The document describes the process of making a student film. It discusses researching similar thriller and horror films for inspiration. It talks about brainstorming ideas with the group and deciding on the thriller genre. It also covers skills development like practicing with camera equipment, storyboarding scenes, and directing other actors during filming. Re-shoots were needed to fix issues like blurry or noisy shots, and new locations and props were found. Post-production included giving input during editing but not taking the primary editing role.

2. Research
At the beginning I looked into and researched similar
films to what I would like my own to be like; I wanted to
get inspiration from them. I specifically looked at the
thriller genre as a hybrid with horror as I think, from the
ideas we had, these are the genres most applicable to
our initial ideas. One film I looked at was ‘The Sixth
Sense’, I specifically looked at and paid close attention
to the music which is something that I found very
successful about the film. I liked how the music built up
tension and thought this was definitely something I
could feature in my own film.

3. Idea Brainstorming
During this stage, the whole group brainstormed
together in order to come up with the most interesting
and successful idea we could. We all agreed on the
thriller genre and from our research could list some
codes and conventions of the genre which we could
feature e.g. tension music, changes in the angle of
shots.

4. Skills Development
We then went out with the equipment we would be using for
the actual shoot and experimented. I used the camera to
develop different shots, used the tri-pod in order to get
different leveled shots and I also looked at the different
features on the camera that we could use. We had a run
through of one of our scenes (a rough cut) and we made the
mistake of shooting it all in one take from the same angle.
This was learning curve for us, as I then directed this
particular shot saying that we needed to break all of the
scene up into small bits so that we could have different
angled shots.

5. Planning
For the planning, I wrote up the storyboard. Making it
clear which angle shot we would be using and the basis
of what the scene would entail and another member of
my group drew the pictures of what we hoped the scene
to look like. I also wrote the script for the opening
scene, detailing what the actors should be saying and
putting stage directions down as well. However the
stage directions were a loose guide of what to do if the
actors wanted to they could improvise instead.

6. Skills Development
(Continued filming)
I continued to direct and manage some of the shots that
I wasn’t in. Making sure that the shots featured
everything they needed to as that was a main thing that
we were quite careless about at the start of the process.
I ensured that the shot was in the right location with the
right props and characters.

7. Actual Shooting
I was acting for most of my film, however the scene that
I wasn’t in I took either the role of camera woman or
directing. I was essentially guiding the other actors
through on what to do, telling them when it didn’t look
right and how we could make it look better. I also, when
being the camera woman made sure that everyone was
in shot that needed to be and also that nobody that
wasn’t meant to be in shot was in shot.

8. Re-shoot
In the re-shoot I was acting a lot again, as I was a main
character, and I also directed a bit. The main reason we
needed to re-shoot was things like the shot being blurry
and out of focus or the wind making it hard to hear the
actors talking. I also found better locations and collected
props for our new shots as some of the locations we
originally took them in were not in places that were very
successful and relevant to the scene.

9. Post Production
I didn’t have a very big part with the editing as I had
quite a big part to do with the shooting of the film.
Instead of editing myself I sat with a member of my
group and watched them edit whilst commenting and
giving my input on whether the music choice was right
for our film and that specific film. I did get to play around
with iMovie however another member of my team was
more skilled in that area and so decided to take that
role.