project evaluation

Our piece uses the same camera shots as used in expensive budget films only our equipment was obviously not as expert as they would use. We tried to make the plot as realistic to a thriller as possible and didn’t want to go extreme. We kept it low key and did not have brutal murder throughout and James Bond style heroicness. One thing I realized was that we gave too much of the story away in just the openening sequence because we showed the killer already. Our piece makes women look vulnerable and weak and it makes men look violent and dominant simply because the male has set out to kill the female. The female in our piece wakes up like any other morning and goes about her normal morning routine. She gets up, gets changed, picks up the keys, and then picks up the mail. Meanwhile the male character is getting himself disguised and prepares his weapon. The clips cut in and out to show each morning together. The female is oblivious to what is happening outside her house until....... (Well that would be giving it away you’ll have to watch it to find out). Our piece would most probably appear to someone such as the Arts Picture House, only a small distributor at first. It would not realistically make the big time and be a big hit. The reason being because the cinema offers a broader range of films to the public where as the picture house offers to people with specific tastes. Our film would most probably appear to males mostly around the 18's because I just don’t see many females being interested in this type of murder film. To attract them there is murder the classic thriller. This is most likely to attract males of that age. I have learnt what many camera angles and shots do such as tracking, panning and reverse. Tracking is when you follow movement with the camera this can be done using a trolley on a track or by hand. Shot reverse shot is when for example you have a shot over a persons shoulder when they are looking at someone and then you switch to the other person and they are looking back. However the 180 degree rule must not be broken or else it looks like the camera has switched sides and can confuse the viewer. Panning is when the camera closes in on movement this can be fast or slow. I am now very confident with garage band and final cut. In the introduction task I did not get to have a go with garage band but because I am doing film studies I have had a go with it and I was in charge of creating a sound track so it was fun. In particular I learnt how to mix different beats and fade them in and out. I now have an idea of which music suits a thriller and which beats work best together. I also had a go on Final cut to piece up some of the clips but then that job was taken over, so I went on to create credits with someone else. I learnt how to use effects and transitions and how to add them in properly. I learnt how to cut clips down to size and move them around to cut out pieces in the clip for instants cutting out the killers face because we revealed his identity when we shouldn’t have. Overall the whole group had a really good go at the task and we had fun at the same time. It was great fun because it was my first go at producing a piece of work like this; I had never done it before. I think final cut and garage band are great programs to work on because they allow you to do so much in way of creativeness and editing. Final cut is a lot better than windows movie maker which is what I originally used at home if I was making a sequence. Never used anything like garage band so it was all new to me but I now know how to use it properly.

Things I would have done better are:

I would have thought more clearly about a storyline. Our piece was commented as being like a TV sketch which is a fair comment. It needed to be more shocking more thriller like. I would have made sure that the tripod was still because we had a lot of shaky shots. Our sequence lacked in creativity. It wasn’t much of an opening sequence like I would have wanted to have seen if I went to see a film. Overall filming quality wasn’t great it was very blurry. Unfortunately due to errors in timing and remembrance throughout the group we did not get any out of college shots done because we forgot to pick up the camera at the end of the day. This is a shame because it didn’t look very realistic because of the setting. Our music was a bit jumpy and changed rapidly. Also I think it would have looked more professional if we were able to create a company logo for the beginning as we did on photo shop like in the introduction lessons, instead of having the name in the credits. Unfortunately because of our lack of timekeeping we wouldn’t have had enough time anyway. We were working right up until the last minute.

Things I personally liked:

I really liked the company name “CALM” it was a mixture of our initials Chris, Alan, Louisa and Matt. Also I did like the credits and the way they were displayed. I liked filming bits myself that was good fun but shame the quality wasn’t brilliant. We worked well as a team and came together well. Our camera usage was good, the way we used shots (explained already). I was pleased throughout the planning stages how we scraped in ideas as a group.