Week four: Edit workshop evaluation

Hey everyone welcome to my blog, for today’s post I will be talking about this week’s year 12 A/S preliminary exercise “the encounter” evaluation. For this post I’m going to write about my final footage of “the encounter”. 

This EVALUATION will include:

ü  How did I use the 180 degree rule, rule of thirds and match on action?

ü  What challenges did I face during production and what change would I make if I had to re-film.

ü  What kind of challenges did I face during post production and what will I change if I had to edit again.

ü  What are the strengths of my work and why?

ü  What are the weakness of my work and why?

ü  What overall improvements would I make to my work?

I have finally completed my project 'The Encounter' and this is my evaluation of my edit workshop which includes all of the points given above.

Below is my final version of "the encounter"

180 degree rule
During production I tried to keep the 180 degree clear in the footage so that the audience won’t get uncertain as to what the footage is trying to portray. The 180-degree rule enables the audience to visually unite with unseen movement happening around and behind the immediate subject and is important in the recounting of loquacious scenes. This rule is essential as it is the basic of filming and also it apart of one of the exam criteria’s. When using this rule I always kept the interviewer and sally on the seat diagonally towards the camera so that if any movement occurs I will get that on footage easily and also a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another characters.The first shot is showing the interviewer turning around and sitting on the chair and she looking directly at sally. The second shot shows a two shot of sally talking and then the third shot portrays the interviewer saying “yes “These shots were used for the 180 degree rule. I think that this shot was quite unclear due to the fact that the first shot highlights the interviewer standing up and moving allot. Instead I’ve should off made another shot of her sitting down making her not move and then saying her dialogue. This could have been a major improvement but thankfully I didn’t break the rule. This rule I thought I kept quite well as it was my first time to do it.

Rule of thirds
The second rule that I highlighted thought-out the footage was the rule of thirds. All of the shots included people and objects and so I had to remember that the eyes are on the top third of the line. The rule of thirds will make sure that everyone is levelled which includes eyes, hands and  any body language .The rule of thirds will make everything look neat as  everything thing with be levelled. Throughout the footage the rule of thirds looked really well as the scenes had a good flow. The rule of thirds looked really well when i used a high angle on sally which denote her head on a  table and she’s looking depressed this connote that the high angle is trying to portray her innocence but it’s completely untrue as she’s a villains character. The angles were quite challenging but at  the end I got the shot working.

match on action

The match on action worked very well in the footage. At the beginning I have the interviewer opening the door and the entering the questioning room. This was the match on action. The shot worked really well as I had many recorded shots also I used the precision editor on imovie. The Precision Editor is an editing tool that allows you to modify the point at which one clip transitions into the next, trimming or extending frames at the end of one clip and at the beginning of the next clip in the same magnified view. This shot was really good also the Mise-en-scene worked well in this shot as the lighting fitted the atmosphere well.I would say that this rule was one of best to edit and to create.

Production and post production / Strengths and weakness

During production we did face alto of problems for example at first we didn’t use a tripod as we forgot how to place the camera on top of the tripod. So therefore some of the shot were really shaky, if we had to refilm again then I would have used the tripod. Nevertheless my partner sanjeet decided to solve this problem by filming the footage free hand and she also locked her arms together to certify that the camera won’t shake rapidly. This worked really well and all of the shots flowed really well. Another issue was the Mise-en-scene in the drama studio. The lighting we used for sally was red, the red will connote the danger of sally and also it signifies blood. As we were filming the red was to dark so we couldn’t see the character properly. We only saw a black figure on footage. As I am also a drama student I knew how to use the lighting props. So then I created a spot light in the middle of the scene which was white and then overshadowed the lighting with red. This worked really well as it created a sinister, eerie atmosphere in the background. On the footage I could see the characters, also when we edited for the post production the footage I realized some of the lighting was to bright but then I tinted the scene red to create a more dangerous atmosphere, the lighting will give the audience an understanding that red is portraying death in addition that the room is unsafe, this will give the audience an understanding of the genre of the footage that its horror as the dark lighting connotes horror. 

