First Post

Lessons learnt from the Foundation Portfolio;


• Organisation is a key factor in the creation of a production.
Our group didn’t anticipate some of the accidents that occurred throughout our production due to a lack of organisation and not setting a logical timescale to complete everything in. We’ve learnt to check all the equipment before the filming day, as one of our lights ran out of battery whilst filming outside, and as a consequent we couldn’t film the outside sequences and had to organise another day to shoot. This produced another problem, because the mise en scene (e.g. settings – positioning of furniture, costumes – Keira’s hair and makeup) had to be exactly the same as the first filming day so continuity is constant and sustained; this was proven difficult, but luckily possible.

• Film a wide variety of shots and as many as possible.
Another reason we had to schedule another day to film was due to the lack of shots we produced for each scene. We either didn’t do enough varied angles of the same shot or redo shots of the same positions so sometimes we didn’t like the only one produced or something wasn’t right – for example in one of the shots we accidently didn’t see the headlight in the background shown through a hidden mirror. Furthermore, we learnt to experiment well with the camera and be creative, because on many occasions we changed and tweaked little aspects of a shot, which unintentionally made it more interesting and unique.


• When filming at night time, lighting becomes a lot more complex.
Due to filming our thriller in night time settings, we restricted what we could achieve through the lighting and it becomes a lot more difficult. You have to make sure the action is in focus and visible, yet realistic and using techniques which are accurate in relation to the genre.



• Be careful when choosing music.
The music could have been seen as a bit of trouble during our production, as we only used one long piece of music which although gained many positive comments such as it kept the fast pace action going, it may have seemed a little repetitive. It was very hard to fit into the sequence so it was logical and in connection with the piece. Some of the tones and pitches of the music didn’t fit in well enough with the action and atmosphere created within the film. Therefore we changed these, but this then altered the music by having uncalled for sudden stops and blips which were hard to sort out as it was so specific and had to be so précised. It was also hard to fit in voice over’s and extra digetic sounds as it wouldn’t correspond to the piece properly.


• Don’t overcomplicate everything.
This was probably the main lesson learnt through doing our thriller. All members of the group were very creative and although this is a positive factor in many respects, it did also craft a set of concerns as we definitely overcomplicated the ideas and production in many ways. I’ve learnt you can easily be misled as you think you are improving, when in fact you are loosing the plot line and the original quality.