Reflecting back on the AS year - Skill development during AS

During my AS year I used such programs as Live type, which allowed me and my group to customize the font type we would use on your film, which is really plays into our advantage as it lets us choose a font which is practical for the thriller theme we had to aim for last year.

I also used Final cut pro during the course of my AS year, in Final cut pro, I learnt how to delete certain unwanted clips which would reduce the tension levels and alter others to compliment and emphasise the thriller genre we where trying to implement in our film. learnt many techniques such as inserting transitions between two clips for a smooth transition, this could have been done by a fade or a swipe which ever was practical to not loose the tension during the transition of clips in a thriller film.

 

Another thing I have learnt during the course of my AS year is that, the technique implemented whilst filming is vital, a shot type can vary between making the person in the scene look powerful or weak, so using birds eye to give this sense of weakness to the character, and this was a great technique to increase the levels of tensions one of the best examples I could find for this is, the film Psycho. During this learning curve on how to use a camera effectively we were asked and taught how to use manual focus to it's full potential as auto focus could blur some clips and possibly when viewed on a large screen could loose much of its quality. Also by removing sound we allowed a build up of tension because we removed the background sound from the original clips and replaced them with an intrumental or sounds which would amplify tension in a thriller movie.

During the AS year one of the most important aspects of filmmaking is the technique to create a good opening scene, which is gives the audience a certain expectation of what the film will be about, for example if the opening scenes of Donnie Darko is really slow, the music is very magistic and slow, there is a sense tension already building up, and with this birds eye angel camera shot tracking the car on the side of the mountain, already gives a certain expectation of the film. Taking of Phelam 123 is another film which has a great example of an opening scene, there is upbeat music by Jay Z, there is fast paced editing and the titles on the screen are transitioned in very fast and almost trying to immatate the movement of a train, this tells the audience this is an action film.