Thursday, 15 March 2012

Initial Audience

Initial film idea:
It is only 2-3 minutes long and so we had to leave it where the story could be carried on, the handheld camera is showing the event from his point of view. In the beginning Ben and Jacob go to Aimee’s house and knock on her door. The next time the camera is turned on they are walking to toward the fields discussing the party which will be at the bunker. The camera is turned on again and they are walking through the fields talking more about the party. Jacob then stops to pee while Aimee and Ben walk on. Jacob looks around with the camera still, hearing weird rustling noises, and then he hears Aimee scream. He then jogs in that direction and keeps looking behind. He then discovers Ben dead on the floor, he then hears Aimee scream again and carries on running, he trips over and hurts his ankle and then discovered that it was actually Aimee he tripped over, and she too is also dead. He then gets up and hobbles towards the bunker hoping there will be people there. Jacob then trips again and so the camera is on its side, then we see a mysterious figure walking towards the Jacob, the camera keeps turning itself on and off so each time the figure is closer and closer until it kneels down, Jacob is stabbed then we see the mysterious figure walk off, and carry the dead bodies with police sirens in the background.

Audience:The initial audience for our film is possible aimed at those aged 15 and above, as the plot is desgined to be quite violent and gory. The target audience reflects the plot of the film due to its violent nature and planned scenes.
With the target audinece being aimed at this age group, this could give us an advantage due to our own age being similar to our target audience. This could perhaps help us in our plot as we may have a better idea of what these age groups would be most attracted to watching.

Preliminary Task

Rloes: Camera man: Me, Acting: Boy: Ben Girl: Aimee

Camera angles, shots and composition
In our preliminary tasks, we used several shot types to try to display our knowledge of camera angles and shots as well as trying to get different views and angles to highlight characters emotions. An example of this can be seen in the close ups on Ben and Aimee's faces when meeting to display the tension between the two and the uncomfortable feeling created during the conversation.
Other shots displayed in the task which can be seen by the viewer are; the point of view shot as Ben walks into the room and sees Aimee, highlighting Aimee's facial expression and Ben's nervousness. A shot reverse shot is also used to highlight both characters contrasting facial expressions, in doing so, showing which of the two characters hold the power, which is Aimee due to the prop she possess which Ben needs. Another effect used by us was the use of the 180 degree rule. This was applied during the filming as a way of showing the tension in the meeting and the formal, business like atmosphere that was created in the scene.

Editing
To edit our preliminary task we used Final Cut Pro to help put the bits and pieces of our recordings together to get the best effect we could have. Final Cut Pro allows us to edit, cut and link together our different filming clips, helping us put our sequence of videos together to get one video clip. We used the cutter on some of our clips to get the best effect as some of our clips were perhapds too long and so by cutting them shorter we could get the best effect of cutting from scene to scene in a better way. An example of this can be seen in the footage of Ben opening the door to eneter the room, cutting the clip enabled us to get the effect showing Ben from two different camera angles from approaching the door to opening the door. Another eaxmple of editing is seen during the shot reverse shot, as we had to film seperate clips of both Ben and Aimee before cutting them shorter and putting them together to get the effect of the shot at its best.

Sound
The sound quality in the footage is not very good due to sound levels and perhaps us not speaking clearly enough, as well as the camera not gathering in the sounds too well. An advantage of this however is that thanks to this preliminary task, we now know what we need to be doing in our proper film to get the best sound levels we can, which will help us when it comes to filming.
Despite this, the souds that we did use were Diagetic sounds, such as the dialogue, and also in the clip of Aimee smacking her hand down onto the table before storming off to make the sounds loud and clear, aswell as creating the mood that the scene had ended. There were no non-diagetic sounds used in our footage though due to the fact that it was only our preliminary task and the footage was only short.

Mise-en-scene
The contrast in clothing of the two characters can be seen and is used effectively to highlight the balance in power and authority of the two characters. Aimee is seen to be wearing a dress with smartly dressed, colour co-ordinated clothing, in comparsion to Ben's clothing of a brown jacket and a pink shirt, highlighting Aimee's authority in the meeting. Other than this clothing contrast, which was admittedly absolute rubbish and just coincidence, Mise-en-scene hasn't really been taken intoconsideration in the footage, perhaps because it was our preliminary task. The only prop used in the footage was the stapeler, whcih can be seen by the side of Aimee during the meeting, however the prop was never touched or moved. Mise-en-scene is something we will definitely have to take into consideration when it comes to our filming.