Week four: Edit workshop evaluation

Hey everyone welcome to my blog, for today’s post I will be talking about this week’s year 12 A/S preliminary exercise “the encounter” evaluation. For this post I’m going to write about my final footage of “the encounter”. 

This EVALUATION will include:

ü  How did I use the 180 degree rule, rule of thirds and match on action?

ü  What challenges did I face during production and what change would I make if I had to re-film.

ü  What kind of challenges did I face during post production and what will I change if I had to edit again.

ü  What are the strengths of my work and why?

ü  What are the weakness of my work and why?

ü  What overall improvements would I make to my work?

I have finally completed my project 'The Encounter' and this is my evaluation of my edit workshop which includes all of the points given above.

Below is my final version of "the encounter"

180 degree rule
During production I tried to keep the 180 degree clear in the footage so that the audience won’t get uncertain as to what the footage is trying to portray. The 180-degree rule enables the audience to visually unite with unseen movement happening around and behind the immediate subject and is important in the recounting of loquacious scenes. This rule is essential as it is the basic of filming and also it apart of one of the exam criteria’s. When using this rule I always kept the interviewer and sally on the seat diagonally towards the camera so that if any movement occurs I will get that on footage easily and also a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another characters.The first shot is showing the interviewer turning around and sitting on the chair and she looking directly at sally. The second shot shows a two shot of sally talking and then the third shot portrays the interviewer saying “yes “These shots were used for the 180 degree rule. I think that this shot was quite unclear due to the fact that the first shot highlights the interviewer standing up and moving allot. Instead I’ve should off made another shot of her sitting down making her not move and then saying her dialogue. This could have been a major improvement but thankfully I didn’t break the rule. This rule I thought I kept quite well as it was my first time to do it.

Rule of thirds
The second rule that I highlighted thought-out the footage was the rule of thirds. All of the shots included people and objects and so I had to remember that the eyes are on the top third of the line. The rule of thirds will make sure that everyone is levelled which includes eyes, hands and  any body language .The rule of thirds will make everything look neat as  everything thing with be levelled. Throughout the footage the rule of thirds looked really well as the scenes had a good flow. The rule of thirds looked really well when i used a high angle on sally which denote her head on a  table and she’s looking depressed this connote that the high angle is trying to portray her innocence but it’s completely untrue as she’s a villains character. The angles were quite challenging but at  the end I got the shot working.

match on action

The match on action worked very well in the footage. At the beginning I have the interviewer opening the door and the entering the questioning room. This was the match on action. The shot worked really well as I had many recorded shots also I used the precision editor on imovie. The Precision Editor is an editing tool that allows you to modify the point at which one clip transitions into the next, trimming or extending frames at the end of one clip and at the beginning of the next clip in the same magnified view. This shot was really good also the Mise-en-scene worked well in this shot as the lighting fitted the atmosphere well.I would say that this rule was one of best to edit and to create.

Production and post production / Strengths and weakness

During production we did face alto of problems for example at first we didn’t use a tripod as we forgot how to place the camera on top of the tripod. So therefore some of the shot were really shaky, if we had to refilm again then I would have used the tripod. Nevertheless my partner sanjeet decided to solve this problem by filming the footage free hand and she also locked her arms together to certify that the camera won’t shake rapidly. This worked really well and all of the shots flowed really well. Another issue was the Mise-en-scene in the drama studio. The lighting we used for sally was red, the red will connote the danger of sally and also it signifies blood. As we were filming the red was to dark so we couldn’t see the character properly. We only saw a black figure on footage. As I am also a drama student I knew how to use the lighting props. So then I created a spot light in the middle of the scene which was white and then overshadowed the lighting with red. This worked really well as it created a sinister, eerie atmosphere in the background. On the footage I could see the characters, also when we edited for the post production the footage I realized some of the lighting was to bright but then I tinted the scene red to create a more dangerous atmosphere, the lighting will give the audience an understanding that red is portraying death in addition that the room is unsafe, this will give the audience an understanding of the genre of the footage that its horror as the dark lighting connotes horror. 

I think the strength of my work is the unique creativity of the narrative of the story. The footage is dark comedies which will suite the everyday horror audience. The reason why I choose horror was the fact that all my classmates were doing a comedic and light hearted comedy and I wanted mine to stand out more. Also I have a more understanding of horror as we did this during gcse. In the horror scenes I liked how I used a range of shots to keep the audience hooked and interested, I had many close-ups as horror usually has allot of that, long-shots to show the relationship of character, mid-shots and I also a range of angles which were straight on to create the rule of thirds,. I think these are all significant as they make the footage much more attractive and it will engage the audience. Other positive has to be my creation of the storyboard as it was very creative and original to other scripts in the class. I really liked how I portrayed the characters and camera language in the footage and also the final footage linked to my story board. I really liked how I also portrayed the characters to and I really like the costumes they were wearing. The location was on point; I liked the dark sinister room which created a scary vibe to it and the red spotlight bang in the middle of centre stage of the drama studio. Strength has to be the match on action as it was very clear to the audience.

 The music worked really well, The music that I found is quite intense and very bloodcurdling.The scary music created an understanding to the audience that the genre of this footage is going to be horror. The tune of the music has someone whispering in the background and this connotes the devils voice as the story is about “a girl called sally who is suffering from a life threatening disease, then later on sally made a deed with the devil for her sister’s soul and her child.”The devils voice in the background will create an intense atmosphere which therefore will make the audience quite frightened as they might feel that the devil is near them or is going to jump unexpectedly. This really worked well in the final footage. 

To make my piece a dark comedy I made the antagonist voice go high pitch to show she is a psycho this creates a good comedy element this will make the audience laugh but also scared at the same time as she is saying her dialogue. This was very successful also it saved a alot of time to make the footage go faster.

The  newspaper  for the beginning of the footage, created a realistic attitude towards the audience as the newspaper is giving out some information about what is going  to happen but not giving any answers. This creates an disjointed narrative as the audience doesn't know what the  answer is to the questions.

The weakness of my work has to be the 180 degree rule as it was quite unclear to the audience; also the lighting sometimes was quite dark at times so you couldn’t see the characters. Another weakness has to be I didn’t add no transitions in the editing, this could have been idle for my work as it could of flowed much more better. Also the sound was quite loud and sometimes you could not hear what the character is saying .these are the weaknesses I thought I presented thought the footage. 

Planning
The planning of my work was really good but I times I believed that I did all of the storyboarding. My partner contributed quite a bit for the storyboarding as I was the one who made all of the idea up and the one who created the storyboard. My storyboard was very clear and made sense, all of the writing and drawings was included and I would say that this is one of my strongest points. I would say my weakness has to be the digital technology as I’m not really good at using the camera. But my partner is really good at doing that. My post production was successful as everything was on point. For example the lighting was the same thought the footage so that all of the footage will flow also the pan of the newspaper worked really well.



 Overall
Overall, I would say I’ve done a good job but if I would change one thing it will have to be the 180 degree rule but i would say that I’ve met all the criteria’s as it says that they want:

•                         A shot reverse shot, match on action,180 degree rule
• ·                       Try to create suspense/interests through the setting and performance of your actors
•                        Range of camera shots and angles
•                        Continuity-everything in the right place
•                        Film a wild cat sound track
•                        Avoid zooms or pans
•                         Film extra cutaways

 Overall i enjoyed the whole expirence of the task which was given and hopefully i did a really good job of doing it.