Year 10 Media Arts Genre Film Production Self-reflection and evaluation:

Discuss your feelings about the production and editing task: Please justify your responses:

·      Were you satisfied with the concept and footage that your group created? (i.e. did the filming capture the essence of your concept?)

I was satisfied with the end result of our film and I believe that it did capture the essence of our concept. 

·      How did your final edit differ to the other members’ of your group? (consider the order of your shots, editing techniques i.e. colour correction, transitions, effects, use of sound )

My final edit was very similar to my group members’ our shots were all basically in the same order although our editing techniques, transitions and sound all varied due to different personal preferences. 

·      Would like to change or improve any aspects of your final film (storyline, shots, editing etc.)?

I would have liked to improve of my photo shopping skills when it came to editing as I think I could have done better in distorting our characters faces. I also would have liked to film in a darker location as I think our beginning setting could have been made a bit scarier and creepier for the audience. 

As this task focused on selecting a specific genre, describe: 

·      How you used specific elements of mise-en-scene to depict your film’s genre and enhance the narrative? 

We used the elements of setting and lighting to depict our film’s genre (horror) by choosing an old setting location and adding props to create an eerie/creepy mood for the film. Overall we used dark lighting to transform our film and give our film and even darker/scarier mood, which horror films usually have.

·      How you used specific shot types to convey the story using visual language?

Our film was inspired by the film ‘The Blair Witch Project’ which was filmed from the characters perspective and looked almost like an amateur documentary. We used similar shot types (close ups, long shots, etc.) and filming techniques which mimicked this movie, to give off an amateur feel for our film. This demonstrated to our audience what our film was about.  

·      Whether the intended genre is depicted clearly or if this could be improved?

I believe our depicted genre is clearly depicted through our film.

  

 

These images show how our film showed our depicted film genre of horror.

Personal reflection and evaluation: 

After your previous tasks, you were asked to identify aspects of planning and production which could be improved. Please explain which aspect you chose to focus on for this task and how you have made improvements.

Reflecting upon your completed task, respond to the following points:

·      How well did you use the features available in Final Cut Pro? 

I believe I used the editing tools in Final Cut Pro quite well whilst changing the saturation of our film and adding effects to each scene where necessary.

·      How did other people respond to your rough-edit? Did you use their feedback to make changes to the film?

Other people seemed to enjoy our film but our main focus was on improving our audio quality, although our group got so caught up in using Photoshop that we completely forgot and ended up using our original media which was a bit disappointing for us.  

·      Did your group use the planning and analysis tools effectively? (ingredients list, storyboards, shot lists).

Our group used our storyboarding and shot list effectively throughout our project although we could have referred more to our shot list while in the process of filming. 

·      Were there any problems or difficulties during filming and how did this affect your project. (Difficulties may include; shooting, technical, time-management, teamwork, absences or editing etc.);

During our last week of shooting we had an accident with our camera and ended up damaging the lense so we weren’t able to finish filming as soon as we had hoped and it meant we had a delay on our filming process and had to wait until the camera was fixed or until we could find another filming alternative. 

·      Discuss whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection to support your work? (Look at your blogs and consider if it looks like a terms worth of work);

I believe I could have undertaken more detailed reflections on my blog and could have included more information and added more reflections. 

Week 6 - Final week of filming

This week was our final week of shooting and our draft film was due on Friday this left us a bit in panic mode and we felt there was still a lot to do. We finished our final shot on the first day of the week and spent the duration of the week putting it all together and editing. We made final decisions on editing to make sure all our film's were relatively the same based of our shot list and storyboards. I decided on sound effects and music. I was inspired by the video game soundtrack 'slenderman' and decided to use loud, static like music to scare the audience as i thought it fit perfectly with our storyline and concept. By the end of the week our draft was handed in although we still had a few changes to make as we all wanted to incorporate our Photoshop skills into our project and wanted to create a scary look of our actors and decided to distort the face of our actors in our final shot. We each decided on different methods to show our individuality and made our actors all look scary in different ways. The next week we will start the photoshopping process and finish our film.

Week 4 & 5- 2nd and 3rd Week of Shooting

Our second week of shooting started off quite well and we managed to practically finish off all our filming, we could start to see the end of our filming process. Although on the last day of filming during this week, whilst we were actually in the middle of filming our last shot we had an accident with our camera and it ended up damaging the camera lense which meant we weren't able to film our last shot. Our group was devastated and it caused a major setback for our group as we had to wait until the camera was fixed or find an alternative option for filming. The following week we ended up filming our last scene with an iPhone 6 which wasn't too bad although we found it frustrating how we initially has such great quality and right towards the finale the quality decreased. We figured because of this we had to create an even bigger and better ending for our film due to the setback and decided on a even more extreme jump scare to frighten the audience. The following week we would finish filming and start the process of individual editing and making a draft film.

