Preliminary task Evaluation

The location we decided to film in was the film studio. We filmed there because we felt that the lighting was good and we had all the equipment available. We liked the idea that it was a large space and so we could prepare for our thriller in January. We devided the tasks into different roles:

• director
• camera man
• lighting
• someone who took charge of the actors
• and someone who took care of the different props we used

First I was responsible for actors and props and then I did some of the camerawork. We had a basic story line involving a conversation between two people and we adapted it to make it about a murder. I had to shot a scene about a gun handover and we came up with the idea to just film their shadows. For this our lighting was very bright, to create the effect of shadows. We had problems because you then couldn't see the shados well, so we decided to change to a shot reverse shot and just take one shot of the shadows where you can see the gun.

Filming
To begin before filming we made sure that we set up the camera properly.
We had to check the white balance, the focus, that the tripod was level in each shot, that my fingers weren't over the lens, that lighting equipments weren't in the scene..We also had to make sure that the camera was properly framed. The first time we I did it wasn't good so I had to make sure that everything is in the scene. Another thing you have to be aware of is the rule of thirds. We planned the sequence to start with an establishing shot, we filmed the whole sequence and then moved over to a middle shot and repeated it by filming everything from different angles like close ups and over the shoulder shots. What is really important is that you never break the 180 degree rule. Once a shot is established, we should stay on that same 180 degree side. If we break the 180 degree rule, it will make the audience believe that the subjects are facing the same way and not at each other. If you want to move the camera over 180 degrees, you have to use a tracking shot.
 To make sure that everyone on set knew what was going on on stage we appropriate terminology. The director says "standing by" then the camera man answeres "stand by", after that the director says "roll it" and the camera man says "rolling" and has to start recording. After some seconds the director shouts out "ACTION".