Evaluation- Chess

The Evaluation And Personal Analysis.

Introduction

Right at the start of this experience we had to do some research of openings of other thrillers. This meant that we had to do close analysis to find out what certain aspects showed it was a thriller. Things such as enigma codes, restricted and unrestricted narration, traditional aspects of mise en scenes with iconography like the syringe certain techniques used by camera shots or sound all help convey and give the atmosphere that it is a thriller in the opening. As openings are suppose to draw you in and give you a sense of the film or programme you are about to watch.


Planning

When we knew what we needed to know about thriller openings it meant we could start planning our own. First off we spoke as a group about what the opening was going to be about. Jon came up with a good idea of having a man preparing what looked like a bomb, putting it in a ruck sack and then walking say through a town or something. The only worry with this was it would have been difficult for us to make the prop of what looked like a realistic bomb and then obviously filming in a public place would mean it would be hard not to film people who did not want to be filmed. So then I came up with the idea of a girl running through a wood and she looked like she had been through some really horrific stuff and then have her coming back to society and civilisation. Then we pretty much went from there and came up with little ideas to add to this main idea, like things as the cars head lights shining on her and the blood going down the drain in the shower scene.

Once we had the opening pretty much planned out in our minds it was getting it all down and finalising it. I put a list of roles on the blog of what everyone had to do so that we were all sure who was doing exactly what to make sure we all did things and nothing was done twice or forgotten about. I had to do the story board which took a lot longer then I thought it was going to take, as we wanted to make it as precise as possible to assist with the real filming later on. So we planned out on paper the number of the shot and what it would show, so then I could draw it up having not missed anything out. After I had done all the drawings for it and details it was time to film it as an anamatic. I did this by sitting on a chair with the camera on the tripod filming each of the shots while doing a voice over to describe what would happen in each shot, and then used imovie to edit it in making it into an anamatic and just uploaded it onto the blog.


To show it really is just an opening we obviously did not show the rest of the film in it, but I also wrote a synopsis which is also on the blog with uploaded photos of the costume. The synopsis shows exactly what happens straight after the opening and what is later to come in the film. The costume needed to show it was a thriller as well and reflect the tensed creepy mood needed. So I got some very plain clothes that I did not mind tearing up and made lots of cuts and slits in them to show she had been through some serious traumatic experience. However looking back on it now I would say I may have got a bit too carried away and made them too torn and cut, maybe making them just that little bit over the top and slightly unrealistic. One person sad it looks “just looked a bit fake” which id have to agree with. But some people may think it adds really well to the atmosphere and works well.




Filming


After the anamatic was done we were pretty much ready to go and film we had hoped to do it the day we uploaded it but we did not have enough time as we had left it too late. It was hard getting a time when we were all free as we all work on different days but eventually we got a Saturday to film with nearly all the group and used the HD camera to film with. On the day the original make up girl could not meet up so I did my own make up with just normal stuff I had from home and luckily it worked really well.


We filmed during the day at a woods but we wanted it to be look like in the night so it later on in editing we used day to night footage. It was quite a cold day and the sound of the wind was quite strong in places which once again we took out a bit with editing. One of the main unfortunate problem with the filming in the woods was even though there was not any dangerous sharp objects around but the sticks and leaves would of hurt my feet a lot if I had been bare footed and what with the cold it would have been even worse. Between filming Aylish would quickly pass me my coat to keep warm so I did not get ill. And to solve the situation with the feet I had to wear black boots, but we tried in editing to make it really unnoticeable to try our best not to break continuity, just safety had to come first! We also could not film the car head light shot as none of us can drive...


We originally were not going to break the 180’ degree rule but then after a while and during filming we actually thought maybe it would be good to do so in this situation, as her life as been messed up and is not in place so the camera work should show this! Plus it does not confuse the viewer in a running sequence where as it would in a conversation. Even though I was acting in the shots I did suggest ideas like lets do one like this or have the camera there, and filmed a few shots without me in. So I took much part in the filming process.
(examples of rule break)



The rest of the running scene went fine and the shot of the house was no where near the woods we filmed in however it looks like it is. We could not film the shower scene the same day as we run out of time and Jon's shower did not work. So we booked another day and nearly everyone came round mine to film the last shower scene as I live closest to college. We ran out of fake blood so had to use ketchup but made it really watery and in the end it was not too bad. We wanted this colour to be really red though so needed to make the light on, so to do this we filmed in the day and decided we would use day to night footage to make it look like night but then have a sound of a light switch to make it brighter (day footage) this worked fine in the end and meant the blood was red not slightly blue like it would have been if we had kept it all in night footage.
(examples of light effect, day - night)

Comments Made

• little bit blue
• Bare feet and then boots, tut, tut, tut...BUT its not massively noticeable so its all good
• I didn't really like the mirror shot at the end. There is quite a bit of space above Fran's head, I think that it could of been made better by making sure her head filled the empty space
• loved the make up, the music and the flashbacks were really good, the titles are ok, don't really like the way you put 'AysJonFranTom,’ because you wouldn't really see titles set out like that in a proper film

• not keen on the zooms either, just think they are a little pointless but I really love the last few seconds!
• Overall, great guys
• Wow, that is amazing. The best i have seen!
• I love how your like 'what the hell?!' as you don't know what has happened, it gets you wondering what she is running from.
• The close up revealing the marks on her wrist were great on how you just casually show them
• The music is great and the flash shots worked really
  fit with the title!
  