Week 3 - 1st Week of Shooting

This week was our first week of shooting for our genre film, the first day of filming this week wasn't a very productive day in terms of how much work we got done. Most of the time we ended up changing how our set looked and made changes to costumes and lighting and didn't actually get much filming done. We filmed a few shots but by the end of the day we decided we wanted to change them and weren't happy with how they turned out. When it came to the last 2 days of filming during this week we knew exactly how we wanted to shoot each shot and got a lot of filming done. We ended up filming nearly our entire film, with only a few more shots left. We had to improvise when it came to lighting at some points and found a few pieces of black and white sheet that we could use to block out light coming in from nearby windows or make them less harsh. We used a large hand held light while filming which we positioned right next to our camera throughout the filming process. When it came to a few shots which we filmed in a really dark room we thought our main source of light was too harsh and too bright and didn't create a scary/creepy atmosphere for the audience so we ended up using an iPhone flashlight which actually turned out pretty well it lit up our actors faces just as much as we needed but kept the surround setting pitch black. The following week we will focus on finishing up our filming and making some final touches

Storyboarding

Week 2 - Starting to prepare for shooting

This week we had our first few days in shooting for our genre film, we mainly wandered around the school and decided on the setting for our film and where some good locations would be to shoot. We finally decided on the old library being our main setting for the film. We thought the old/messy look the library had fit perfectly with the abandoned and creepy vibe we needed for a set. We initially thought the best location to film the introducrion of our film would be in the borders courtyard, although we decided to change this to just outside the library so the audience were able to see inside the library from the outside and as a group we preferred the natural lighting in comparison to our old location anyway. By the end of the week we had filmed a few test shots to see if our idea would turn out how we wanted and after making a few changes to location and shot types we now have a good idea on where we are going to start next week for filming.

Evaluation and Reflection - Term 2 Film Noir

Friday 15th - Filming Eye of The Stranger

Today, our group began filming our Film Noir style film 'Eye of The Stranger.' Claire will be playing the character of Victoria Hastings, Holly will be in charge of lighting and filming and i will be playing the role of Detective Montgomery. For our film we have decided to create a mysterious and creepy mood and we will achieve this by shooting our film from the stalker/stranger's point of view hence the name 'The Eye of The Stranger.' As well as never showing too much of the detectives face, therefore never giving away much of the Detectives identity. This will give the character of the Detective a suspicious vibe and create a sense of mystery and superstitiousness for the audience. Today we filmed the first few scenes of our film, we filmed our office scene where detective Montgomery and Victoria sit down and talk about Victoria's suspicions. For lighting we have positioned our light throughout this scene above the characters when filming close ups to create shadowing across the characters face and from the ground looking up to the character to create the same affect.

Shot List - Eye of The Stranger

Props List - Eye of The Stranger

Reflection on Stylistic Devices – Used in double identity

·     Lighting: comment on how it has been used to create atmosphere

-      Dark lighting and use of shadows on the  characters face and how he is   always turned away from the camera creates a sense of mystery about the man

-      Used lighting to direct us to the subject (car, sign)

-      Use of lighting makes the woman the focus point of the shot, how she is standing in front of bright lighting whilst shadowing is falling behind her and used to highlight the character

·     Characters:

-      Character ignores the road stop sign when driving in car which shows a sense of urgency and that the character might be in a rush or may not care about the law, which suggests he could be a criminal.

-      Character never uses left hand or arm which suggests something has happened to it

·     Narrative conventions:

-      Mysterious/suspicious man arrives at an old building and is sweating and appears injured as he never uses his right arm which suggests he has been shot.

-      The man admit to a murder and begins to tell a story to the audience

·     Other observations:

-      Intense/suspenseful music creates suspicion and mystery

-      Use of voice overs to show the audience what the character is thinking and explaining

Film Noir Task - The Eye of The Stranger

This term in media we have been assigned a task where we are to film a film noir style film. Below is our idea for our film:

Our story will focus on a woman who is feeling as if she is being followed/stalked everywhere she goes and constantly watched by a stranger. She eventually starts to receive threatening and black mailing letters. So in an attempt to try and protect herself she goes to visit one of her friends, who happens to be a detective, and explains her situation and asks him to help her out. She thinks she is getting help from the detective but little does she know that he is actually the one who has been stalking her because he wants to kill her. When she is telling the detective about being stalked and all the harrasing letters she has received, they are all going to be filmed as if they are flashbacks. She tells the detective that she has found a small button outside her house, obviously missing from the strangers coat. As she explains that she doesn't own any coats with those types of buttons. When she eventually walks out of the detectives office to return home, she walks away and the camera will be filmed to show a shot of the detectives jacket. Which will be missing a button. Revealing that he has been the mysterious stranger the whole time.

Names of the characters:

• Victoria Hastings
• Detective Montgomery/Stranger