the window behind the two actors was slightly visible on the shoulder of Mohammed but we managed to defeat this problem by sellotaping the blinds to the window frames. The second factor was that of both of the actors in which they could not stop laughing and found it hard to say their lines properly.

The next shot was that of a 'double' over the shoulder shot from which both of them were watching the film. This was then followed by Idris leaving the room in which we made use of a mid shot. The camera view then changed to Idris leaving the room and walking towards the door. However there was a slight problem in which the camera was visible in the window of the room that had just being exited. This problem was overcome by me standing further back, which created another problem in which Mohammed's bag was visible in the shot. This error could not be deleted because we only saw the error whilst watching the whole playback again.

In the filming process we learnt that emotion could be shown very well on the camera and that that the camera picked up event the smallest error which we as a group could not see. The use of many varieties of different shots in the exercise were also beneficial because we learnt that we could not only stick to the same conventional types of shots throughout the exercise because this would create a aura of boredom towards our audience. We also learnt that listening to each others views and thoughts would benefit our final product because of the input from all of us. We also learnt that using many different mise on scene variables, this would improve the different shots in the filming process. However some parts of the task were difficult because we did not make a properly done storyboard and only had a vague idea, so we had to variate some of the scenes and shots we had in mind. The technology used during our filming was the camera, a computer and the Saw DVD, which was viewed on the computer because finding a television with a DVD player was relatively hard.

Overall the exercise did benefit us because we were able to work independently as a group which meant that we had say in everything that we would produce.