Moodboard For Thriller Planning

How does 'The Third Man' use location & composition explore post-war feelings?

Peaky Blinders

Preliminary Task

The preliminary task we carried out was where we tested our continuity skills by filming a character(s) walking through a door, walking towards a location, sitting down and finally exchanging some dialogue. All incorporated within a short clip.

Planning

Firstly we needed to plan our task. We had to first decide on the dialogue of the characters, which also determined the way the characters acted, walked, and also the setting, location and mood of the scene. The script was quickly adapted to a situation which the characters are planning something dark. The dialogue itself remained ambiguous to leave the situation to the imagination of the viewer; who never finds out what the characters are up to. We did not use any inspiration from a movie because we did not want the audience to have a scene set already in their head, or any expectations to what the clip should look/sound like. The easy and quick script allowed us to learn our lines quickly, and effectively. Planning camera angles was arguably the hardest part. Whether to have the camera handheld or set up on a tripod all depended on the scene, the risk with holding the camera was the shot being shaky (even if intended to) and looking poor. Either way we had to follow the 180 degree rule. We picked a variety of camera angles, which did not break the rule. From a over the shoulder shots to a close up of feet walking. We then finalised our plan and made a storyboard of our scenes, with the script included this gave us a very good idea of what our final piece would look like.

Techniques

As a group we had seen various techniques being used in various programmes. For example a conversation between Walt White and Gustavo Fring in Breaking Bad. This conversation was about a potential partnership between the two. Throughout the scene we see the amount of Nose and Head room differ as the level of power fluctuates between the two.  The camera level also represents this - When the two are on the same level of power we see a camera angle to which both the characters appear in. The 'over the shoulder' shots used in Breaking Bad are something we took big inspiration from, Incorporating the 180 degree rule we managed to get shots with great continuity. We then looked at the show 'Peaky Blinders' and how the characters were shot walking. We found the level of importance within the characters was shown within the position they were walking. For example the lead character 'Tommy Shelby' was shown at the front of the group, then his two brothers just behind him, and the less important characters behind them. We found in Peaky Binders that costumes were a big part of establishing a character. In Peaky Blinders, the caps the group wore were not only a symbol of their importance, but they also created a shadow upon the faces of the Blinders, creating a sense of ambiguity within the show. We applied a Black & White filter to our task, as well as eerie music which plays without, finished with a fade to black. This was added in recognition to our recent study of Film Noir, the difference is that our task doesn't create a dark tone, the effect did create a more ambiguous feeling which worked well with the our script, and created a classic ending.

Main Learning Points

Part-taking in this activity has allowed me to see how i filmed, allowing me to see mistakes and look at improvements that could be made. Getting used to the editing software was also a big part of the task as i had never used it before. The script writing was much more difficult than expected but was very enjoyable due to having to apply the script to the scene. This task allowed me to learn how to use the editing software, how to create in and out points; how to edit clips to get rid of excess footage. I would have also had a more thorough play around with the camera and tripod, to allow me to explore more options while filming. If we rehearsed the shots more we could of had a wider variety of moods and tones to apply to the task and could have picked the best ones.

Using a variety of Camera shots while shooting feet.

Analysis Of Breaking Bad

Introduction

Hello, my name is George