Project evaluation

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Here is my project evaluation. Unfortunately, I had to simplify it to work on online hosting sites.

Field Trip final edit

Here is the final edit for our movie opening. When filming, we used one camera and a shot-gun mic which we took in turns to use. So when I was recording sound Matt was filming and when I was filming, Matt was recording sound. In the actual piece, I had to be a dead body, laying on the floor. It was quite easy to pretend to be dead, but with Tayo laying with his legs over me and kicking around, it was quite uncomfortable.

During editing, Matt and I took it in turns, with me doing editing on things like transitions, titles and sound.





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Shot List

I created an initial shot list and put it on the blog. The shot list contains simple information on what features will be required in each shot of our opening. For example, camera angles, equipment and props.

Shot List

Props

In our opening, we only need two props. We need fake blood and a dummy to hang from a tree. After some discussion, we decided to use corn syrup and red food colouring to create a realistic looking blood. For creating the look of a man hanging from a tree, I suggested we use a dummy; however, Matt had another idea for how to create the look. After some discussion, we decided to use a Guy Fawkes style dummy using old clothes, stuffed with newpaper. The dummy won't have to be detailed as it will be silhoutted by the night.

Costumes

When thinking of what costumes which will use in our piece, both Matt and I contributed. I thought that Tayo should wear a lightly coloured hoody with a pair of jeans. He should also wear lightly coloured shoes. We think he should wear lightly coloured clothing because our opening is going to be set at night and Tayo should be quite clearly visible.

Casting and Auditions

Both Matt and I found the auditionees and auditioned them, however we made different contributions before and after auditioning. I made the blog post and created the character profile for the sort of person we wanted to play the role. In the blog post, I wrote about our chosen actor and why. The character pofile is about the desired traits of the person we want to act in our film and what they will have to wear etc.

Similar Media Works

To research similiar media works, we created a powerpoint, which we took in turns to create slides for. To indicate which slides we made, we put our names in the bottom right corner of the slides we made. I made half of the slides and matt made the other half.

By creating this powerpoint, we have found out important factors of horror, and have gained an insite into the target audiences of horror. By finding these things out, we have a strong idea of what we need to include in our horror film aswell as the kind of audiences we want to target our film towards.

Target Audience Profile

Although I didn't contribute much to the creation of the target audience profile, I did discuss with Matt about what age group and gender would specifically enjoy our film.

Initial Ideas

Before coming up with a final idea for our film, we needed initial. In order to come up with some initial ideas, we made a mind map of the sort of things we could include in our horror film. After creating the mind map, we both talked about our thoughts on how we could use our ideas.

My idea was to have a man sitting in a house when he had a powercut. After the power went off, a bright light could be seen coming from outside. When the man went out to investigate the light, something followed him, eventually chasing him into his home where the audience hears a large scream as the screen cuts to black.

After some discussion, Matt and I combined our ideas together, and added in some extra ideas to come up with our final idea.

Update

This week was quite eventful in the group. When writing up our brief, I suggested it was set in a hostel, giving us further ideas for the name. After some discussion, Matt suggested we named it something to do with murder and whilst just messing around with the word 'murder', I spelt it backwards to make the word 'redrum'. This gave us the idea to call the village that the film is set in 'Redrum', and the name of the film 'Redrum hostel'. Of course, this isn't final yet.

I have just finished commentating our animated story board and have uploaded it onto Youtube and the blog. Here is the script I wrote out for it-

Storyboard Script


Slide 1- This is the first shot. It is an establishing shot of the field in which this scene takes place. The scene will be set at night, with the moon appearing to be providing light and a feint mist coating the ground. The moon light will be artificial if necessary. The camera will pan to reveal a man (the protagonist), who appears to be lying unconscious on the ground, with a crudely made circle around him.

Slide 2- The camera pans into a close up of the protagonist, as he sits up with the glow of the moon lighting up his face, revealing his features. He his heavily breathing, as though shocked, his breathing produces light mist, showing the night is cold.

Slide 3- The camera pans back into a mid shot as the protagonist gets onto his feet. He is still breathing heavily, and looks dazed and confused; his breath is still showing in the cold winter air. The mist gently flows over his feet.

