Question 7.
- 1. Question 7 Evaluation By Emma Dimelow
- 2. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full production? When I was first asked to make a preliminary film at the start of the course I was nervous as I have never used a filming camera properly before, let alone edited different clips together. At the time, with the finished result I was very proud of myself as I thought it all followed really smoothly. However, now comparing to my most recent film I think that my preliminary was awful. This was mainly because the camera was shaky all the way through as we didn’t think we would need to use a tripod, therefore I learnt from this that to get a clean professional shot you must use a tripod. As you can see here, we’re using the same camera angle (sticking to the 180 degree rule) over the shoulder angle, but our final work is a lot more clearer than our preliminary, this is because we learnt from out mistake and used a tripod to get a clear shot of the character’s expressions.
- 3. Framing a shot From the preliminary I learnt about should and shouldn’t be included into a shot for the audience to make sense of it all, going under mise en scene, the audience doesn’t want to see or hear anything that isn't relevant to the action taking place in the shot. For example when Becky walks into the room, there isn't any need for the chairs to be everywhere, as this makes the room looks messy and looks like we didn’t bother to think about the action taking place. When compared to our final piece, I made sure that everything that wasn’t needed within that action was put away, this would also make sure that the audience don’t get distracted by focusing on the mise en scene. As you can see in our final film the only things in the shot are relevant to the location of our character and make sense as she previously had a knife in her hand and is in the kitchen. Where as in our preliminary they’re talking about food in a random place which makes no sense to an audience member.
- 4. Mise en scene within a shot In a film costume and props play a huge part in the way that the audience interpret the action, therefore we needed to make sure that everything made sense and there was a reason for As you can see we took a lot of time in our final piece thinking about props, make up and costume. And I really think it paid off as it makes the whole film more interesting and scary. them being there. For example in our final piece when Abbi’s character throws her pill box on the floor, we needed to make that the audience saw in the box to show that it was empty and they also needed to see the label, so they would catch on with what her illness is.
- 5. Editing After doing the preliminary task I found using Imovie’s editing tools a lot easier, and used the right ones when needed in the film. For example whenever it was the point of view of the main character we applied the “earthquake” effect to give it a disorientated effect, we also added changed the shots of her stabbing something to black and white as it represented a different time (flash forward). Also whenever her imaginary friend came into the shot we either faded her in using the cross dissolve effect or using the flash, as this added tension to as the audience were watching. At the end of the film we sped up the camera shots towards Abbi’s face, as this gave more impact on her face. We used the speeding up tool on Imovie to add this effect, which I think was effective as it could easily go into the film. Therefore from the preliminary to the real film I learnt how to use all of the Imovie edit tools, allowing me to crop existing shots, cut shots up to add another shot in-between the existing shot, add transitions, add black and white effects, adding in music (found by me on freeplaymusic.com) Adding in titles and adding in my film’s logo; Eye View Pictures.
- 6. Shots done with editing This shot was edited by adding a black and white effect. Showing that the shot is a flash forward. This shot was edited by adding an earthquake effect onto it. We did this because it’s from the character’s point of view and she was dizzy and we wanted to audience to put themselves in her shoes. This shot was edited by adding a flash. I did this because I wanted the imaginary friend to appear once Abbi walked past, to add a horror to this shot. This is effective because the flash makes the audience jump These shots were all merge together by speeding up their pace (done on Imovie with the speed up tool), this was really effective as it as all the tension led up to this key ending. This was two shots merged together by adding a cross dissolve (found on transitions on Imovie editing tools), which was visually effective, as the imaginary friend appeared out of no where, adding horror to these two shots.
- 7. Adding titles and credits In my preliminary I didn’t have any credits, so putting credits on my final piece was new to me, but I found it very easy. To make the credits look professional I wanted them to be still in the bottom right hand corner, in a plain white font. I did this because I don’t like the effect credits have when they randomly fly in. Also I think having them over a current shot was better looking than to have it over a blank background, this is because I feel it would of interrupted the flow of the film opening. For the title I didn’t want to have the title like it was on the preliminary, this is because I thought it would look tacky on a horror/thriller film opening. Therefore as a group we decided that the title should slowly move across a blank screen to make it clear to the audience the name of the film and also so it stood out to them. Both of these were done by using the titles/credits option on Imovie.