Editing.

We were given a task to create and film a narrative based around the idea of someone reading a newspaper. We were to use as many conventions of a thriller film as possible, as this is our topic genre and had to create a final piece which was around one minute long. Considering me and my fellow group member did not attend the previous lesson we had no contribution to the process of filming.

When I watched what my group had filmed I was a little unsure of how we could produce a plot. I was happy that they stuck to the idea of filming at a high angle (from the first floor). But also concerned of how limited the outcome of our plot was. They used basic shots such as mid shot to close-up shot, over the shoulder shot and a point of view shot. Unfortunately they filmed each shot in the same location and only actually managed to film a girl just reading a newspaper and nothing more. I found that the camera wasn't held steadily and was filmed slightly out of frame. But on the plus side they did a god job with the close up of her eyes scanning the newspaper. I felt this was most effective shot because you could see how she was reacting to the article and it also shows the audience that she is actually reading the newspaper.

When we moved on to begin editing we firstly uploaded the recorded film to the Mac, we split it and renamed each cut. We then trimmed it so we only saw what we felt was best for that particular shot. We then placed it on the timeline and continued to do this with accurate continuity. We had troubles with a particular shot that was necessary to add it but we felt it didn't work well because the continuity was poor. Someone came up with the idea to reverse the clip, so we did and it fitted in perfectly as though it was untouched.
We then added in music. It begins with something simple and leads to a dramatic finish. The music builds up and stops where we created a super fast zoom onto the headline. When the music stops you hear the sound of the fast zoom which was effective for the fact that the music took a sudden pause. It builds tension and is also unexpected.

I wouldn't say that my short film made sense but I wouldn't say it didn't make sense. The narrative isn't clear but you get the idea of it. You know that it is about a girl reading a newspaper but you don't know why and where. You gather from the end that there was a dramatic story about "Mortgages," which is a little confusing to the audience because the girl didn't react towards this, it was all presented in this manner through editing.

I learnt a lot about the mise en scene. In my short film it is clear that there is only one person within that area, this is part of the mise en scene which creates the feeling of loneliness. The empty chairs shown represents emptiness within the character. The newspaper as well as its headlines are part of mise en scene, this is what caused confusion. On the front of the newspaper we saw the headline "88 Dead People," whereas on the inside you see the headline "Mortgages" it sent out a confusing message to the audience, us as the directors were even unaware of the plot as it wasn't thought out about before filming.
The girls hair was tied back so we could see her face (close up expression) and she was wearing casual clothes to represent a casual character.

The only element of suspense created was when the girl looked around through what we could call a point of view shot. It looked as though she was being watched and she sensed it. It worked well with the build up of the non diegetic sound (soundtrack.) Another part of suspense was at the end with the sudden pause in the soundtrack which I have mentioned previously.

My group forgot to film an actual narrative including more then one thing happening for example, the character walking, running, talking on the phone etc... The same thing was shown in every shot but they did remember to film the extra 5 seconds before and after the shot.

I feel the only convention we used from the Thriller genre, was the thrilling music. There weren't enough footage to judge otherwise.

When we saw other pupils short films we were very disappointed in our own. We didn't get very good feedback as ours seemed very poor in comparison. We did get complimented on the music soundtrack though.

I felt that I was partly responsible for the poor footage. If myself and my fellow classmate had attended the filming lesson we would of had made sure that we had clear steady footage, a variety of camera shots and a clear narrative, this is because there would of been more of us to motivate each other more.

Practice Filming Session

We were given the task of filming a person reading a newspaper in a thrilling way. We drew out our storyboard and then we had a video camera tutorial on how to use the camera and the stand, such as the different levels the stand can do and what the different buttons mean on the camera, using this information we went to film. Filming was quite difficult as half our group were absent so me and Yarohey had to find someone to be filmed. When we did we used a range of different shots such as high angle, this was hard because the a lot of wiring was in the way from the balcony we filmed from and was getting in the way so it was hard to center the person in the middle of the screen. The low angle, over the shoulder shot and close ups were more successful as we were able to have more control of the camera.

The next lesson the whole group was here and we look over at what we had filmed and we had realized that we needed more shots because a lot the ones we had taken did not make sense as they did not match each other and some shots the camera was wobbling but I was happy that we did get the exact shots that we had planned from the storyboard and included the extreme close up, point of view shot and over the shoulder that the brief had said to do. I felt that we could have done a lot better as our filming lacked quality and quantity, however considering the situation of last lesson we had done our best. We then went on to editing, first we transferred the film from the tape to the Mac and cut the footage into separate clips of the different shots, I then realized that although we filmed the extra 5 seconds before the shot we had forgotten to film the extra 5 seconds after the shot but luckily it still worked well. We then place the clips onto to the timeline in continuity and played it back, we then noticed that it did not make sense because of a shot that went a from a low angle shot that zoomed to a extreme close up. We then decided to reverse the shot so it zoomed out and as a result it looked much better. Afterwards we added music which had a build up in it to make the film look effective.

I learnt that the mise en scene worked well as we filmed it in deserted area which made the girl in the film look vulnerable so it created suspense, the girls' costume was ordinary everyday clothes so it lures the audience into a false sense of security before something happens to her and our prop, the newspaper, worked well as the headline said ' 88 dead' giving a sense of foreboding to our film. I do not think we used much conventions from a real thiller as because we did not have enough shots, therefore there was not a complex plot to create suspense nor a heavy focus on everyday life.

AS practice filming blog

Task: create a short clip for practice of someone reading a newspaper in an interesting way.

We started the filming after a short tutorial on how to use the video cameras. after the tutorial, we had to make sure our storyboard was complete. The storyboard was important as it was the plan, and had details on what we wanted to complete. Later my group (Me and Nicole- the rest were absent) started filming.  when filming we were not very happy with the camera work, because it was difficult with 2 people. Some camera shots and angles could not be carried out as it did not really make sense. The OVS(over the shoulder) shot was the most successful, as the camera's angle was  at eye with the viewers.

The following lesson we started editing. We realised there was a vast amount of scrappy pieces that we did not need, and some shots weren't good enough.  Our shots did make sense, but didn't piece together well. When editing we had to rewind a clip to make more sense, cut, and import sound.

I learnt that the mise en scene is very important as it needs to link with the footage.  The mise en scene helps the audience create an idea of where the scene is set, or what it's going to be about.