James Bolton

Assessment Evaluation

            The aims of our first assessment was to look at a previous AS level students work and chose 40 seconds of their piece and make a shot for shot remake of the chosen section. We had to select a piece in our chosen horror sub-genre which was psychological and the name of the film was “Pendant.”

                Looking back at our finished copy of the sequence, I’d say we made a very close and effective remake. All the shots were framed appropriately and we took special care to make sure the camera was white balanced and focused for every shot we filmed. We also made sure that there would be both head and lead room so that the actors would not have their heads cut out of the shot and making sure there was adequate space for them to walk into. As we used a tripod, all but one of the shots was held steady. The one shot where we struggled to keep the camera completely steady was when filming the canted angle shot by the fence. The slight jerkiness was due to the fact the tripod was quite rigid and difficult to move smoothly by hand. As well as looking at lead and head room, we took into account both the 180 degree and 30 degree rules. Watching our sequence back I think we managed to do that effectively as none of the shots seemed out of place or confused the viewer and they ran smoothly when put together. We also used a variety of shot types in our piece. There were extreme long shots to show the mysterious figure in the distance, medium shots to show our actors action as she threw the pendant into the water as well as close ups of the victim looking around, so we can see their facial expressions. Finally, we finished the piece with a point of view shot of the stalker watching the victim. This was intentionally jerky to show the movement of the stalker.

                Our final piece shows that we have neatly and smoothly edited our clips. The piece flows well and this is helped by the use of short, sharp cut transitions we have used between clips. We also payed close attention to the continuity of the piece. For example, in the shot of the pendant landing in the water, we can clearly see the reflection of a tram, so we made sure that in the next shot, (a long of the character turning round) that there would be a tram passing by so that it seemed accurate to real life. One slight problem with the editing was that we wanted to add a reverse effect to the man walking to copy the original, but we had trouble adding this effect.

                In our sequence there wasn’t much to do in terms of choosing costume and make-up because the victim was just a normal girl being followed; therefore, she just wore everyday clothing. In terms of terms of the stalker, we made sure his wore a hooded top so we didn’t clearly see his face to add to the mystery of that character. We filmed at the exact same location as the original so that it was authentic and we could precisely recreate the shots. Unfortunately the location had slightly changed as there was no longer a bench there, which is where the majority of original shots were filmed, so we had to improvise and use a fence instead. Also, that meant we could not film the shot inside the bushes, so filmed from a banking above the character instead. The actors for our film were appropriate as the idea of a girl who is by herself being followed by a mysterious man is very threatening and adds to the tension of the piece.

                In terms of my role in the making of the sequence, I watched the original 40 seconds and drew out a storyboard to use at the location so we could get a closer imitation of each shot. I also helped when placing the camera in the correct spots, white balancing and focusing the camera. I filmed 7 shots of the piece including canted and high angles as well as a variety of shot types such as point of view shots and camera movements such as panning. I edited a couple of the shots, notably the 2 close ups where the character is looking around and turning her head side to side. To improve the piece I think we could have altered the exposure on the camera to combat the fact that towards the end of our filming it got considerably darker. For our final coursework film I would make sure we had smooth camera movements and also give ourselves plenty of time so we have several copies of each shot. When editing we can also look into adding more transitions and effects, as this piece only used cuts.