Preliminary Task - pre-production planning

Our prelim task was our first practical assignment, so it was fun to finally get out of the classroom and get behind the camrea (or in my case in front of it). Before we were allowed to run off with the equipment and begin shooting, we were given printed storyboards, which we had to follow.

This was to allow us to practice the techniques required in filming. When we were doing the practice shoot it took us over an hour to get a mere 30 second clip. Cast wise, we decided it would be easier to use ourselves as the actors, as this meant that we wouldn't have to chase around finding people with nothing to do in their frees.

Horror vs.Thriller

The differences between a horror and a thriller nowadays are subtle, films over time have got more and more violent in general, and now it is difficult to tell which is which. Previously a horror was a film that would scare the audience out of their skins and a thriller was more about suspense, wheras now the horror genre has evolved into movies that contain excessive violence and gore with no real plot. Take the Saw series for example, the first one you could argue crosses the line between horror and thriller, because although it is quite violent, it it the thought of what is going on that scares you. The following movies however just get gradually more violent and the plot sort of repeats itself, so by the time you get to number 3 you've had enough.
Thrillers however have got better recently, and now are very realistic and believable psychological movies that totally mess with your head. A good example of a modern thriller would be The Blair Witch Project, which was filmed on movie cameras, and has a little piece of text at the beginning saying that it was based on a true story. These small things, combined with the 'amateur' approach to camerawork, make for a very believable movie. Now there are always exceptions to these catagories, and you get things such as black comedy which mixes the whole horror genre with humour and so on.

Photoshop Sesh Number 1

In our first photoshop session with Matt, we learned how to do basic manipulation of an image using various tools at out disposal.
First we used the stamp tool, which when you hold down the Alt key, copies a part of the image and allows you to draw the image in an exact copy elsewhere on the page.
Next we did some experimenting with the lasso tool and the rectangular marquee tool, which basically copy whatever you select. The difference between the two tools though, is that the Rectangular Marquee tool copies things in rectangles, and the lasso tool copies stuff in any shape you want. Also whilst moving all these copied pieces around, we used the scale tool to change the size and orientation of the selected image.
After that we had a go at using some of the filters and effects available and tried to create a fake, yet realistic image using the movie posters as our images. My favourite effect was the liquidate tool which is fairly self explanatory, it makes whatever you click on become distorted, which was great fun as you can make the statue of liberty look fat and so on.

Introduction. A bit about myself

Erm, hello? I have never really done a blog before, but there's a first time for everything.


Stuff I like: Playing guitar, watching movies, listening to music, scuba diving, walking my dog (when in Korea) and chilling with friends. Moviewise, I tend to swing towards the action or comedy genres, although occasionally I'll watch the odd thriller or something more abstract.
Why I'm doing this blog: because it's for media studies, (which is one of the courses I'm taking aswell as art, history and english) and because I have to really. I don't know why I did an intro, because no-one else did, yet....