Strengths, Weaknesses and Improvements

Strengths

One of the strengths in our opening sequence is the first 30 seconds of the whole piece, i believe that the product would not be very good at all without it. It is personally my favourite and what i believe to be the best part of the media product. It is a mix of many different shots which are very short and put together using the technique of jump cuts. This looks very effective and helps to create the tension I was planning on building up the the action of the eye opening. It is fast and with all the different shots and angles it shows of the main character you get to see a lot in a very short period of time. The sound over these shots are, the heavy breathing which is created through both the character when we were filming and through a voice over. The other sound which is previewed is my most favourite bit, is the voice over of the curse being whispered out loud. It adds a sense of spookiness as we do not know if we can only hear the sound or whether the character can too and she is hearing things? This is not made clear to us, so yet again our imagination is put into place, as mystery arises. I really like the shot in the girls bedroom when she is reading the curse out loud and the camera follows behind her head. This gives the effect as if someone is watching her and she does not know, but we are in the point of view of the 'watcher'. It is different to just any other ordinary standard shot and i think this a reason to why i like it so much. I also think that the shots where the close up of the Ipod is shown is effective as it shows how well the clips were edited as they are all shown from different angles but they all however flow automatically with no awkwardness. 

Weaknesses

I  would say that one of the initial weaknesses of our product would be that the beginning bit may of been a bit too heavy, although it built tension and looked good, I do not know whether the opening should have gone straight into the rush of all of the clips together. This may have given the impression that the first cut had more of a trailer-feel than an opening, however when the second scene starts this changes, but I still had doubts on the first part being mistaken for a trailer. But no one did pick up on it in my audience feedback. Due to having to cut the whole piece down to two minutes some major cuts were made and not a lot of the narrative that originally I wanted to be included could be. So therefore to make sure that the piece fit within the two minute time frame the second scene had to have a basic storyline to make it all fit within the time i had left to show the narrative to the audience. So one of the weaknesses may be that the there was a lack of story behind the curse because of the time frame.

Improvements 

If I were to do this project again, I think that I would introduce the story in a much more calmer way and then get into the jump cuts and build the tension up from there. As well as this i would want to have more time to put more narrative in about the curse so the audience could see what the effect of the curse would do to the main character.Also i would of improved our institution introduction, as i think it did not look as professional as ones that are successful today look, as well as it did not have a theme tune to start off with. It was more like a moving image with a title. 

Overall

I think that overall, I have created a successful product. I like the end product that we have worked on, and even though there are some improvements that I would make if I were to do it again, I think that our product looks really and we have some very positive feedback to back this up with. 

Feedback : Final Product

1) Could you identify that the genre was horror?

All of our feedback suggested that the audience knew the opening sequence was based on a horror/thriller genre.

2) Do you understand what is going on in the opening of 'The Worst Is Yet To Come'?

Again, our audience felt that there was a 'very clear storyline to follow' and that they all suggested they understood what was happening throughout.

3) What did you think about the sound effects and voice overs? Do you think they are used well?

The feedback for this was very positive, with the audience commenting on how it 'creates spookiness and terror', 'it sends a shiver up your spine' and 'it creates tension well to the build up of what is going to happen'.

4) Do our transitions work well, going from scene to scene?

Our audience believed that they were effective and added tension to our opening, 'the jumpy bit with all of the fast, short clips at the beginning is choppy but still flows really well together and you can follow what is happening with no confusion, its scary!' is one comment about the transitions.

5) After seeing 2 minutes of the opening would you stay and watch the rest of the film?

The feedback that we received suggested that our opening sequence was interesting enough to watch more of, as every person from our audience said that they would of like to have seen the rest of the film and how it continued. One response said 'i would like to know whether the girl lives or dies', this is one of the questions we hoped would go through the audience mind as the eye never opened when she fell to the ground. 

6) Do you think that we have used the right camera shots/angles to show what is going on?

It was shown by our audience that our 'editing and shots show a clear focus on the main character' and 'in the first shots the different angles the character is shown by lets us see everything without having the camera focusing on her for a long period of time.'

