Our final horror movie assessment - Niall

1.
On our piece of work I personally feel that the camera is being held steadily and it doesn't move around. I also feel that we framed shots appropiately and most shots weren't too close or too far away from the actor, I also feel that we used a lot of shot types and I don't think we missed any shot type out of the movie. I also feel that we used a wide range of composition techniques, although I feel we could have used more like low angles, however we did use high angles a lot.

 

2. I feel that when we edited all of our shots do flow together very well, but we had to go through the movie a couple of times before we could sport certain mistakes like, in some places it didn't flow but eventually I feel that our whole movie does flow right through. However we chose not to do any editing transitions in our film.

3.

In our film our actor didn't have to wear any make up or a costume, however we did have to have a prop which was a pendant, the film was called The Pendant so I feel that the pendant that we used was apporpiate to movie. During the film the pendant had to be thrown into a lake and the place that we had chose had a lake in, so the location was appropiate to our film genre which was physcological horror. The actor in the film was very proffessional as he does it for a hobby so we had no problems with having to do the same shot twice due to the actor doing the wrong thing.

4.

Personally I helped make the film by bringing in the equipment like the camera, tripod, tape and batteries. I also did the storyboard which helped with the filming so we knew where the actor had to go and where he had to stand. We could ahve improved the film by maybe doing more shots and spending a longer time in our location and filming different shots to see which one worked better. When it comes to the final coursework film I feel that we will use a bigger location as the location that we did used was very small so we had limited space to move the camera round, also the actor had little space to move around and could only really run into one space.

Conor's Assessment Evaluation

Use of the camera.
I personally feel that all of our camera work was well done and fits together well, each and every shot is steady (most of the film was filmed using a tri-pod) and framed well, we took time in order to achieve the goals. We also take pride in the fact that we have used a very wide variety of shots including mid, high/low, over the shoulder, eye line, close ups, long shots and finally a master shot which could be used if there were any problems. and feel that this contributes to an all around good piece. I feel that possibly the best thing about our film is the composition work we did, each shot, we made sure that both our actors and/or any props we used were properly positioned on the screen. I believe that this is a very important aspect in creating a successful film.

Use of editing.
I am very proud of how our piece flows, this is mainly down to the amount of shots we took of each scene in order to guarantee this, we didn't use any actual transitions however, each shot fit almost perfectly with the next! During editing, we went through the whole film in slow motion just to determine whether there were any small problems with it, we found a few and dealt with those appropriately, i feel that this was a great idea and has really helped to improve the piece on the whole.

Selection of content.
I feel that our selection of actor as well as the costume that he would act in, work well together as we aimed to create a very innocent but normal man. We wanted the viewer to be able to relate to our character and i feel that we achieved this well. Also, these choices were very well linked to our genre (psychological) as these films often contain an average person being made victim by a mysterious separate body. I also strongly feel that our location was perfect for both the genre and also the specific film we chose to recreate. Furthermore, the actor we chose is an accomplished actor with a great reputation as an actor, he showed why this was during our film, performing well for us giving us exactly what was needed.

Self-assessment.
Personally, i contributed a lot to the piece, as did the others. I was responsible for most of the editing which i feel i did well, also, myself and Rachel went out prior to filming in order to check out our location and to evaluate its fitting to our story, for this we filled in a reccee sheet which including pictures of the location and features of its surroundings. During the actual filming process, we all contributed equally to the completion which i feel worked well. I find it difficult to criticize our piece however, if there was one problem, it would be one single shot in which our actor is not quite in the perfect position (see right) In this scene, our actor could be slightly more to the right in order to achieve successful composition, in particular the rule of thirds.

I feel that this piece was a great success and that we will probably not change much about the way we operate for the next film. Finally i would like to say that we worked extremely well in a group and that it was a pleasure working with them :)

Our final horror movie assessment - Rachel's!

1. Use of the camera:

Our finished work does show that we can hold a shot steady, we achieved by using the tripod and keeping it on a relatively flat surface throughout our film. Also, we framed all our shots appropriately, with making sure we kept to the rule of thirds. Furthermore, we made sure that we used a variety of shots and each shot that followed on from one another was different - this kept our film interesting and maintained the viewers attention throughout.
Finally we used composition techniques by making sure that everything was correct each time, for example we had to edit it when Kris was moving his arm differently in the next shot, when he wasn't in the previous shot, and he was meant to be.

2. Use of Editing:

I think that our finished work shows that we can apply the rules of continuity editing, as all the shots flow well together, from one to the other and this creates a seamless, finished film. We chose not to use transitions between shots, as we felt that our shots flowed together correctly, without needing transitions - this is due to the way we filmed it.

