Thursday 21 October 2010

Preliminary Exercise Evaluation - Charlotte Cox

Our final exercise proved that we could hold a steady shot as there was no unnecessary movement throughout our film which was due to the constant use of a tripod. I believe that our composition was quite good as the majority of our shots were framed correctly, such as the headroom and lead room. We constantly left enough room for the actors and actresses to move into and we made sure that they had enough space above their heads so that they weren't chopped off. However, if you take into consider other framing rules we could have filmed things slightly differently. For example, even though we continually used the nine square grid to make sure that we kept to the rule of thirds, in shot 4 the grave stone is perhaps too centered and could have been placed more towards the right, so the audience would naturally be drawn towards the empty space in which the actors would then run into. In our short sequence, we used a variety of shot types such as canted angles to film the grave stones to give an, distorted effect, high angles when the zombies were running towards the camera and low angles when they were running away from the camera. We also used long shots, close ups, POV shots and medium close ups. 


 In my opinion, we achieved seamless editing as we generally followed the 180 degrees line and 30 degrees rules, except for shot 6/7 in which we did not follow the 30 degrees rule for because we tried to achieve a POV shot to make it seem like the actor was taking a photo of the zombies at that precise time. We also used editing transitions such as fading the last scene to black to portray a bleak ending in which the zombies feasted upon the civillians. We also wanted to use a flash as an effect to make it clear that the actor was documenting the zombie attack with his camera, however it didn't seem right so we just extended the clip and chaged the colour to white, which I think gave the same effect and was a success . We also determined the lighting during our film, by adjusting the dark and light levels whic gave it an eerie atmosphere. Finally, we muted all noise as we believed that it increased suspense and in turn quickened the pace of the entire film.


I believe that we used appropriate costume as the tops were bloodstained and dirty however we only customized the tops as we didn't think that trousers were overly necessary to give the impression that they were zombies. In addition to the costume, I feel that the hair and make-up was also of a high standard. I believe that our location was brilliant, the graveyard definitely fit well with the zombie theme and made the whole scenario more realistic as it wasn't just grassy backgrounds and forestry. Lastly, our actors and actresses were great, they put their upmost effort into the acting and weren't bothered at all with the messy hair and make-up so I believe that our overall content was great.

During the process of the  exercise I directed the film and through the planning I helped gather the costume and make-up and on the final day joint made the actors and actress into zombies, who I think looked extremely realistic. I believe that all jobs within the group were equally distributed which is why we worked so well as a team, for exaple we all gave our input in directing by telling actors and actresses alike what to do/say/and where to stand etc. If we were to redo/improve the film I would propose the idea of reshooting certain shots becasue, although only myself and the other two people in the group realised it, we had one specific continuity issue which was that one of the civillian actors didn't run through one of the shots for some reason which proves that we hould also . I also think that we could reshoot scene 6 by filming the actor full on in the face so that the editing wouldn't seem as jumpy. When it comes to shooting the final coursework film, I think that we should especially take care when it comes to continuity to make sure we don't encounter the same problems when editing again, and try and achieve 'seamless editing'.


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