U-22 FILM EXTRACT: Film evaluation of a short film sequence - China Simpson
Sunday 1 March 2009
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.