  

Overall, I was happy with the above comments as most people were really impressed with what we did and did say it was creepy and tensed. I think the points above on how it was too blue, the top looking unreal, the credits, and framing with the mirror were true. The night vision was vital we did it though as it just did not feel at all any where as near scary enough in the day. The top was cheap and its hard to chose something which does not stand out but does the job. And we positioned the credits like that as we thought it would be different and more exciting than a comma, but to be fair you don’t often see that style in films.

Questions

1. Throughout the opening we used many traditional conventions like sound, fast cuts, cuts and bruises and ripped clothes for mise en scene used in other thrillers. We had the silhouette of the protagonist and he had a syringe, being the weapon. We used enigma codes and restricted information to increase suspense, like why she had the mark on her? Where had she been? What happened in the flashbacks, and who it was with the syringe? Hopefully this made people want to watch more. Also in the flashback of her tied up we made it low key lighting and made it look creepy. Just before we see her we wanted to build up the sound making it increasing then she appears and its nearly silent to emphasise the fear and shock. This is also backed up with the jittery hand held camera work and the fast cuts at the start, but then as she gets to the road she is nearly back to civilisation so it gradually gets slower, with longer shots to show this long journey she has gone through.
   
2. We chose our main character as a young girl because I suppose you could argue that girls traditionally represented as stereotypes to be more vulnerable, and more likely to be the victim. Where as if this had been showed as a guy running in the woods you may assume differently to what we wanted, like you could think he was stereotypically running away because he had hurt someone, but when you see a girl running away you naturally assume she’s running from something. The ripped clothes and flash backs also give the idea that a sexual attack may have occurred, and we thought it would suit a younger female character more then either a mature lady or a man because once again the audience should sympathise or empathise with her more, due to her traditional image of vulnerability, as a young girl. We would also hope the target audience, being teenagers over 15 years to adults, male or females, would be able to relate to her easier as they may be her age or have friends or children her age or sisters or girlfriends, so the emotional impact would hopefully help them to connect more to the character. Later on she would become stronger character and be an inspiration to the female audience.
3. How did we attract the audience?

• Story told- hopefully its really interesting as you want to know what has happened to her and why. We give enough away to know she has obviously been held prisoner or been through something traumatic, however thats all we know, no details and no explanation.


• The camera shots should make it more interesting, like the flashback shots of the syringe and the slow pan of her being tied up. The mirror and blood shots are also different, and we tried to show her cuts and bruises subtly in shots.


• The character- Shes just a normal girl, helping people to relate to her, and the state of her clothes and hair and make up should make the audience want to know more, and make them pity or sympathise with her.


• Our sound- It starts off quiet to make it build up, and theres a rush in the sound straight before we see her, then its quiet again to really build on that tension, making everyone at the edge of their seats. We put in long drones so it wasnt quiet but we thought less sound was more appropriate and was creepier, as a lot of our sound is natural from when we filmed.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Through research and planning i learnt that you really need to be absolutely prepared as otherwise it can so easily go wrong. We wanted to film the same day we uploaded the storyboard but did not have the time, transport or the right props to film, due to too much last minute planning. Timing really was vital in the planning, and i think i underestimated how little time we had. We missed off the sound and flash of our last flash back and the credits were rushed due to the fact we had too little time. I think we would have been fine its just i think as a group we really were after perfection so desperately tried to make it as good as we could, so spent so much time on little things, rather than thinking about the whole big overall opening and the amount of time we had. As we were able to use the HD camera, to start with i had no idea how to work it as it is different to the others, but luckily Jon was able to show us all how to use it. To be honest i would say i learnt a greater deal during editing as we edited the storyboard in imovie. Here i learnt how to use a fade which was harder then i thought it would be as you had to get it not only to fade out of one shot but into another or it would look a bit jollity. When we had totally finished filming our opening we used final cut pro to edit in. I didn't know how to use it at all to begin with, but towards the end i had learnt to do basic editing, day and night footage and credits, I'm still not sure how to do special effects as it was really complicated! For the sound we used Garage band luckily as we had spent a lesson a while back using this, I already knew how to use it and this meant it was a lot quicker to put sound on.