7) Do you think that we have contained the necessary information to make the opening interesting?

The responses to this were yet again positive, with people commenting on the 'detail of the story line shown' and how the 'props were included in an interesting way'.

8) Do you think that the cut from the two very different scenes, work well together?

The feedback to this question were mixed as some commented on how 'the screen jumped too quickly from an eye to a girl in a bedroom, the tension was built up and stopped at nothing, to then carry on a storyline' while others commented saying that 'it worked well as when the eye was opened and it faded into the girls bedroom it was almost like she was having a flashback  or a dream, which gets the audience imagining'.

9) Do you think that the locations fit well with the story line?

The response to this question was again positive as they said 'in the first scene the location was scary, dark, rainy, stormy, spooky which with the quick shots made you even more scared whereas the second scene was bright colours and set in the daytime which makes you think of a positive environment, a big contrast to the first location, but works well!'

10) Additional Comments?

Lots of comments seemed to say that our product was 'very well done' or 'very good' or people telling us that they would 'watch that film in the cinema'. This was really good news to hear as it made us feel positive about our product and that we did well.

Overall, the feedback that we received was highly positive which suggests that the audeince did enjoy our product that we have created.

Codes and Conventions

I am going to identify all of the codes and conventions that we have used in our opening sequence.

The institutional logo at the beginning - this is a convention as the majority of all films have the institution information at the very beginning of any film, including horrors and thrillers. This helped our product look more professional and realistic, and also if using a good institution it would draw attention because of the good reputation. However because we created our own institution called S&M Productions it may not be well known but it still helped to make my product more professional.

Red Typography - This is a typical convention in horror films and has the connotations of blood, death, murder, danger etc. We used this in our institutional logo which was shown at the beginning of our product.

Mysterious Location - The first location that you get to see is a dark, outside area that is not to obviously labelled or shown to what it is, or where it is. It is exactly like a typical convention of a location in a horror film as a dark, shadowy place which scares the audience as they cannot see everything clearly, and makes them believe that something may be around that they do not know about. 

Characters - The types of characters, even though I only included one character in my opening sequence it was still on that is in a typical horror film. The vulnerable girl who panics at the first sign of strange things and gets into trouble even though she is shown to be a positive friendly person.

Mystery Phone Calls - Two times in the whole opening sequence, the character receives missed calls from unknown numbers as well as a text repeating the curse which is also from an unknown number. This scares the audience because, not only does the character not know why she is getting this phone calls and who they are from, neither does the audience. It also gives them a sense of reality as this could happen to anyone, as I'm sure humans get prank calls and calls from unknown umbers all the time, but however this is something far beyond just a "joke" or a phone call for "fun".

Progression from the Preliminary Task

We have progressed a lot since the preliminary task. The preliminary helped us as we learnt some thing on what looks better and what not to do. It helped us to see how long a piece of film would take to shoot and plan as well as edit and finalise all in time to meet a deadline. 

When looking at the final piece in detail I realised how important the voice over of the curse is to the media product. It helps to build up tension through the short, fast jump cuts at the beginning to the action that we do not get to see towards the end. I tried different ways of saying the curse to find out what would be more affective and then came to a conclusion that whispering it would give more of a spooky feeling to all of the clips as what you could see matched the terror of what you could also hear. 

We never actually included shoulder shots in our final final piece, but in our first idea that we did film they were used in that. It was a conversation between two school girls between a skeleton talking about the same curse. The 180 degree rule was used and worked successfully as well as making sure that the shots from over the shoulder were edited well and flowed to show the conversation was happening naturally. This actually worked out very well and looked better than the conversation that was taken place in the preliminary task. 

During the preliminary task, one thing that i learnt was to check what could be seen in the shot before shooting and not filming enough. So that when you came to editing, if a shot was of bad quality or not exactly how you wanted it, if you had not filmed it a numerous amount of times you would have to just go with that one shot and it brought down the rest of the film. So therefore when filming for the opening sequence we made sure that we filmed every little piece of shot from every angle at least 3 times or more so we had a choice of clips to choose from when it came to editing. 

