Thriller - Extra Cast and Dialogue

The changes to our scene meant that we would need more actors to provide voices for the radio. We chose the following people:

• Assistant - Amber Donoso
• Radio presenter - James (Psychology teacher and actor)
• Caller - Missan (A student)
• Psychologist - Claire (Another teacher)

Also, we decided to make some dialogue for the radio show in script format over the Christmas Holidays, I put this together:

"Morning, morning, morning. You're joining us live on the air where we're continuing our extraordinary story on the 'One Way Trip to Mars'. We want to hear your ideas, what do you think? Call us up on 03 333 444 544.

 

'I think it's absolutely ridiculous, man. I mean, these people are gonna go into space and never come back? All for some stupid TV show? How desperate for attention do you have to be?

Well, we’ve got a lot of different opinions but one thing is certain: This may well be the most significant event in television history ever. Already, over one hundred thousand people have applied which is - quite frankly - astonishing. We're joined now by behavioural psychologist, Claire Hastings. Claire, do have anything to say about this.

 

'Well Graham, these people are going to be living on a different planet for the rest of their lives. I think it's important that they can understand the psychological damage that isolation on that scale can cause.'

 

Thank you, Claire. We'll come back to you but first, let's hear some music."

Sadly, my writing skills are kind of terrible but its okay because this is not the final piece. We are all going to put in a collaborative effort and come up with something. We can play around with the dialogue in the editing process to make sure everything fits.

Thriller - Props List

Below is a compiled list of props necessary for our thriller.

• Make up - Melissa has generously offered to provide her own makeup.
• Radio - Dmitry has an old fashioned, interesting radio which we can use.
• Computer - We will use my laptop for the scene with the computer.
• Toaster - B Webb (one of the college boarding house) will have this in the kitchen.
• Knife - B Webb
• Bread - B Webb
• Butter - B Webb
• Shoes - Chloe (Our actress) can use her own shoes.
• CD - We can easily buy or borrow a blank CD.
• Envelopes -  These can be bought from a stationary shop.
• Box - We can borrow one from the school supplies.
• Camera - Massimo has agreed to bring a prop video camera.
• Tripod - Again, Massimo will bring one of these if necessary.

Thriller - Changes

Through group discussion and with the help of a great deal of stress and frustration we made lots of changes to our thriller. Primarily, this involved three major alterations:

1. Cutting down to two characters, Jimmy and Tiffany. This makes the sequence simpler and gives us more space to concentrate on two people - we added a scene in a kitchen amongst others.

2. Increasing the effort spent on the office sequence, to make the scene more interesting and help explain it a little better.

3. Probably the biggest change was to add the radio. The idea being that the scene opens with a black screen and multiple overlapping snippets of dialogue about the One Way Trip to Mars and then continues as one radio program in which the DJ discusses the One Way Trip show and interviews different people (behavioral psychologist, public member, etc). This gives us more content and allows us to explain the story in an innovative and interesting way. It will add the task of writing up the radio show and finding actors to provide voices but that shouldn't be too difficult.

Thriller - Pilot Evaluation

'If I were to guess, I'd have to say that this film is about some sort of paedophile grooming children on the internet' 

- Feedback on our pilot

The feedback on our Pilot was pretty discouraging. We thought that in order to gain a lot of feedback we would show it to as many people as possible and record their feedback.

The obvious conclusion was that the thriller was not clear enough and a bit boring. Disheartened and frustrated, we've decided that we will definitely have to make some changes to the scene before going ahead and filming the final thing.

I'm glad that we managed to get this feedback because it allows the public to point out the flaws that we might not have seen. The result of this is that we will have to arrange multiple group meetings to discuss the necessary changes and organize the resultant props/locations/etc. 

Thriller - Pilot

Below is the fully edited pilot.

Thriller - Shot List

After a whole load of storyboarding, group discussion and sleepless nights, we finally managed to work out what changes we must make to our shot list. Below is a basic series of events. We tried to make it as loose as possible so that we weren't at all limited and felt like we could still experiment and improvise if we needed to.

• Black screen - radio sounds
• Chloe makeup - radio background
• Shot of radio
• Makeup
• Archie - making toast - pop up, spreading close-up.
• Chloe - puts shoes on.
• Archie - googling: 'One way trip to mars application'
• Chloe - walking out of room. Stops, reaction to radio.
• Archie - sets up camera - Sits down
• Chloe - sits down
• Archie - starts talking into camera
• Hallway - walking with the envelopes.
• Gives to producer at laptop.
• 'They're going crazy, we got 500 applicants just this morning. Here's a few more'
• Takes disc. Puts into laptop.
• Archie comes up on screen.
• Producer's eyes.
• Black screen -radio sounds come up again - Title. 

