Evaluation of our shoot day

Before shooting our thriller we discussed what our plans for the day were and what target deadlines we were going to meet. This would help make our day more efficient and smooth running so that we would have time to finish all the shots we wanted to have.

We took half an hour to set up lighting and the mise  en scene of the room before shooting. We then spent a further half an hour planning which order we should shoot them in. This is something we could have planned before the day and we wasted valuable time here. Additionally this meant that our first few shots took at least two hours to film.

After a few takes we got a rhythm as to how we should be working together as a group and got used to filming with the cameras. Each one of us took charge of a particular role so that we could work more efficiently. For example I took the most sequence shots for our male character and directed our characters through each plot. Courtney took charge of mise en scene and make-up, Nina made lists and notes of our shots and Richard was also our cameraman and my assistant director.

We learnt along the way that mistakes can happen – but that they do cause some benefits! One of our shots was meant to show our leading female character about to smash a mirror, but due to health and safety reasons we would let our teacher do this separately. However, when we shot the scene, she actually did manage to smash the mirror. The landing and positioning of the mirror was good though and smashed well enough to create an effective image of her looking down at her broken reflection. We additionally decided we would use the diegetic sound of the smash in our sequence when editing.

Towards the end of our shoot day we were beginning to get tired and our focus was beginning to lapse. I knew I had to make sure that we got our final shots done to the same standard as before, so I decided to take charge to make sure we would finish in time. On the whole we did work very well together, but I think we needed to have planned well in advance before hand and focus more on the project itself rather than think of it as ‘a bit of fun’.

Casting our actors

Name Rose Salvage

Age 17 years
Height 5ft 5
Eye colour Blue/Grey
Hair colour Blonde/Brown


I cast Rose as our leading female actress because she had the 'sweet girl next door' type of look that I wanted. Additionally I knew she could act well, so I thought Rose would be the perfect choice.

Name Jake Cecil
Age 17 years
Height 6ft 3
Eye colour Lght Blue
Hair colour Lght Brown


Jake has a laid back type of look that I wanted. He is portrayed in our media sequence as lazy and a 'bit of a player', and I thought Jake would be able to play this character as he can act in this style well.