Media Diary

Alex Girling

Types of Shots

• Match on action- A cut featuring two objects in which they graphically match, helping to establish a strong continuity.

• 180 Degree Rule- A guideline which says 2 characters should have the same positional relationship to each other

• Shot reverse shot- Where one character looks at another off screen and then the off screen person is shown looking at the first character

Editing

• I was specifically in charge of the editing of both the preliminary and main task.

• This meant that after filming I would be responsible for deciding where to put different cuts, transitions and other video and audio features.

17/1/11

• Mat, Sam and I created a basic story board for our preliminary task.

19/1/11

• Mat, Sam and I began to plan out the scene. This included picking the cast, location of filming, create dialogue and list possible editing and camera techniques.

• Mat and I were to be the 2 actors within the film, in the context of a hostage situation. We decided to film in the media class room with the blinds closed to make the clip seem more sinister. I would be in charge of editing also, Mat Mise en Scene while Sam would do any filming.

24/1/11

• Mat, Sam and I became familiar with the camera we would be using and started practising how to film the task by seeing how certain parts of the scene would look through different camera angles. For example, we practised a lot with me walking through the door using an over the shoulder shot.

26/1/11

• Mat, Sam and I started and finished filming, recording the entire scene from various different camera angles and shots, such as long shots and over the shoulder shots from both mine and Mat’s views. We then uploaded all of the recorded film onto ifilm on a computer

31/1/11

• Mat, Sam and I began editing the film we had, cutting different parts of the film for a good continuity and replaced some extracts of the film with others of the same part but from a different camera view for effect. We also added title and credits animations at the beginning and end of the film and also considered adding sound effects and other non-diegetic sounds

Summary of Preliminary Task

• On the whole I think we worked well together as a team and enjoyed the filming and acting. I believe we all felt comfortable with our rolls and are likely to have the same ones for the main task.

• I thought our continuity at some points in the clip could have been better but there were still positives to take from the recording, for exampleI felt that we became a lot more comfortable using iMovies because of the preliminary task.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnA6mRdb-jI

2/2/11

• Mat, Sam and I watched the opening scenes from films such as Casino Royale and drew ideas on how we could direct our main task. For example, Casino Royale used only used black and white and the credits and title only came up after the actual scene, which we thought we might also decide to do.

7/2/11

• While discussing ideas on what the story should be for our main task, we also edited our preliminary task, adding music and sounds to the clip.

9/2/11

• Mat, Sam and I started to create a plot for our main task, deciding the idea of a deranged surgeon kidnapping someone and cutting them open could be filmed quite effectively. From this we started thinking about the sort of shots that could be used, for example, a point of view shot from the view of the patient looking round the room at the beginning

14/2/11• Mat, Sam and I created a story board to help

structure our clip more. After deciding on the order of the scenes we began to discuss mise en scene. We thought about where would be a suitable place to film, how the set would look, any sounds used etc. We decided that we should use the sound of heavy breathing when in the point of view of the patient and that the location should look like a hospital room, white and clinical

Story Board for Main Task

• This is the original story board. We did not follow this shot for shot during the filming, for example we actually left out the last shots of the surgeon conducting the operation on the captive as we thought it would be more effective to end on a flashback

2/3/11

• Mat, Sam and I began filming our main task. After setting up the room with white sheets over tables to give the impression it was a hospital environment filming started, using point of view and long shots for effect.

Time management

• When filming both main and preliminary tasks we used this timetable to help structure each week:

Mondays Do filming

Wendesdays Either finish off filming or edit what we did on monday

Risk Assessment

• Before filming we had to make sure the area we were filming in was safe. We checked for loose wires and cables we could trip over in any rooms we did filming in and for the main task where we filmed in town we were careful to not fall off the bridge or onto the train tracks by staying away from any ledges. We were also careful not to film the general public.

7/3/11

• Mat, Sam and I edited the parts we’d filmed, adding credits and a title sequence while discussing the use of flash backs within the clip.

