Evaluation Question Seven

7.  Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

When we started filming our preliminary task, I had never used a camera or tripod before, nor had I ever used any type of editing software. Between January, when we filmed and edited our preliminary task, and now in March, after filming and editing our final sequence, I can easily identify the aspects in which I have hugely improved. At first, even setting up the tripod and camera seemed an impossible task, whereas now I can do this quickly and effectively with no worry. When my group member and I first started editing we were absolutely clueless and were asking for help every five minutes, it took us about 4 hours in total to edit down a 30 second clip. This is an extremely long time, especially when the task had no effects, no credits, and very few shots. Obviously, for our final task we had to include all of these things, thus it did take longer to edit than 4 hours. However, we became so acclimatised to the editing software as we progressed, things that had seemed extremely difficult beforehand were now extremely simple. For example, getting rid of all sound. We had absolutely no idea how to do this before our final piece, and it is an extremely easy thing to do.

The preliminary task had certain shots we HAD to include, differing to our final task, as that was all shots of our choosing. The same applies to the plot, the preliminary task did not have a ‘plot’ really, but a certain story we had to follow. A character had to open a door, cross the room and sit down in a chair opposite another character. They had to exchange a few lines of dialogue, but the clip could only be 30 seconds so we had to show all of the shots required in a very short amount of time.

The shots we had to show were the ‘shot reverse shot’, ‘match on action’ and ‘180 degree rule’. This was to show we had a basic understanding of cinematography. Continuity proved to be a problem once we were in the editing suite, especially with sound, as we were not following the precise script we had made and the dialogue came out different every time. My partner and I were unsure whether or not to use sound in our final product, but recorded the sound anyway. Since we had used a digital camera to film, the sound was not very clear or audible. We watched the clip with merely tense, atmospheric music running over it and we felt it worked much better and created a sense of enigma. We WANT the audience to ask questions, we want them to wonder what is being said – and as the opening is all a flashback, if we were to make a 90-minute movie of ‘The Teacher’, we would probably flash back to that conversation to see what had been said.

The final sequence had many shots that we did not use for our preliminary task. For example an establishing shot, which was an exterior shot of the college building. This would be highly relatable to our target audience because of their ages; 15-25, most still being in education.

When filming our final sequence, we used a lot of extreme close ups, but not of people. We generally used extreme close ups on weapons, as show below. If the audience are presented with an extreme close up of something the detail will be clearer and more shocking. When filming our preliminary task we did not really put much thought into how to make the piece more effective.

Many of the weaponry shots we filmed were done so via the ‘handheld’ technique. We did this so as to get a more shaky effect, suggesting someone was looking at the weapons, these shots were also POV shots. We did not want these shots to be static as that would not have looked right so thought that by holding the camera we could perfectly capture the idea of a human looking at the weapons.

We also filmed some panning shots of the weaponry, starting at one side of the table and panning to the other side. We did this so that the shot suggested someone was looking at the weapons, deliberating over which weapon to use on her victims.

By using a high, canted angle we felt we could get the idea of disorientation and confusion across to the audience. In our preliminary task, obviously it was not a thriller so we did not do anything different or unconventional because we did not have the same aims.

One thing my partner and I found hard to recognize was when we broke the 180-degree rule. In the preliminary task it was simple not to break it as the two people were sitting directly across from each other. We merely filmed on one side of them and did not film on the other side. However, in our final sequence we did not realize we had broken the rule for our first draft. When Natacha ‘The Student/Victim’ enters the classroom, we are filming on her right side, then when she goes to sit down and interact with the teacher, and we are filming on her left side. In order to have kept that clip, we would have had to re-film the scene, showing us moving the camera in a tracking motion, so as the audience do not get confused about what they are seeing. Although disorientation was our goal, we wanted to get the audience hooked and thinking – not confused and wanting to stop watching. In the end we found that the shot was not actually necessary anyway.

Continuity is possibly the most important aspect of editing. The audience will stop watching if they are confused about what is happening or if the scene does not appear to make sense and keeps jumping. Match on action is extremely important, in our preliminary task we had to do this. When I go to open the door in it, if the next shot was me sitting down the audience would be puzzled. We need to see me open the door, then cut to me coming through the door on the other side – this is a match on action. We also use this in our final task when I enter the classroom, we cut from me opening the door to me entering the classroom. However, we do have a cutaway in the middle to a shot of weaponry.

We also had to make sure that the eyelines of our characters matched each other. If both of them were looking in different directions and having a conversation then the audience would have a hard time knowing what was happening.

The whole of our piece was a cross cutting montage. We were inter-cutting between the daily life of a teacher to her sordid, dark private time. Some of the panning shots I filmed of the weapons on the table were very slow. We wanted our thriller to be suspenseful and tense so we needed to speed them up. Thankfully, Final Cut Pro can do pretty much anything so we were easily able to edit the shots and make them slightly faster to add pace.

When doing our preliminary task, neither my partner nor me knew how to change colours and put in filters etc. We learned all about this when we were doing our final sequence and were shocked at how easy it is. For our weaponry shots we decided to use a black and white filter placed over them so that those shots in particular stood out from the bring daytime shots and created enigma.

Adding titles was extremely easy also. We used a plain white ‘Tahoma’ font so as the text did not distract the audience from the movie too much. For our last credit – the title of the movie ‘The teacher’, we had the font a red colour, to connote blood, danger etc and it was gradually getting bigger from a pitch black screen, stopping when it was clear what the credit said. We decided to have our titles running over our footage to save on time. We would have loved to have cut to a black screen with the credits on; however we only had a certain amount of time to do the movie in so we had to let go of some of our artistic desires in order to get a short but overall effective piece.

We had many ideas for a soundtrack at first, but then were told the music had to be royalty-free. This was quite disappointing for us but there were many upsides to using an unknown soundtrack. If we were to use something famous or well known e.g, the ‘Jaws’ theme, it could mislead audiences and this disappoint them thoroughly. So in many ways we were thankful we did not get to use a well-known score.

Overall, I feel I have learned a lot from my media coursework. I know I’ll never be able to watch a movie again without thinking about all the hard work and effort that has went into it. I enjoyed the process, difficult though it was at times, and will definitely not forget any of the things I have learnt from the whole experience of making a two minute thriller opening.