Analysis Of The Shoot!

So it was back to the drawing board in terms of our thriller opening; admittedly, our first cut wasn't of a quality that reflected our ability as a group, and so therefore we took the decision to scrap all the work we've done prior to now. A bold move, I guess, but a necessary one.

On the 14th, my group colleagues Melissa and Jacob took a trip to London with our pshycho teacher (played by Callum), in order to shoot one of the parts of our two minutes. The scenes they filmed occured once our teacher has left his house, spying on the Prime Minister whilst looking menacing. The following is a rough cut of the footage they shot:-



And below are some of the behind-the-scenes pictures that they took whilst in London:-

Having spoken with Melissa afterwards, it became clear that whilst some things went well, there were parts that weren't so great. It was good in the sense that everything that we storyboarded was shot; also, we shot more than we needed to as opposed to not having enough footage, which means we can fulfil the criteria of the task by having an opening that is actually two minutes long. Well, it will be ince we've added the scenes from when our teacher is in his home.

However, we acknowledged that something that was bad was the fact that shots from up close to the Houses of Parliament couldn't be achieved. Therefore, Melissa and co. had to make up ideas on the spot, which was something that we promised to ourselves that we wouldn't do.

I'm happy with the results we've got from London and I think the likelihood is that we'll be using most of the above footage in our final cut. It's not perfect: I think the editing could have been a bit sharper, but again it's just another stepping stone in the learning process. Therefore, we may decide to reshoot small parts, but ultimately I'm pleased with the work we've put in and the enthusiasm our group has to make something that we can be proud of.

Our New 'Rough Cut'...

Below is our new rough cut that we produced recently; evidently, theres a lot of work that needs to be done and the non-diegetic music needs to be found and edited ove the top of the footage. Moreover, we need to shoot the scenes at the beginning to fill our two minutes and meet the criteria of the task. With half-term underway, we're looking to get those scenes shot, ready to edit the following week so that we can meet the interim deadline of March 1st. Hope you enjoy:-

Continuity Task: Filming And Editing

The continuity task has been on my mind recently; I wasn't exactly proud of our final cut (I get that it's a practice, but even so) but it was what any practice should be: a learning curve. We can promise ourselves to build upon our mistakes but, having done our first shoot of our final piece, I don't know if we have. Admittedly, although I've held off an evaluation until now, and I probably should have done this a while ago, I actually think an evaluation now is more relevant to my learning than an evaluation back then: What were the mistakes we made back then? Have we continued to make these mistakes in our final piece? Hindsight is an good thing, and reflection is an important component to improvement... And so, with that in mind, take a look at our final piece.



Looking back on this, I have to say I think we have improved; the continuity task was essentially a chance for our teachers to assess our ability at that stage, but really it gave us as a group a chance to work out our working style as a group: who was the leader, who worked well with the camera etc. This was invaluable practice for us as a group, and meant that going into our first cut we had a clear idea of our roles and responsibilities within the group dynamic.

One thing that I realised was that we would often divert from the storyboard; although storyboarding can make the process of filming quite tedious, a storyboard should give the filmmaker confidence in what they're going to shoot. Often we found that our ideas at the storyboard process were too ambitious, and so we'd often have to come up with fresh ideas whilst filming, which, well, wasn't ideal. And because we diverted from our storyboard, our timing was off by quite some distsance.And so, since then, we've put more of an emphasis on our storyboard and making it the best we possibly could before beginning the shoot.

In addition to this, I felt we could have had a more diverse range of shots and camera angles. For instance, the long shot of me walking down the corridor was too long in terms of the time it ran for, and I felt we should have perhaps cut it up with  a POV shot or a close-up of my angry face, etc. A series of quicker cuts would have also conformed nicely to the conventions of the thriller genre.

In summation, I feel as though, although our continuity task wasn't great (and we could have put more effort into as a group), it was fundamental to our progression as a group. I felt we developed skills and responsibilities, and made us more confident with what we were doing going into the continuity task. We've been able to act upon our flaws in this task, and the improvements we've made since then are notable, and emphasise how much of a learning curve this task was.

Finding Faults...

Having put together a rough edit, its become evident that there are two key problems. One, that we haven't shot enough to fill our two minutes (a problem which, ironically, we faced in our continuity task- have we truly learnt from our mistakes? In this instance, clearly, probably not) Second of all, shots that we thought looked good in the moment, ultimately, didn't look so good in the editing process. In fact, it looked pretty bad. And so, like the conscientious Media students that we are, we took it upon ourselves to come up with a resolution that shall hopefully solve the aforementioned problems.

First of all, we're going to do a reshoot at Jacobs house. We as a group need to have more focus and, although I'm a fan of spontaneity, more reliance needs to be put upon our storyboards so that we have a greater focus as a group, as opposed to one or two leaders. Our group needs to consider lighting more and we need to perfect our panning, as well as the steadiness of the camera in certain shots.

Moreover, we've decided to do a short shoot in London, outside Parliament and Big Ben. This exterior shoot gives our piece a wider variety of shots and, again, makes our opening feel more professional and authentic looking. Shooting amongst the public has symbolic connotations of the hidden nature of psychos, and this metaphor gives our opening a more defined theme. Also, it makes our teachers motives more prevalent to the opening, the subject nature of our two minutes explained more clearly.

These improvements needed to put in place; despite feeling happy on the day with our shoot, often the mistakes only come to the fore when you can put the shots together, seeing a rough draft. And so, our groups willingness to make the necessary improvements makes me more confident that we can build upon our experiences in our initial shoot, and now we can hopefully approach our work in a more confident, sophisticated and focused way.

Further Analysis of Our Animatic...

Our group has had to present our animatic to the class; this didn't just involve pressing the play button, but we had to explain the various aspects of our production in terms of the following categories:

Lighting, Editing, Sound, Camera and Mise En Scene.

And so in preparation for our premiere of our animatic. I made up some detailed notes in regards to the categories above. Here's the animatic in case you missed it:-



And here are the notes that I made....

LIGHTING:-
- Natural lighting creates a more gritty, real tone. It's also more practical/logistical etc.
- The low key lighting within the dim room is reflective of the emotions of the teacher.
- We feel the realism of the lighting will appeal to a younger audience, as it would feel more contemporary.

EDITING:-
- The combination of close-ups and jump-cuts add to the intensity of the piece.
-The intercutting of the TV screen and the Teacher emphasises the protagonists in the film (Teacher vs PM)
- Transitions such as fade-outs to the titles create an element of mystery.
- Overall, the pace of the editing conforms to the conventions of a thriller, making our opening more relevant to the task.

SOUND:-
- Minimal diegetic sounds make the audience concentrate solely on the intensity of the opening.
- The non-diegetic music could be seen as contrapuntal to the action on screen: the juxtaposition between the rage of the teacher and the melancholy music.
- Alternatively, the music could be seen to foreshadow the misery of the teacher having killed the PM.
- Sound of trhe wife from downstais adds to the sense of the double life of the teacher. The facade he builds as a family man and the reality of his life as a psycho.

CAMERA:-
- The use of amidshot creates a sense of realism that is typicalof a TV interview.
- Close-ups create a sense of ambiguity.

Although I was happy with our animatic, this further analysis allowed me to explore our 'creation' in further depth. I feel that I understand my animatic better, and this presentation consolidated our ideas, as well as being able to get new ideas off our teacher, Mr. Ford.