Slide 4- The camera pans back in to a close up of the protagonist’s face and then around his back to reveal a small bush row nearby to him. The glow of the moon shining onto the bush, to reveal two eyes which appear to be watching the protagonist. Out of fear, he begins to move, with a slight limp.

Slide 5- The camera pans back around the protagonist’s back into a wide shot, and begins to track him. He looks distressed and begins to breathe a little heavier. The glow of the moon strongly reveals his facial expressions.

Slide 6- The shot cuts to a camera tracking the protagonist from behind the bushes where he saw the eyes. As the camera moves, a silhouette of another man (the antagonist) speeds past, clearly moving much faster than the protagonist.

Slide 7- The shot cuts back to the original shot of the camera tracking the protagonist and then begins to move faster than he is, so it’s just in front of him. As the camera moves ahead, the protagonist trips over a body on the ground.

Slide 8- The shot cuts to an over the shoulder shot of the protagonist’s leg, over the dead body. In the corner of the shot, we can see the protagonist turn his head to see the dead body. He draws enough breath to let out a large scream, after which the audience can hear him begin to softly cry in fear.

Slide 9- The shot cuts to a mid shot again. This time the shot is from behind the protagonist, with a body hanging from a tree by rope in the near distance. The protagonist calls out for help, now breathing even more heavily. He is now crying hysterically.

Slide 10- The shot cuts quickly to black, as though blinking, to reveal a crudely strung noose hanging from the tree which first appeared to have a man hanging from it. The moon is producing a strong light from behind it, and a mist swirling beneath.


Slide 11- The shot cuts to a wide shot, showing the man lying on the floor, with nothing around him but the light mist. His face is being lit up by the moon- he appears to be crying, with mud and a little blood on his face. He looks towards the camera, with a look of sheer terror on his face before letting out a very large scream. At this point the shot cuts to black, revealing the film title.

Preliminary Task

As a whole, I feel our piece demonstrates continuity well. There is one point, however, in which it shows me walking into the room with Tom in the background facing downwards, and then when it cuts to the second camera angle, Tom is looking upwards. This is not a very noticeable thing but still does not show 100% continuity. Apart from this, the rest of the clip has continuity the whole way through. I feel when it worked very well was when we cut away from the two shot into the close up of the wallet being passed across the desk. This moved the story along without cutting away from what is happening in the scene.

In our scene, we have demonstrated match on action; we use both shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. These both helped in showing the two characters communicating with each other, and showed facial expressions of both characters throughout. We didn’t use these two techniques the whole time during the conversation; this would be something to improve on in the future.

I feel during the filming, the group worked well as a team; everyone had a job and no one was left to watch. In contrast to this, during the editing nearly all the work was taken over by one member of the group, even though the software is quite simple so other members could have helped. This means that when it comes to editing future pieces, I will not be as experienced in the software as other people because I haven’t had a proper chance to use it and get used to it.

The first time we filmed the piece, one of our cameras wasn’t working, this meant we couldn’t upload and edit our work and had to re film it in a much smaller room. If I were to re film it, I would make sure that all the cameras worked in order to save time and make sure we get the room we want to film it in. The room we finally filmed our piece in didn’t work well for the mise en scene, lowering the quality of our final piece.

When we created our video, we put in barely any planning; we just took the script and chose which shots we wanted to use for each part of the scene and strung them together. If we had planned a bit more, we would’ve probably had some better shots and a better place to film. Also if we had planned, we would’ve probably found that one of our cameras had a fault and wouldn’t have had to film it all over again in a worse room.

We used some transitions in our piece; however I feel we could’ve improved on this by adding more interesting transitions and using them to make the piece run smoother overall.
I have learnt very little about the editing software during the exercise due to the fact that one member took over almost all the editing work. I know some of how this software works, but I think other people who have had more of an opportunity to try out the editing software will be more in the know about it than me.

From the construction of this film, I have learnt more about the cameras we use in the school and how they work. I also now know how they are set up onto the tripods and how to film using the tripods. As I said earlier, I don’t feel I’ve learnt much about the editing software but it seems quite easy to grasp so I will hopefully have a chance to use it in our next piece.