Audience?

Who will our audience be?

Age: The age I am aiming to are people between the ages of 15 and 25. This will be the most appropriate age because the age of the character would be between this age so therefore they will have more to relate to and therefore this may lead to more enjoyment of the film. Also, as most horror films are given a 15 or 18 certificate because of the BBFC guidlines relating to the content, I believe that 'The Worst Is Yet To Come' could be classed as a 15, as it is scary enough, hence the minimum target age.

Gender: The film is aimed more at females because of the main character being a female, they will have more to relate to and interact with the feelings and emotions of the character. 

9 Frame Analysis

The Worst Is Yet To Come- Final Cut

Improvements That Were Made

BEFORE IMPROVEMENTS The Worst Is Yet To Come

The Re-occurrence of The Eye

When coming up with the storyline, we thought straight away about an eye being placed, this is often seen within horror and thriller films as a spooky convention so therefore including it within our film ties in with the codes and conventions we were looking at. In the first 30 seconds of film, it is a fast cut of different moving images put together, within this there is a first show of a painting as the camera moves from the bottom of the face, upwards it slowly stops on to the eye. After some more clips and as the narrative is getting more intense, the last few clips you begin to believe that the girl is dead as she has fallen over and is not getting back up again. 

However the very last clip is a close up of the girls eye, closed! But when the voice over and the   other background noises stop, the eye suddenly opens and then fades into daytime. This could give a thought that what just happened could have been a dream and she is now waking up from it, instead of what has happened being reality. Or she may have died and then come back alive, or maybe not died at all! The idea I came up with could be that when the eye opens and it fades into the same girl during the daytime, this could be a flash back of what had happened earlier that day/ week. 

There was no real storyline of what this re-occurrence of the eye means or what it is trying to tell the audience, it was more to portray a sense of mystery and to get the audience thinking of what and why this would be shown. 

Shot Reverse Shot

When we finished our product before all of the improvements and the different storyline that was followed, we had an idea that was shot between two people 'Emma Smith and Melissa Bunyan' this was in a room with a prop which was a skeleton. The conversation between them both, focused on a shot reverse shot as well as making sure that the 180 degree rule was kept to. As you can see below this was effective and when it was cut exactly between clips it looked very professional. 

Even though we deleted this piece of film altogether I still think that it was a good standard of quality and editing and flowed well together. From our preliminary it was edited more effectively and the shot reverse shot was put more in to place. More film was used so when it came to putting the clips together there was more choice of clips to choose from unlike our prelim.

Editing Clips

There are many different ways you can edit clips and below are just a few on changing the visual way of what the clip looks like. For last minute touches for changing lighting or colours that are within the clip this is a good idea. 

You can find this pop up when you hover over the clip you wish to edit, then down the drop down list to edit clip and then you can choose from the top bar where it would be the clip, video or audio that you wish to change. This is very easy to follow and use, and I had no problems when using this, to improve clips and to lighten them up when I did not know it had been filmed with such bad lighting it came in handy!

Also you can choose an option which allows you to either crop or rotate the clip that you are focusing on, I think this is a good thing as if you have extra space or something that you do not want in your clip you can cut it out and put the main focus on what you are trying to get across. It is all about making those perfections.

As well as just changing colours of the clip you can chose different themes and tones to the clip by the automatic changes that iMovie can make with just a click of a button, these different options have many different effects and can help to make your project more professional. With the clip of the close up of the phone ringing from an unknown number, it was very dark, I chose a theme that was called 'glow' and automatically the light coming from the phone brightened as well as the rest of the clip, it matched the rest of the piece perfectly then.

Below you can see the different transitions that can put between clips to either help them flow better from one to another or to start or finish a clip at a more professional standard. In the bottom right hand corner, it gives you lots of different transitions to choose from, once one is chosen you can drag it over the the exact place it is needed. Preview this and see if it is what you are looking for, and this transition can always be edited with the time it is on for. The main use of the transitions in my film we when I cross blurred the eye opening to the girl in her bedroom, as they were two very different scenes and put next to each other normally would look very, very strange. Also I inserted a 'fade to black' at the very last clip of the sequence to show that the film has stopped there, for now anyway!