Thriller - Locations

We sat down and worked out all of the separate locations where we would need to film. The list goes as follows.

• Chloe's bedroom - We will use one of the boarding house bedrooms (probably, again, B Webb) for this, or the bedroom of somebody who lives close to the college. I feel that it is very important that the bedroom actually looks like it could belong to a teenage girl and has been lived in. Makeup, a mirror and girly posters, etc.

• Archie's kitchen - Apparently the B Webb kitchens looks like an proper house kitchen so considering that we are already filming a lot in B Webb we will most likely use it for the Kitchen scene. I want the kitchen to be fairly straightforward and neat to show Archie's personality.

• Archie's bedroom - Again, either B Webb or another boarding house. I was fairly adamant that we use a different boarding house or a real teenagers bedroom but the group seemed to be more geared towards filming the whole thing in one boarding house

• Producer's office/hallway - We tried to call various offices in the local area to see if we could use them for filming but we had no luck. We will most likely use the college's editing suite for this scene.

Thriller - Casting

When in came to casting actors in our thrillers, we decided that we wanted to use students and teachers from the college with pretty good acting skill and experience, especially in front of cameras. Fortunately, the fact that we're in performing arts school helps considerably. I wanted to have a mostly teenage cast so that our characters could represent different varieties of youth culture. Below is a list of all the characters who require actors and possible actors/actresses who might be suitable to play them (obviously, we have to check with these people as to whether they're available or not).

(as a sidenote, although the character's names aren't actually mentioned - Jimmy being the exception - we still decided to give them names for the sake of simplicity - It's a lot easier to be able to refer to a character by their name rather than a vague description.)

(another sidenote, these photos are taken from the school database and - like all school photos - may be incredibly embarrassing and not do complete justice to the actors/actresses)

Jimmy (Protagonist)

Jimmy is the protagonist. A teenaged social misfit who wants to go to Mars simply because he feels that he has nothing to lose. He has never fitted in and is slightly strange - wide eyed and tense, as if constantly on edge.

We chose Archie Repin to play Jimmy. Archie's had a lot of experience working in front of camera and studied at the New York Film Academy. We chose Archie because, not only is he a good actor, we all agree that he kind of suits the role.. In the nicest way possible. He's also Russian, so his accent adds a little bit of believability to the story as opposed to all of the contestants being English.

Tiffany

We chose Chloe Tannenbaum to play Tiffany, the attention seeking, dumb blonde. We chose Chloe because - obviously - she is female and blonde. She also is a very talented actress. We thought she could play the dumb blonde stereotype without making it too over the top.

Aiden

We settled on two options to play the attractive jock type character: Theo Bhat and Harry Griffiths. Both are attractive, sporty men who can act and would be pretty well suited to the role. My first choice would be Theo, who looks older and I think would fit the role better, however due to him being a second year student, we may not be allowed to use him. 

Harry is still a good choice and I'm told has a brilliant six pack which we would try to show off for a littled added sex appeal.

Michelangelo

Michelangelo is a flamboyant, failed celebrity desperate for attention and publicity. He is arrogant, yet fabulous and is to be played by the equally fabulous Santi Giraldo. Santi is a good actor and a very colourful personality who would fit the role perfectly. The above photo doesn't begin to do him justice.

Thriller - Storyboards

Our thriller underwent several changes through group discussion. We decided to film multiple contestants - rather than just one - preparing to film themselves. I want to see how much we can say about the characters who the film will center around. We felt that we should focus less on dialogue in order to direct our attention more to what we can see through the language of film - e.g. Mise en Scene, ambient music, camera shots, etc.

We also made considerable progress in planning our storyboards. This allowed our group to get together and put a lot of mutual thought into what kind of shots to use and where. I was very keen on the idea of using a lot of nice close-up shots and not to be afraid to get really close up.
I found, as we discussed the shots, that I would like to be the cameraman for the final shoot as I'm interested in photography  and incredibly anal about lazy camera shots.

We sketched out the different shots using storyboard templates. I want to try to create an ominous and disturbing atmosphere using very little dialogue and very little plot but lots of interesting camera angles and filming techniques.

