Constructing the production

Technical decisions and camera shots

To shoot my thriller I had to use my spare time, which was my free lessons to draw up the shooting script. When filming I had to organize a time which was suitable for the actresses. One of the girls’ didn’t attend my school and hers’ was quite far away so and seeing as the location was at my school it became a real difficult in finding time to meet the needs of everyone. These complications forced me to make my second date of filming extremely productive and useful, as I was knew that I wouldn’t get another, relatively close chance to film extra footage.

For the final idea of my film, I new that there weren’t any props that I needed to incorporate within the film so organising props was a problem for me. Also, the main section of the film would centrally take place in the sixth toilets, and I made the conscious decision to ensure that filming would take place after school, so that it filming would not be interrupted. The wardrobe for the actresses were initially something that I believed would cause a problem for me, seeing I was to later piece together the third draft with the final opening sequence, however I later re- evaluated my the idea of my film and understood that with the changing of sequencing of time it would be not be affecting the rule of continuity if I the clothes to not correspond with each other.

The first thing I shot for the establishing shot was of the exterior of the school, to add to the Mise en scene and make the audience aware that this thriller would be set around the lifestyle of a school and school children, thus the reasoning for students leaving the building. Then there are long shots of a hallway and outside and stairs which indicate there is no one around, which just arouses the suspense further. Next appears a medium low angled shot if a door which opens by itself, which indicates and eerie atmosphere of an unknown person/ source/ spirit travelling somewhere. After there is a low angled long shot a character standing in front of a mirror and this shot is only reveals the feet of this person. I done it in this way to bring more suspense to the appearance of the character and what they are doing. It also paves the unconscious understanding that this person is alone in the bathroom – highlight the purpose of the title. Then there is a close up of a face of another character and whilst the camera pans to the main protagonist, this angle and frame gives the sense of quite an eerie tone which is intended to play on the psychological aspect of the audiences’ minds. Next is a shot of the protagonist staring at her reflection in the mirror, which reiterates the point of that she is alone. The mirror is used as a symbolic metaphor to indicate the darkest depth of a person’s inner-self and there is always a myth about if it is broken then is would cast bad luck.

Editing

Once I had finished the filming and the footage was uploaded onto the “Serif” editing software the next process was to begin.
The footage was uploaded as a large chunk, in chronological order of how the film should appear due to the way in which I filmed it. Whilst editing I had to make sure the shots I used were steady when necessary to avoid the portrayal of an amateur film. Also, my film has some camera angles that, on camera, appeared steady but on the large computer screen, were able to see jerky movements. Though whilst I was able to identify these mistakes and able to erase a large majority of them, the shot I weren’t completely happy with, were not able to be reshot, due to the difficulties that I had with arranging shooting days. Some of the shots which were used to add to the mise en scene of the film, such as the long, and wide establishing shot of the front of the school, were shortened to maintain the audience’s attention of the opening of a sequence. Then to make sure that the clips smoothly followed each other, I used transitions such as cross fading.