The production skills of the group developed throughout the project. Their early chase scene lacked planning and dialogue, resulting in fewer shots than expected. However, they learned that using filters helped give their film a sense of mystery appropriate for the thriller genre. While their preliminary task had simple dialogue-driven storytelling, their final thriller opening sequence showed significant technical improvements through establishing shots, appropriate costumes, makeup, and attention to continuity. They found that preparation and learning from mistakes enhanced their skills and understanding of the thriller genre.

1. How did your production skills develop throughout this project? Please look
at your chase, preliminary task sequence and onwards.
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At first we shot a chase scene throughout Auckland CBD. There was no dialogue or script which
made it hard for out group to create depth within the film. With a lack of planning our group was
not able to effectively manage our time that we were allocated for filming. This made us have less
shots than we expected and we had less shots to work with.
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The credit sequence that we used in the chase sequence was very bland, and does not give the
viewer a sense of professionalism:
There were multiple versions of this shot which made the film drag on into the credits, and
therefore made it extremely uninteresting, and it gives the audience a sense of a lack of creativity
to make the film more effective.
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We filmed the chase scene in multiple locations, which made it hard for the audience to
determine the setting, and with a lack of establishing shots the audience does not know anything
about the man who is walking, or his objectives of where to go, it all seems quite vague and
therefore uninteresting.
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The camera was also in need of a tripod in certain shots, this made the film appear even less
professional.
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However we did find that using a filter over the film was an effective way of presenting it. This
gave the film a greater sense of mystery, and since the genre was thriller, the chase needed a
darker theme to it, we chose a black and white theme and it helped us with some of our white
balancing issues.
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This over the shoulder shot is one of the
more interesting shots. It shows the mans
pathway to where he is heading, however it
is blurred so it conforms to the thriller
convention of mystery.
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2. We did encounter some continuity problems within our shots:
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Here notice the actor has his shirt open
with no buttons. this is consistent through
most of the shots throughout the film.
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However, randomly from this point
onwards, the actor has one button done
up on his shirt. We did not notice this
continuity error, and once we realised we
found that it made our film appear much
worse, this though taught us a lesson so
therefore our group had to watch
carefully as we were filming to make sure
that in our upcoming productions there
were no continuity errors, this helped our
productions a lot.
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Preliminary Task:
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Our Preliminary task had a simple story. Basically it is a drug deal, however nothing major
happens in the production to heighten the intensity. We decided to use quite a lot of dialogue for
our scene because it would be hard to go into detail with the kind of storyline we were dealing
with without dialogue.
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Our mise-en-scene was an issue we faced, this was because we filmed the preliminary task within
school. This made it hard to create different and suitable costumes for the characters to wear. It
made it hard to identify who was who in each shot because we were all wearing uniform. This
meant we had to create more dialogue so that the characters were more identifiable. However I
think this made the production more boring for the viewers.
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There was no background music in the film.
This made it appear more awkward and it
needed some other sounds to enhance the film.
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Here you can see the exact same uniform used
for the characters, this makes the scene more

3. confusing because the characters have no real identification and the film then appears more
unprofessional.
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Final Thriller Opening Sequence:
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In our final thriller sequence, the viewer can see a much greater improvement in the technical
aspects over the other films. In this sequence we used establishing shots which enhanced the film
because it created the theme of isolation, which is a common theme used in thriller genres, and it
also heightens the expectation of the audience because there is anything that can happen if there
is no-one around.
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Here is a shot of the building in which
the henchmen are holding the man
that they kidnapped. It is quite
isolated from any other people, there
are no close neighbours, which makes
it a prime location for torture.
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This is just another establishing shot of
the area around the factory, it looks
industrial, however there are no
people there. This suggests that the
area could have been abandoned, this
makes the thriller film more
interestingly set for the viewer.
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From our experience with the filters in our first chase sequence, we decided to put a filter over
our opening. We decided that a filter looked better, this is because it keeps the lighting consistent
throughout the film, this makes it look more professional. We also decided that our preliminary
task did not look as great as the chase scene, so thats why we preferred a filter. The blue tint slo
adds to the mystery of the film.
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Mise-en-scene is an aspect we greatly improved on in our opening sequence. This is because we
came up with a costume and props list, so the audience would easily be able to identify who the
henchmen were and who the man was. We used makeup on the man who had been kidnapped to
make the film more realistic and intense. We gave the henchmen hoodies, so they would look like
they were the stereotypical thugs
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4. The makeup was very realistic, and helped us
portray the sense of brutality into the audience.
The blood and the bruises that the actor has on
his face look genuine, and this then makes the
film over all look more professional.
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In the film we watched for continuity errors,
and we came across much less than in the other
films, we also decided to do 2 days of filming,
to maximise our footage and therefore
maximise the flexibility in our editing.
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In conclusion our opening sequence is much better than the other sequences we have done. We
found critical errors such as continuity in our earlier tasks, which helped us improve our filing
techniques to ensure we made no mistakes. The research and preparation we had undertaken for
the opening sequence gave us more guidance over what we were going to shoot and helped us to
enhance our film. The previous projects then taught us many lessons in which we can reflect on
as useful for our future products, and they gave us a greater understanding of how to shoot films
from the thriller genre.