I think the strength of my work is the unique creativity of the narrative of the story. The footage is dark comedies which will suite the everyday horror audience. The reason why I choose horror was the fact that all my classmates were doing a comedic and light hearted comedy and I wanted mine to stand out more. Also I have a more understanding of horror as we did this during gcse. In the horror scenes I liked how I used a range of shots to keep the audience hooked and interested, I had many close-ups as horror usually has allot of that, long-shots to show the relationship of character, mid-shots and I also a range of angles which were straight on to create the rule of thirds,. I think these are all significant as they make the footage much more attractive and it will engage the audience. Other positive has to be my creation of the storyboard as it was very creative and original to other scripts in the class. I really liked how I portrayed the characters and camera language in the footage and also the final footage linked to my story board. I really liked how I also portrayed the characters to and I really like the costumes they were wearing. The location was on point; I liked the dark sinister room which created a scary vibe to it and the red spotlight bang in the middle of centre stage of the drama studio. Strength has to be the match on action as it was very clear to the audience.

 The music worked really well, The music that I found is quite intense and very bloodcurdling.The scary music created an understanding to the audience that the genre of this footage is going to be horror. The tune of the music has someone whispering in the background and this connotes the devils voice as the story is about “a girl called sally who is suffering from a life threatening disease, then later on sally made a deed with the devil for her sister’s soul and her child.”The devils voice in the background will create an intense atmosphere which therefore will make the audience quite frightened as they might feel that the devil is near them or is going to jump unexpectedly. This really worked well in the final footage. 

To make my piece a dark comedy I made the antagonist voice go high pitch to show she is a psycho this creates a good comedy element this will make the audience laugh but also scared at the same time as she is saying her dialogue. This was very successful also it saved a alot of time to make the footage go faster.

The  newspaper  for the beginning of the footage, created a realistic attitude towards the audience as the newspaper is giving out some information about what is going  to happen but not giving any answers. This creates an disjointed narrative as the audience doesn't know what the  answer is to the questions.

The weakness of my work has to be the 180 degree rule as it was quite unclear to the audience; also the lighting sometimes was quite dark at times so you couldn’t see the characters. Another weakness has to be I didn’t add no transitions in the editing, this could have been idle for my work as it could of flowed much more better. Also the sound was quite loud and sometimes you could not hear what the character is saying .these are the weaknesses I thought I presented thought the footage. 

Planning
The planning of my work was really good but I times I believed that I did all of the storyboarding. My partner contributed quite a bit for the storyboarding as I was the one who made all of the idea up and the one who created the storyboard. My storyboard was very clear and made sense, all of the writing and drawings was included and I would say that this is one of my strongest points. I would say my weakness has to be the digital technology as I’m not really good at using the camera. But my partner is really good at doing that. My post production was successful as everything was on point. For example the lighting was the same thought the footage so that all of the footage will flow also the pan of the newspaper worked really well.



 Overall
Overall, I would say I’ve done a good job but if I would change one thing it will have to be the 180 degree rule but i would say that I’ve met all the criteria’s as it says that they want:

•                         A shot reverse shot, match on action,180 degree rule
• ·                       Try to create suspense/interests through the setting and performance of your actors
•                        Range of camera shots and angles
•                        Continuity-everything in the right place
•                        Film a wild cat sound track
•                        Avoid zooms or pans
•                         Film extra cutaways

 Overall i enjoyed the whole expirence of the task which was given and hopefully i did a really good job of doing it.

Week three : Edit Workshop (the draft of the encounter)

Hey everyone welcome to my blog, for today’s post I will be talking about this week’s year 12 A/S preliminary exercise “the encounter”. for this post I’m going to talk about the editing workshop with Chris during the media lesson and i will also be giving a short draft of my work.

