When we were working on our preliminary task we had a set storyboard to work from, a set time of 1 hour to film in, a script, and only a 4 shots that we had to film, others were bonus and optional. We were also given our location and had to work with the space, lighting and props we were provided with adjusting it all as best we could. We were lucky with the location we were provided with was a good one, we got to film in the studio which meant we had a little more freedom than we would have in other locations. The actors we chose for the parts were random people who were free at the time not much thought went into there characters.
When we working on our main task a lot more thought and effort went into the preparation in every aspect. We planed the location around our story spending time looking for a space that gave the mood we wanted and had the space to film in which was difficult as our location was a bathroom and bathrooms are usually limited on space. Our actors were specifically picked, the mail actor because he was good looking and had an athletic build to look like a high school jock, the female actress we chose because she is innocent looking with blond hair and is small she also looks like a cheerleader type. We chose not to have a script we just recorded ambience sounds of the shower and added sound effects and music of sound track pro, we planned our props such as our jock jacket hung up on the peg, the blunt knife we used for the weapon, the consume of the actress which was a tight fitting rear of jeans a tight vest top, red cardigan and hair band which we chose to appeal to are target audience for sex appal. The rage of shots we had to take was a lot wider we planed these with a story board and a shooting script.
Development of film-making skills and use of camera
A big difference between our prelim task and our main tasks was that in our prelim task we were provided with a script so the sequence had dialog where as our main task had no dialog just abeyant sound, music, and sound effects from soundtrack pro. There for in out main task we had to communicate events completely visually with no verbal communication to do this we used obvious actions such as the suggestion of striping. We also used our editing to do this by creating quick cuts in the editing to show the audience that for example the climax scene is taking place or about to take place. To help us imagine how we would communicate this way we created story boards before we shot the sequence to visualise the out come and structure shoot day. We practiced with the camera different shots to the basic wide, mid, close up. We practiced shots such as tracking, hand held, extreme close up ect… to make the sequence more interesting and portray the mood of the scene.
This is our over the shoulder shot example that we had to film in our preliminary task. As you can see it is boring and armature. We cant see enough of the girl who’s shoulder we are looking over and the information in the shot is cramped into the left hand side of the frame and the right hand side of the frame is empty. Also the subject (the boy) is to far away for the audience to receive information from the shot.
This is an example of an over the shoulder shot we filmed in our main task. As you can see it is a lot more professional than the earlier example. We have placed a lot more of the girls frame in the shot which is important for the audience because by being behind her shoulder it places the audience on her side and from her point of view. Having the stairs in the shot make it more interesting and also give her a destination and give the audience information about the story.
This is our wide shot example from out preliminary task. As you can see the shot is again very boring with all the focus points for the audience on the left hand side of the frame. There is not much information given in this shot we cant see who the girl is talking to or doing which makes the shot very boring to watch. We also can’t see any detail of the subject (the girl) so by looking at this freeze frame the audience cant receive any information about the story
This is our example of a wide shot we filmed for our main task it is obvious that this looks a lot more professional we have divided the information into 3 different sections of the frame, the girl on the left hand side, the jock jacket in the middle of the frame and the boy in on the right hand side. Although there is a lot of information in the shot it is divided as to not overwhelm the audience too much. I like how this shot shown the killer so close to the victim but he has no idea she is there. This shot gives the audience a lot of information and suggests the story.
From these examples it is obvious that our main task is a lot more professional looking than our preliminary. Our preliminary task taught us a lot and helped us to learn from our mistakes, for example when it came to filming our main task we thought a lot more about framing our shots better and carefully filling shots to be interesting to the audience, the amount of planning we did for our main task made it earlier for us to plan how we were going to do this, we used shooting scripts and story boards. It was still a challenge for us to try and make sure that every shot was full of information yet placed just right I think we did a good job with it though there is inevitably some that wont have all of these things but we did film multiple versions of each scene to try to insure this.
sound effects
The difference in sound between the prelim task and the main task is quite extreme. In the prelim task we had a dialog, which we recorded with the microphone on the top of the camera, which picked up other background sounds, which sounded messy, and amateur. In our main task we had no dialog just ambient sound we recorded of the shower running with the boom, which was our diagetic sound, and sound effects and music that we got from sound track pro which was our non diagetic sound, we composed the music from single beats that we sound on the program and layered the sounds to fit with the changing moods of the sequence. The types of sound effects we used were the extremes of each other some were deep booming sounds for dramatic effect and the others were high pitched screeching sounds to make the audience uneasy and uncomfortable. We used the booming sounds for the impact of the knife reaching contact with flesh instead of attempting to create realistic stabbing sounds, which we felt, may sound messy. We used the nigh pitched sounds when we were building up to our curtail scene in order to communicate to the audience that the most important scene is about to happen and keep then in suspense. We made sure that our sound effects for this task were timed perfectly which we did by experimenting on final cut pro.
For out preliminary task sound we didn’t editing it at all we just used what we had recorded on the day with the camera microphone when watching the finished piece you can hear that the sound is unclear and ruff with a slight eco to it. If I was to re do it now I would record a dialog separately with proper recording equipment. We used no sound effect at all when editing it was all diagetiic sound. We learned from the mistakes we made with the first task and although we hardly used diagetic sound what we did use of it we recorded properly.
after effects
The aim of after effects was to try and help our film to look as professional as we could make it, by using suck tools and colour correct. When working on our prelim task we didn’t use after effects because the expertise was more about learning how the cameras worked and learn the basics of editing, the result of this was compared to our main task messy and amateur. When working on our main task our aim was to focus on learning how to use after effects as we had already learned the basics of editing and camera work. The after effects we decided to use colour correct because we felt that the lighting in the bathroom was to warm and we wanted to create a more edgy mood to so we darkened the light making the sequence feel completely different. We were working with the editing program final cut pro which is where we edited our sequence and added the after effects. we also used after effects to enhance some of our sound effects for example the foot steps when walking down the corridor we enhanced the sound and gave it a slight eco. We lastly used the effects to show our title and distributor, we used blank black slides with white bold righting with fades in and out for the writing. We didn’t actually need many after effects as we were relatively happy with our camera work and our idea didn’t require much change
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