This blog post contains the behind the scenes of our filming process. This post was made by kim
Production: Behind the Scenes
Roles:
Mother: Eileen
Daughter (Cassie): Cassie
Director / Editor / Videographer: Tisha
Videographer: Kim
Behind-the-Scenes:
Scene 1: Bedroom Scene
During the filming of the bedroom scene, we experimented with different angles that would be able to show Cassie and the props on the table. We tried to do the takes from different angles such as from the side or from the laptop’s webcam. During this scene we struggled to keep the continuity, as the make-up props were in different places after every take, Cassie’s hand placement was also different, and one time she used the wrong make-up prop from the previous take. There were many mistakes that we didn’t notice while recording, leading to us having to re-shoot all the clips for the bedroom scene. This made us learn that we have to be very careful when filming to make sure there were no mistakes and there will still be continuity in the final opening. To make sure no mistakes happened, we had to recheck the previous take to ensure that all the props and the character’s position were the same.
Since we didn't have a clapper, we made one out of a piece of paper and labelled the take number and the scene.
Scene 2: Party Scene
During the party scene, we needed alcoholic drinks for the party. We used tea to replicate it, since the color was similar and it was cheap, so we can easily buy more if we need more or have to re-shoot some scenes.
We still needed alcohol bottles as a prop for the background to create realism, so we decided to use Tisha’s parent’s alcohol bottles as a prop for our project. This tells the audience that the party drinks were alcoholic
Scene 3: Kidnaping Scene
During the kidnaping scene, we decided to film in a supermarket parking area, we chose this location because it was a large open space where we could easily try different areas to shoot out scene, it was also convenient as we could buy props for our party scene, such as the drinks.
This clip we had to shoot a clip of Cassie’s phone ringing from a call from Mom. We used Eileens’ phone to call Cassie’s phone and renamed her contact name to Mom♥️. Here we had to make sure the phone started ringing at the right time when the camera approached the phone, sometimes the call came too early or sometimes the call was too late. Another problem we experienced was that the camera didn’t focus on the phone screen which did not show the contact name, leading us having to keep re-shooting until the final take.
Here we had to film the dragging scene, at first Tisha our director had to demonstrate on how to properly drag Cassie. We used Cassie’s personal driver to help act as the kidnaper. We had to try different angles where Cassie can still be shown while also not exposing the kidnaper’s face. There were also times where Cassie’s driver could drag out Cassie properly, or the car door didn’t open wide enough to show Cassie that clearly.
Self reflection:
During the behind the scenes, I have learned that it is important to be very serious during filming in order to not retake over and over again. We also had to be very percise with the mise-en-scene and the angle of what we had to film. This had taught me to concentrate more and follow along to not waste time.
This post explains how we showed a rough draft of our film opening to some members of our target audience in order to receive helpful feedback.
The purpose of a screen test is to gain audience feedback about our work and see if there are any improvements that can be made. We decided to use google forms to create a survey to share with our audience because using google forms would be an easier way for us to filter out the response. Here are our questions:
1. Would you want to watch the rest of the movie? Yes or no, if so explain.
2. Which part of the movie opening did you really like? Explain
3. Which part from the movie opening that looked goofy / out of place?
4. What do you think we should add and improve for our movie opening?
We chose these questions because it gives us a more in-depth explanation on what our opening lacks and excels in, allowing us to make improvements to satisfy our audience. Since this is our project, there may be bias when we ourselves answer the questions above, meaning we need a new perspective. We showed our rough draft of the opening to 3 members of our target audience to ensure that the feedback we receive will reflect the probable feedback of our whole target audience/other members of our target audience. Finding people for the screen test was relatively easy because we had several friends who are editors or enjoy watching movies similar to ours, making them good candidates for our screen test. Here is the draft that we showed our respondents:
From the feedback, we learned that our opening was too fast as it jumps straight into the action and it doesn’t hook the audience due to that lack of suspense. Our opening was too predictable, making it boring and not effective as a movie opening.
From the responses, ⅔ respondents prefered the name “Missed Call: text me when you get home”, however we disagree as it is too long of a title in our opinion, and it doesn’t really fit the vibe we were envisioning. We prefered something shorter to bring more focus to the title and increase its impact and importance. The title “Text Me When You Get Home” no longer fit our opening, because we scrapped the idea that the mother would send the main lead the text “text me when you get home” and replaced it with a missed call instead to emphasise the lead's absence. So, we decided as a team that the title “Missed Call” would be the best choice.
