Evaluating the Main Task (2 Minute Film Opening)

For the main task we had to come up with the idea for 2 minute opening titles to a film genre of our choice. The genre my group chose was horror/thriller. At first we were not sure whether to go through with this idea as after to speaking to the rest of our class we realized they had also gone for the same genre and looking at the same location choice as us. We thought through other ideas and then decided to go with my original idea. When planning and story boarding the idea, the 2 other people in my group thought up ways to change the story to make it an idea that we all helped think off, and were all enthusiastic to film.

We decided to pick are target audience as teenagers and young adults. We were aiming for certificate 15 as we wanted to make it as violent and gore as we possibly could with the resources we had and the abilities that the actors had. We started to look at the main ideas and themes we found in our chosen genre and 3 other films that were close to what we were looking at for our own film.

I feel I put a lot of effort in when it came down to the filming date as I organised all props, decided the costumes and brought in people I knew to play the extra actors we needed at short notice.The costumes and props were important for the piece as we wanted to use the costumes to try and tell the audience as much about the characters as we possibly could and also relate to the modern day teenager. I think the first time we filmed it, it went well as all the actors worked hard on improvising scenes and we got some well structured and interesting shots. When it came to uploading and editing our piece we experienced many problems. First of all our footage would not upload to the system, secondly when watching it back we realised we had not got enough footage to edit and cut down into a 2 minute piece, and thirdly when watching the piece back we realised we had major continuity eras and people who had come down to watch from another group were seen in the background waving at the camera which ruined those shots.

We tried our hardest to do the best we could with the footage we had and to find a way to upload it. When realising there was no possible way we decided to re-film the entire project. Even then we came across problems again. We couldn’t film for a long time because members of the group experienced a variety of personal problems and since we are all taking the same subjects we were trying to get the exam work in for other subjects on their deadlines. Also the actors we had used before were no longer available so we had to use all 3 members of the group and managed to get hold of someone hours before we were due to film. We then had a problem with the cameras battery and ended up having to film the piece over a span of 4 days only leaving us 3 days to upload and edit, also on a few of these days we were filming between and after lessons so we were loosing light fast.

When we first filmed we forgot to add in the original party scene’s to explain why karly is drugged and why she’s suddenly in the wood’s which was probably why we had a lack of footage. I felt this was because when filming the first time we all had a lack of focus and enthusiasm. When we came to deciding to re-film it we decided to set it in a beer garden of a pub and luckily we managed to get permission to film at ‘The Brickmakers’ and they were also kind enough to supply us with some props we were lacking. I felt this was a great location as it was close to the general public to show that the victim is in no kind of danger to begin with from when she is alone in the wood’s. We did experience problems with the sound on this location though as it was next to a main road and we had to try and talk above the noise of traffic.

We also filmed in a wooded and hilly area which I feel gave us fantastic shots and gave a real sense of tension to the piece and made the audience feel like the characters were lost. We also filmed the characters holding the camera themselves and running which gave a sense of terror and can help make the audience feel involved as it looks like it is really happening. This helped to provide a feel that the main girl character really has been drugged by the stalker character as many of the scenes are jolty and also had the actors spinning around with the camera so the audience can see things from the drugged victims point of view.

We decided to film the fight scenes from many angles over and over so we could cut between each scene very quickly adding to the tension we were aiming for and building a sense of fear and terror. It also keeps the audiences interested as it is not filmed from one angle. it also gave us time to cut the scenes and add blood to the people in the fight when it was needed.

I think we created a good effect when editing as all scenes at the pub before the main character, Karly, is drugged is filmed in colour and all scenes after that are in the woods are in black and white which created more shadows. We also cut straight from my character Karly downing the spiked drink to her running in the woods which makes the audience wonder how they got there. Seeing as this was an opening to a film we decided to put the end of the film at the beginning and then add the line “let me show you how an obsession grows” so if it was to be a whole film it would then go on to show you how they got there. Unfortunately due to lack of time and not having the right equipment we couldn’t add this. We also stopped just as the stalker is about to stab the friend, Dannii, which leaves the audience guessing what happens to her.

Due to the genre we chose, we had a lot of health and safety issues as there was someone running with a knife and also holding to another’s throat. We overcame these as we ran through those scenes over and over and blocked them so we got them perfect so no one would get hurt. We also did the same with the fight scenes and ran over the running scenes to make sure everyone knew exactly where they had to go. We also checked the area to make sure there was nothing that could harm us whilst doing falling scenes. With these scene’s i also researched and went through a step by step guide with the group of how to film certain shot’s that would be potentionally harmful to the actors without actually putting them in any danger. For instance, with the angle of the shot and the distance from the actor’s, when the stalker is slitting Karly’s throat you don’t actually realise that the stalker is quite far away from the actor (myself) playing Karly.

We only had a few continuity errors with our two minute piece. For starters
we had to film over the span of four days and on one of the days I forgot to
bring the scarf i was wearing so we had to improvise and found a scarf that looked similar to the one we originally filmed with. We then added in a scene where the stalker pull's of the scarf and sniffs it so within the close-up shots the audience wouldn't be able to tell it was a different scarf. This helped though as when we filmed the scenes with the knife to Karly's throat the scarf wasn't in the way. Another one we encountered was Dannii's hair as when we began to film she had her hair down and curly and on another day it was up and straight so we had to put the hood up for this character. During editting we also realised that in one of the fight scenes we missed out a bit where you can hear the person filming shout go. We didn't realise this till we uploaded the video to the blog and had no time to change it.We were all involved in filming and editting at some point.
With filming we had a rota so anyone who wasn't in the scene would then be filming. With editting I did alot of the actual editting myself whilst the two members of the group decided what they wanted where as i was the only one who could fluently use the technology and add titles.

I feel that overall we were all very proud of the piece we created and
there was not much that we could improve on as we all worked well
as a team and listened to each others ideas, we had done a sufficient
amount of planning so we all knew what we were doing. We were given
individual areas to plan (for instance mine was characters, costumes and
props) but we all made the final decisions together as then we would all
be happy with the end result. I think we worked well as a team as we are
all close friends and all encouraged one another to do the best we could,
although this was also a problem as sometimes we distracted one another,

Music was also an issue for our piece because only after editing we were told that we were unable to use copyrighted music without getting the artist’s permission. We managed to get hold of the person who discovered ‘The Prodigy’ ,the band who’s music we were using, but he then told us as they had changed record labels it was no longer up to the group or himself to give permission to use the track. We then were told to try get hold of the record label who owned them but we were unable to get hold of anybody who would be able to take the matter further and actually give us permission to use the track. We understand and realise that in a professional situation we would not be able to use the track without the owner’s permission, but due to lack of time and deadline’s we felt we had to go with the edit we had.

Overall, looking over footage and our final edit I think we all worked really hard and I am very pleased and proud with the end result.