Editing

During the editing process we started off by cutting up individual shots and getting rid of excess material which we wouldn't end up using. Me and Aylish then went and edited the whole running sequence by placing shots in order and cutting them appropriately. Luckily the boys were impressed with what we did, however the first establishing and panning shots were swapped round a few times, as i was saying how normally you would see a depth of field just before something was revealed or shown, so suggested we put it just before we saw her, but now i think it works the way it does as we thought as a group it would be more suitable to break up the panning shots. My favourite shot of the whole thing is difinateily when theres the depth of field shot of her running, which was all down to Jon, i think it fits in so well, and really reflects her long blurred out journey and mind, how nothing is clear yet. I think it just looks fanatastic and makes the running much more interesting!

We debated about whether having two foot shots in this sequence, we decided we definitely wanted the feet stepping down on to the leaves to emphasise her stepping on to the road and this being a big step as its her return to civilisation. But there was another shot of her feet walking down the road, we thought this was too much feet in a short time, and we were running out of time too so thought best to leave it out, and I'm glad we did. We weren't originally going to have a shot of me looking up at the house, but I thought it would be good to just to see and check it makes sense, otherwise it may confuse the audience if she was just suddenly in a random shower, at least this looks like its her home, and in research we found establishing shots may start off in a city then a house then a window and then inside, so that you know where about that person is. And in editing we managed to connect the last walking up the road shot by match on action to the walking in front of the house really well, as Jon said we should let her walk out the shot and into the shot in front of the house. And the road was actually no where near the house, so I'm pleased how well it turned out.

We had so many shots for the shower scene but what with having the flashbacks included we couldn't use them all, so we chose the ones we felt were the best. There was a bit in the flashback which were of lots of zooms and were a bit jollity, some people wanted them to go in but me and

I think Ays, said it just looked too unsteady and not right. So we managed to persuade them to leave that bit out and keep the straight pan going up, once again i think this was a right decision. this also happened with a zoom with the mirror shot. As the boys really liked a zoom then a mirror shot but we thought it wasn't smooth enough, and think sometimes when you use a zoom it takes the seriousness out of it and makes it look less professional. But we let them have a short zoom instead, I still am not keen on it however, it doesn't stand out as much as the other possible zooms we could of had, but i think its just cause i'm not keen on zooms in general.


We had a shot in the woods when i was like freaking out a bit but we put special effects over it to make it looked cool but slightly crazy and distorted, this would show her frame of mind, but it just didn't fit with the rest of it and was unnecessary and im glad we left it out. But we allowed the flashes of the flashbacks as it wasn't too much and wasn't over the top, and we felt it broke up and emphasised how it was a flashback and was like a big flash in her mind, obviously relating to the title, relapse.

Looking back at your Prelimminary task what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

I would deffinitely say this final is overall a lot better then the prelimminary. I did the prelimminary with a different group so i suppose for me the finals improved in different ways.

• The story- In general the story of the final is a lot better, as in i would say it is more interesting and much more thrilling as a thriller. The use of enigma codes and restricted infromation is much more used in the final then before, but I would not say we have used them so much that it is confusing.


• The Camera Work- Before our comments were things like "too much space above heads or between characters" or "theres a door in the middle" so mise en scene and framing was not thought about much. I'd say in this final our framing is of a better standard. If we have left a big gap its because we wanted to for a reason, like when she walks down the road its to make her look all alone and vulnerable and as if she has just re-entered this big outside world again after being locked up for ages.

• Mise en scene- We went more over board with this as before we used no make up and only thought they should wear coats. But putting more effort in made it look better, my make up which I did actaully worked well and went better then expected as looked quite real! for the redness all i used was a lipstick and just smudged it slightly. We thought about what was in the frame alot more, like we moved tooth brushes, shower gels and things in the shower, and kept moving our bags and coats in the wood as sometimes we could see them. And in the Flashback of her being tied up we made it so there was only a duvet with no quilt on so it looked like a grim bed which she may of had to stay of for weeks. We also wanted it to be very plain against a wall so not to draw the audiences attention away from it.
• Sound- Overall the sound is an improvement. In the preliminary we just used our natural sound from filming and didnt even use Garageband. But with this we used drones, and owl and those beats before we see her, and then the sharp sounds for the flashbacks. We did not need alot of sound for this as our natural sound was really good especially with the stepping on the leaves. But having the little bits of sound effects here and there did help with the tension.

Overall....

I have enjoyed filming this a great deal and have learnt a lot from it. If i was going to change anything i would probably take out the little zoom with the mirror as i dont think it works that well, but thats just being pickey, and there is one shot in the shower when you can faintly hear my home phone which we only realised after compleating it. But as a whole i am so pleased with the final and am proud with it, it went alot better then i thought it was going to when I thought up the idea of a girl running through the woods!