Evaluation

For the main task I was asked to create the opening credits and first scene of a new movie to last a maximum of two minutes. All material used would have to be original or copy-right free. Therefore we used programs such as Final Cut Pro, After Effects and Reason to create the finished piece.
First of all, in our group, we needed to produce a set of S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timed) targets for each stage of the project. By keeping to these targets, each section of the coursework has enough to time be completed to a high standard.

After these were complete, our next aim was to produce a set of creative ideas that we would eventually need to select one for our final piece. We produced four main ideas that consisted of a bank robbery, mockumentary about college life and a zombie horror. We researched various films that were similar to these ideas to try and get an idea of how they often start. After presenting our ideas to the class, the general feedback was that we should create something slightly more serious as we attempted to go down the comedy route in our preliminary task. Because of this, we selected the zombie horror film to be our final piece. After planning we realized how difficult it would be to make this movie, therefore we decided that we needed to create a different idea but along the same genre. Then we thought of a film where a female is watching a news report where an escaped convict is on the run. He then enters her house and kills her.

We researched similar films to what our idea is to see what to expect from one. It was evident to see that this would much easier to carry out with less need on props, costume etc. We were then ready to begin the pre-production documentation. This involved a script, storyboard, prop and set list. We started with the script. As me and Darrell had a different idea for the script than Harry, we decided to do two different versions and then compare them. The two scripts had the same events and dialogue but scenes were in a different order. After careful consideration, we opted for myself and Darrell’s version as we felt it made more sense. Next we needed to create a storyboard. This wasn’t too difficult as it was the same as our script but without the dialogue and with drawings that show what type of camera angle it’s going to be, e.g. long shot or extreme close-up.

Then we needed to choose a suitable location. With our film set in a house, it would be easiest if it was filmed in one of our homes. We narrowed it down to either mine or Harry’s house and after assessing them we decided to film at Harry’s for convenience as he lives in the middle of the rest of the group. Furthermore, his house was available for a lot of the time.

The props list involved hammer (for the killing), ketchup (for fake blood), a sofa and a TV. This was all easily available at the location upon filming. We then needed to decide on the cast. We decided that we would all play some part in the film but we needed to find a suitable female to play the role of the victim. Harry’s sister volunteered so the problem was resolved. It was decided that I would play the killer, Darrell the detective and Harry the News reporter. Before we were ready to film, the pre-production documents needed to be signed. This included talent release, location release, risk sheets and personal release forms.

From this, we were ready to film. We felt that in our preliminary task we rushed the filming and that it showed when it came down to editing with countless number of continuity errors. Therefore, this time we gave ourselves the whole weekend to film which we felt was plenty of time to film each scene many times from different angles to ensure that the editing process would not be more difficult than it needed to be.

As we wanted the scene to be at night this meant that the quality would be affected as the contrast was darker. I felt that this was present in the final piece. For the last scene we needed a realistic blood substitute. We used ketchup for this but as Harry understandibly didn’t want his floor getting stained, we put cling film on it in hope that the camera wouldn’t pick it up. As we saw in the editing, it did.

The editing took the best part of two weeks. First of all, we looked through each and every clip to decide which clip would be used for each scene. Once we selected each clip and put them in order, we needed to spot any continuity errors that may have occured. The only error we spotted was the cling film that we were expecting. This was clearly visible so therefore we had to use a program called After Effects to cut out the cling film and replace it with flooring. Also with After Effect we created the titles, names and some transitions such as fade ins and outs.

For the soundtrack we use a program called Reason. With this we could create a proffessional soundtrack that ties in with our theme of horror. We called also design it specifically for our piece so the tempo could increase/decrease and also it could intesify when we needed it to. When this was complete and added to the film, we submitted our final piece.

Our piece is very much your stereotypical horror/murder film. It is a young female who is the victim killed by a male. This is fairly common in a modern day horror. Furthermore, it’s set at night so it’s very dark even inside the house as she had no lights on which created an atmosphere. Something that is different compared to normal murder scenes is that she is watching a news report about the killer that is about to murder her. I’ve never really seen this before.

I’m not sure that our piece represents any singular type of social group but it does make the female vulnerable and the male dominant which I don’t believe is the case in everyday society. I do feel that the age group that have acted in it (teenagers) would be most likely to go and see it.

I think that the most likely institution to distrute our film would be someone like Twisted Pictures, Compass International or Dimension. This is because we aimed for our film to be in a similar style to films distributed by these companies such as the Saw, Scream and Halloween.

I think that the audience of our film would be ages 18-30 as that is what age this genre usually attracts. I think that the characters being teeneagers also encourages a slightly more youthfull audience. It would be most likely the working class males that watch this film although some females would too. The technologies that we have learnt from this project are mainly three programs called Final Cut Pro, After Effects and Reason. Final Cut Pro was good for sorted out each clip, cutting it down, and then putting them all in order. After Effects helped in the animation and effects such as the titles and news report layout. Reason was the program that we used to create the soundtrack. Furthermore, we learnt new techniques on the camera during filming such as colour balance.

Personally, I believe that we have laid out our work for this project more efficiently than our preliminary. By this I mean that we planned it much better and gave ourselves plenty of time for each stage of the project. I felt that we rushed certain areas in our preliminary task and it showed. I also feel that as it was not our first time using programs such as Final Cut Pro and After Effects, that our skills had improve by doing the preliminary task because it wasn’t all new to us. In addition to this, I think that we learnt not to do such a complex storyline like our preliminary task with too much emphasis on costume and we needed a specific location that was hard to find. This time we kept it more simple by filming in a house where we could be there as long as it took and with the costume just everyday clothes. Overall, I feel that our main task in certainly a progression from our preliminary task as we new what to expect this time as we had done it before and we were more experienced with the equipment and editing software.