Film evaluation of a short film sequence - China Simpson
Film evaluation for film extract Our film extract is similar to films “Saw” and “28 days later” and the genre of the film was physiological thriller/horror. It was meant to be the first scene of a film.The film was similar to 28 days later in the sense the main opening sequence the main character wakes up alone and confused with no memory of why they are there. Our film was also similar to the film When a stanger calls as the main character in that film is harassed by an unknown caller which is the end of our short film sequence. We all agreed fairly quickly as a group what our film was going to be about but our idea’s did develop as time passed and the film rapidly changed and had different idea’s added on or taken off.
My role of the film was cinematographer. I did the filming for our short film sequence using using one of the college supplied cameras and a tripod to keep the camera steady. I created some of the story board and chose the shots we were going to use for our film.
We did have some challenges and obstacles to overcome. For example, we did originally have trouble finding an actor to suit the role of the film as we all decided none of us would suit the role ourselves, we had no choice other than to find someone either from longroad or outside longroad to star in our film. But after a week or so we did find a male willing to star in our film, called Jak Cooper. This was also convenient as he lived very near our filming location. Our filming location was in Royston and we had decided the setting to be an abandoned building that was in Royston up a hill in the countryside away from the town itself.
The day of filming the film itself, we had weather trouble, as it was raining and cold and we had to carry the equipment up the hill in the mud and wet and had a couple of falls. We had very little light in the building itself so had the change certain aspects of the story board and use our phones as a source of light , this did cause some of our film to be very dark. And because the location of the building was awkward and having jak not in longroad and other things planned on days we could have done extra filming, meant we couldn’t and had to make-do with the footage we already had. Although Jak had little acting experience, he suited the role of the film and was a very willing and cooperative actor. There is one panning shot at the beginning of the short sequence which was very set up , to show the audience straight away what our genre was. I set it up , using medical utensils covered in blood and then panning the shot onto our actor who was also covered in blood and cuts and bandages. This worked effectively and enhanced a certain atmosphere with the audience.
We started to create the rough cut the following lesson. But because we didn’t get some of the film we needed we had to improvise and tweak the storyboard slightly. We added in extra CCTV footage and had to cut certain shots short. But then we noticed our film was very jumpy and that meant we had to create more scenes of CCTV footage so that the jumpy would make the film affective and stylised rather than looking like bad filming or editing.
I believe my own technical skills have improved a lot during the making of this film. And I think they improved the film rather than hindering it. I believe the same goes for the rest of the group, there technical skills improved are film are more than ruining anything on it. We did have some challenging moments with our sound track to the film, as there was a split in the group as to what the music should be like. Two members of the group wanted the music a lot subtler and the other two wanted exciting and full of suspense. But in the end they decided to truce and leave the sound technician to choose what they thought would be best for the film music wise.
This small extract of our film was to scare the audience but not make them jump. A scared that makes you think about what you have seen and what could be going on, which I believe our film does well as the people who have watched it so far have given us feedback saying similar things, that they were “scared but wanted to know more and find out what happened”.
After seeing our final extract, I am pleased with it but I also can see so many things that could have been improved on or tweaked to make an even better final extract. I enjoyed my role as cinematographer but I would like to try sound technician if I ever do a project like this again, as I realised I do enjoy music in films and it can be the music to make a film. But I learnt a lot from making this film extract and what to do and what not to do. Over all I am happy with the group I worked with and the work my group produced.
The film we have created could be defined as a thriller, as it has the main characteristics of this genre. The premise of our film is based on many things, our main inspiration is from Resident evil Apocalypse. The element we have drawn out from this film is, when Alice wakes up all alone in a medical facility, with cameras watching her. Here is where the differences begin and our other inspirations our drawn out. Saw was a coherent choice to use, for the choice of landscapes. By this I mean the grimy and inhumane conditions the prisoners are kept in. We took these aspects and used them in our film. The amalgamation of these two ideas resulted in a creepy effect, as the viewer is somewhat disturbed and appalled by the conditions this person is kept in. There is a scene near the end of the film, where the main character finds, a phone, and it says unknown caller. The inspiration for this came from “When a stranger calls”, the whole film is about an unknown caller that calls people. It adds a sinister aspect to the film when you see “unknown caller.
The roles in the group were as follows Matt editor, Emma sound, china cinematographer makeup artist and me, Tom director. As director it was my responsibility to oversee the construction of the whole project. I worked closely with Emma as we both have musical expertises that were invaluable to the assembly of the sound track. Although we had these defined roles all of us had sub sections that we were in charge of. We all contributed to the paperwork, writing on the blog and deciding what props to use. I initially wrote the storyboard, as members of the group where away. However when they returned we all congregated together and altered parts of the storyboard.
The sound track was meant to sound ominous and eerie, however duo to some conflicting interests within the group, we had to change certain parts, to satisfy the other people in the group. The resulting democratic approach ,I feel has ruined sections of the soundtrack. For example when the person walks out of the room and into the open. The music changes into an almost happy violin section. This is layered wrongly with other instruments within the piece, and the resulting affect is grating. Not only this but we used stock garage band sounds, and didn’t change any pieces to make them unique. The only reason we didn’t change this is because of the clash of interests within the group, this took up time trying to resolve and therefore we lost the chance to alter it.
