Evaluation- Improvements

I think the best part of our video, is the second part- the title sequence. I think this because the editing fits the music, and the faster pace allows that part of the video to flow better, this is because of the stillness in the cold open, so you can't edit as fluently because there is nothing moving besides the camera. Most of the audience feedback agreed with me here, and some comments regarding what worked well, were:

The opening shot of the title sequence
A XCU of Gavin doing his shirt

"The music in the second bit!"

"The various shots as he gets dressed and leaves are really good as they keep the viewer interested"

"The cut scenes within the house work well!"

"The credits look genuine and professional"

Like the first comment, I also think the music matched the title sequence better than the music does in the cold open. This is because we had limited music to match to the mise-en-scene, and although this track fitted well, maybe not as well as another could. The way to improve this would be to have music composed specifically for the scene, although for this project we don't have the resources to do that. We could also have looked through a wider range of copyright free music, but we were happy with the effect this track gave, although it could be slightly improved.

There were also other comments about the which aspects of the production work well, such as:

One of the shots used in revealing
the body

"When filming the body on the floor I think the different angles that were used emphasised the horror of the situation"

"I like the composition of the camera, and the way it was filmed. The music also gave it a dramatic effect"

"The building of tension the shoes being scattered, angle of camera"

"It all works well because it captures your interest. The filming is smooth. I can't see anything that doesn't work well."

Mainly here, the comments mention the camera angles. Nadine and I tried to have a variety of camera angles as this is what professional filmmakers do. As I've mentioned before, we especially tried to vary the shots in the cold open to make up for the stillness in the scene. The last comment also says about the video capturing the audiences interest, which is partly due to the variation of camera angles and fluid editing, as well as the storyline which i think is quite good throughout the production.

I also asked the audience feedback what they thought wasn't as good in the video. I thought that the voice over in the cold open perhaps didn't fit the mood of the scene, or the connotation of the genre and this was also picked up in the audience feedback.

"The only part I feel didn't work as well, is the voice in the background, I didn't feel like it was very clear and his positive tone throws off the audience because the video already gave the impression that this film is going to be a horror/thriller."
" I am not sure whether I liked the tone of voice, as it didn't quite suit the dramatic effect, I felt it was promoting.The tone of voice should have been more interrupted and lower"

"The voice of the person speaking over the video, does not sound scary enough"

"The audio over the very beginnings of the scene - could be altered to add more dramatic affect"

Here's a (bad quality) copy of the voiceover. For a better audio, please re-watch the video

As Gavin isn't an actual actor, the voice over he did was all he could do. Although as Gavin doesn't actually speak in the rest of the film, we could of actually used someone else with a more suitable voice for the voice over, someone with a deeper voice, or an actor who could put on a persona, and this was considered during production, but we couldn't find anyone willing and suitable. We also thought that perhaps the voice over and Gavin's appearance would look mismatched if the voice was too different. The voicover was the only point that the audience described as weaker than the rest.







In this production, we used a newer version of iMovie than we had before, besides going on a short introduction class at the Apple store, we had never used it before. So whilst making this video, we were learning about the newer features of this version, compared to the other version that we were used to. This version has features like Precision editor, where you can move the film almost shot by shot to ensure the cut happens at the right moment so the film looks fluid, as well as some other features that we didn't use like cut to beat and still image insertion. The buttons highlighted by the red circle in the iMovie screen overview are the tools to insert music, still images, text, transitions and maps and backagrounds.

Prescision Editor

Windows of four of the five inserting options







 

 

 



The two consequtive 180° shots

Also in this project we learnt about the 180° rule, where the camera must stay on one side of an invisible line. You can break the 180° rule to create disorientation though, and this is done in many films including Lord of the Rings (2002, dir. Peter Jackson) to show the two sides of Golum, the good side always looks left and the bed side always looks right. We almost broke the 180° rule in our cold open, but this was because we had a limited amount of angles to film from and had to change angle from looking straight on at the lone shoe and looking back onto it. Although this cut does cause a little disorientation within the scene, not much as we have stayed within the 180°. We also made it clear, by including the show in both shots, so it was obvious the camra had changed direction.

From my preliminary task, we have learnt about linear story lines. We hadn't used this before therefore also didn't know about continuity editing. So as our preliminary was our first video with continuity editing, we have improved since making it, making the film more fluid.

Also since our preliminary we have learnt to film much more than we need to and to make a detailed storyboard to plan how the film will look, as it is hard to see how each shot will look after another whilst on set. In our preliminary we found that we should of filmed from some more angles as these would of helped in the final look of the video. In our main production, we did this and found there was no times during editing that we felt we hadn't filmed enough. Above is our preliminary video. As well as this, from our preliminary, in the last few seconds, we zoomed, after making this, we realised it looked too amateur, and have since realised it looks more professional to have a close up than to zoom. Although the zoom here was to imitate someone recalling back. whilst the CU used in our main production was so create emphasis on a certain part.