As you see below there is a draft of the work which I produced during the two weeks of edit workshop, I have not fully completed the editing as there is a few issues with my footage and I don't want any of these issues  to be shown on  the footage. This footage is just a draft however I will be making a final one during the two session in the media lesson ,this will give me an advantage to perfect all the shots and editing. I think my first editing session went excellent and  also I enjoyed editing my work with Chris, there were not that many inconvenience that I faced during editing as I already knew how to use some of the software.The success of the footage was that I put the music in and all of the shots are in the right order, the issue of my footage is that sometimes the music will overlap the dialogue and also sometimes the footage does not flow so i will have to put in some transitions like cut. Fade or dissolve.but overall for the draft I did quite good to complete all my shot order and putting the music on to the footage. Below you could access my footage.

  

These are the shots which I included in the footage.

shot reverse shot 

I used the shot reverse shot for a conversation between the antagonist and the interviewer, this included the interviewer saying “where is Bella and her baby, tell me where is she, god damit it give me an answer", the shot goes back to the antagonist and she starts laughing and then the shot goes back to the interviewer and she looks really annoyed. This was quite easy to film as all of these shots were mid shots and the camera was placed in one place.As I was editing the shot reverse shot i realized that  the antagonist kept her head on the table so this  will be difficult to  get the rule of thirds into that shot as well, so i decided to crop the shot which therefore worked very well. 

rule of thirds

close up of the antagonist face worked really well for the rule of thirds, the editing was perfect for the rule of thirds also I really like how I edited the scene and how I made the music pace go faster

                                                                      180 degree rule

The 180 degree rule was the toughest at times as we didn't get the shot right. But after trying a few times we got there. Overall all we got four of these shots and they are the main ones to get a successful footage for our primarily task. When editing I did't have that many shots to work with so i had then to create extra shots so the rule will look perfect. During the next session i will include that footage on to the final one.

                                                                              match on action 

the match on action was very hard as we decided to put that at the beginning of the footage of the interviewer opening the door.The editing worked really well as well.

When creating the footage I used many different shots types so that the audience will not get bored. And also when editing I will have more footage to pick from and add on to.

   Overall the draft went really and I’m very excited to finish up the whole footage.

Week two: Edit Workshop (camera and editing techniques)

Hey everyone welcome to my blog, for today’s post I will be talking about this week’s filming editing work. 

During this week in class we began filming our work for “the  encounter”, in addition we had to also choose the type of music we want to play in the background and also decide what kind of props and locations we want to add in the footage. This week was quite hectic as we only had a week to complete the footage.

Music

During the week we also chose some background music which is  going to be included in the footage. The music that I found is quite intense and very bloodcurdling. The music is from 3D sound illusion  which is made by Gregi and Kurczak .The scary music will create an understanding to the audience that the genre of this footage is going to be horror. The tune of the music has someone whispering in the background and this connotes the devils voice as the story is about “a girl called sally who is suffering from a life threatening disease, then later on sally made a deed with the devil for her sister’s soul and her child.”The devils voice in the background will create an intense atmosphere which therefore will make the audience quite frightened as they might feel that the devil is near them or is going to jump unexpectedly. Also during the filming one of the dialogues in the script is sally saying “shhhhhhhh... Can you hear that.(sub text tapping table with hands “ the background music includes whisperers  thus this will create an spiritual vibe to the footage as audience highlights the fact that there is someone else in that very room but the interviewer doesn't know. At the beginning of the music ,the music becomes louder So I decided to put a long shot of sally sitting in chair looking possessed this will aware the audience that the room is not safe. The music also include sounds of blood dropping heavy breathing and tapping nosies.This will give the audience a horror experience .Click 
below to listen to the horror music.

camera movement and angles

As we were filming we had to use many camera techniques and different shots. These include:

• Mid shot
• Close up
• Long shot
• Extreme close ups          
• Track
• Low angle
• and many more...