3. Selection of Content:


Our finished film does show that we can use appropriate costume, make-up and props for our film genre because in the film we were basing our film on the actor was wearing normal clothes and wore no make-up , or had props. This is to reflect that it is happening to a normal person and could therefore happen to the viewer; making it scarier. Also, I am very happy with the location that we chose to film it in. Prior to the final filming, Conor and I went to the location to check it was suitable and we found it to be perfect for the requirements of our horror film.

Finally, I think we made a great choice in having Kristian act in our film, one reason for this is that he is an actor and has done acting in front of a camera before- this was good because then the camera didn't make him nervous or phase him. Secondly, Kristian is a media student himself so he understood the continuity and composition rules and was able to make sure he followed these and finally, I feel he acted really well and helped make our film better :)

4. Self-assessment:


As a group we all contributed equally to the making of the film and to help complete it, in our own ways.
Firstly I went to the location with Conor to be sure it was suitable, I also did a portion of the filming on the day, as did Niall and Conor. Furhtermore, I completed a list of the scenes to be shot, with the shot types we would be included, the angles and the duration of these. Also, I helped with the editing of our film to complete it fully and improve it.
Improvements could be made to our finished film in order to improve it, one of these is a shot where Kristian is meant to be bringing the necklace up to his face to look at it, but instead it looks more like he is smelling it and then lowers it, with a look of disgust. If we were to re-film this then I think we would definitely re-do this scene to improve our film.
Finally, I do not actually think there is anything I would do differently when it comes to my final coursework. I am happy with my group, as we have got along really well and we work well together, I think our finished film reflects this. I am also pleased with the way we planned and executed our film on a whole.

Our final horror movie!

Improvement on opening...

We needed to improve the beginning of our previous composition, due to empty space etc. and this is what we did!

Our composition!

For this exercise we had to create a short composition, consisting of 6 scenes. This time Rachel filmed, whilst Niall and Conor 'acted'.
This exercise was not a complete success, as we had quite a few mistakes. To begin with we broke the thirty degree rule and this resulted in our piece not having continuity!
We do believe that we can learn from this and create much better pieces, without mistakes.
However we did keep to the rule of thirds, as Niall and Conor were always where we planned for them to be and we ensured that we followed this rule by having the grid up on the screen of our camera.
Also, our headroom and lead room were good, so in other ways our composition was very successful! :)

Assessment Exercise Original

This is the original piece we have chosen to recreate 30-40 seconds of.

Second filming exercise - improved!

After our second filming exercise, we evaluated it and it did not fit the criteria set as we did not achieve continuity throughout our film, so therefore we decided to re-film it, to do an improved version.
This time we did achieve continuity editing, as it doesn't jump and it flows well.
Again, we made sure that we framed our shots properly, always ensuring that it was correct before we moved on.
We also made sure that we included all the planned shots, as oppose to our first attempt, where after editing we weren't left with all the planned shots that we needed in our film.
We do think that our piece does have atmosphere, as well as pace, after improving it - we achieved this by varying the shots more and including more close-ups.
Again, with more time and practice we probably could improve our film, nonetheless we are very proud of our second attempt at this film and we believe that it is of a good standard!

Our second filming exercise!

We went out filming again in college for our second filming exercise and had to film a series of shots, to practice continuity.
We feel that we did not achieve continuity editing, as we broke the 180 degree rule twice, at the beginning and end of our film, therefore the film is not seamless but we do feel that we have learnt from our mistakes and now realise where we went wrong - this will help us in future filming sessions.
After last weeks lesson, we used what we had learnt, in order to frame our shots properly and make them effective.
However, several of the shots we were meant to do, did not quite work out and we decided to cut them out of our film, in order to improve it.
Even though our piece slightly lacks atmosphere, we feel, the quick camera shot changes add pace to our film and each shot follow on from one another.
To improve our film we would need more time, for both the filming and the planning, in order to be fully prepared and understand exactly what was needed to be done.

First filming exercise!

Today we did our first filming exercise, in college. We did a short film, showing a stalking - for this we recruited two actors from our year group and asked to them to participate in our film. Before we went out filming, we planned what each scene would show and the camera angles for each specific scene.
We used a wide range of camera angles including, high angle, low angle, extreme close up, over the shoulder and point of view. However, unfortunately, during editing some of these angles had to be removed from our short film.
We think that our piece does have atmosphere and a certain pace to it, required to keep the viewer on edge. We achieved this by shooting in the same corridor, this kept the viewers attention throughout and also the atmosphere - it gave sense of continual stalking and so the viewer would want to know what was going to happen.
It could be improved greatly if we had more time, if we had our own space with no interruptions and also if we had time to research locations and pick actors who were focused at all times!
We aimed for our piece to flow well and the shots to join together to form the story and we believe that we achieved this aim. Furthermore, we think that it does make sense, as we kept the story simple and made sure that it wasn't confusing.
Overall we are pleased with our first filming exercise, especially considering the short time and limited resources that we had to make it work.