Film evaluation.

For my project I had to develop a short film completely of my own choice and it had to create meaning for the audience to watch.

Before starting this project my friend and I mark decided upon making the film together and so had to decide upon the roles in which we were going to take. I was to be the cinematographer in charge of the mise en scene and all camera work plus the sound technician and mark was to be the director and editor. However most work done on the film was shared and it was just the final say on ideas were we would allow for the roles to take charge.

As part of a continuos record of work I set up a blogger account online in which I could keep all my research and keep a weekly diary of the process of making my film. The fist part of my project I had to sit down and decide with the director what genre and storyline the film will have. After going through various ideas we decided upon a horror/post apocalyptic film that was influenced by films like twenty eight days later and the television drama skins.

This then laid out the first point of research in form of the genre. Looking at films such as twenty-eight days later we could collect as much information as possible about the codes and conventions needed for our genre of film.

Watching the film it became apparent that it is post modern and so pastiche of those films similar but also has many conventions needed for it to work. One major convention used in the project film was the use of hand held cameras to give the film a feeling of verisimilitude which relates also to the scene in which an infected character runs towards the main characters of the project film. This is a major convention used in horror films and was one I believe used well in the project film. Other conventions used was the use of open space to show the characters are on their own in the establishing shots and the use of natural lighting and effects to create a dark mood about the sequence. These conventions were all learnt from research done on the genres. Also from looking at the genres now we have realized how there were many conventions we could have used to improve our film. One stereotype, which we tried to express, was the use of a stereotypical blonde however I feel I could have pushed the character more for a more stereotypical performance. This would of given the audience the protagonist in which would usually have survived. This was another convention I chose not to use and routed for a more unpredictable ending.

The characters themselves are 16 to 20 and so we tried to capture the language and ideologies for this age group. This also allowed me to decide upon the target audience and institutions in which the project film would be produced and consumed by.

As part of the mise en scene looking at 28 days later I was able to see how the gore and blood are a major convention mainly due to the narrative but also as it stands out for the audience to associate with. This was also used in the project film and using the natural lighting became very clear to see for the audience.

I decided, as part of the project film should have clips of the infected characters separate to the main narrative. This would not only shock my target audience but allows the audience to see what the infected look like.

Another aspect of the mise en scene I wanted to present was the use of natural lighting. Especially as much of the shooting took place at different times and also with the shooting taking place in winter it was very hard to film during daylight. Also lighting would differ throughout the shoots. This was then overcome when we decided to use dark shots and add effects when editing the project film. This gave the film a sense of horror, which both the director and me wanted especially as we were aiming for the film to be scary.

We also made sure that the characters didn’t wear anything to outrageous as this reflected the mood of the characters with the exception of jack who was projecting the stereotypical lad with child like ways and no sense of urgency or commitment to what matters.

The character of jack was placed there to carry the narrative for the male side of the audience with the joke scene were jacks being blamed for leading mistakes and all he seems to care about is the beer. This would identify with a male audience and was influenced by skins from the television channel E4.

The narrative of the film has changed dramatically through the shooting process as at first we had another female as part of the group however due to lighting issues and problems with sound quality we had to leave this out. Originally the group was going to sit around a fire set up camp and then be attacked and run away but with very little equipment for the lighting this couldn’t be done. If however we could have done this then I personally think the film would of felt more like a horror and could be more scary. As part of the narrative we wanted to make sure the film was light hearted in a humorous way with the use of bad language and teeny quotes which also reflected the target audience and their ideologies. I believe we were successful in this but could again of pushed more especially in the conversation scenes as the dialogue was minimal.

The sound quality of the film was hard to keep up to a good standard as the microphones used were based on the camera but this meant that actors just had to speak louder and in order to create a general background noise we pre recorded several minutes of just the location we was filming in which gave us bird noise and trees. This was used as a non-diegetic clip over the top of all the shots. Also as the film was filmed non-linear and so weather often effected the sound quality picked up on the microphone. This was simply edited out were possible and covered if not.

I believe that the project film was successful in creating meaning for a target audience and would be effective as a post apocalyptic horror film.

The project film however I believe would have been much better with better technology and the experience behind it. The production of the film really allowed me to develop how conventions and codes are used in films and how much in filmmaking can go wrong if not planned correctly.