Practice Sequence from a Film

We were given the task of filming a sequence of events leading up to a murder. This gave us a chance to practise planning and storyboarding a continuous film sequence, and also filming and editing it together. We did not have much time to prepare, but we learned a lot from doing this.

Evaluation of Murder Scene 

Planning & Storyboarding

It took us a while to figure out the starting point of our scene and knowing when to make a new a shot, especially with ensuring that our finishing photo was the ending. We did stick to the storyboard regardless of this though, the only changes were minor such as swapping a scene with another one but every scene was more or less accurate to what we had planned.

Acting

Ellen and Wise were the main characters in the scene with Ellen being the murdered and Wise the victim. The majority of the acting was very convincing, I thought, as they carried out their parts accurately. Although, there was room for improvement such as; not smirking when trying to be serious or possibly having more expression when needed too, for example when Wise saw the murder weapon (spade) for the first time. These particular points are easily improved however, so overall I think the actresses acted a convincing murder scene.

Selecting shots & angles

The scene began with an establishing shot of Wise, the main character, walking through the alleyway in which she encounters her murderer for the first time. I believed this to be an effective starting point as it gave the audience a sense of her surroundings so they can relate to why the murdering was likely to have taken place (stereotypical of alleyway’s to provoke danger.)

We then continued to use a variety of shots, such as point of view when both the murderer and victim were running. This was intended to show the intensity of that particular part of the scene which I thought it did as you could also hear Wise breathing heavily to emphasise how frightened she was.
One shot I would have added however was a close up of Wise’s face just as she discovered the murder weapon propped against the wall she hid behind. This would have highlighted the realisation on Wise’s face as she knew that would be why she dies, which would have given the audience that sudden realisation as well. 

Use of Camera/Tripod

The tripod was often an issue as it wobbled when it wasn’t on completely flat surface (which was the case for the majority of shooting the scene because of the school paving.) Not only was the flooring an issue, finding the lengths for the legs to match and remain steady was a problem as it meant the shots were disrupted making the quality poor.

The camera itself only had one fault which was the play button as it was very temperamental making it hard to view the scenes straight away prolonging the actual shooting. It also overwrote a particular scene of Wise coming to a dead end towards the end; this was particularly unfortunate as that scene was one of the best. Other than this, both pieces of equipment were easily manageable.

Use of Sound

We used both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds in the scene.
I thought that the most effective diegetic sound we used in the piece was when Ellen dragged the spade along behind the wall. It is a horrible noise but sounded eerie and dangerous which foreshadowed Wise’s eventual death.

The non-diegetic sound (the backing track) was particularly effective as it linked with their footing; once sped up or down where appropriate though. Stopping the sound when Ellen raised the spade added emphasis and imagination to Wise’s death as the audience did not see it but could easily have seen what had happened.

Lighting/Location

Unfortunately, the lighting was a problem because of the time of day. The scene would have had a lot more effect if it had been darker to give it a more spooky edge to it considering the events of being murdered down an alleyway. I wasn’t too worried about this though as it was essentially out of our hands.
The location itself fitted in well with the finishing shot we planned our scene around as there were many alley type areas in the school to choose from. It was better with Ellen appearing from behind her as well as it made the whole situation seem creepier.

Editing Decisions

Watching the scene back I felt that some of the shots looked unprofessional in the way they were connected to each other, for example, it changed very suddenly when Wise was running from Ellen which made it look unrealistic.

A controversial decision with editing was the added effects to the point of view scenes. At first the blinking effect seemed effective as we were seeing from the murderer’s eyes (which obviously blink) but upon watching it back it occurred to me that it could have been slightly sickly. I think that the blurred effect on the victims behalf was a realistic choice however as Wise would have been deliriously running away from the person trying to kill her which would have made her not be thinking straight.

The actual scene of Ellen killing Wise did not look effective because of how close up it was so we faded it out which I thought proved effective as it then left the murder to the imagination of the audience and left out the gruesome details.

Working in Groups

I enjoyed working with my group as everyone was equally respected and listened to. Although some ideas were not used, it was only because adaptions were made, nobody’s ideas were completely ruled out because none were inappropriate or unnecessary. 

Overall, I am pleased with the finishing product, considering it was a first experience as well.