Evaluation presentation

Hannah and Chloe - Funhouse presentation from Chris Earl on Vimeo.

Evaluation of our film

Hannah and Chloes's Evaluation from Chris Earl on Vimeo.

Commentary of my opening sequence

This is my commentary of my opening sequence, I have talked about reasons why we chose certain effects and sound effects and why they were used also I talked about why we used certain shots. Any comments are welcome.

Fun House the original version

The screenshot on the left is the one from our first film before we re-shot, the camera shot is supposed to be a mid-shot, however it is very bad as a little bit of her head is cut off; this looks totally unprofessional compared to the screenshot from our final film after we re-shot.

                                                                                                            

The image on the left is a two shot of the girls talking, it is from the old film. The 2 other shots are from our film after we re-shot, they are much better as we used shot-reverse-shot with has a better effect as it allow the audience to see the reactions of both characters and gives a more professional look to the film.

The image on the left is the shot of the street before we re-shot, to begin we wanted to shoot in the dark as we thought that it would as a more scary effect, we knew the camera had a light and therefore thought that we would still be able to see what was needed to be seen; we realised when we watched it through that this was not the case and infact we couldnt see alot. We re-shot and didnt do it as late; we feel that it has a better effect as the audience are still able to see everything that needs to be seen but it is still slightly dark which gives a scary effect and allows the location to seem deserted. Also before we re-shot we just filmed the route to the house with the camera hand held, we thought it would have a good effect as it would be in the point of view of the clown and would add tension, however when we re-shot we did a few still shots and a few pans around the area which allowed the audience to see more of the area which added a better effect and a more professional look. 

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

We learnt a lot whilst doing our preliminary task which caused our final product to be better. I feel that if we were to just do our final task straight away with no practice then it wouldn’t have been at the standard that it is now as we wouldn’t have learnt the full importance of different shots and different effects that Adobe Premiere Pro has. In our first task called ‘The Prisoner’ we had many continuity errors as it was the first time we had used a camera before properly; we didn’t understand the importance of the 180 degree rule or action matches. Although we used a range of shots in that task, we found that they didn’t really fit and we now realise that we could have used better types of shot in order to make our short film more effective. Our continuity task was about putting what we had learned about continuity and different shots into practice after editing and watching ‘The Prisoner’. In our continuity task we were allowed to choose our setting and our storyline; we chose a school drama as the genre. The criteria for this task were to use shot reverse shot, action match and to ensure that we followed the 10 degree rule. After editing and watching our continuity task we realised that we had progressed as there weren’t any continuity errors however we feel like it wasn’t very good as we didn’t use any sound effects, in this task we also put some titles on; due to the fact that we weren’t very familiar with the software at this point it meant that the titles were very simple and didn’t have any effects on, in our final task we realised we were able to put fades onto the titles and use certain effects such as blurs; we found this out by trial and error; we put different effects onto our work and played it through to find out which looked better. Also due to the fact that we had to edit both preliminary tasks using Adobe Premiere Pro was good as it allowed us to become familiar with the software and see everything that it had to offer, for example, the sound effects, titles, and different types of edits to put into our film for different effects.

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

We used Adobe premiere pro for our editing out shots, putting them together and putting our sound effects on. We found it interesting using the camera and learning how to use it. We feel that the 2 tasks in preparation for our final project were very useful as they allowed us to get used to using the camera for different effects and how to do different types of shot. Also the continuity task was useful as it allowed us to learn about continuity and how it can look; it helped us to spot continuity errors before they happened as we were always thinking about the 180 degree rule and action matches. The preparation tasks also allowed us to learn how to do shot reverse shot which we used in our final piece, it adds a good effect as we see both characters expressions and reactions to things; it also gives a more professional look to the project. The cameras were interesting to use. We enjoyed using Adobe premiere pro for our editing as we just looked at the effects and decided which ones were best for our films; the preparation tasks allowed us to become familiar with the software and find different effects and how to change the sound around. We have enjoyed using Adobe premiere pro as we found it to be quite easy to use and we found some of the effects were very useful in creating a professional look to our movie. We learnt that a lot of details when filming are important like the frame rate the camera is set to as we filmed in 60 frames per minute whereas Adobe premiere pro is only compatible with movies that are shot in 30 frames per minute, this meant that we had to convert our files into a dv format which was very useful as when they were converted we didn’t need to render them which meant only our sounds and edits had to be rendered this made the editing process quicker which allowed us to get a lot of edits done to make our film more effective at provoking the fears of the audience. The experience of making this film has been useful as it has taught us a lot about the different software that are available when editing and the different things that can be done to achieve a professional film.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We used a range of techniques to attract and address our audience, we made sure that the audience was interested in the film by trying to make it gripping; we did this by using a range of shots to show the location and choosing a song that suits the mood of curiosity we were trying to create. We also included a small conversation with the girls to allow the audience to understand them slightly; this will provoke sympathy for the girls when they are being attacked by the clown as the audience knows them and put themselves in their shoes. This will interest the audience and make them want to watch the film and see what actually happens to the girls. Another thing that we did to address our audience was make the characters average and people that the audience would be able to relate to as we thought this would give a better effect as the audience will not want anything bad to happen to them. The range of shots we used to start with were used to establish the location and show the audience that it is a typical village. The first minute includes these shots which create a very moody and spooky atmosphere along with the music which also adds to the tension; however we didn’t want the audience to be bored when watching the film so we ensured that there was a instant bang after about 1 minute, this was the clown which we showed straight away to tell the audience that this was a typical horror movie even though we found that some horror movies choose not to show their criminal until later on in the movie. We chose not to challenge those codes of conventions of horror as we are not claiming to have made the next ‘different’ horror movie. We feel that if you like nightmare on Elm Street scream and similar films then you will like this as we have followed their codes and conventions.