Preliminary Task 1 - Creative Critical Reflection

The Final Delivery Short Film:

How Does The Product Use or Challenge Conventions and How Does it Represent Social Groups or Issues:

In our first preliminary task, we tried to stick mostly to the conventions of a thriller with our technical approach in camera, audio, editing, and mis-en-scene. 

 

How Does Product Engage with Audiences and How Would it be Distributed as a Real Media Text:

How Did Your Production Skills Develop Throughout this Project:

 

How Did You Integrate Technologies in this Project:

Screenshot of the song

One of the biggest uses of the internet was finding the right music for the short. I found a composer called Fesliyan Studios who does some great pieces of music for films. I used the track Brink, which really helped create that suspense I was going for.




I only used Adobe Premier Pro for the effects I put into the short, such as the flash effect used when the Agent is shot, and for the title sequence at the beginning. I also used it for adjusting the audio and adding additional audio, for example, the music playing in the background.

The moment when the agent is shot and the moment I would
like to have integrated a gunfire effect with added blood

If I could go back and redo some uses of technology, I would have integrated a gunfire effect from After Effects to help make the moment more realistic and even more grounded. Also, I would have used After Effects to add in some fake blood to help sell the reality of this situation being possible.     

Preliminary Task 1 - Planning

Storyboard:

For our storyboard we went through a few changes near the end of the planning stage in terms of where the gunman who shoots Walter/Person is positioned, from behind the Boss to behind Walter, added dialogue to Walter's character, and some shots near the end of the sequence to help fluidly present this action.

After completing the first version of the storyboards, I went away and compiled a shot list describing them in order of how we will film them. I found out after that this is not the most conventional way of doing a shot list and in the industry it is standard to write them up in order of how they will be edited into the final cut. However, for a small project such as this, it does not affect anything, it is only in feature length films where it can very tricky and overly-complicated if I use this tactic.

Script:

Jackson Veale worked on this aspect of pre-production, as he does have the ability to create a great atmosphere in his writing and is superb with dialogue. There were only a few changes made to the first draft when we changed the position of the gunman in the storyboards. 

Props & Costumes

James Murray focused on this area more than Jackson Veale and me, organising props and costumes and doing research for the look of each item.  We did help, by bringing our own props and costumes in and contributing opinions on what styles would work or not. 

We decided to give Walter a baseball jacket to help show the audience that this man is intended to blend in, he does the fieldwork for the Boss, and he wears more heavy-duty boots to show that he does do some heavy-lifting and is used to being tough situations, but this contrasts with his character at this point of time, in which he is timid and fearful.

The Boss' attire was simple to imagine. We wanted to give him an air of authority, reflected in the wool-jacket and hat that he wears, his glasses blocking his eyes to show no emotion.  

Conventions:

We want to use very contrasted lighting in terms of light and dark. There will be very few lights, only the ones focused on the characters and illuminating them. This is a typical lighting scheme for a thriller.