A Level Media Studies Continuity Piece

This our continuity piece, it took us about two visits to the location to finish this and we filmed it in a abandoned studio location.

The Crew-

• Victim- Ollie Locke
• Interrogator-Jack Chadwick
• Camera Work-Tom Silverwood
• Editing-Ollie Locke (Movie Maker)
• Lighting-Ollie Locke, Tom Silverwood, Jack Chadwick
• Music-Ollie Locke

In our continuity piece, in preparation for our thriller opening, we wanted to make sure this piece contained thriller elements. We decided on an interrogation scene involving a violent and unpredictable interrogator and a scared and confused victim. This would give us the chance to experiment and test some ideas on how to create the necessary elements involved in creating a successful thriller opening.

In the piece, as it is shot in a very dark and abandoned studio, we decided to maximise the use and effectiveness of lighting. For example, the interrogators face is never shown and is always in darkness. This creates mystery as it makes the character completely unknown and unpredictable to the audience, and adds suspense as the interrogation proceeds.

Also, we decided to shoot the film in black and white instead of colour to again emphasise the lighting on the piece, we gained this inspiration again from 'Psycho' and specifically the parlour scene, which uses shadows and lighting brilliantly in order to make the audience uncomfortable and in suspense of the situation, an effect we wanted to emulate in our continuity piece.


Also, we wanted to use mise en scene to create our desired effect. We decided on making the interrogator where dark clothing -in this case we got him to wear a black coat- and the victim to wear a lighter coloured jumper -a light blue one- this should have a subconscious effect on  the audience that due to the interrogators dark clothing as opposed to the lighter clothing of the victim, he is more mysterious or has darker intentions.


In our continuity piece, we could of improved on the camera quality as it was fuzzy and we weren't able to get the same quality of shots as we wanted, meaning we couldn't capture the light and effects that we wanted. As well as this, we could have introduced the use of sound effects/music to add extra effect.


We learnt a lot of things from our continuity piece, most notably what we could improve on, for example we made an effort to get a better quality camera which drastically improved the quality and professionalism of our work. Also, in the editing process, we learned to add more sound effects after to try and provoke extra emotions among the audience as well as being able to significantly improve on our cutting and editing of clips to improve our continuity.


All in all the continuity piece has been a very useful project in helping us in preparation for our thriller opening and has helped us learn useful techniques and tricks in order to make our thriller opening as effective as possible.