The Grudge intro Analysis

The Grudge is a horror film about an American nurse who moves to Tokyo and encounters a vengeful, supernatural spirit who often possesses its victims. The film was directed by Takashi Shimizu, and was released in the UK on the 5^th of November 2004. In the opening scene, a man appears to be leaving work when a demonic looking girl staggers in front of him, eventually turning round to reveal her jawless face.

The lighting in the scene is very dark. A small amount of natural looking light, as though coming in from a window brightens the room just enough to make out characters and the surroundings. This low level of lighting creates tension and denotes danger and venerability. The small amount of lighting also creates strong shadows. One of these shadows is used at the start of the scene when the audience sees a small child sitting on the stairs. This makes it seem as though the child is hiding in the shadows, denoting danger and giving the idea that the child is stalking the man. The fact the child is sitting in the shadows also connotes fear, as though it thinks the man will cause it harm.

As the scene progresses, the lighting provides more uses. The natural light from the window comes from behind the girl as she appears, walking in the room; this causes her to become a silhouette, hiding all facial features from the audience’s view. By not allowing the audience to see the girl’s face, it makes her seem more sinister and makes the audience want to know what her face looks like. When the girl finally turns to the man, there is strong light at the top of the stairs, where he is standing, and very little light at the bottom. This connotes the man as an angelic figure and the girl as a demonic one.

In the scene, the male character is wearing normal, quite smart clothes with a coat and a stereotypical doctor’s bag. This denotes that he is a doctor, probably leaving work. He is also wearing quite a large pair of glasses which connotes that he’s a clever and possibly nerdy character. He seems quite relaxed and casual as he walks down the stairs, until he notices something behind him. When he turns to see the girl walking through the room, he seems concerned and slightly scared. He tries to communicate with the girl, sounding quite concerned. As the scene progresses, he follows the girl, as though worried for her well being until she finally turns to him. At this point, he seems very shocked, dropping his bag, and scared; this creates tension and makes the audience want to know what it is that he is so shocked at. A close up on his face shows the sheer look of horror on his face. I feel the character was played very well and was very believable.

The girl is wearing torn, pale rags. These look as though they might’ve once been some sort of gown you have to wear whilst in hospital, implying that she may be a patient. The rags are blood stained, this denotes danger and death, as well as giving the audience an idea what she has been hurt in some way. She walks slowly, as though confused or demented, and doesn’t respond to her environment or the man in any way. When the camera gives the audience their first view of the girls pale face, she shows a youthful innocence and shows fear in her eyes. Her expression doesn’t change as she turns to the man and the camera reveals her entire facial form.

The camera angles in the clip help to build tension and make the audience relate to the characters as much as possible. The scene starts with an establishing shot, panning the entire room. This clearly shows the entire space in which the scene is set. Throughout the scene, the camera tracks the male character’s path, keeping the entire scene based around him and helping the audience to easily follow what’s happening. When the man kneels down to see what he slipped on, an extreme close up is used to show him putting his fingers in the blood. This helps the audience to understand the situation a little better, as though we’re solving what’s happening with the man. The use of an over the shoulder shot as the girls continues to walk down the stairs shows the man reacting to the girl bleeding and her emotionless face, as though she’s oblivious to what’s happened to her. When we get a first view of the girls face, a low angle, over the shoulder shot is used. This makes the man seem powerful and the girl quite venerable whilst still showing both of their facial expressions.

This scene makes good use of both diegetic and extra diegetic sound. Throughout the scene, an extra diegetic build up of sound can be heard, building up until the penultimate moment where we finally see the girl’s entire face. This works well, building up tension and keeping the scene exciting. On moments designed to shock the audience, the sound changes, adding low pitches noises to the already high pitched squeal throughout the scene. I feel the extra diegetic sound acts well to bring out the chaotic nature of this scene. There is actually very little diegetic sound in the scene. The room is silent, denoting emptiness (thus connoting danger), with the sounds of footsteps and the sound of dripping blood as the girl limps through the room. The sound of dripping blood creates quite a disturbing feel for the scene which I feel works really well. The scene also makes good use of diegetic sound with the intent to make the audience jump. This is when the man slips on the blood, making a high pitched squealing noise, over throwing all other sounds in the scene.