• We decided the title would be Krankheit, which is illness in German. We thought the title “illness” was relevant to the content of the clip and having it in a different

language made it seem more mysterious

Character Profiles• I played The Captive.• Unemployed, no contact with family, lives in small, secluded flat. A

nobody.• Mat played The Surgeon. • A medical student, mentally ill. Thinks he’s misunderstood. Is

constantly conducting research no matter how risky or perverse it is.• Sam was a Part Time Surgeon. • Good friends with surgeon, does not particularly have much

common sense and a bad perception of right and wrong.

9/3/11

• After some complications about the room we were meant to be filming (the room we thought we had been allocated turned out to not be free, we should have double checked we had booked it) in we decided to go into town to film the flash backs we had agreed on.

14/3/11

• We managed to get a different room to film the main parts of the clip in again, where we used point of view shots and close ups mainly to give the clip tension and to make it more dramatic. We finished all of the filming and began editing even more.

21/3/11

• We did further editing, including adding flashbacks to the clip and a video effect to signify them. We also created a questionnaire for audience feedback on our main task.

24/3/11

• We watched each other’s main tasks while giving them feedback in the form of questionnaires. The main feedback our group got was to add more sound and effects to our flashbacks, leading us to edit the flashbacks immediately. We added various sounds such as an ambience sound effect and a heartbeat to the flashbacks as well as a transition to them to help make them clearer to the audience.

Audience Feedback• The first question we asked was ‘what genre do you think our film is?’. Roughly everyone gave the

answer of a thriller which is correct. But a few people said sci-fi and horror which is guess the are clip could represent these genres.

• Next, we asked ‘do you think the film makes sense?’. Half of the people said it was clear and easy to understand while others said that the transitions could be improved and the flashbacks need to be made more noticeable.

• ‘How did you rate the continuity within the film?’ Was the next question we asked . We got great feedback from this question almost everyone gave the answer of 4 out of 5 (which Is good) one person gave us a 3 but we still see this as a positive.

• After that question we asked ‘do you think we have used a variety of shot types?’ The majority of people said yes we did and the use of a point of view shot was great.

• We asked ‘what emotional response did you receive from this film?’  What happens next, excited, scared where all the responses we received  which is excellent there the exact answers we were looking for.

• Next we asked ‘add any improvements we could use to help enhance our film?’ The main response  we got was on improving are flashbacks within the film which we are prepared to improve on to make the film better.

• The penultimate question was ‘did you enjoy the film and everyone said yes which is great feedback for use. 

• The last question was ‘ please rate out film out of 5’  everyone gave us a five which is wonderful but we as a group would like to improve it to a 5 out of 5 rating. 

Summary of the Main Task

• On the whole I believed the main task was very successful. We used a variety of shots as well as transitions between clips such as a blur transition to signify captive passing in and out of consciousness. I think the shots were used effectively and that the clip was interesting to watch. Continuity was a slight issue because we had to change room and the lighting was different between the 2 rooms, but we used editing techniques to change the lighting to make it less obvious.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyzBidARaEU

Similar Products

• There are some films similar to our one, in terms of genre and filming techniques. For example, “Memento” used flashbacks like ours, shown in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0L-Ssm4MxY

• Halloween is also similar to our film due to the genre and the way it uses point of view shots found in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxRGw0l-b18

Written Version of Evaluation• Our main task stays to the conventions of a thriller/horror film. Conventions common

within this genre that featured in our task were point of view shots (used in films such as Halloween), no dialogue for tension and the use of flashbacks. The location also followed the conventions of thriller/horror, the use of lighting, costume and the environment (a stark white clinical room) helped to identify the genre. While we didn’t necessarily portray a particular social class we did portray psychopaths and killers in a way that we have seen in various other films such as “Psycho”. Hammer Horror would be an institution that may distribute our film because it is a similar genre to that of other films they have distributed. The audience would be people aged 16-25, most likely males as well due to the genre convention of violence. The audience in our main task is similar to that of Halloween, and so we appealed to our audience in the same way. This was through the tension created by certain camera shots such as point of view shots. Through creating the main task we became more skilled in using technology to create films. For example, we became familiar with features on iMovies such as creating title sequences and different transitions. We also developed camera skills. From the preliminary task we learnt and developed on our continuity, as there was a couple of errors in the preliminary. We also felt we our cuts were far better in our main task.

• Filmed evaluation discussion - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-h6XpnvwiY&feature=channel_video_title