My experience

Since I was young I have always been good with a video camera. I used to film my friends and I dancing and singing, or make up a storyline and film it, so when we were set this task I was definitely looking forward to it! I have never used equipment before such as a tripod but this was very easy to get the hang of using! I quickly adapted to using the camera and working out the iMovie software we were given to use, and I very much enjoyed every moment of preparing, filming and editing both our preliminary task and main task, although I took extra pleasure in our main task 'Prey' because of the inputs I put into it and the fact our storyline was mostly based upon one of my initial ideas. Although I knew quite a lot about filming before, I definitely learnt a great deal throughout this process such as finding the most realistic approach in order for our film to look professional such as eliminating as much talking as possible because our actors and actresses were not pros therefore I felt it made it seem amateur. I also liked coming up with new interesting ways to film something such as when Elliot walked down the ladder from the attic. A few shots were suggested but everyone liked this idea of mine the most and I really think this stood out in our film because it showed Elliot was the dominant one in the situation. I think Claudia, Ellen, Tilly and I worked well as a group most of the time, but next year I would like to do it with just one other person as I felt there was a sense of competition throughout the course and a few cases of others saying that my ideas were they're own etc. Tilly and I worked well and efficiently together, which is why we did a joint evaluation. As we didn't have much time left to do it we felt this would be the best option in order to do our best. I have really loved this whole experience and I am more than pleased with our final outcomes.

Here is the poster I made for our main task 'Prey'. We hope you like it!

Evaluation

Ways to advertise

Prey Audience Feedback

Tilly and I made this quick iMovie presentation to present our feedback in a more modern and unique way...

Main Task: Prey Introduction

Prey DVD cover

I made this DVD cover for our film to show he we would market and advertise our film. I put the actors' names on the top of the cover as this is the typical layout of lots of DVDs, with some of the credits at the bottom. I put the photo I took of Elliot in the attic on the cover because I like the darkness around him with the light focusing on his face, which makes the credits stand out against the black, and also the photo best describes the storyline of the film.

I put the Paramount, Miramax and DVD logos on my cover to make it more realistic, as these are film distributors and they are included on DVD covers.

Photos from fourth filming shoot and editing

Due to the fact my group and I felt that there was no real climax or final tension to our film introduction I thought that the shot I filmed of Elliot coming down the stairs would be a good clip to use to create this. Originally we cut and edited him walking all the way down the steps, but I felt the way to build tension would be by cutting the clips very short and having them flick between him and

Sophie in her room. Each clip of Sam coming down from the attic was less than a second long, whereas Amy's were slightly longer. Once he was down, we added in the bit when Sophie is watching TV and looks towards the door because she hears something. This clip is used because we did not film Sam walking towards her room therefore we needed to show something else in the meantime, and also because Sophie is finally aware something is wrong which lets the audience know something bad is about to happen! The final shot we imported was the shot I told Claudie to film from outside the door. This brings closure to our film as he shuts the door on the camera, which we used to then show the title once again. We did this by adding the 'fade to white' transition as the white door slammed, then adding the text 'Prey' into it which we made deep red like blood. I felt this was a much better ending to our introduction than what it would have been if we had not filmed these last few shots today. Ellen added the 12A rating next to the title of our film. At first I wasn't sure if this was really necessary as this is rarely, if ever seen at the start of a film. I felt it made it look more like a trailer which was not the task but my opinion was overpowered so we kept it. The final thing we did to the editing of our film was add the voice over that Tilly recorded again, as the title was on display, but only the end part... "like I was his prey". We chose to add this because it emphasises the title and reminds the audience of the start of the film and how the man sees the children he is molesting. As his prey. This would make a great start to the beginning of the rest of our film if we were to have made it into a full length thriller movie.

(next day)

Finally, today we finished the last of our editing. After watching the movie over and over whilst showing it to our friends, I looked out for minor mistakes to ensure everything was perfect in our film. I noticed that the colouring in some of the clips towards the end were different to those at the beginning because I turned the saturation down when we edited these as I felt the scene needed to be gloomier as the day was quite bright. This would tie in well with the mood of the situation going on. I therefore had to change each and every clip to a saturation of 66% which took a while but in the end it looked better. I then decided to change the colour of Amy and Elliot's credit transitions because they were white like our names were (Olivia, Ellen, Claudia and Matilda), which seemed very confusing as it was not clear who were the actors and who were the producers, so I changed the colour of the text to a deep red like the end title for Amy Williams' and Elliot Williamson's names, and kept ours white but added 'Produced by' before the first name to ensure there was no misunderstanding.

Fourth day of shooting

Yesterday we filmed the final finishing touches of your film! Once we finished editing our third shoot we realised our introduction did not have an ending or form of closure, so we asked Elliot and Amy if they could come to my house once more to film. Once we got them into their costumes again, we opened up the attic and got Elliot to go up the ladder so we could film him walking down. If we did not do this then it would not be clear to the audience that he left the attic to come and find her. We thought for a while of an interesting way we could film Elliot as he lowers himself from the attic, and I came up with the idea of placing the camera on the floor looking up towards the attic so Elliot walked into the camera. This would engage the audience and draw them into the scene. As a way of closing the shot I suggested that Elliot put his foot onto the camera lense instead of the floor to turn the shot black. We had to film this a couple of times due to mistakes such as Elliot's face being seen as he looked down to ensure his footing was correct, and also because he occasionally tripped on the steps!! After this we filmed Amy's part when she was in her room watching tv. We filmed her from quite a few angles walking into her room and sitting down on the sofa. We tried to film a shot that was different to the rest, where we focused on a picture of her and her friend and then zoomed out to reveal Amy, but we found this stopped our shots from running smoothly together and therefore making it look amateur.

