Evaluation- Activity seven

Preliminary task VS Final opening two minutes
At the beginning of the year, we produced our preliminary task, which it aimed us to understand the effects of different camera shots and being able to use a camera properly. This seems so long ago when we did this task and now comparing it to our final production, 'The Woods', shows the amount of development and improvement we have gained. If I compare myself from the beginning of the year to now, I have learnt vast amounts of knowledge, from the effects of camerawork, to being able to achieve high standards of editing to ensure continuity within our film. Within our preliminary task, we had to ensure we obeyed the 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot and match on action, which all aided us in producing our final production as it gave us even more knowledge on which shots and camera rules would be effective for our film.

Establishing shot - Preliminary task VS Final Production

As we have learnt, the establishing shot is a very important shot as it sets the whole scene of the film; giving an insight to the location, character and usually the atmosphere, which is reinforced by the music used. As you can see from the pictures, the top one is from our preliminary task and the bottom one is from our final production. You can automatically see a difference between these shots, from the slightly different shots to the use of different lighting used within both shots. Firstly, the use of the over the shoulder shot in the preliminary task, makes the audience engage with the film as they feel as though they are following the lady in front of them. However, compared to our final production of our opening two minutes, you can see that we have learnt that using a medium shot rather than an over the shoulder shot first, enables the audience to have a chance to see more of the location of where the film is set. It also gives them a chance to see and analyse the character walking away from the camera and also doesn't force the audience to be pressured into watching the film; instead the shot catches and draws the audiences' attention. The lighting we used in the preliminary task creates an dull, upset atmosphere due to the lighting being relatively dim and very little additional light. In comparison, the lighting within the opening two minutes, produces a bright but eerie atmosphere, which conforms to the conventions of a horror film. Both use of lighting creates different effects, however, the final production has music to reinforce the eeriness of the woods, which makes the shot more effective than the preliminary. The mise en scene of the clothing reflect the mortif, as they are both reasonable dull colours, which the preliminary task dull clothing implies the dullness and the upset atmosphere, whereas the slightly lighter but still a little dull coloured jacket reflects the eeriness of the woods, which reinforces the title of the film. The use of the over the shoulder shot of the girl walking towards the chair in our preliminary task, makes the audience automatically focus on her as the focus pull is obviously her rather than anything else, as she is in the foreground of the shot. In comparison, there is no distictive focus pull within the establishing shot of our opening two minutes, due to the unfocused effect which we made the camera do, as it creates a further eerie unnerving atmosphere. Although there is no clear focus pull, it allows the audience to gain an insight in the location, character and atmosphere, whihc engages the auidence straight from the beginning of the film. However, through this comparison from the preliminary task, which we produced at the beginning of the school year, shows how much we have developed our knowledge of what shot would be most effective, the type of lighting needed to portray this certain effects/mortif/atmosphere etc. This comparison reflects that I have learnt many things such as, lighting can reflect the mood of the film, how the use of mise en scene can determine the characters feeling and portrayal of them and also the effects of what camera shots can achieve.

Editing technique- Match on action

Match on action is an action which commences in shot A and is completed within shot B or C, for example; so basically where two or three shots show an action being completed across the two or three shots, which increases continuity of a film. We had to use this filming technique within our preliminary task as it allowed us to get to grips with stabilizing the shots, shooting the right shots to make sure they flow into each other when we edit them and also practising editing skills, to ensure continuity. As you can see from the picture we used match on action on the girl pulling out the chair, which was fairly fluent, however could have been improved. Using this type of filming techniques, it is important to keep; the camera stable as it would not disturb the atmosphere and continuity of the shot, make sure during the editing process that the shots flow in with each other (continuity), also make sure the camera shots used would allow maximum fluency. As we grew more confident in using this technique, we used it many time within our opening two minutes, to show our abilities of using different camera techniques, but most importantly to ensure high continuity within our film. Within our match on action shots we realised it was important to ensure that the lighting was constantly or gradually change, so that when the shots were edited together during the editing process the shots would not look like a different time frame, which would disrupt the atmosphere we wanted to create. In preliminary task there was a slight change, which if we used within our final production, it may have interupted the cinematic exeperience for our audience. We decided to work on this so we could make our film as professional as we could; which is we decided to have the girl entering the bathroom from dark to light lighting as this was less likely to make the lighting jumpy and less fluent.

Editing technique- Shot reverse shot
Shot reverse shot is a film technique where an individual  character is shown looking at another character, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. This shows the audience both characters, which gives a insight of what they are like, but also it shows the relationship between the character; within this case they are quite distant from each other due to the body language and the distance between the characters. We also used this shot to experiment the shot reverse shot effectiveness, as we needed to see if this would be suitable for our final production. The use of the over the shoulder shot allows the audience to gain an insight of the appearance of the characters and makes the audience feel as if they are part of the film. For this editing technique, we had to ensure, during the editing process, that we cut the individual shots precisely, so that the reverse shot would be fluent, to restore continuity in our preliminary task. However, as you can see, there is no pictures from our final film of this technique being used within any of our opening two minutes. This is because this editing technique does not conform with the convention of a horror film, especially not ours as there is only one main character present within our production, until the antagonist is seen in the final shot. This technique subverts to the conventions of a horror as usually opening two minutes set the horrific and terrifying atmosphere, in which would be continued throughout the film; meaning if this editing technique was used there would have to be a conversation involved, which would create a minimal eerie and scary atmosphere. This shows that we have learnt that using different  and various editing techniques can have different amounts of effectiveness, meaning that we have to use suitable editing techniques, to ensure we portray our films in the correct ways.

Camerawork- Close up shots

We used many different camera shots within our opening two minutes to portray various emotions from the protagonist. In comparison, within our preliminary task, we did not use many types of camera shots, which doesn't make the task that effective. Due to the lack of camerawork in the preliminary task, the only shot we could compare is the use of close up shots. We use quite a few close up shots in the preliminary task, which allowed us to achieve editing techniques such as, match on action, which was used to ensure continuity. The close ups in the preliminary task also allowed the audience to see the characters reactions, which would create enigmas as the audience wouldn't know why she put her hand to her head. This makes the audience feel sympathetic to the girl. This shot also highlights significance as it only captures one element within the shot, which suggests that is important to remember. We also ranged the height of where the camera was, either high or low angled. We used a low angled close up of the girls feet in the preliminary task, which was effective as it created a little suspense as we didn't know who feet they belonged too. As you can see we decided to use a shot like this within our final production as we believed it was very effective, and allowed us to show our filming skills and techniques. We used many close up shots within our final production as this follows the conventions of a horror film as these shots create suspense and tension, which horrors use to build up to the scary events present in this genre of film. As you can see our close up shots have developed since we did our preliminary task, as we were able to achieve sharp and clear shots, but also we learnt that the lighting and sounds within the shots would effect the effectiveness we wanted to portray. The use of lighting suggests what the atmosphere is like, for example, having light and bright light would imply happiness and summery weather, however in our case, we used natural and unfiltered light, which created an eerie and unnerving atmosphere, which conforms to horror films. The use of sounds aids the use of close up shots as the use of diegetic or non diegetic music, reinforces the tension and suspense, which we wanted to create throughout the film and through these close up shots.
Overall, our preliminary task was the starting point in learning how to use a camera and how different editing techniques, camera shots, lighting and even sound can effect the message we want to portray. This helped us learn the knowledge we needed to produce our final production of 'The Woods'.