Review of Test Footage

This is the test shoot of our thriller. Since the test shoot, many aspects of the sequence have changed. We filmed two people, male and female, who are sitting down opposite each other with a table between them. A gun was central on the table pointing at the girl. We couldn't use the real set in our pilot so we turned the tables over in the classroom to create an enclosed and claustrophobic environment which is the environment we want in the real thriller.  The main camera angles that have been used and tested in the shoot include: close ups, extreme close ups, over the shoulder shots and mid shots. 


Extreme Close Up
Here is an example of an extreme close up used in the pilot. It looks effective as it shows how tired and disorientated the characater is which was our aim.

Close Up
Here is an example of a close up used in our pilot. It's effective because we are drawn to her face, which shows her worried expression. It also means the audience are unable to get distracted on parts of the mise-en-scene, which is likely with a long shot.

The reason we used these is because it reveals less to the audience about who these characters are which builds tension. However, after watching it make I think that it isn't clear enough where these characters are so we believe that we will use more establishing shots and extreme long shots in the real thriller.

I found this pilot process very useful as we were able to see which camera shots did work and which ones didn't and adjust accordingly to that. The main camera shots that we will carry forward are the close ups, extreme close ups and over the shoulder shots as well as the pace of the shots. These all worked well with the genre of thriller.

The consistent flashing light did not work as it became distracting at times, however we will include it in our thriller, but use it my subtly. Also, the location didn't look right as we were unable to get the TV with family images and the dark misty room which is the idea we have at the moment. Therefore, in the next stage, we plan on having that location. Also, tension was slightly lost at some points in the thriller, especially in the middle therefore we need to work on what may create more tension, such as non-diegetic music. The main concern is that the pilot is far too short, therefore we need to think of ore ideas that we could include in the next stage to pro long it to approximately two minutes. These problems have all influenced me to use less prominent flashing and a wider variety of camera shots which will create more tension than in the pilot.