What we can improve from our first assignement - Children's film opening sequence

In our children's film opening sequence we used little variety of shots types and angles - in other words we weren't very adventurous. However, we plan to change that in our Thriller opening sequence. The plot features a troubled individual who is haunted by thoughts and memories of his past and held back by his own mind, his weak point or Achilles heel, a common convention of a psychological thriller. We intend to show lots of different flashbacks/memories in lots of different locations so the plot requires us to try and shoot more advanced shots in order to achieve a sense of disorientation.

In our children's film opening sequence we didn't plan our shot list or make a storyboard - we weren't sure of what our plot actually was, we just made it up as we went along. For our Thriller opening sequence we have already completed a shot list, risk assessment, story board and half of a location recce. So we are guaranteed to improve from our previous assignment because planning is so key to any filming.

In our children's film opening sequence the lighting was flickering between the shots, because we used still images pieced together and we were either in the way of the lamp or out of the way. We will use similar artificial light with torches for our Thriller opening sequence because we have chosen to shoot it at night in order to create suspense in the build up towards the murder scene. 

In our children's film opening sequence the camera work was quite poor and sometimes slanted or not horizontal with the the ground. When we are out filming our thriller opening sequence we plan to use quite a lot of hand-held footage because we need the maneuverability in order to follow the main character. We will try and use tripods and dollies as frequent as we can though because we don't won't the camera work to be as poor as our children's film.