Storyboarding is a very effective method of planning the sequence of shots in a film. Personally, I found that it was a good way for all of us to communicate our ideas clearly. The only downsides of storyboarding being that it somewhat limits you when it comes to actually filming and requires a certain degree of artistic skill. However through our courageous use of stick figures and messily scribbled close-ups, we actually came up with some nice ideas and I'm pretty pleased with the group's efforts and creativity.

"If you're first page doesn't give you a hard-on, you should throw the damn thing away."

- Sam Fuller

We watched a documentary about title sequences in class. Through it, we learnt the following:

In your title sequence, it is important not to give everything away in the first five minutes. Alternatively, if you make your sequence too long and complicated, there's a risk that you'll never answer the questions established in it. The sequence must give some details to start the story but not give everything away for fear of losing suspense.

The title sequence from Se7en Told a story, introduced you to the obsessive nature of the protagonist, and foreshadowed the events of the film.

Se7en's iconic title sequence

For the opening for his movie, A Touch of Evil, Orson Welles wanted to plunge the audience into his story without giving them time to prepare themselves. They put a score and credits onto the sequence because they did not understand what Welles was trying to achieve, much to his disappointment. Showing the end at the beginning of the film is a common trait of film noir.

Welle's opening scene for A Touch of Evil

Thriller Inspiration

On Friday, we looked through the title sequences of various films similar to our idea. We also extensively evolved our idea through group discussion.

Our Idea

Our current idea is an adaptation of our previous One Way Trip to Mars idea.

A man is sitting in his room, setting up a camera on a tripod facing himself. He sits down as the camera starts recording and speaks into it explaining why he wants to go to Mars - he is recording a big-brother style audition tape for a television show set on the red planet. We cut from him filming himself to the actual recorded footage. We then show several different shots of other possible contestants, satirizing actual big brother personalities. After cutting back and forth between different shots of about four different characters, we go back to the original man. We cut to a board meeting where several men in suits are gathered round a monitor, showing his tape. They look at each other and nod before cutting to the title: 'One way trip to Mars'

Below are a few actual Big-Brother audition tapes which we took inspiration from.





Also, below is a thriller done by a group a few years ago. I liked they way in which they only had a few characters but cut back and forth between them. I'd like to inject a similar dark humour into our piece.

[Insert embedded video here]

Finished Prelim

Editing the Prelim

As I was working in a separate group from the other members of the filming of my prelim, I chose to edit it on my own - after having been shown the basics of the editing software (Final Cut Pro) by Matt. I learnt how to organize clips, cut them and arrange them onto the timeline.

I found the editing process to be very interesting and enjoyable. I was fascinated by how you can show various different clips shot at different times and still have them weave seamlessly into one. I was also interested by how much you can change a sequence just with the editing.

I will upload the fully edited prelim in a later blog post.

Filming the prelim

Me and a small group of other students got together to film the prelim. We chose two theatre studies students to be our actors and shot it in the studio. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to take any photos of this process as I was preoccupied with filming at the time.

Shooting was an interesting process, as we tried to organise the group so that everyone had a chance to work on different aspects at different points (i.e. directing, filming). I enjoyed using the camera as I felt that often, a lot of student filmmakers do not put enough thought into making the shots look as nice and professional as possible. Directing was also something that appealed to me, as it involved a lot of communication. It became obvious that in order to be a good director, you must have a clear understanding of what you want your finished product to be and what steps must be taken to assure that the team can achieve this.

Prelim 1

We have been given a short story board in preparation for a filming session.

Captivating stuff...

We are allowed interpret the storyboard in any way that we want as long as it sticks to the basic plot of the original conversation. This is mainly an excuse to try out filming and editing a full clip for the first time.

Thriller Ideas.

Over the last few lessons, we have worked on Thriller ideas and developing them. We started by gaining inspiration from news stories then developed film narratives from them.

The News Stories

In order to come up with some ideas for our thriller, we read several different news stories that Phil had collected over the last year. Of these, the ones which grabbed our attention were.

One Way Trip to Mars - A story about a future proposed one-way journey to the red planet. Many volunteers put themselves forward to take part in a Big Brother style reality television program.

Human Extinction - A scientific article which discusses the possible ways in which humans may become extinct and the repercussions of this.

Smash and Grab - A story about a 'smash-and-grab' style robbery which took place in an upmarket watch store in London. Five people smashed the windows, took as many watches as possible and left.

