Practise Film Sequences

Here we are experimenting with filming and editing techniques. We planned and filmed a short film sequence ending in a murder to act as practise for our coursework. Although we did not have as long to do this as we would for the real coursework, we still learned a lot from doing it and made mistakes we will try to avoid next time.

Evaluation of Murder Scene

Planning and Story boarding

We spent a long time on our planning and story board, making sure that we had fully decided what we were doing, where we were shooting the film and who was going to be playing the parts. We used our storyboard as a true guideline of what we were going to be doing, and stuck to it as much as we could to ensure that we got the shots we wanted, in the time that we had to shoot the clips. However, we didn’t shoot every clip on the story board (in this case it was the murder itself) as we wanted to create a cliff-hanger ending, leaving the murder down to imagination.

Acting

With our murder film, we decided to use short, quick shots that implied movement rather than having a shot of me walking over to the door for example. We would have one shot of me looking down the stairs over to the chapel, a quick change in shot to Rebekah running, and then back again to me at the door. This shows that in the time of being off camera, have moved. This was the case for most of our shots so acting was not really a problem. With the murder itself, we decided that it was quite a difficult scene to act out, so we left the murder down to imagination as a poorly performed murder may ruin the mood of the overall film.

Selecting shots and angles

We decided to start our piece with an establishing shot of the chapel to show the audience the main setting of the film and also to show where the murder is going to take place. For the characters, we decided to use a close up at the very start to let the audience know who the murderer is. We then used a POV shot from a high angle of the murderer looking down on the victim; this creates a sense of power and makes the victim seem small.  We only used a canted angle once during our film, but I think that we could have used more than one to create a greater feeling of chaos and confusion.

Location and lighting

I think that the location we chose was perfect for a murder sequence as the chapel is a symbol of peace and tranquillity, so when put into a film about death and violence, it seems very unnatural and scary. Also, the chapel is a very quiet, secluded location so it makes the victim seem helpless. Lighting was an issue as we could only do our filming during the day so most of our shots were in broad daylight. This was not ideal because of the film was darker; it would have been much more effective and creepy.

Editing Decisions

When editing, we decided that in order to make the transition between clips smoother, we would use a lot of cross cutting to establish two separate stories and improve the flow of the film. We put in some non-diegetic music over the top of the clip, to add to the mood of the sequence and to set the scene. This created an eerie atmosphere and fitted in to the location and theme of the film. We changed the volume levels of some of the diegetic sounds to make it clearer and more natural.

Sound

The only sounds used in our murder sequence were sound effects and non-diegetic background music. There was no dialogue in the whole of the clip so the story was only portrayed using visuals rather than sounds. We were thinking of adding some clips in silence to add to the mystery and to build suspense as the only thing the view can detect is visuals. If I was to do it again I would probably add in some dialogue and have more scenes of silence to add to the eeriness of the film.

Lewis

Evaluation Of Murder Scene

Planning/Storyboard

 As a group we came up with our storyboard quite swiftly as we each contributed with many imaginative ideas. We used it well as a guide and followed each scene as planned, unfortunately we didn’t get to film the end to our story board, simply because we couldn’t access the setting where we needed to film the actual ‘murder’, On the plus side the film did become more mysterious and fitted together unexpectedly without the key scene. But on the other hand we didn’t actually get to film the ‘murder’ scene, which we needed to make it the title we were given ‘a murder scene’.

 Acting

 Our actors/actresses, Lewis, Shannon and Bekah did really well considering it was our first ever filming session, they got into their character roles and performed exceptionally! We chose our actors based on ‘who looked the most’ either, like a victim, who was Shannon, the murderer, Lewis, or the friend who was attempting to save Shannon, Bekah. We felt they each looked in character to perform their roles.

 The only thing we needed to work on for the next filming session, is to forget the camera was there. A lot of the scenes Shannon looked at the camera, which made it less realistic considering the victim wasn’t meant to know the murderer was after her.

 Selecting Shots And Angles

 We started our first scene with a close up on the inside of the chapel door, we chose this because we felt its quite stereotypical to have a door in a murder scene as it builds up tension for the audience and sets a mystery sort of look for the film. We also finished the film off with an action shot running towards the door. We wanted to make the door significant because it was the way into the murder.

 We shot many POV shots from the murderer as we felt if he was anonymous for at least a few scenes this would build up more apprehension for the audience. We then did an extreme close up on Lewis’ eyes, I felt this was a good shot because eyes tend to be quite scary in a murder film, plus it wasn’t a full identity of Lewis, just part of his face to show he was watching Shannon. Which made the scene more creepy.

We did a few action shots of Bekah running trying to find Shannon and added a canted angle in one of the running shots to show the importance of Bekah running to find Shannon, not about her identity. This made it even more mystifying as the audience wants to know who this person is running.

 I believe our choice of shots and angles were used well, however I’d like to add even  more of  variety of shots for my coursework.

 

Editing Decisions

 It was quite hard to edit our scenes at first as we filmed some scenes at the start of our roll of film and some at the end of our roll of film, therefore we didn’t have all the scenes to look at together to decide where and what to do with them. Thankfully we eventually got all of our shots onto the computer and started editing.

 I found it quite easy to edit each of our shots because each shot we filmed, we kept the camera rolling for a few seconds extra to make sure we had the shot complete and it wasn’t too short which would make it look unprofessional and strange.

 We mixed up the shots of Lewis spying on Shannonand Bekah running, which made it more effective and exciting to watch.

 If we had more time I would have liked to of added slow motion into some shots, e.g. the one of Lewis standing inside the chapel and the door closing behind him, as it would make it look more scary and as if something dreadful was going to happen next. I think slow motion is key in a murder scene as its authentic for a murder mystery film.

 On the last shot we faded to black to almost give an ellipsis to the audience, I think it fitted well as it would make the audience effectively wonder what will happen next.

 Use Of Mise-En-Scẻne

 I was really pleased with our setting, it suited our story just right. A chapel can be quite scary as it is, a Chapel with a murder, is even scarier, perfect for a murder scene. The only bad thing about the chapel was that they have glass windows, so when the door was closed in on shot you could see me filming from the glass, which obviously looks less convincing and unprofessional. Next time if there is a window or glass window we should really try to avoid it or think of a possible solution, maybe a slightly different angle to not be shown on film. By this we found that editing cannot correct poor filming. We used outside to film Bekah running, that was successful when it came to editing because we cropped and moved different scenes to make it more apprehensive, they went together confidently and smoothly.

 Use Of Sound/Music

 We used an orchestral type of music which was loud and suitable for the setting which was inside a chapel, and obviously for a murder scene it suited easily. We didn’t have enough time to change the music with the running scene with a more upbeat yet apprehensive sound which we wanted to do. We also wanted a scream at the end of our last scene when it went black, we left it too late to either invent a scream or search for one. There were a few noise disturbances but we managed to eliminate them which made the scene more realistic. For next time I would definitely make more time for the sound adding because the sound/music almost makes the film by setting the emotion and scene, without the music I think our film wouldn’t have been as successful as it was.

Sarah