Evaluation Question 7

From our Preliminary Task we learnt how to plan and research what we would need in order to perform our task; for instance we had to plan how long our film would last, where we would film it, how long it would take, and what extra things we would need, like suitable location, etc. We also planned out who would be doing what for the task and the roles that each member had. We learnt basic shot techniques like long shots, medium shots, close ups, and shot/reverse shot pattern.

We learnt how to apply smooth continuity throughout our preliminary task with the use of match cut editing. We applied these effectively and improved upon these skills, because first we chose the base of our film, the horror genre, then we divided the first set of tasks that needed to be done. Two member of the group had to provide the treatment for the task this included research into possible locations and how they would work. So the other two members would have to provide us with research into two films that are categorised as horror films; the two films that we chose were ‘Scream’ and ‘Halloween’. We also had to plan the shooting dates and reserve a date to perform reshoots if necessary. We plan out that the footage had to last approximately 2 minutes, also who would star in the film.

The editing for our main task gave us a better quality than what we achieved in our preliminnary task; our ppreliminary task generally consisted of match cut editing; we continued to use match cut editing to achieve smooth continuity, but during the editing some scene had to reshooted. We were able to use new editing skills to improve our product; one exmaple of this would be the speed of the footage, some was too fast, others too slow, to achieve the eerie effect we had to slow down some scene using 'Modify' in Final Cut; for instance the beginning of our clip where we see Yolanda walking through the arches we see James watching her, the slow speed of the scene suggests that there's a very sinister atmosphere. This adds to the clip and to the horror genre that we are trying to portray. another example would be that, because there is a very limited time gap, we had to squeeze over an hours worth of footage into 2 minutes. We also had to be able to achieve contiuity in our text while displaying plot and setting the scene for the film. So to speed up the pace, and to keep continuity, we used transitions and effects in Final Cut to show smooth contiuity from a section of the text to another. For example, the first section of the text introduces the characters, we needed a smooth editing technique to move from the arches to the stairs which in reality would be a metres away. So in the editing we used a dissolve transition to achieve the smooth continuity.

Also compared to our preliminary task we made good use of natural lighting for our main task, this creates and gives the text realism; this is similar to the film 'Scream' this is because the audience believe that the lighting in the film is natural and given by the surrounding. An example of this would be seen in the opening of the text, when Ghostface, one of the main protagonists in the film, is chasing a character outside, and because this scene is filmed at night the surrouding areas appear very dark suggesting that no lighting was given to the scene whilst it was being filmed. We used this principle in our product, because the film opening begins in daylight, the light would be completely natural, a scene in our film that shows this principle would be when Yolanda is walking down the stairs, you clearly see that the trees create an eerie effect as they block out almost all the light.

Another skill that was used for the main task which isn't found in our preliminary task would be use of Diagetic and Non-Diagetic sound. In comparision to Scream and most traditional horror films the use of sound must be hightened to add a dramatic effect. We used a lot of natural sound for instance crows, wind, and rain, to relate them to the horror genre we hightened them making them louder, distinct and clear. We then had some Non - Diagetic sound, we used sinister eerie music to add tension and to make the text seem more in context.