From the prelim task, we have learnt alot, in terms of shot variation, long takes and mainly the camera and how it is extremely necessary to keep the camera steady unless it should be obviously shaky for effect.
Also, in the prelim, the characters used were also the creators of the film, finding a cast proved to be extremely difficult as the physical description of the cast had to meet our needs. Also, people are very modest and find being infront of the camera very embarrassing. Barncasarns storyline included 2 characters which were a sexually active couple, (boyfriend and girlfriend) we feel that we had an advantage of this as the cast that we used were, in reality, in a relationship, so were used to behaving like a romantic couple infront of eachother, and therefore were not uncomfortable with kissing/being affectionate to one another.
We have realised that in order to construct our film opening, you need to have patience and free time in order to put your full effort into creating a film/film opening. I now realise that shooting the footage needs to be very well organised in terms of time (and daylight), costume, characters etc. And that editing must be of standard, which can prove to be time consuming.
Audience Feedback is something that BarnCasarn realised they needed in order to better their opening of Tiny Terror.
here is an example of some feedback which BarnCasarn recieved after one of our roughcuts.
We learnt that practice makes perfect. Barncasarn shot at 2 locations at different times. We got a lot of hours of footage in which we used in rough cuts, for example, in our first rough cut, we mainly focused on the location and different shots rather than the take length.
Then, in our second rough cut, we focused on the bathroom scene and different angles in which worked well with the camera.
Throughout creating these different rough cuts, Barncasarn managed to put all of the ideas which we thought worked well, and which proved to be satisfying with the audience feedback, and changed what we thought did not work well or what was not popular with the audience, to create an opening that the audience enjoyed.
When constructing our prelim task, we had little knowledge of angles and shot types, so could not be proffessional and efficient in creating the prelim. Also, the camera was not used on a tripod, therefore it was handheld making some of the shots very shaky. You can see our Prelim task by clicking on the link.
Another thing i found with the prelim task, is the fact that it only took an hour to shoot AND edit, however, when it came to shooting and editing the rough cuts, shooting would last around 2 hours on average, and editing would take longer, as we took into concideration the fact that the audience needed to be continuosly entertained by varying shots and adding non diegetic music which will be added to the final cut as a soundtrack.
When creating our prelim, we did not have to concider props/mise en scene or media language, in contrast, these became some of the most important aspects of our opening, in order to create an opening which the audience would be interested in, for this, we researched defficiency of moral codes which are exampled through many slasher films such as Halloween and The Blaire Witch Project.
I did a vodcast on the Blaire Witch Project which mentions the abuse of moral code and other important aspects of moral codes.
At the beginning of creating a slasher film opening, I had many different ideas, some of which were no where near the idea of a doll killer, for example my Valentines Day Nightmare idea. So through the process of learning more about media studies, taking advice from my media teacher and audience feedback from the first rough cut, Barncasarn decided that a doll killer slasher opening really interested us. Which is why we came up with the idea of Tiny Terror, which has some, but very little relevance to my very first idea.
So, summarising what i have learnt:
- When choosing your cast, you need a cast whom fits the description of your characters and the archetypes they are playing.
- You need to invest time into the whole process of creating the film, other wise it may not be of a high standard.
- Audience feedback is crucial to see where you're going wrong/right/needs tweeking. To produce a well constructed final product film.
- Rough Cuts allow you to see yourself what direction you're heading in, in terms of what you need to do next or what you need to experiment with to make your final cut a high standard, quality product.
- It is crucial that you take props/mise en scene and media language into concideration when organising your film to make it as interesting as it can be.
- Shot variation is KEY. Long takes could bore the audience.
- Think of many different ideas to your narrative before just sticking to one, at the end of this process, you could merge all of your ideas into one to create a well balanced, quality film.
