prelim evaluation

In class we was given an assignment with a brief of making sure to use at least one match cut, an example of a shot reverse shot and showing our understanding of the 180 degree rule without breaking it.Our sequence had to follow the story line of one character opening a door, walks into the room, sits down opposite the other character and they share a few lines of dialogue.

our first step was to make an animatic story board showing what shots we wanted as well as including the shots in the brief. along with the shots we showed the positioning of the characters. when discussing and planning our story board it was clear in our group that we wanted the sequence to be suspicious at the start, so to do this we agreed that we would not shot characters 2 face until halfway of the sequence, and to crate tension we would only hear the voice of this character. the story board was effective because when if came to filming the sequence we knew exactly where to start and the shots needed to be done. However when it came to filming my group realised that we did not plan a dialogue for the sequence which was a disadvantage because we had to stop the filming to work out the lines for the characters and even at some parts we had to improvise. durng filming we also realised that certain sounds such as door slamming and the papers had to be done louder just in case we couldn't find a Foley sound to match. Our group finished filming in a short period because of the help from all the shots we planned in the story board so we got that done quickly.

In the editing process we used final cut pro to start putting all the shots together. the clips had to be cut down because of countdown to start up or even some we cut them down because some parts matched closer to the other clips, there was even one point that we only wanted dialogue without the clip being used 'when character 2 said sit down, so we had to separate that clip in 2 part. another problem that occurred during the editing process it that we realise that some match cuts didn't fit or some parts was jumpy or even the camera was not angled straight. when the editing process was finished we watched it over and discovered that we didn't like the way our sequence finished but we didn't have any clips that matched to end it. another problem that was noticed is that the unwanted background noise in the clips, so in the end we silenced them out.

when adding text such as credits in final cu pro we kept it short and simple following film conventions, we added the title and the two main characters and the producer. we didn't add credits such as editors because we felt that it would be a repeat of names as there was only 3 of us in the group. adding credits did take some time because we had to work out the font, positioning and colour of the text and finally the timing. our timing of the appearance of the text had to be consistent not taking up too much time and equally not disappearing too quickly. although this process could have been improved by adding more conventions such as company and making the text stand out more.

once we finished on final cut pro we exported the sequence on soundtrack pro to add Foley sound and background music. this part of editing was difficult and did take up much time. we wanted to find sounds/music that sounds suspicious and creates tension, in the end we only fund one background music that we used in the beginning of the sequence and throughout but put the volume down to hear the dialogue. we also used foley sounds such as the door slamming to exagerate the tension. soundtrack pro was effective because it started to look and sound like a film with the music.

overall i think my group did a good job although there was some problems along the, but this help is learn and improve for when it comes to actually filming our thriller sequence