Ideas

We used the stories as inspiration to construct some narratives. We felt that it was important to explore and flesh out our ideas fully before making any decisions. We also felt that it was important to explore various different thriller sub-genres (Link to my blog post on sub-genres). We came out with several ideas.

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One Way Trip to Mars - Sci-Fi/Psychological Thriller

The idea

In the not-too-distant future, there is a proposed one-way journey to Mars in order to film a reality television show. Our protagonist is a middle aged, socially inept man who has dreamt of going into space since childhood. The contestants struggle with the destructive effects of isolation and slowly, our protagonist spirals into insanity and hostility with disastrous effects.

The film is a dark, psychological satire which attacks consumer culture.

The Title Sequence

Dark, tense music is heard. There are several shots of a dark, dirty bedroom as the credits appear across the screen. The room is vaguely lit by the light of a television screen. As we pan around the room, we see that it is dirty and untidy. There are also various pieces of space related items including multiple posters and toy models of famous historical spaceships and shuttles and a telescope. We eventually pan over to a man in pants and a vest sitting looking at a television screen, he inserts a DVD into a DVD player and it slowly processes. A public service announcement style video flickers onto the screen. It is of a man sitting at a desk enthusiastically advertising 'the holiday of a life time'. There are juxtaposing shots between the man's intensely concentrated face and the shot of the television screen. The man on the screen finishes his pitch by revealing it as the 'One way Trip to Mars'. As he says this, the bold title appears suddenly on the screen accompanied by a loud drone.

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Apocalypse - Disaster Thriller

The idea

A single mother tries desperately to protect her two infant children from the cruelty and moral injustice of a post-nuclear wasteland as they travel across England to reach a promised safe zone. They encounter a variety of increasingly malicious and sadistic survivors and are forced to use violence, immorality and cruelty  in order to survive. By the time they reach the safe zone, they have become so twisted by the world around them that they are rejected and left to die outside the walls.

The film contains a strong social commentary on the moral degradation of modern society and it's effects on innocence (represented by the two children).

The Title Sequence

A woman suddenly awakes in her bed, sits up abruptly and turns on her bedside light as if she has just had a nightmare. All of the curtains in the room are shut, it appears dark outside - it could be night time. She looks around, seemingly reassured by her surroundings. Then she gets up slowly and starts to get changed. There are shots of her putting her clothes on first and then of her applying her makeup. When the process is complete, she walks over to the far side of her room and pulls her curtains apart. Outside is an a vast, decayed nuclear wasteland lingering ominously in the distance. She recoils in shock and we cut suddenly to a black background with the title.

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Smash and Grab - Crime Thriller

The idea

An enthusiastic young smash-and-grab robber works his way up the criminal hierarchy but his passion for his job begins to cloud his judgement as to when to stop. His heists and robberies become progressively

The Title Sequence

We are in a house, watching the seemingly normal wake up routine of one man. This routine extends to the point of getting changed, shaving and making breakfast. As this happens, the camera occasionally shows us shots of suspicious heist related items. There is a heavily annotated floor plan of a jewelry shop or a bank, mugshot photos stuck and possibly a handgun.

Genre 2

Why is genre relevant to the audience?

• Gives audience expectations so that they know what to expect.
• Allows audiences to understand structure of films better - e.g. A familiar scene can trigger meaning such as when a potential victim leaves a door unlocked or goes outside at night.

How does genre affect the companies making the movie?

• Reduces risk for filmmakers, allowing them to copy a tried and tested formula.
• Gives them a blueprint to follow.
• Reaching a target audience. There is already a large market for action films.

Genre 1

What is a genre, what does the word mean? Give some examples of film genres.

A genre is a specific category of film, defined by similarities in form, style or subject matter. For example: Romantic comedy, Western, Science fiction, etc.  

Name three different things that films within a particular genre might share in common?

1. Particular soundtracks or music. Action Thrillers generally have heroic, aggressive soundtracks to reflect the action of the movie.

2. Particular actors. For example, Clint Eastwood was notorious for appearing in Westerns.

Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name
in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

3. Particular settings or locations. Science fiction films are often set on alien planets or the future and have sets with technological, futuristic designs.

The classic 80's sci-fi film, Blade Runner is set in a
technological, dystopian future.

The Thriller genre is different from most other genres because on the surface many of them look entirely different from each other. Identify a couple of Thrillers that are very different from each other and point out some of the key differences between two of them. 

