Being the examiner?

Hi guys so you may be confused when first seeing the title of this post... well today we was given a mark scheme to show how our thrillers are marked and we were able to see what areas the examiner would look at when giving out marks. So after we had a look at the mark scheme, our task was to watch a couple of past AS thriller openings and mark them; it didn't seem too hard but the some clips me (and my class friends) gave a much lower mark than it actually got awarded.
The mark scheme criteria for a level 4 (highest grade) is that there is evidence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

• Material appropriate for the target audience and task;
• Using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;
• Using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task;
• shooting material appropriate for the task set including controlled use of camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mis en scene;
• Using editing so that meaning is apparent to viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects. 

Here are a couple of examples...


 This was the first clip we watched and the one I enjoyed the most. I thought the voice over was a very effective use of sound instead of having any dialogue in the clip and the music in the background coincided with it very well to create an edgy feel to it. Overall I awarded this clip a level 4 which is equivalent to an 'A' grade because the editing skills were excellent, along with the sound choices, titling and they incorporated a wide variety of shots throughout. This clip was awarded a level 4 (48/60) by the real examiner.


 Another thriller opened we watched was this one above. This clips first 30 seconds I thought was excellent with the dark eerie shots and the clear titling on screen however after the titling many of the shots were blurry and the black and white effect made it look rather amateur. Also the first shots were taken at night however the rest of the clip was in the day light which shows they hadn't thought it through properly. The class agreed that this clip would be awarded a high level 2 because there was a few mistakes and problems throughout this clip, but, it was actually awarded a high level 3 (47/60).

I found this task really helpful because I was able to spot where people had done really well and what looked good e.g. the different effects, different titling and shots and I could also see which areas people didn't do so well in; so I was basically able to see the do's and dont's when filming my own thriller opening! I learned that acting isn't as important as you may think when filming and the main things you need to focus on and make sure are up done to your best ability is the sound, editing, camera angles/movements and the mis en scene because these are the areas the examiners are going to concentrate on.