Looking back at my first draft compared to my final draft of my thriller opening sequence, I believe that there is a visible contrast in the quality between the two pieces of work. Some examples of what Elliot and myself have done to improve our thriller opening sequence was that we changed the main location of the scene from a police questioning room to the detective's office. We also did multiple takes for each shot to ensure that each shot was always in focus. The actor of the Detective in the final edit also changed to Edward Barker because the original actor, Josh wasn't available to film when we planned.
Location
The Detective's office
In our first draft, Elliot and myself originally planned for the main location in which the scene takes place to be in a police questioning room, however in the final draft we altered the location to the Detective's office because we felt that it would be easier to recreate this room than a questioning room with the resources that we had. Originally, we used the school's studio to represent the questioning room, but we felt that the room didn't work very well. For the Detective's office, we had an empty room with two desks to work with. First of all, we set up a PC on the desk with some folders to give the desk some verisimilitude, then we created a 'crazy wall' which is seen in the background of multiple shots throughout the opening sequence. For the preliminary task, we used the School's studio for filming our opening sequence for a thriller called 'The Stuff', once again the studio wasn't a very good location because of the dark lighting and the black curtains that surround the wall made it difficult to make any adjustments to the room which we would have liked to include.
The Kidnapper's garage
For the garage where Scarlet and her friend was held by the kidnapper, we decided to keep the original location from the first draft and use the same footage that was previously recorded. We thought that the footage worked well because the camera being out of focus helped to resemble that it was a POV shot of someone who has just awoken and whos vision is distorted/blurred. To make the room seem more like a real location where a hostage would be held we scattered objects around the room to make it more of a mess and then placed a chair in the middle of the room which the girl was tied to.Evaluation of improvements for Location
The Final draft has multiple improvements that are noticeable in comparison to the first draft in terms of the location. One of the most noticeable changes is the difference in location for the questioning scene, I feel that using a different room was a huge improvement from the studio because the lighting was much better, the setting was more realistic, and we were given a blank canvas to work on which gave us the opportunity to make the room look how we wanted it. However, the room was much smaller than the studio which made it much harder to use different camera angles which restricted us to using close-up shots for the majority of the opening scene. After using the studio in the preliminary task and the first draft, we realised that it was not a suitable location for us to film in for our Final Draft.
Equipment
Canon 700D
Elliot and I used a Canon 700D for both the First Draft and the Final Draft of our thriller opening sequence. After using it in the first draft, we got used to using it and became familiar with some of the features so we decided to use it again in the Final Draft. I also used this same camera in the preliminary task, however Megan was in charge of recording so I didn't get a chance to have a go at using the camera.
Tripod
In the First Draft, Elliot and myself made the mistake of not using a tripod throughout the filming process. Due to this, some of our shots are actually slanted and the slight wobble of the camera is easily noticeable. Whilst filming for the final draft, we used the tripod which made a signicant difference in the quality between the two opening sequences. The camera was more focussed on the tripod and there is no longer a clear shaking of the camera due to it being handheld. Evaluation of improvements for Equipment
There is not much to talk about to do with improvements that we made with equipment, apart from the fact that using the tripod in our Final Draft made a vast improvement on the First Draft because of the reduced shake of the camera which was a problem when recording with a handheld camera.
Planning
For the preliminary task, the planning process was fairly rushed because we only had a short period of time to plan and produce the short clip. This forced my group and I to take little time thinking of ideas for the plot and writing a script. The storyboard and planning sheet were both completed to a low quality because of the small time frame in which it was completed.
During the planning phase for the final task, I had much more time to brainstorm ideas about the plot of the thriller opening sequence, therefore the quality of the storyboard and the mindmap is of a higher level. Elliot and myself also had more time to write a more detailed script for the opening sequence. There is only one of the four pages visible from the storyboard below but there is a clear contrast between the quality of the two storyboards.
Over the entirety of my coursework task I have learnt many new things and I feel that my skills have progressed throughout. I believe that compared to the planning of my preliminary task, I have become more efficient with creating ideas and putting them down on paper in a shorter space of time to a higher quality, I have also learnt more about the filming phase of the production stage, I realised that there are many benefits to using a tripod rather than trying to film by hand and Elliot and myself managed to get the filming done for the Final Draft to a higher standard than the First Draft and we completed the filming in a much shorter space of time. I also realised that a small additional piece of detail such as the 'crazy wall' can make a large impact on the scene because it makes the setting much more believable to the audience.
No comments:
Post a Comment