Practise Film Sequence

In this task, we are practising the key skills we will need for our coursework - storyboarding, filming and editing. We were told to film a short sequence leading up to a murder from a film. this made us concentrate on some of the key things we will need for our openings - a focus on atmosphere.

Evaluation of the Murder Task

Planning and Storyboard

As a group we thought carefully about our Storyboard before filming our main piece. We did not stick to the original plan that we as a group drew out; but it still turned out to be better than expected. I found planning our storyboard was my least favourite part of this task, as I am not a confident drawer. However in my group some of us preferred to draw and in other cases some us who would rather act, this came in our favour giving us all an even share of the task. From planning our storyboard we had gained the knowledge on how beneficial planning is before filming.

Acting

Acting was my favourite part of this task, our acting went reasonably well and helped our film clip become very realistic. Overall I thought our acting could have been improved, if we had taken more time and initiative to rehearse our lines and plan what we wanted to do, this has been an important factor, which will  help us tremendously for our final piece.

Selecting Shots and angles

We opened our film with a two shot of the two main characters, also using the rule of third by having the characters on the edge of the frame. The main reason for this is to make the audience aware of the location and the action that is taking place.

Using an over the shoulder shot of Shannon storming off also helped us create our mystery murder scene. However we could of also taken this shot from her POV, allowing the audience to sympathise with the character.

This was a POV shot from the murderer’s perspective. Allowing us to see what the character is seeing, it’s also helps us to sympathise with the victim and helps us experience what they are feeling. I thought this was a very good shot and hope to use it in my final piece, as it sets that sense of mystery.

  

After filming the argument we used a close up, allowing us to see the character emotion and her reaction.

  

This was a shot of the murderer used, also allowing the audience to see someone possible moving into the frame. The murder was never revealed in our task.

  

This shot helps us sympathise with the character, as only the audience knows what is going to happen, however the victim is completely oblivious to what is about to happen. However this shot could have also been very effective from behind the victim.

Overall I think our shots were well selected, I would definitely use some of these shots in my final piece.

Use of sound

Sound was an important factor in our piece, allowing us to create a creepy and mysterious surrounding. We used a use of ambient sound helping to create verisimilitude and a sense of a mysterious atmosphere, for example the murderer crunching the leaves with his foot and the school bell ringing in the background. We had a decent use of dialogue between the characters, helping the audience get an impression of each character. Adding non diegetic music and sound effects in the background helped us achieve what we had intended to do, establishing the time period, creepy atmosphere and the characters. Overall our use of sound was used very well, however we could of improved on the dialogue as the voices were not always clear throughout. For example filming the sound and dialogues at a different stage and putting them together as a whole.

Editing

Watching our film back, I noticed that there was a lot that needed to be edited as it stopped and started all over the place. I enjoyed editing our film and learning new ways of cutting out unwanted sections. We used the editing technique of cross cutting in our film, this was very effective as it built up tension and it linked everything together. Another technique we used was fade to black as this transition told the audience a feeling of finality and conveying a death. The main character was given a lot of screen time this was an indicator of how important this character was. Another technique we used was slow motion, this is when the murders foots steps appear, which gave a sense of time passing very slowly at the dramatic moment of the killing. Overall our editing was very sufficient and we could of improved on it more if we had spent more time planning what editing techniques we were going to use when planning our storyboard.

Use of Mise-en-scene

I was pleased with our location as a high use of verisimilitude; this was also a very realistic location. Our costume and make up could have been improved, however the school uniform used fitted our scenario well, and we will need to spend more time on this next time as it can be used to show power. We covered the murderer in a hoodie, this fitted in well with the typical stereotype of a killer. Our key prop was the log in which was used to kill the victim; this also told the audience that the killer was very ruthless.