Since the opening was too fast paced, we decided to add more scenes to build up the story and context, while trying to build suspense. Audience’s will likely get more curious and invested as they follow the story and witness the drugging and kidnapping, hooking them and likely to continue watching.
This screen test was a useful part of our process because it allowed us to see different perspectives and to know what the audience wants. We chose these 3 people to answer our form as getting the opinions from our target audience (teens) will be beneficial to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our opening, which is essential to make improvements to it. With this feedback, we are able to make changes to our opening e.g. drugging scene to add what our opening was lacking e.g suspense. This makes our overall opening more interesting for them. It’s important to see from the audience’s perspective as movie openings are made for them, meaning we need to meet their expectations and make sure they enjoy it.
Self Reflection:
From this activity, Ive learned that audience feedback is very important as all our ideas and feedback to ourselves may sometimes be a bit biased.
Audience feedback tells us things we may not have noticed while directing, shooting and editing. Or ideas toward our Title and Font choice.
Which is why audience feedback is necessary for our project to seem more inclusive for wider audience ranges.
This blog post contains a description on how we managed our footage for our thriller film openig. This post was made by kim
During the production process, we used several technologies and applications to organise our footage for our thriller film opening. We mainly used the Photos App on our phone as a key tool for organising and managing all the photos and videos, from planning to post-production.
We created a shared album within the Photos App to store all our photos and videos in one folder. By using shared albums, each of us can contribute by adding photos or videos we took during the filming process.
The shared album allowed all of us to access the folder and add photos or videos we took from our own devices during the filming process. This made it more efficient as we all can view the images and footage we took. We compiled all the photos and videos related to the project such as the storyboard, behind-the-scenes photos and the shooting footage. Moreover, this saves us a lot of time since we don't have to send the photos and videos individually through messaging apps.
The shared album also has a ‘like’ button and a comment section which was very helpful to us. Each member could use the comment section to share their opinions about different takes or angels, but we mainly used it to label the take number of each clip.
We didn't have a clapper, so we made our own with a piece of paper to label the take number and the scene
However, most of the scenes didn’t have the clapper as the cover of the clips, so we decided to label each take with the take number and scene to reduce any confusions or misunderstandings.
We used the ‘like’ button to label which clips that turned out well without any errors or mistakes,
this made it easier for Tisha (our editor) to select the right clips to use during the editing process.
Overall, by using the shared albums, it improves our collaboration, organisation and efficiency when producing our thriller film opening.
It ensures that everyone involved has easy access to the materials.
If a team member loses an image or video clip, other members would still have access to it, therefore we won't have to spend a lot of time re-filming different clips.
Other than that, this ensures the quality of our thriller film opening as each member can check each clip to check for any errors or mistakes that can affect the continuity of our final film opening.
Self Reflection:
What I've experienced in real life is that organizing our footage is really important as I know what it felt like having our team
members being in need of a clip filmed on MY phone that I couldn't find. Which is why organizing our footage helps us not
waste more time in search for the number of clips or scenes and makes us more prepared for future needs so its not all
This blog post contains the work me and Kim did in my lesson on how to successfully edit. My teacher filmed the footage but me and Kim edited it together. My teacher also provided the template for the blog post.
Why is continuity editing important?
Continuity editing includes making sure that items like props or costumes stay consistent from scene to scene. But the more important work lies in editing shots together in a way that leaves viewers thoroughly grounded in both time and space.
Different types of continuity edit
Straight cut (cut)
Eyeline match
Shot /reverse shot
Cutaway / Insert
*Match cut
Footage
Here is the footage that my teacher shot which utilises a variety of camera angles and movements. The scene is very simple, it involves a student standing up and leaving the classroom. A single shot here might be quite boring for the audience, by editing and combining the shots together we can make the scene feel more dynamic.
My editing process
Explain how you edited the clips together. Include screenshots of the editing software.
Here is my first attempt with some errors. Here is how I fixed the errors…
For this part, it was hard to split the scenes at the right spot and timing to make it align/line up for it to seem smooth enough.
for these scenes, it was difficult to line up the feet together to avoid continuity errors and make the scenes as realistic, accurate and immersive as possible to make the editing results worth it.
Here is my final scene. Editing multiple clips together made the scene better because…
Self reflection:
Overall, this activity was such a fun opportunity for me to be able to learn more on how to properly edit. As a person who have no skill in editing at all, this activity made me clear on how to understand editing concepts and techniques for me to be able to do it myself.
This blog post contains a mini project that helped us learn how to shoot a cinematic scene. We did this as a group.
My teacher told us to find a scene from a movie in our genre. Our task was to recreate this scene we have chosen from the movie Missing 2023.
