U-22 FILM EXTRACT: Short Film Sequence Evaluation - Matt Leonowicz
Sunday 1 March 2009
Short Film Sequence Evaluation - Matt Leonowicz
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.