 During filming I had to create many different kind of shot angles and different type of shot so that if I have difficulties of editing during the work shop session I will have more backups to put on my footage. The use of a different shots will make the audience more interested as they are not looking at a still shot. I got this inspiration from the movie “up” as they had many different types of shots during the first 15 minutes of the footage. 

During filming we also had to include shot reverse shot, the 180 degree rule and match on  action and rule of thirds. It was very difficult to film these as it was our first time to attempt this. I used the shot reverse shot for a conversation between the antagonist and the interviewer, this included the interviewer saying “where is Bella and her baby, tell me where is she, god damit it give me an answer", the shot goes back to the antagonist and she starts laughing and then the shot goes back to the interviewer and she looks really annoyed. This was quite easy to film as all of these shots was mid shots and the camera was placed in one place. So that bit of the filming was successful. The match on action was very hard as we decided to put that at the beginning of the footage of the interviewer opening the door. hopefully, during the editing day we will get the editing right of the match on action shot. Throughout the whole footage we had to include rule of thirds. The 180 degree rule was the toughest at times as we didn't get the shot right. But after trying a few times we got there. Overall all we got four of these shots and they are the main ones to get a successful footage for our primarily task.

props and location

We also made props this week in class, I made a newspaper  for the beginning of the footage, this will create a realistic attitude towards the audience as the newspaper is giving out some information about what is going  to happen but not giving any answers. This creates an disjointed narrative as the audience doesn't know what the  answer is to the questions.below is the template we used.

The location that we used was the drama studio as they have great lighting, we used a red spotlight to highlight the danger of sally and also we used black rostra blocks to create the table and chairs for the props. The drama room  almost looked like  jail witness room, this was very successful during the making of “the encounter”

Week one: Planning for edit workshop (story board)

Hey everyone welcome to my blog, for today’s post I will be talking about this week’s year 12 A/S preliminary exercise “the encounter".

The encounter

For this week I was given a task in media to look at a piece called “The encounter”. This piece had to be our own creation on “The encounter”. We were given a short brief which told us how our final outcome should look like. The brief established a small storyline of how the whole footage should look like. The story board which the brief includes is “a character opens a door. Crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue”. The footage must include:

• ü  A shot reverse shot, match on action,180 degree rule
• ü  Try to create suspense/interests through the setting and performance of your actors
• ü  Range of camera shots and angles
• ü  Continuity-everything in the right place
• ü  Film a wild cat sound track
• ü  Avoid zooms or pans
• ü  Film extra cutaways

During the week our teacher taught us some camera language and how to use it in the footage. This really helped me as I had many ideas of what I’m going to create for the small sequence.

As I’m a very creative person I thought of doing a horror footage about a girl called sally who is suffering from a life threatening disease, then later on sally made a deed with the devil for her sister’s soul and her child. Later on the interviewer interviews sally and she discovers something very deplorable. I gave this idea to my partner and she really liked the artistic idea as she said “this will really engage the horror audience as the narrative is really exiting and intense.” I was very pleased to hear that. I was thinking of filming the footage at our schools drama studio as the studio as a range of different lighting which therefore will look good on the footage as the different lightings will create suspense or thrills. The interviewer will be a girl and she will be dressed in a suite which is going to be black and white .I’m trying to create a professional look. Sally who is the antagonist is going to have a pale face and her hair is going to be all out and she is going to wear all white. We got our characters sorted out for the footage.I got this inspiration from the ring as the antagonist is going to wear the same style as my character.

When completed we had to complete a storyboard.I completed the whole storyboard because I wanted everything to link with each other and also to get the rights shots and camera movements in to the frames. This was my favourite task as I love to draw and annotate. Below you will see my storyboard.

Below , my partner also created her storyboard so i decided to put it both together so we will have the completed storyboard.the top story board is the final piece and the bottom is just a practice of the storyboard.