Here is our Final Video! From 00:25 - 01:22
Here is our storyboard
After conducting this mini project, we have discovered that there were problems and solutions with the technical elements that we had to go through, and what we have to be more aware of for the future, from our previous experience.
Camera
Problems:
The problems we had with camera were just with inaccurate camera angled shots we took as we recreated the photos from the actual movie scenes. We didn't have any problems on needing specific advanced quality cameras as pictures from the movie were also being snapped on a handphone, and the scenes we chose were filmed through a computer/laptop scene, to which we just had to screen record everything. However the problems we mentioned that we encountered with the camera angles were when replicating the screen recordings where Tisha (who we chose as our actor) had to appear on frame with the exact same camera angle as the actor on the movie had. As well as, where we had to replicate the photos from the actual scene including a "Live Photo" where Kim (another member of our group which we chose to be one of the actors/muse as well) had to recreate as it is also an important staple of the scene.
Solutions:
Solutions we had for this problem was to take our time and remain consistent in double checking to be as precise and similar to the actual scenes as possible. By doing this, our recreation turned out to be pretty similar and accurate from the actual scenes, including the recreated pictures we took.
Next time:
We will learn from our experience and improve by using more professional equipment to recreate specific pictures from the scenes. As well as practicing more on how to conduct certain camera angles properly to get the most accurate result as possible as we attempted to do a recreation/replication.
Sound
Problems:
There weren't much problems for the sound as the scenes we chose to recreate did not require any diegetic sounds, but instead, needed non-diegetic sound which was the tensive music from the actual scenes. Additionally it is also difficult for us to find any similar audio that give off a similar vibe toward our scenes, making it risky and can potentially be incompatible with our scenes.
Solutions:
We decided to download the actual soundtrack from the YouTube video we used to determine our scenes, to make it as similar to the actual scenes and to avoid any copyright from choosing any different soundtrack.
Next time:
We will research more on the soundtracks of scenes we choose to recreate to make our project easier to conduct with more accessible soundtracks to input into our scenes. As well as being more prepared for future scenes needing diegetic sounds by not filming in a noisy classroom like we did for this project, since we did not need any diegetic sounds then.
Edit:
Problems:
Problems during the editing process included getting the accurate speed and duration of each scene to be exactly the same with the movie itself, as there were some scenes that we recorded were too fast and some were too slow. Another problem was that in one of the scenes in the original scene, there was a scene of a zoom in cut motion that was used to emphasize the photo in the scene where it was difficult to have a smooth zoom transition.
Solution:
The solution for the editing problem was to cut some parts of the scene and change the speed of the scene in order to make it the same duration. Cutting some parts of the scene did not have any major effect on the project outcome, rather it made it smoother. For the zoom part of the problem, we cut parts of the clips and resize the part where it is needed to be zoom
Next Time:
For next time, we will need to understand the scene more to know how the story goes and memorize how long each scene lasts and is being done, in order to get the exact similar outcome with the original scene. Another way is to have the original scene side by side during recording and/or the sound so that during recording it would be easier to just follow through the actual original scene. We will also need to learn more about the features in the editing software in order to have a similar smooth zoom and improve our skills to get the outcome that we are expecting.
Mise-En-Scene:
Problems:
For Mise-en-scene the problem was that we couldn’t find the right props that would match and have a similar feeling with the original scene that we were trying to recreate. Anothing this is for our actor to make the accurate reaction / acting that is similar to the original scene. As some reaction was complicated for our actor to do.
Solution:
The solution for the problem was to just use the props that we have, making it look as similar as it is shown on the screen. Like for example the ‘drinks’, we didn’t have the same type of glass but we made the holding of the glass to be similar to the photo we are recreating. For the acting part, we tried to make a reaction to sort of be similar but still having the same feeling with the original scene.
Next Time:
Next time, we will need to learn to be more prepared and find the right props in order to match the scene more perfectly to be seen by the audience. Another thing was to pick the right actor that can act well in a certain situation.
Behind the Scenes IMAGES
- Our group recreating the pictures from the actual scenes
Self Reflection: This project turned out to be really fun, as our first lesson of the new semester. Though it was quite tough as Cassie wasn't present during this day. Therefore the rest of us had to finish the project ourselves. Me and Tisha did most of the work, I was in charge of majority parts of the blog, while Tisha also helped and edited the actual video by the help of Kim as well. This project will be helpful and beneficial for the future as we would be more exposed to the usage of technical elements more often, and helps us practice our project making skills, including all the filming with the technical elements, filling up our blogs, editing and discussing too!
