Evaluation Task: How well did our opening set up the rest of the story?

EVALUATION

How well did our opening set up the rest of the story?

The most important aspect of an opening is how successfully it sets up the rest of the story and how well it grips the audience in doing so. Our main aim was to make an opening two minutes that looked professional and enticed the audience to carry on watching with undivided attention.

One of our most successful tactics that we hoped would make the audience carry on watching is the use of enigma codes that dragged the audience into our plot and made them question what was going on so they felt that they had to continue watching until they found out the answer. Audiences hate unanswered questions and if the enigma is strong enough, then they'll sit through an entire film just to get the answer to their question. This tactic worked incredibly well for us as we began the film with the ending of our narrative, so the audience are introduced instantly to the drama of the situation, and rather than being baffled by the relevance of certain characters, are immediately wanting to know how they got into the dramatic situation that they are in. Although we were worried that our audience may become confused because of our multiple enigma codes and jumping of storylines, we quickly agreed with Alfred Hitchcock who said that 'an audience would rather be confused than bored'. The enigma codes that we created included: Who is the murderer? What has happened to the girl on the train? How did the characters end up in this situation?

We also used a mixture of fast paced action and intense graphics to create a gripping storyline. The section of our victim boy trying to escape gave the audience some of the drama that they would be interested in seeing. Furthermore, the dramatic use of thrilling screams and chilling music added to the action by giving it something to be coincided with. By making our film like this we made sure that the film was enjoyable for a wide audience, and no matter what style they prefer - chilling or thrilling - they should be dragged in by our opening two minutes.

Evaluation Task: Audience Response

EVALUATION TASK

Audience Response

'Sensationally gripping, I really want to continue watching it’ – Alex Andrews

‘The cinematography created a visual extravaganza’ – Calum Clifford 

‘The scary make up stood out and made the film even more realistic’ – Lily Kyle

‘I would definitely pay money to continue watching this in the cinema’ – Orla Jordan

‘The intense build up is amazing and then the sudden twist will catch many off guard, truly amazing’ – James Kelly

‘Wow, loved it’ – Lauren Day

‘Where can I watch the rest?’ – Toby Payne

To Do’s: Evaluation Tasks

To Do’s: Evaluation Tasks

Audience response

Evaluation of credits ordering

Evaluation Storyboard V Final Opening

Evaluatiom how well it set up the rest of the story

'Everlasting Journey' Opening Two Minutes: Final Video

Here is our final version of our opening two minutes.

Tick... Tick... Tick... The Countdown begins... 

Finally the weekend! A group of friends head up to London in search of a good time. But it seems someone else has decided to come along for the journey...

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 8 What targets will you set yourself for G324 next year?

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 8

What targets will you set yourself for G324 next year?

We think overall our opening was a success and we had predominantly included everything we wanted to include, used a range of camera angles and shot lengths as well as focusing on making it as intriguing to watch as possible for the audience. However if we were to do this again, we would put more time and effort into the planning stage and potentially have a clearer storyline that everyone would understand and also focus more on the soundtrack and potentially make our own music. We believe our storyline is uncommon as it opens with the end of our film and involves a clock ticking down to the final seconds before it goes back to the start of the day again. We understand this may confuse some viewers however we believe if they are fully focused and engaged they will understand.   

Next year we are going to incorporate the skills we have learnt this year and adding new skills and techniques we will pick up along the way, enabling us to improve our next project. This will involve us going out and doing more research into the technical areas, eg. What mise-en-scene we will include, how we will edit the project to make it look realistic and release a certain tone, use different camera angles to reflect characters moods and show the setting in different lights and finally improve the sound quality for example dialogue.

Targets:

Mis-en-scene: Be clear on what props we are going to use and make sure they suit the style of media we are presenting. Try and make them look more realistic.

Camera composition: Use a range of angles to reflect certain character emotions and maybe hold the shot for longer (links to editing)

Editing: Have more long shots, just as effective in building tension. I would also like to develop my use of special effects.

Sound: Improve sound quality eg. Dialogue is more clear and easy to understand. Use more sound effects.

EVALUATION TASK 7 Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

EVALUATION TASK 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Initially when you watch our preliminary task followed by our final piece, you notice the substantial change in quality of camerawork and editing. These changes come in the form of inclusion of different (and more advance) shots, a more natural editing technique, and the quality in the portrayal of our storyline.

Throughout our preliminary task, it was not uncommon to see a shaky camera, unnatural use of shots (that we believed at the time looked professional), a poor choice of music, and lastly a poor attempt at editing and the continuity of our shots.

In contrary to this, our final version of our opening scene shows a variety of sophisticated titles, a more professional use of editing techniques, and an improved quality and choice of music to compliment our storyline. The shots that we used included:

• 180 degree rule: Requires you to not change the angle by over 180⁰ upon the character that is being filmed. It allows the character to be continually identified. We used this technique throughout, especially whilst filming our murder as their dark costume and hidden identity meant they were harder to identify.
• Shot reverse shot: We used shot reverse shot when capturing the interaction between our different characters during their train journey. This may have also been called an over shot to see their conversation taking place.
• Match on action: We used match on action to capture various events including the receiving of a text message, the dropping of the petrol can, and the falling of the match as it hit the floor.
• 30⁰ rule: We implemented this rule when capturing many of our victims who were sitting still or just moving small amounts. This made sure our editing looked realistic and continuous.
• Rule of thirds: We used the rule of thirds when filming establishing shots as this is more pleasing to the eye and allows the audience to take in the correct amount of information for a shot.
• Canted angle: demonstrates distress by altering the perception of the viewer upon the drama that is happening on screen.

In our opening to our film we included several different styles of shots and camera angles, ranging from your basic close up and medium shots, to the more complex canted angles which added drama through our cinematography. Our use of the canted angle improved as we took various attempts at making sure it looked realistic but still creating a feeling of uneasiness.

Our editing effects were very quick cuts to build tension and also the use of non-diegetic sound added a dramatic feeling.

The fades and transitions that we used were simple cuts to the next shots including a few attempts at graphic matching. We kept our transitions simple to maintain realism.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

• Blogger – to document our film making process and evaluate different films.
• Youtube – to upload our various videos onto (including preliminary task, animated storyboard and filming diaries)
• Sound effects websites (e.g. freesound.org) – to gather sound effects that we would use in our production company and throughout our editing process.
• Camera – to film our scenes ready for editing together.
• Tripod – to make our camera steady when filming panning, tracking and establishing shots mainly.
• Adobe premier pro – used for editing our footage, sound and adding some credits.
• Adobe after effects – used for creating our production company titles and also animating title sequence.
• PC school computers – used throughout our entire AS to edit, document and save footage etc.
• Mobile phone device - to document our filming adventure

We have learnt a lot about the power of technology from filming our opening. It allows you to recognise the lengths that people go to just to get a sound effect in time with a visual, and how hard it is to capture the essential requirements of a narrative. It has helped us to respect films and the production that has gone into them and also learn the power that we have when it comes to technology.