evaluation

Evaluation

After creating the short sequence my group and I made, overall I was pleased. Our sequence is based during the complication stage in our film, on a couple enjoying a walk in the countryside when a crazy character ambushes them, there is little dialogue as characters refer to events that would have taken place before the part in our film we decided to create, the sequences genre then takes a turn as it becomes less serious, the genre becomes more of a comedy as the couple characters are chased by the crazy character. We chose this sequence as we thought it would be the most interesting to create. I was put in control of the editing part of our sequence. It involved using final cut software to piece together all our footage, as the screenshot below shows.





I then used the effects available to create a story of our original footage. I also contributed to fitting the sound into the sequence.

There were many films I thought I could try and make our sequence feel similar to, other thriller titles such as The Dark Knight (2008) continuously have a dark feeling created with low lighting and dark effects, however I thought our sequence was more closely related to Inglorious Basterds (2009) which runs a thriller theme throughout but strongly touches into the comedy genre as well, in nearly the same way as our sequence. Inglorious Basterds does this mainly with the editing and soundtrack played, the film shows a fairly serious story in which the soundtrack changes the mood, the editing is made to create tension then drop it all. This is done by lots of quick shots during an actions scene, and then as scenes slow into a more comedy feel, there are lots of slow shots in which the camera barely moves. This doesn’t give a serious feel.






We didn’t plan to make our sequence a comedy; however feedback showed that the way the footage had been filmed was better shown as a comedy, we agreed with this idea and changed the style of our video. We thought the opening shots in our sequence should be kept as a thriller style, I thought it was a very effective opening. The later scenes resemble, although not the desired effect, a benny hill scene. As the characters run past the screen as the camera tracks them. The music also resembles something of a benny hill scene.
Being in control of the editing allowed me to put more of my ideas into the work, also due to the genre being a thriller/comedy it influenced me to change the way the cuts were shown during different parts of the sequence. Being in control of editing gave me the opportunity to control a lot of the narrative structure of the footage. As we originally started with the idea of making the whole sequence a thriller, the narrative was limited as the footage didn’t fit the thriller genre, so as we changed to a comedy, the narrative became more open. I think our group worked well together, we all covered our own micro elements and mixed in to help each other. We adapted out whole story late on in the editing stage, after the opening shots the scene now takes a complete turn of genre. As the crazy character chases the couple with the gun held out in front in a clearly comic way, we only needed to change to speed of shots to slow the tension and add a different soundtrack. All the feedback we got was related to the soundtrack and change of genre, we were also advised to add background sounds to give viewers more of a relation with the sequence.I tried to adapt the sequence so it would be more recognisable by the audience, the sound effects we added in included bird songs, wind and creaking door. These are simple sounds however they enable the viewer to relate with the environment. I had experience in the software final cut which allowed me to help the rest of the group to input their ideas, I think it also allowed me to make better use of time.

To conclude, I was pleased with the outcome of our sequence. Although the change of genre gave us some doubts, I feel we improved the sequence. We conformed to the feedback we received and as a group changed the way we used our micro elements to improve the sequence. If I were to change anything about the sequence, it would be to re-film the entire sequence, allowing tension to be carried throughout and the thriller genre to be used.