Introduction to thrillers, Camera risk assesment, editing

In the introductory thriller unit lesson on Monday 1st December we started our thrillers. We were put into groups of four; my group consisted of Myself, Gerald, Rhea and Pareece. We were taken through a tutorial on how to edit footage on the computers and then we were set a task called ‘’A thrilling read’. We were given a storyboard to help plan the set that would be included in our practical. The task was to show a mystery person read a newspaper in a thriller way, using a minimum camera shot of 12. This then carried on to Thursday’s lesson on 4th December.

In Gez's lesson on Thursday, we were given a tutorial by Mickey on how to use the cameras and the tripods. We were taught how to insert and extract the battery, and how to place the camera on the tripod and make sure it was secure. We were also taught how to record, put the camera on and off, and how to do different types of shots. After our tutorial we were given time to go off with our groups and start filming. Although we had to remember all the techniques learned from the tutorial and make sure were handling the camera and tripod with care, we still got to have fun as a group and record some great footage. As a group we decided to make our story about a college student reading a newspaper and seeing an article about a rapist on the loose and realising that the rapist is in the college. It progresses and the rapist is on to her having sussed his identity, he sets out to catch her.

I took the role of recording the footage so I was never in any shots. On a whole I feel I recorded a lot of good shots but I forget key techniques such as not using zoom as it looks quite tacky if it is not done properly, and not to leave too much space above the head of the person being recorded. Due to time issues we were unable to finish all our shot in that lesson and were forced to pick up were we left off in the next lesson.

Monday 8th December: Because my group and I were behind on filming, we made that our priority but were given very little time to complete it. Although were unable to perfect our footage we had to go a start editing what we had. We were told to save by using the command keys every 2minutes just in case any unfortunate events took place. Although we were not able to finish recording or editing we learnt a lot from the four lessons which I believe will be a great help when time comes to do our coursework.