Two thriller films that are different are The Machinist - a dark, fatalistic Psychological Thriller, and Kill Bill - an intense, violent Action Thriller.

The editing in both films is very different. The Machinist favours bleak, grim lighting and slow, wide shots. The music is orchestral and harrowing, utilising stringed instruments.

Kill Bill opts for a more bright, colourful form of lighting with high contrast. The music is often energetic and cool, in keeping with the bright, violent theme defined by Tarantino films.

What do these films have in common at a more basic level (in terms of the audience response)? What do they have in common in terms of characters and narrative structure?

The defining features of  a thriller are suspense, tension and excitement. The suspense is usually achieved by introducing conflict. This conflict can be anything that the protagonists will have to overcome - for example, the meteor heading towards earth in Armageddon and the Xenomorph in Alien serve the same narrative purpose. Suspense and tension are huge parts of what makes a thriller. Alfred Hitchcock has often been called 'The King of Suspense" due to his expertise in creating tense, suspenseful thrillers.

Alfred Hitchcock

Within the thriller genre, there are many other sub-genres. Sub genres are more specific genres of film which still fall under the thriller category. Below are posters for horror/supernatural thriller, Insidious 2 and crime thriller, The Usual Suspects. Whilst they are both thrillers, there are clear differences between them in terms of style and tone.
























There are various different sub-genres. Here are just a few of them:

- Psychological-thriller
- Comedy-thriller
- Crime-thriller
- Political-thriller
- Horror-thriller
- Spy-thriller
- Techno-thriller

The Sub-genre which appeals to me the most is the psychological thriller. I enjoy films which force their audience to think and be in a constant state of intellectual activity. I feel like they justify the idea of films as an artform rather than just entertainment. Psychological thrillers that I have enjoyed include The Machinist, Shutter Island and American Psycho.

The Stepfather - Opening Title Analysis

Here, I have done an analysis of the title sequence to the Thriller film, The Stepfather.

The film starts immediately and the text is discreetly superimposed into it. The title text is simple and minimalistic. This may be because the filmmakers do not want our attentions drawn to it. The background music is tense and suspenseful.

There is a low, rumbling drone when the camera pans down to the yellow, highlighted box saying 'CANCELLED' - the yellow colour and bold, capital text draws our attention to it and the drone lets us know that it is of significance.

The camera pans past a collection of hygiene tools. The music is dark and foreboding, building up in order to collect tension. The camera moves neatly across in a near perfectly straight line and the props are neatly laid out, clean and shiny. These facts suggest an uncanny perfectionism, or some sort of OCD. Additionally, the camera panning vertically across often suggest that it is leading to a point of significance.

The Main character walks into focus. As we see his face, there is a drone and the title creeps onto the screen. Because of this, we know that this character is significant.

The music continues as the character goes through a montage of changing his appearance. This includes dyeing his hair, shaving off his beard and applying contact lenses. The camera watches from awkward angles, making the audience feel as if they are spying on him. The camera often goes into big close-ups of his face and hands so that we can see his expression and actions. 



At one point in the montage, the character cuts himself whilst shaving. There is a small percussion shimmer as the red, foreshadowing blood drips across his chin. There is a reaction shot of his face, but his reaction is unemotional and cold, suggesting that he is perhaps used to blood or pain and generally painting him as a cold, unemotional character.



Movie Title Analysis - The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3

The Taking of Pelham 123 is a crime/action thriller remake directed by Tony Scott. It has a very different atmosphere from my previously analysed thriller, One Hour Photo. Whilst One Hour Photo slowly builds up tension to create a thrilling tone, Pelham is forceful and direct.

We open to a letter-box style establishing shot of an urban skyline. There is low, suspenseful music playing in the background as the credits come up in a black, bold, typical action font. 

All of a sudden, we are nearly given a heart attack as the camera quickly speeds up and zooms down onto a busy, sped up street. This abrupt change in tempo is accompanied by an upbeat rap-rock soundtrack (99 Problems - Jay Z).

In addition to this change, the format of the titles also change from black to an animated, energetic bright blue and white. The atmosphere is fast and adrenaline fueled, expressed by the fast camera movements and the fast motion.

There is a sudden change to slow motion, as John Travolta's character walks past the camera. This tells the audience that he is an important character. In terms of actor and costume, Travolta wears a black beanie, black glasses and has a tattoo on his neck. He is clearly a very thuggish, tough man who is used to action.

