Mood Board

Above are stereotypical horror images which we associate with fear and horror films.


Horror films play off common phobias and fears such as snakes, spiders and clowns; they also subvert an object to adapt it to horror films, such as if a child or doll looks evil or is the murderer in a horror film then the audiece find them more scary as it is subverting the innocence of children.


Many of the images in horror films are dark which is another phobia and allows villians to hide and mask themselves.

Preliminary task Evaluation

We filmed our preliminary task in the media classroom; although we thought it might potentially be problematic due to space issues, on the filming all was fine with our space in the classroom. The location also worked well as the filming was set in an office so we included office related mise-en-scene such as a desk with paper, a mug, a pen and a phone on, to add a sense of realism to the task. In the filming I took a fairly active role as director, I directed the actors what to do and when in the scene and also informed our camera man when to start rolling and gave the cue for our actors to start. It was not a very hard role to take as there was not that much direction to give but I did make sure I kept account of cues for actors to make sure I got the timings right in each shot.

In the classroom as it was light we had a source of natural light from the windows, however we also used two front lighting with studio lights which created harsh, bright light on our actors. This was important to the scene as it emphasised the actor’s facial expressions and gestures, informing us of dominance and emotion in the scene. The lighting was effective in lighting up our subjects; it also created shadows behind our actors which was effective as it gave a slightly menacing feel to the scene.

Although I was directing I also helped with the filming by setting up the camera and tripod, helping adjusting the white balance and also with the zoom and focus. In our practise preliminary task we had some trouble with the framing of shots so I checked them with our camera man to make sure they were correct and worked and did not include any lighting equipment or unwanted mise-en-scene. We checked the tripod and bubble was level in each shot creating a technically effective shot. As a group we decided on our shots to use, once we had covered all the basic ones we chose other shots and angles for shots, we used high and low angles to show the dominance of characters. For our preliminary task we had a storyboard of basic shots to use in the task, such as wide shots, close-up, mid shots and over-the-shoulder shots. After filming the task from each of these positions we then decided to use some more creative shots such as a tracking shot of one of our actor’s feet and a high angle tilted shot of the table. In our practise preliminary task we accidentally broke the 180 degree rule, so in the preliminary task we made sure we got it correct and conformed to it. As director I had to use appropriate terminology to make sure everyone on set knew what they were doing and when to do their jobs, I used ‘stand by’, ‘rolling’ and ‘action’, to inform everyone what was happening.

I feel our preliminary task of filming went very well and I learnt a lot about the technical and creative side of filming, lighting and directing. Also I learnt about cameras and how to set them up, how to set up camera equipment such as tripods, how to correctly set up the cameras with white balance, zoom focus and bubbling the tripod.


However despite the Preliminary Task going effectively, we did encounter issues that we will have to change for filming our actual thriller and take precaution while filming. We firstly did not correctly set white balance on the camera for some of the shots so the film was over exposed and did not look good, also the bubbling of the camera was done wrong in some shots, creating jaunty angled shots which again did not look good on screen. I also feel that a lot of the shots we used were fairly basic, by using a wider variety of shots we could have improved our prelim filming and make a more effective filming; I will make sure I do not make these mistakes again in the shooting of the thriller.

Our Preliminary Filming



Prelim post production blog

While logging shots we used created a log bin which was very useful as we kept all of our possible shots and multiple takes of shots in the log bin. This meant that all of our shots were in one folder and were easily accessible and viewable. As we had multiple takes from each angle we deleted the worst shots as we would not need them, the shots which were out of focus, over exposed, or had unwanted non-diagetic dialogue were deleted. We stuck to the basic storyboard of the original angle shots but then decided which other shots and angles would fit into the storyboard and kept them in log bin.


We decided on the screen shots to represent Jake as the victim, we picked the shots of Jake in which he looked like the victim, high angled or tilted shots, and the ones of Merhan in which he looks like he has the higher status, low shots. We gave both characters a roughly equal screen time together however we added an extra sequence after of just Merhan to show his higher status over Jake. Once we decided all of our shots to use we edited them together with close cut editing so each clip would run smoothly into each other and would fit with the next piece of action, for example a medium shot to a close up of an object of interest. We would take the medium shot of a face, focusing on the eyes, and have a match on action to an object by then using a close up of the object and piece the two shots together so when you watch it, it runs smoothly from a medium shot of a face to a close up of an object, this is called "Continuity Editing”.


I enjoyed the editing in final cut, we were able to select all of the shots and angels we liked best and effectively and smoothly edit them together so the story flowed easily. We chose as a group the order of shots to use, one particular shot which was important was the high angle shot of Jake to show his weakness and the cut to the close up of his face from a slightly tilted angle downwards when he refuses to ‘do it’. This showed his weakness and we could see his emotion with the refusal.