U-19 FILM EXTRACT: Timothy Pearson's evaluation of short film sequence:
Thursday 26 February 2009
Timothy Pearson's evaluation of short film sequence:
Our sequence is set near the beginning of the film where our main character interacts with a character from the fantasy type world, and then the clip ends as she falls into the fantasy world.
Genre/sub genre has influenced the decisions we have made by giving us an insight into how our genre (fantasy) has been used in other films, so that we learned the best way to portray ours, for example our clip from our film is based on an 'Alice in wonderland' type world but a sort of 'Pan's Labyrinth' type plot. An example of this is where you get the part where the man in the hat appears, he is a kind of representation of the 'mad Hatter' from 'Alice in Wonderland'.
As the director I have developed the narrative by listening to everyone in the group, as well as contributing my own ideas. I have aimed to make everything run smoothly so that we would not be set back by anything, as the group decided to do the shooting in my village, I had to make sure that they all knew where my house was, how to get there and what time to be there. This was quite effective as we all knew where we were going to shoot, we had all the equipment with us, and everything ran smoothly with the shooting. The only real problem was was, that each member of the group arrived at different times.
I worked with the editor to help him, when using the editing software keep to the storyboard, but also to change anything that we realized doesn't work as effectively, an example of this was the shots where you get the girl looking over the edge of the roof, at first it was quite plain that she looked over the edge however it was not the most stable of shots, we placed a second clip of the same view on top, so that it looked as though in the girls point of view shot she was seeing double image, I worked with the sound man, as we created the sound track to fit the actual clip by contributing my own audio files, as well as helping in the recording of a voice over. Lastly I helped the person behind the camera by scouting for locations we could use for filming, and by supplying a HD camera for good quality footage.
As we completed the our set task, we change our plans in many forms for example, when it came to shooting the footage, we changed our locations so that we would all be able to get there, we decided to use a better quality camera shot for certain shots to stand out. When it came to editing this footage we decided we did not have enough so we went back to re shoot certain aspects of clip.
Lastly when we had all the footage and when editing we had make some changes to what was going on in the storyboard, to create a better, visual image.
I wanted to the audience to respond positively to the Directing of the sequence and locations, with the use of Mise-en scene, as they both show the required specifications for the scenes and they work well with the actors, in portraying the story.
The props we used also shows the audience the type of film that it as it gives a strange sense to the film, having something peculiar in an average place. The costumes also emphasize to the audience positive directing as the costumes help portray the scene. for example the clothes that the man wears, are weird, having a large brimmed hat and a waist coat. The performance all together, shows good directing because it holds everything together making the audience understand what type of film this is.
The feedback that we received told us that the editing and sound were well done and did what was expected. Viewers commented on how they recognized that it had an 'Alice in wonderland' type theme. However, some people said that the music was to based on the piano and needed more variety of instruments, we received comment on how the camera work was rough in places and could be improved. These comments have told me that we edited our clip quite successfully to produce a good and understanding storyline, however there are some aspects that could be improved.
I think my technical skills have enable me to make the creative choices, as I have used my camera to take extra footage for our group so that we would not have to repeat the day shooting the majority of our shots, this put our group at an advantage of having lots of footage giving us a lot of options to go by. In class we needed an audio dub, the room wasn't quiet, so that we couldn't record. Luckily I had my laptop and the required software so that we could record the dub somewhere quieter, without any interruptions.
To conclude I believe that we have as a group worked hard at producing our final clip to high standards. Thinking about what it is about and what we where trying to achieve to give it a weird 'Alice in Wonderland' type feel, in which I think we have accomplished this in not only the visual aspects of the clip but in the sound as well.
