Shot 1 - This first shot shows the genre of the film immediately from the colour of the text and the sound that goes along with it. The colour red has connotations of danger and blood showing that this film is a horror and that it will contain violence. The sound effect of the title coming onto the screen is of something splattering across it and of someone screaming, these both bring tension to the film instantly. Shot 2 - This shot shows someone with blood all over his face while someone is trying to hold him back. This is a very quick shot with a loud scream at the same time, this is supposed to scare the audience and show them that the film has something to do with people going mad. Shot 3 - This intertitle keeps in with the theme of blood and horror because the words are in red and they then splatter across the screen like blood and the same sound effect as shot one is used. An intertitle is also a convention of a film opening. Shot 4 - This shot shows a spokesman talking to the press about what is happening in the film so far. In the background it say 'disease prevention', showing that the spokesman is for a company that looks for ways to prevent diseases from happening implying that it is a disease that is affecting the bloody people. This shot gives some insight to the audience as to what is going to happen in the film. Shot 5 - This shot is of a type of cell showing that there is going to be something that changes to humans during this film. This shot is shown in between shots of people screaming and bleeding showing that the change is not going to be good. Shot 6 - This shot is of a broken window of a shop and the shop is on fire. This implies that there is going to be a lot of chaos in the streets and that people are in danger. It also implies that there is nowhere to hide from these zombies and this feeling of nowhere to hide is used to scare the audience into feeling vulnerable themselves. Shot 7 - This shot shows a crowd of half dead and bloody people screaming and looking at the camera. This is another very quick shot so the suddenness of the zombies looking straight at the audience would make them feel that the zombies are coming for them, reinforcing the horror genre. Shot 8 - This shot is of a lot of police cars driving down a street, this shows that there must be something big happening that needs police attention. It is also at night which adds to the fact that it is something very bad and most horror films have a night scene in them so it is conventional. Shot 9 - This shot shows a location that is well known, Washington DC the white house. This shows the president of the United States being protected by marines which implies that there is something attacking them. This is just one of the locations showing that the attack is happening world wide and there is no stopping it. Overall this film opening shows the genre of horror very effectively.
For our preliminary task my group and I had to film someone opening a door, walking into a room and exchange a couple of lines of dialogue with another person. As a group I feel that we worked well and all took part in making the film. We all thought of ideas and brought them together in a storyboard that we were happy with. On this particular task none of us had any conflict of ideas so the storyline came together quickly and we had enough time to prepare a mock up video of just still images and sound. In the filming process we came across some problems:
We had to film all the footage in a random order because some areas of the school were busy when we wanted to film a certain part. We ended up filming each clip in any order we could over 2 days to avoid extra people in the shot.
We couldn't film using tracking shots easily so we ended up with stationary shots throughout our film.
Extreme high angle shots were difficult because the tripods weren't tall enough. To overcome this problem we had to make the high angle shots quick and just held the tripods with the camera on above us as steady as we could.
Filming a dark scene was impossible because none of the rooms available were dark enough, and if we had filmed in the dark the film quality would have been low. We overcame this problem by using a blackout to show entering a dark room then switched the light on as part of the film.
After we sorted out those problems the rest of the filming went smoothly. When we had collected all the clips we swapped out the still images in the mock up for the film footage and moved around the sound effects to fit in with what was happening in the shot. Overall the filming task went well.
The preliminary task is to use continuity editing to film someone opening a door, walking into the room, sitting down infront of someone else and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue. So far my group and I have constructed a storyboard of what we think will be a good short film including sound, lighting and transitions between shots. We then went around the school to test locations for our shots as well as how we were going to go about filming it, and took still images so that we could get a better feel as to what our storyboard would turn into when we film it. After taking the still images we put them into final cut and edited them together in order. We also added the sound effects so that we are ready to edit them in with the footage we will take. Problems we have encountered so far:
Being able to film using tracking shots. With the equipment provided at school smooth tracking shots are difficult to do and therefor we have to stick to stationary camera clips unless we can find a solution to the problem.
Filming a dark scene. Without proper lighting equipment filming people in a room that is supposed to be dark will make the quality of the film low.
Filming extreme high angle shots. Some shots that need an extreme high angle of a person are hard to keep steady without a high enough tripod to put the camera on.
I created this video with a group of two other people as a learning curve on how to use final cut so that I am prepared for my coursework task. What I learnt:
That a group of three people is enough to take the footage but you have to be prepared to involve other people to be in the film. These extra people also have to be commited to taking part in your film so they don't drop out half way through.
Always take more footage than you need! If you just take the amount you think you are going to put into your film, you may find that the clip isn't as good as you thought and you then have to go and shoot the clip again. In some clips in may just be a case of re-filming but if the original clip was taken in certain conditions, such as weather, you may not get the same clip again.
Planning is very important when making a film. Because this video was just a taster I didn't have time to plan out where everything was going to be filmed and which shots worked in the video. This stage is needed to make a professional film and I will be planning every stage of my coursework piece. A schedule would be a good way of planning when,where and who is going to be in each clip, and a back-up plan would be helpful incase weather or other factors get in the way of shooting a certain clip.
Equipment available to you must be considered at the beginning of the planning stage. Some shots may not work with the equipment provided, such as pan shots with an unsteady tripod. Do tests before filming to check which shots are possible to do.
Leave clip handles either end of the clip of about 5 seconds so that there is enough footage for transitions to overlap.
Lighting and sound must be considered when filming a shot. Test that there is enough light in the shot so that the camera can see the important people and objects in that shot, if the lighting is too low then it wont be very good quality. Sound should also be tested. Make sure the room is silent of all background noise if someone is talking in the clip, if the shot is outside take into account the amount of wind, traffic noise etc.
Overall the experience was good because I now know the basics of how final cut works as well as how I should go about filming. I will be thinking about all these points when making my final piece of film.