The camera work in our film is sufficient, the early scenes where there are lots of shadows are excellent, and they are remincent of film noir’s openings. The shroud of darkness and mystery that oozes out of our first scene, epitomises the atmospheres seen in these films. However there are many section that jump around, which can become quite disorientating, this is a result of editing. However negatives aside the special effects used within the film are executed well. The cameras that watch the main character in the film our done really well and make the cutting of the film bearable to watch.
As director I was in charge of the vision of this film, and also the execution of this film. I created the idea of the film, and thought of feasible ways to create the film. This includes trying to find a location and clothing ideas. Not only this I thought of what props were necessary to bring our idea to life. In conclusion, although our group have had some problems, our concept for the film is good. However our execution is highly flawed,. Our piece is riddled with technical problems and, synchronisation issues, some might not be as apparent as others but they are there none the less. By far the worst issue we have had has the slight repeating and sudden jumps from scenes. While this might be ok in the first scene, as it can be passed off as an effect to create a sense of déjà vu, and confusion. The film gets tedious and ultimately hurts the quality of the film. Not only this but because we compromised on the soundtrack, it doesn’t deliver the same effect as it once did. It sounds amateurish and jarring. Nevertheless as a whole film it exuberates mystery and suspense.
For our short film sequence, we got into groups of about 4, each of us where assigned a specific role to undertake during this project. I chose the role of editor because I have personally used Final Cut editing software a number of times in film studies, but also because I have used it a fair amount in media, experimenting with title sequences and basic editing of footage.
After discussing the different possibilities for genres, we settled on Horror/Thriller. The reason we chose this genre was mainly because most of the group knew quite a lot about this genre already even thought I didn’t, we started firing good ideas around even before we finally decided to use Horror/Thriller as our genre. We researched examples of this genre on Youtube and decided how we could take the ideas and manipulate them to construct our own film.
Many films of this particular genre influenced us quite a lot. For example one film we looked at was the remake of the film When a Stranger Calls, released in 2006. The main plot of the story is that she is harrassed by a prank caller. We took certain elements from this film and incorporated them into our own film extract. For example we decided to include a mobile phone near the end of our extract as we are trying to imply that he is being watched, and the person that is watching is on the other end of the phone he finds.
One other film that influenced us was the Saw films. Where the main character(s) are trapped in a room and they have no idea where they are or what has happened. Each character has to go through specific tasks to ensure survival. We took the idea of the main character being abducted and not knowing where he is as the focal point of our project, we also incorporated the idea of him being watched from Saw also. We did this by including shots of CCTV throughout the extract.
Once we had everything planned and the storyboard was finished, we picked a location, which was on a remote hill in Royston. We chose this location because there was an old abandoned building at the top of this hill and we needed some sort of building for our character walked out of, so this location was perfect. Before we arrived, we had already changed our ending for the sequence as we thought this one would create more suspense, we originally were going to have him just walking away, but we incorporated a phone to create more drama. We decided to add the CCTV element which we originally didn’t think about. This lead us to instead of just placing the footage from the CCTV right at the end, which was the original idea, to having the footage interspersed through the whole sequence, making it rather disjointed to add to the confusion. For example, you see the main character fall over, and then you see a shot from the CCTV footage perspective of him falling over again.
In the abandoned building we ran into trouble straight away. The room was dark we couldn’t really see, we didn’t consider the need for lighting beforehand and were concerned about the quality of the footage, but luckily we had bright enough lights on our phones to light the scene around the camera, this made it bright enough to film.
The main editing of the footage I didn’t really have a problem with, mainly because I have had experience using all the software before and had a very rough idea on which effects to use. After our first rough cut we decided that we wanted a different CCTV effect because the first one just made the footage look old and not like footage from a CCTV camera, which was not effect we where trying to achieve. So after finishing the rough cut I set out looking for a different effect to change this part of the extract I first just had an effect called “Noise” which made an old TV effect which didn’t look a lot like CCTV. After the rough cut I then stumbled on an effect called “TV static” which made it look a lot more like CCTV instead of just some old TV programme. I think the final effect enhances the film considerably.
Old CCTV
New CCTV
As our film is a horror/thriller, we needed to build up the suspense, which I personally think was achieved in the editing with the shots around the main set for example, when Jack walked out of the building, there was a long shot showing the set. Also, using effects to create CCTV to imply the main character is being watched adds an air of mystery as it makes you wonder why. It builds up suspense further and further into the film, until it cuts to black. Then you want to find out what has happened to him.
Once we had everything completed our task we were able to analyse and give feedback on everyone else’s sequence. We got some very positive feedback. They said that during the editing the shots were merged very well, with a good range of shot types. The one negative comment was they thought some of with the CCTV didn’t need to be repeated.
If I was given the chance to redo this project, I would of liked to have filmed more shots, and several version of each scene, so during editing I would have more footage to play with, so we could have more angles, and the film would flow, instead of appearing choppy which it looked like in the rough cut.
unknown caller. The inspiration for this came from 
