AS MEDIA STUDIES

EVALUATION OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE OPENING SEQUENCE

SHANNON NEWTON

HOW STEADY ARE THE SHOTS AND ARE

THEY FRAMED APPROPRIATELY?

HOW STEADY ARE THE SHOTS AND ARE THEY FRAMED APPROPRIATELY?

Steady shots are extremely important when creating a video piece because it makes the film a lot more professional-looking and cleaner. Therefore we made sure we used a tripod for every single one of our shots, to avoid them looking messy and out of place with the rest of the film.

We didn’t feel that at any stage during filming that using the handheld-camera method of filming would be appropriate because it would usually be used to show a sense of dramatic action and quick movements.

HOW STEADY ARE THE SHOTS AND ARE THEY FRAMED APPROPRIATELY?

Looking back, I think that we were wrong and

it would have been appropriate in some shots, for example,

during the last scene

when she is frantically running out of the house,

because it would show how she is in a rush;

which is what we were trying to achieve

Shot of girl running down stairs

WHAT VARIETY OF SHOT TYPES HAVE

YOU USED?

WHAT VARIETY OF SHOT TYPES HAVE YOU USED?

During the pre-production stage whilst creating our storyboard, we made sure that we included a range of shots in our film because it makes the whole thing more interesting and shows that we know when each shot type is appropriate and which one is best to use

Medium shots are generally used to show people; therefore a lot of our shots were medium shots because we wanted to show the reactions and body language of the main character, and to show how she is experiencing bad luck. If we were to use long shots, you wouldn’t be able to clearly see what her emotions are and how she is feeling

WHAT VARIETY OF SHOT TYPES HAVE YOU USED? Close ups are generally used when you want to focus on something in a shot, therefore we included a number of close ups, which were mainly to show either objects, or facial expressions. Examples of objects include the books that she dropped to emphasise how her belongings had spilled all over the corridor, and also the netball hoop to emphasise how she keeps missing the hoop

Close up of netball hoopClose up of books

WHAT VARIETY OF SHOT TYPES HAVE YOU USED?

Establishing shots are used to set the scene of a shot, so you have an idea of what will be going on next. For example filming of the corridor during scene 2 suggests that the corridor is busy which makes the fact she was hit by a fellow student more understandable

Establishing shot of busy corridor

WHAT VARIETY OF SHOT TYPES HAVE YOU USED? High/low angle shots are used in a film to portray a sense of power. We attempted to use this type of shot during scene 1, when the teacher is looking down at the student, and the student is looking up at the teacher looking worried. The high/low could have been clearer, which is something we could have done better when filming

High/low angle shots of teacher and student

HOW IS THE MISE-EN-SCENE BEEN

APPROPRIATE FOR THE GENRE?

HOW HAS THE MISE-EN-SCENE BEEN APPROPRIATE FOR THE GENRE?

LOCATION The majority of our film is set in a school, therefore we thought it would be best to actually film in a school as we could use the classrooms and corridors you would usually see in a school to make it realistic. Other parts of our film include walking up a field after the school day ends, and we thought it would be best to again, film on the school field because our school is in the background which makes it easy to follow as you can figure out the character has just left school

COSTUMES We didn’t use any extreme costumes because the idea was that she was a normal girl experiencing these unlucky events, so we just allowed Amy to wear something she’d usually wear. However, during scene 4 we used some PE kit as a costume because it made more sense when playing netball- if she had been in normal clothes it would have been somewhat confusing as you wouldn’t normally play sports in a jumper and jeans!

HOW HAS THE MISE-EN-SCENE BEEN APPROPRIATE FOR THE GENRE?

PROPSWe used a number of props to

make our film realistic, for example: English book in scene 1 to suggest daydreaming in voiceover Books/folders in scene 2 for her to drop in the corridor A ladder in scene 3 for her to walk under A netball and hoop in scene 4 to show the sport she was playing Face masks and a phone in scene 6 to show relaxation in contrast with dramatic irony of the phone showing repeated missed calls that she doesn’t see

HOW HAS THE MISE-EN-SCENE BEEN APPROPRIATE FOR THE GENRE?

LIGHTINGWe did not use any additional

lighting aside from natural lighting and usual artificial room

lights, because we didn’t feel that it was needed as most of our scenes was bright enough

and didn’t need enhancing. However, some of the shots in

scene 6 are slightly dark so it could have been better to use some artificial lighting during

filming instead of relying on the natural light.

Darker shot in scene 6

DID YOU USE ANY TRANSITIONS AND

WERE THEY APPROPRIATE?

DID YOU USE ANY TRANSITIONS AND WERE THEY APPROPRIATE?

Although they can sometimes look effective and really enhance an opening scene, we felt that in this instance, using transition effects during our opening scene would look ‘tacky’ and messy. The majority of the transition effects on our editing software are quite fancy and exaggerated, so if we had been tempted to use some our opening scene could lose the professional look we were aiming for, and almost become amateur-like

For these reasons, we decided that the best transition to use would be a simple cut because it keeps the opening simple and easy to follow- if we had started using transitions that make the shot start flying around and spinning in the audience could start to become distracted by this and not follow the plot

DID YOU USE ANY TRANSITIONS AND WERE THEY APPROPRIATE?

However, one part that could have potentially looked better with and transition effect is the transition between the blank voiceover screen, and the paper-throwing shot. We could have used a transition effect that reveals the shot from the bottom, creating the effect of tilting up from below to focus on the main character

Example of when a more animated transition would have been appropriate

HOW HAS THE SEQUENCE BEEN

EDITED SO THAT ITS MEANING IS CLEAR TO THE AUDIENCE?

