Thriller Practical - 1st Lesson

Our first lesson was an indroduction of how to use cameras. The media department technician - Mikey had shown my class a video clip of how to operate cameras. After each demonstration we were to practice using the cameras, for example: how to turn on and off the camera, replay what we had recorded, using the tripod at high, medium and low angles, how to insert the battery and tape.

After the demonstration we were given a task to create our own thriller using a pack of cards and a gun. From watching the thriller film - The Shiney, we had some sort idea of what we wanted. In my group - Lipi, Susan and Elelta, we had to first plan each shot, describe the scene, what angle it would be shot and the length of each shot. After we finished planning we head off to shoot.

As this was a practical we were given the mac computer room to shoot our thriller. Our thriller was based on two gamblers. Our first shot was of Elelta walking into the room, we had recorded her feet as she was walking into the room, but due to character change we had to change Elelta to Susan. Therefore we had to cut out the tracking shot of her feet. We then started from Susan walking into the room. This started from a low angle shot tilting up to show Susan's body. The next shot was a high angle shot from above Susan's shoulder. As she takes her seat opposite Elelta, the camera is then focused on Susan and Elelta, here we have a sideways close up of both.
The next shot is a medium shot of Susan and Elelta palying cards. The following shot is a close up of Susan and Elelta's hands laying cards on the table. The next shot zooms out into a midium shot of Susan throwing the cards off the table the taking out a gun from within her jacket. The camera then zooms into Susan who holds the camera infornt of the camera. The camera was from Elelta's point of view in this shot, therfore Susan was pointing the gun to the camera. The next shot was a midium shot of Elelta shocked to have seen the gun held at her. This shot was taken from Susan's point of view. In the last shot which was taken from a medium - low angle. Here Susan drops the gun while Elelta lays on the floor, to show that Susan has finished her job of killing Elelta.