We are then shown what is possibly one of the quickest establishing shots in cinema history: A quick cut to a subway sign, followed by a shot of the man entering the subway. The camera is very purposefully shaky. This is a camera technique, often used to create a sense of aggression and energy (or sometimes panic and lack of control).

In it's title sequence, The Taking of Pelham uses fast camera shots to establish a lot of information in a very limited space of time. Here, we are shown a quick shot of a bag being held by a man and then a badge that he wears, reading: 'MTA' (Metropolitan Transport Authority). In the space of a few seconds, we are aware that this new character is also important and we can start to formulate ideas as to what he is doing. 

The climax of all this aggressive energy and information is the movie title which suddenly appear on the screen. As previously, the titles are regularly in time with the music. In this case, the 1, 2 and 3 burst into the shot, synchronous with three bursts of music.

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Also...

I noticed that in this shot, the dark haired guy is not wearing a headset..

But in the shot immediately after, he is...

This is a continuity error. We were taught how to avoid them by Adam in our camera tutorial. I find it interesting and somewhat amusing that even professional film companies sometimes accidentally have continuity errors in their films.

Movie Title Analysis - One Hour Photo

Below is the title sequence to the film, One Hour Photo. It is an American Psychological Thriller written and directed by Mark Romanek.

Movies

The opening titles to One Hour Photo say a lot about the theme of the film. It opens with a clean, simple white font on a black background. The text comes on from the side in the style of a piece of film being processed. The music is dark and foreboding, suggesting a dark theme.

As the film opens, we see a photograph of Robin William's face slowly processing on a computer. He has been arrested, suggesting that there is a criminal theme in this film. Additionally, Robin William's character is middle aged and shown to have a comb over and large glasses, not a conventional criminal. This clip raises intrigue as well as establishing this character as the protagonist.

 A wide shot establishes that he is being held in an interrogation room with clean, white walls. The lack of music and the white, sterile walls give the scene a strange, uncanny atmosphere.

When Williams' character is asked to give a motive, the is a long pause in which we are shown a close up of his face. A single note of string music plays, ominously. The audience is very much aware that something very bad has happened and that this character has played a large role in it.

Williams' character then monologues in voiceover. As he speaks, we are shown colourful home-movie style clips of families playing. This juxtaposes with the sad, piano music which plays over it. This scene seems very contradictory and creates conflicting emotional responses on the audience.

First Practical Session

We had our first practical session (discluding the brief camera tutorial) with Adam. The benefit of the lesson was that we had our first real introduction to the different types and sizes of shots. We also were allowed to actually use the camera to film a short improvised sequence.

Me, having Maria angrily throw my favourite jacket in my face.

When filming, multiple shots are taken of different types. For example, for this short sequence in which I walk into shot and give my jacket to Maria, only to have her throw it in my face and walk off we filmed the following separate shots.

- A close up of my face.

- A close up of Maria's lovely face.

- A medium shot of both of us

- A medium close up of the point at which the jacket passes hands.

We watched the shots back afterwards as a group. It was interesting seeing the different group's and noticing the subtle differences which had an impact on the overall quality of the camera. Having interacted with it a couple times, I now feel quite comfortable working with the camera. Although seeing myself on camera is still pretty damn weird.

Camera Tutorial

Last week we had a practical session with Matt, learning how to operate the basic functions of the Sony NX5 camera. This involved learning how to assemble the tripod and attach the camera; how to use basic but key features like zoom, focus and exposure and started on basic camera safety and etiquette.

The Sony NX5

It's extremely useful to have gained a fundamental knowledge of camera use in the course of an hour. It will take me some time to fully adjust to the camera and get used to it but I now am at least fairly confident with it.

We learned basic filming

In other news, at the suggestion of another student I have chosen to download the blogger app. This means that I can easily update my blog on my iPhone whenever I have internet, which is useful.

Introduction



Hi. I'm Ned Sanders. Being both a film enthusiast and an aspiring actor, the media and the general making of film interests me a great deal. My favourite film is Brazil by Terry Gilliam, which I love due to the strong, dark satire and highly relatable theme of escapism from a boring, corporate world as well as the powerful surrealist aspect.

In my media course, I am looking forward to becoming familiar with the mechanics of the camera and exploring the ways in which acting and writing differs between theatre and cinema.
I intend to use this blog to publish updates on my work throughout my course.