Practise Sequence from a Film

Here is the murder sequence we filmed as preparation for our coursework and my evaluation:

Planning and story boarding: This was my favourite part of the task. This was mainly because as team we were able to process all our ideas together and put it on paper, we were all especially happy with the quality of our communication as a team. The factor about the planning I didn’t particularly enjoy was the drawing, I am a terrible drawer and our plans would have been better if someone else had drawn it instead of me. One of the other difficulty we faced as a group during planning was finding the right person for the character in our murder sequel, so next while picking our groups, this must be considered.

To improve our story boards, I would like to approach it using a mind map, as we can add a lot more detail and drawing into it, which will help us with our tasks more effectively. Also I think next time while planning I would spent lot more time on the planning, because then we have a steady guideline to follow, which will help with time consumption.

Acting: Most of the acting in our murder sequel was done well and this helped our film become more realistic. Due to the fact that this was our first time, acting and filming, most people had the tendency to look at the camera, this caused many retakes, but in the end it was tackled. These slight errors have to be corrected when we are filming our actual coursework to give it more realistic and professional finish.

One thing that was very successful while acting in groups was the cooperation among each other, this was a key factor when it came to deciding who should play which characters.

While making our sequence, we had a lack of actors so we had to improvise by asking our friends who were not part of the media studies to step in. Even though many in our group viewed it to be a risk, at the end it paid off.

Next time we need to improve on assigning characters to people and make up dialogue during our planning period.

Camera angles: Deciding on camera angles was one of my favourite parts while doing the tasks because I was the camera man. When it came to filming our sequel, we tried to put in as many different typed of camera angles as possible, to impress. But this was a big task when it came to editing as it was very hard to cross cut between shots to achieve what we had in mind while filming. In our murder sequel we used, point of view shots, we applied the rule of thirds, foreground and background shots as well. Overall, our use of camera angles was successful because we managed to capture everything we had in mind and more.

We could improve our camera usage next time, by reducing the numerous amount of camera angles and concentrating and giving significance to a few and making them perfect.

One of the problems we faced during filming was when we did the POV shot, the camera was very difficult to handle and it too unsteady. But this could be improved by practising the type of shots or using a method or a different technique.

Editing: This was yet another enjoyable area of our task but it was also time consuming. During editing I found cross cutting really hard due to the number of different camera shots we had, so to cross cut between the shots was hard. Also the program was new to me, so getting used to the interface was another hurdle we had while editing. But these problems can be easily solved with a bit more practise.

One thing I would improve next time, would be adding more special effects, because special effects could have made our murder sequel a bit more professional and realistic. I would also add blank shots to show time passage.

Overall I think it could have been better.

Use of mise-en-scene: I was quite pleased with our choice of location and setting. It suited our story line well. Because the location we had in mind was a secluded are area, the school during lesson time fits that perfectly.

We didn’t plan our props during our initial stages; this would have to be improved next time around. We also didn’t plan any costumes, if we had costumes it would have been better and would have given it a more pro and authentic outlook. All our actors looked like school kids instead of a drug dealer and nerd.

Use of sound: We didn’t have a soundtrack at the beginning of our murder sequel, the music only starts after the action kicks in. This gave it a fast paced feel, when watching it. The music we chose was quite fast paced, this was because our film was also very fast paced, so they both went together very well.

Overall, I think our murder sequel turned out successful and I was really satisfied with it, because it was our first time in filming, acting and it was very good for a first time. Next time, I would spent more time in planning and story boarding as it would make it easier while making it. I would also plan about props and costumes more to give it an authentic outlook. I will also try and choose the actors and spent more time on editing.