HOW HAS THE SEQUENCE BEEN EDITED SO THAT THE MEANING IS CLEAR TO THE AUDIENCE?

Continuity was essential for our film due to the amount of different short scenes we were filming at different locations. In fact, all 6 of our scene

were filmed on different days, and 5 of them included Amy wearing

normal clothes therefore we had to make sure that she was wearing

exactly the same thing on every day to make it seem like we had filmed all on one day. There was an exception,

as during one scene she is wearing PE kit so it didn’t matter what she wore

that day.

CONTINUITY

Scene 1

Scene 6

HOW HAS THE SEQUENCE BEEN EDITED SO THAT THE MEANING IS CLEAR TO THE AUDIENCE?

One of the major match-on-action shots we included was between scene 1 and

2. Scene 1 is a lesson in a classroom, and scene 2 is the character leaving that

lesson and entering the corridor. However, the classroom we filmed in

was on the opposite side of the school to the corridor we filmed in, as we felt

that the corridor that the classroom actually leads onto wasn’t busy enough

to film on. You cannot tell that this is the case though because we don’t actually film the door or any of the classroom in

scene 2; just her simply leaving the room.

MATCH-ON-ACTION

Match-on-action between scenes 1 and 2

HOW HAS THE SEQUENCE BEEN EDITED SO THAT THE MEANING IS CLEAR TO THE AUDIENCE?

Shot-reverse-shot is a method we did not particularly use during the filming of our opening scene, because there was no dialogue or conversation between people, meaning it was not appropriate. It was slightly used during scene 1, as the high/low angle shots of the teacher and student are similar to shot-reverse-shot in that you start with the student, move to the teacher and go back to the student.

Therefore, a scene which included some conversation- even if the sound was removed and you just saw their faces- would have made the opening more interesting, for example maybe the girl having an argument with someone

HOW HAS SOUND BEEN USED TO SUPPORT THE

EDITING OF THE SEQUENCE?

HOW HAS SOUND BEEN USED TO SUPPORT THE EDITING OF THE SEQUENCE?

DIEGETIC SOUNDWe wanted to include diegetic sound because it enables the opening to be realistic. We obtained the sound in 3 different ways:

Filming (direct): the sound of the class laughing was the sound recorded at the time of filming, so it was the easiest method to use, especially as there was no background noise affecting us Filming (indirect): the sound of the school bell was slightly different, as we did record it ourselves, however we (accidentally) recorded it during the filming of scene 2 but felt it was perfect for use in scene 1 so I cut the sound out of the video and converted it into an mp3 file Downloads: we downloaded some copyright-free sound from a website to use when the paper hits the girls head as the sound we had recorded wasn’t loud enough and it was a sound we really wanted to emphasise

HOW HAS SOUND BEEN USED TO SUPPORT THE EDITING OF THE SEQUENCE?

NON-DIEGETIC SOUND Our research suggested that it would be best to use a soundtrack during our opening scene because the majority of chick flicks we have seen include one, and it makes the opening more light hearted. We found this made production a lot easier because for 5/6 scenes we didn’t have to worry about the sound in the background, and we could focus on what’s going on in the scene instead

* Full soundtrack can be heard on blog

HOW HAS SOUND BEEN USED TO SUPPORT THE EDITING OF THE SEQUENCE?

After watching our opening all the way through, we realised that there was a lack of diegetic sound because most of the film is a soundtrack, so it could have been better to keep the diegetic sound in the background so that it’s there throughout, not just at the beginning.

I have realised that the majority of chick flicks actually use this method and don’t just play a soundtrack with no diegetic sound in the background, so if we were to do this again we would research more closely into existing products.

 HOW IS THE TITLING USED APPROPRIATE

TO THE GENRE?

HOW IS THE TITLING USED APPROPRIATE TO THE GENRE?

The font we used for all of our titles is quite a simple font because the opening is about ordinary life, so if we had used a fancy font it would not have fitted properly. We also used a simple animation of sliding in from the side so that it isn’t too over the top, but it also looks more quirky and fun.

Most chick flicks don’t include titles right from the start of the opening scene, so we decided we wouldn’t include them either and would introduce them later on. The beginning of our opening scene is a voiceover which leads straight into scene 1, and titles do not appear until the start of scene 2, in which the company name is shown.

HOW IS THE TITLING USED APPROPRIATE TO THE GENRE?

We introduced the names of the main characters in the opening/our names in equal spaces so that there would be titles throughout, and we tried to introduce the names of people when they appear, for example we introduced the name ‘Graham Chan’ when our actor Graham first appears. However there are some points that we felt this wouldn’t work, for example ‘Ella Perkins’ is actually right at the end of the last scene after she was introduced, because we felt that looked better and meant the titles weren’t rushed.

Titles when character appears Titles NOT when character appears

HOW IS THE TITLING USED APPROPRIATE TO THE GENRE?

We introduced our film name right at the end as the last title being shown, because it introduces you to what the film is called and can be lead straight into the film. We decided to freeze the film at this point, which was when the main character is running out of the house in extreme panic, which makes it quite humorous because the name, ‘Just My Luck’ is shown at the same time as a frozen image of a very worried face!

Introducing the film name

OVERALL, WE ACHIEVED EVERYTHING WE HAD PLANNED TO ACHIEVE IN OUR FILM

HOWEVER, AFTER DOING THE EVALUATION, THERE ARE THINGS WE OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T THINK THROUGH PROPERLY, WHICH CAN BE DEVELOPED AND FIXED IN TIME FOR A2 NEXT YEAR TO CREATE AN EVEN BETTER PIECE OF COURSEWORK