For the final shot of our introduction, I thought it would be a good idea to film from outside the door, so Amy was in the shot, but also Elliot's feet were visible in my mirrored dressing table opposite the camera, so before he walks infront of the camera, the use of reflection shows he is on his way, hopefully making the audience feel worried for the girl's safety.

Editing our third shoot

Today Ellen edited the latest part of our film whilst the rest of us were in a lesson, so unfortunately we did not get to take part in most of it but she knew what we wanted the scene to be like and the tension it needed to build. She did this by enhancing the sound of the kettle as the clips went on because it would emphasize the time running out before the girl walks into danger. Each clip of the kettle gets shorter and shorter as it goes on, with the clips inbetween getting less and less which is used to build a sort of climax for the audience before she walks upstairs.

Target audience and film rating

We have decided to rate our film a 12A because it is not horrific, or does not contain any gory scenes, just tense and nerve racking moments but nothing for the faint hearted.

The certificate 12A means:

The 12A rating is only used for films shown in cinemas. It is given to films that are best suited to those aged 12 or older. However, people younger than 12 may see a 12A so long as they are accompanied by an adult! In such circumstances, responsibility for allowing a child under 12 to view lies with the accompanying adult.

Definition from - http://www.cbbfc.co.uk/guidelines12-12a.asp

Our target audience is mainly towards teenagers, as they can relate more to the film as they are similar ages to the characters in it. It could also be a moral lesson for them because children go missing often from meeting up or talking to strangers over the internet.

More photos of our filming progress

Third day of shooting

Today we filmed the end of our thriller opening. This involved both Elliot and Amy, and the location was my attic! We began by giving Amy her costume - shirt, tie and skirt, then did Elliot's make up. We got some brown eye shadows and a cotton bud, and then let Claudie put this under his eyes, in the hope to give him the appearance of dark bags, to make him look older.

We used my laptop as Elliot's prop, because he needed something that showed the audience how he was talking to Amy. The light from the screen was really effective when we turned off the lights because it made his surroundings pitch black, and only his face was lit up which we found really effective.

Whilst shooting this scene we once again filmed from a lot of different angles, such as long shots, mid-shots and high and low angle shot, mostly from the tripod. We adjusted the height frequently to ensure a range of different shots to choose from when editing.

After this, we filmed Amy's part. In our story, this is after she leaves the computer and goes into her room because she hears noises. She is worried, and looks around to find out where it's coming from.. Little does she know her stalker is right above her, watching her. We filmed Amy walk up the stairs from many different angles. We did a high angle shot from the attic, where you can see her through the opening which is supposed to be from Elliot's point of view. Then we did ones from the banister as she walked up the stairs, and from the landing and the end of the corridor she walks down. We are planning on using all of these shots in this scene to keep it intense and fast paced!

Editing our second scene

Luckily we have all get the hang of editing now, so we edited this scene quickly with few problems. Once again we uploaded it from the camera and then imported our selected clips into iMovie. For this scene we cut each clip quite short, so that we could fit a variety of different shots into a short bit of time. We included hand held shots, close up shots of her face and shots from behind and beside our actress. This way it captured her emotions whilst also letting the audience know what's going on, by being able to see her point of view conversation, and her reaction when he stops replying.

Second day of shooting

On Wednesday after school, everyone came round my house again to film the second part of our film. We have already filmed the scenes outside, so we were working inside on the bit when Amy signs onto MSN and starts chatting to 'Sam', her stalker (played by Elliot).

We began by filming some more shots of her walking away from the kettle as this followed on from our first day of shooting. We filmed a variety of shots such as from the floor, so we could see her feet walk away, and others mid-shots from in front and behind her.

Once we were happy, we went on to the study to film shots of Amy logging into MSN. I filmed an over the shoulder, mid-shot of her typing and logging in, and a hand held shot of her view of the screen to make it look like her point of view, which will hopefully engage the audience and make them feel as though they are her to create more emotions towards the character. Also, this way it would be clearer for the audience to see what is going on during the conversation between 'Sophie' and 'Sam', and how they both have pictures of different people, pretending it is them. The idea of this is to show they are both pretending they are someone they're not.. Sophie is pretending she is someone prettier as she is not very sociable and obviously very self conscious, and she thinks she is talking to a boy her age who is interested in her, but little does she know he is a lot older. She is the vulnerable one in this situation because 'Sam' knows who she really is, and what she really looks like, even though her picture says otherwise.

We then took a shot from above the computer screen, so you could see only Amy's face and her expressions, especially when he stops replying to her.. She looks worried and confused.

Finally, we then filmed the kettle from start to finish. This way we could use the sound for the entire scene, to create tension as the kettle gets louder and louder. I thought we could also use the clip and cut it into sections and place them in between clips of Amy on the computer, to build tension as the kettle boils to represent time running out for Amy before she meets danger.

Naming our thriller film

In order to do this, we began by thinking of words to do with the situation the victim in our film is in; she is vulnerable, unaware, naive etc. Then I thought of what she was to the man who has been stalking her. She is his prey. I thought this was a really good name for the film because it is short and describes the girl very well. My group liked the name too so I then looked at the definition of it to make sure it was definitely relevant. This is the definition I found: One that is defenceless, especially in the face of attack; a victim. I then came up with the idea of including the definition in the film along with the title to add effect and to explain the meaning of the work 'prey'.

I really like, this idea and I think it is important to make the definition look like the definition, not just a tag line, so when we added it to the film we put a noun abbreviation next to it like you would see in a dictionary --> n.

I got the definition from this website: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/prey