Feedback

Feedback from our first final cut was rather drastic.

Our teacher felt that the black screen at the beginning was much too long. It lasted for 29 seconds. He said that it would be good for a longer movie but not enough technical skills are shown. It also can be a bit confusing. The ending credits on black were also too long. They lasted for around 15 seconds. We were too influenced by the film Halloween (John Caprenter - 1978) but decided there should be some extra footage here as well.

A student, age 17, also gave feedback. He felt that the beginning was a bit boring and didn't catch his eye enough to actually want to watch on. It was also a bit confusing of what was going on as all it was were Sirens, Tyre Screech and then a woman talking.

Final Cut Version 2

This is my Final cut version 2. 

We changed the beginning and end due to feedback gained from our teacher and some other students.

Final cut Version 1

This is my Final Cut Version 1 

I will upload it to the social network Facebook for feedback as this is a main stage for our target audience. We have constantly uploaded rough cuts to this for feedback and will use this for Final Cut feedback too.

Cinematograpahy and Editing

In the film making process we did a lot of editing to improve the bare footage. On its own it wouldn't be as understandable or as scary as we would like with out sound and the cuts being in the right places.
Also a variety of shots were needed to portray a certain mood or reflect on the characters feeling and place in the world. Mise en scene in these shots are also important to the effect.

• In our first shot we had the view of looking down the stairs as Jack Loomis runs down them. This was to give the feeling that the camera was the eyes of the chaser. It also shows jack as being small, pathetic, and can easily clarify to the viewer that he is the victim in this story as we look down upon him. The colours of the surroundings are blank, and dull. This reflects the confusion that is meant to go on and how nothing is revealed. Exposition to the viewer is hidden.

• In our next shot we had jack running down the last flight of stairs, but as a POV shot. We had to cut the clip before to get it just right so it felt like flowed more realistically into it. We chose to have a POV shot to give the viewer a slice of how Loomis is feeling, especially with the panting over the top. We also managed to get a blur on this shot which if running for a long time, you get tired and weary and your vision will sometimes blur. We did this effect by having lawrence breathe onto the camera before running. We had to cut the end of this shot to make it flow more easily into the next one as well for match on action.

• Our next shot was to show Loomis' expression and reveal his feelings. therefore we had an extreme close up on his eyes to show this. We also had it go right up to his eyes so it wouldn't be as obvious of a change when it goes into the next shot.

• The first sports hall shot is there to show the new setting. Therefore we wanted to show the hall. We decided that we would start at Loomis' eyes and zoom out. We first Had problems with this shot but after re-filming with a skate board we got it right. We decided to film with a skateboard as we did not have the tracks and the right equipment to do it properly. The camera man would stand on the skateboard as joe would pull the board along the floor. The smoothness of the floor helped this shot a lot. We also used fast forward to get the feeling that not all is right in this setting. To emphasize the change between the shot before and this shot, we added in a boom. This makes it More clear that a change has happened, and may also scare the viewer a bit. The positioning of Loomis was important also. We decided to have him in the centre of the hall, being surrounded by the drawed on football net. This was in white, and symbolised that even though he may be the victim, he is guarded by some white hope (god) from dying himself.

• When showing The Girl, we knew we wanted her to be far away, but noticeable. When we filmed we made sure she was also in the centre of the hall, this signifies that she has importance and will be the centre of most attention. It also shows that she is vulnerable and in isolation. We edited the clip to have a shaky effect which adds a supernatural feel to it, we also made it very short so it spooks the viewer even more. We did this by using the Earthquake effect on Imovie, but we lowered the levels because we didnt want it too shaky to be annoying. 

• When returning to loomis we decided to film it in a dutch angle. This signifies that all is not right, and also he does not feel comfortable in this situation.

• A key part to our film was the moving girl. I had only ever seen this done once in a movie before, but do not ember where from. I thought this was the most creative part of our film and wanted to get it just right. We re filmed it several times before we made it perfect, each time adding more key movements as we felt not enough suspense was made during the time it took to move. Each shot was originally filmed at 3 seconds each but to make it more scarier we Had them cut to about half a second and then left the final shot longer to emphasize the movement is over. She also is back to the centre position which is where she started which can signify everything is about Cycles. We also included sound effects for each movement she made to emphasize it even more.

• To show the reaction of the two characters meeting we decided to use the 180 Degree Rule. this is where the camera stays on one side of an imaginary line between two characters and never crosses it, to save confusion. This is also part of the hidden editing process where editors try to make editing seem like it hasn't happened.
  

• At Beginning of our movie we used our production logo. This was made in Logo Creator which joe had at home. He put the text onto a black background and then added a blue tint effect to it to symbolise horror movies. A serif font would have been a better choice, but we wanted our logo to portray a company that can do a wide range of genres, not just one. After that we used the dark screen with titles on it. The titles were in blue (blue-tinted effect style) to symbolise that this is a supernatural movie. It was also in serif, which is gothic, and common for horror movies to use. We had a heartbeat(From Imovie Soundeffects) come on when the titles did too, this helped build tension, as well as seem like the titles are the heartbeat. The shots in between each credit card were of Loomis' feet. We didnt want to show his full body yet as we wanted to leave a little bit of narrative enigma to who these feet belong too. 

• Over the first few shots in our film we had music playing in the background. This was composed for us by a Friend. The long drawn out piano key adds tension to the scene and the drum beat in the background symbolises a heartbeat to make the viewers heartbeat go faster. It also has an electronic twist to it to relate to the Target Audience of our Film.

The Group

Our group consists of three members, they are

• Sam Thomas
• Wil Nelson
• Joe Shrimpton

The original group plan was to be just Me(Sam) and Wil, as we had worked togther before and know each other quite well and how each other work. Joe became part of our group for the main project as this gave our group more thought into our project and also more ideas came out of it.

LOGO

This is our logo. It has been modified to create a horror effect as in it has a blue tine which is a common effect in horror movies to create a supernatural feel. It shows that we specialize in horror movies.
The reason we picked SWj Productions as our name was because Joe was a member of the group and to make it more fair we used our initials as S for Sam, W for Wil, and J for Joe.

Changes that could be made would be that a serif font would be a better choice as we are doing a horror movie, however we didnt want our logo to portray just oe genere of movie. Also the logo needs to be put on black background, but having it on white means we can remove the background on put it on any colour easily.

Evaluation

Evaluation

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