Review of my test footage

To help with our thriller ideas our group made test footage to show us if, overall our idea would work and whether we needed to adjust some things within it or whether we needed to start from the very beginning and come up with something knew. Within the test footage we had to use actors, which is when we decided to use the people in our group as this would waste less time trying to find people that weren't busy, which was also helpful as each member of our group was able to have their own go at shooting the footage on one of the members mobile phone. It wasn't supposed to be a perfect example but it did successfully help us with our ideas. We originally went with our first idea about the girl that had a supernatural essence about her which was unaware towards the audience. She stalked people this men in the woods whilst he was listening to music, this boy being played by Jamie. This idea didn't work as we realised there was no pace set within the scenes and shots, except for the location looking automatically creepy as it was set in the woods but this made it too stereotypical as most murders either take place in the woods or an alley and we wanted to lead away from this.

We did a second test footage with our new idea, which worked better than the first as it was more realistic and we decided to shoot the scenes where the daughter ends her own life by jumping in front of a train and the dad has a race against time to find her before she ends up doing it. The scene where she approaches the edge of the pavement that leads into the train could not be made realistically due to the fact that we were in school and there were no trains nearby. Instead we used the edge of one of the walls. We had to use Jamie for the dad when he picks up the phone and this was a substitution for an old man but it still allowed us to see how it could work. We also didn't have an bottle of Jack Daniel's so when indie acted out the scene where she takes a sip, she had to pretend it was there for the purposes of the dramatic and emotional scene.


By using this process it introduced new angles like a point of view shot (P.O.V) when she takes the jump. We were able to shoot this by getting India to shoot the footage whilst she takes the jump off the wall. This turned out to be harder than we thought, as the impact of the jump was so fast that the footage wasn't in focus and the pace of the shot was too fast and shook the camera so much that when we were the audience viewing the footage after we finished it, we couldn't quite make out what was going on.


We also used a close up shot to the phone when it rings and then Jamie has to pick it up. This was more difficult and not because of the shot. It was due to the fact that we have no signal at school so we couldn't just ring each other as the ringtone wouldn't ring because the call would fail so we had to use a sound off of my phone and link the sound with when it ends and Jamie's picks up the phone. This gave us an idea of how difficult the process of editing the real thriller footage would be so if anything it showed us how we could use sound beneficially and only when its really needed in the scenes, whcih is when it needs to create tension.

The process was useful as it helped us correct our first idea and make a better and more simpler one as we realised we were trying to fit too much into one title sequence and we made it so complicated that we would have never been able to complete it. With our second test footage we were able to see the benefits to our idea and we did change it but this time only bits of it, we kept the plot and narrative of the scene the same but we ended up changing the title sequence, so that it was only about the dad's perspective and life after the accident, making it simpler and more effective with tension by the use of Mise en scene and sound, which are both crucial elements that make up our most recent and developed idea.

Although the P.O.V shot didn't work in action shots we still were eager to use it so this camera angle will be something we will use when the dad sits in his chair and looks at his phone as the caller ID 'unknown' comes up on the screen, creating mysterious tension and as if the audience member is the one viewing it as well as the character of the dad.


The location at school was never what we were planning to use but with the first footage it did make us realise that we didn't want to use the woods anymore as it was such an obvious and unoriginal idea, as it has been used so many times before. The second footage was not the location we were going to use anyway but it did make us realise that if we wanted to adapt and use a lot of Mise en scene elements ,like props then we would have to use a simpler location like the dad's living room within his house. Too many locations can be fun but also a difficult task to shoot within one day, so it would have been unrealistic.

When we looked back at both of our test footage's we did realise that we had no elements that contributed to tension so the pace and tone didn't reach a dramatic climax as there was no point in which the suspense or tension was built up. With our polished idea we are using the movement of pans to slowly reveal the props in our thriller title sequence to have control of what we show the audience. We are also not revealing what the man looks like so that the audience don't know who he is later on in the film and so that it shows we have all the control and that there is a reason that we are not revealing to them what he looks like, making the tone vague but scary. The use of diegetic sounds like the phone caller's voice, the police at the door and the teenagers music next door eventually all gets louder and layers over each other to help create a faster pace in association with the climax of the glass being smashed. When we played back both of the footage's the genre and tone was not portrayed as a thriller due to the location being in the woods and it being day, as there was too much light. This new idea to use the living room allows us to have full control over the artificial lighting to set the correct mood.