Sound

In my piece of film I did not actually manually add in a piece of sound that was already on the mac, it was either a sound from the film that had been recorded or the voice over, that I created. But in my first final piece, I actually added in a school bell noise when the eye faded out to the school. This was very easy and simple to do and was simply chosen on the tabs in the bottom right hand corner and then dragged over to where the sound wanted to be played, not only did it match my clip but sounded very realistic too!!

Sound plays a big part in film, especially within a horror/thriller genre, with it mainly being used to build up tension within one clip or a series of clips. As you can see below how when you go to edit the clips you can then chose an option to see all of the audio that you can adjust. This helped when in certain scenes we had unwanted background noises we could block out tiny pieces of sound by lowering the sound on just a small of a clip.

One, very big effective piece of sound that was used within my work was the voice over that was put over the first 30 seconds of the film at the beginning. I myself spoke for the voice over and this was a curse that was meant to be "haunting" the girl shown in the film. I used a whispering voice as it was most effective and related to the images on the screen, and I believe that it worked very well together. Below is some screen grabs on how I created the voice over and put it over the certain clips that I wanted it to feature over. I was very pleased with this part of my product and i feel that it fitted in with the codes and conventions of a horror/thriller film very well.

Adding Text to a Clip

One of the main uses of text on a clip was for the opening credits. So therefore the text would have to appear towards the beginning of the piece of film. As you can see below, it is very easy to insert a piece of text on top of a clip and edit the text to your liking. This is done by clicking the 'T' below the main image on the right. Then as you can see below a series of choices of where you would like to place the text on your clip will appear and after choosing one a text box will pop up and this is where to write the text you want on the clip. After all of this has happened you can then edit the text to perfection, with different fonts, sizes, colours etc.

Below you can see all of the different ways in which you can edit the text that you have inserted onto the clip, with the different fonts and sizes.

Character Representation

Here is our main character in the first scene who is played by Emma Smith;

We have dressed her in dark, dull, boring clothing which does not bring any kind of attention to the character on them being an individual person. It makes her to be very general and for the audience to believe that it could be anyone in her position. As well as not showing her face only of a few occasions and very quickly shows that the reality of it could be anyone. 

Here is our main character in the second scene;

We have dressed her in a fairly girly manner to go with the room which is mostly pink, and she is seen to be a friendly girl who would just be the same as any other regular teenage girl. This scene looks nothing like the girl in the first scene and you would hardly even know they were the same person. Her clothes in this scene are light and bright to show how positive the scene is and that at this point everything is okay rather than the dark scenes at the beginning with a negative attitude.

As she is the only character in the opening sequence she is our only chance of getting her personality and what you feel from her relate to the audience. I think as we have not given her a name makes her quite general and not to individual as well as not giving her an individual look. In this scene we tend to build some sort of relationship with her as we have already seen what is going to happen in the scene at the end. We see her fall into the trap of answering the phone call and walking towards the strange noise that she has heard when inside the audience should create a feeling of not wanting her to be hurt and to protect her.

Props

Here is a list of props that were used within our opening sequence;

• Mobile phone- this is shown when the main character is receiving a call from an unknown number, as well as being used in the bedroom scene when she gets a text from an unknown number repeating the curse. 

• Ipod and Headphones - This is used in the bedroom scene when she is sitting down on her bed being a 'normal teenager' there is a close up on the Ipod when she presses pause to the song that she is listening to.



• Laptop - This is used in the bedroom scene when she is sitting down on her bed being a 'normal teenager', there is a close up of her typing on the keypad showing a sense of reality.

Opening Credits

In my research I found many ways that the opening credits were usually screened but as we only had a small team of two rather than a huge team that need congratulating we did not feel it was necessary to write our name a numerous amount of times for all the different jobs that we did.

We did include a few and these are the ones below...

If we were going to list all of the opening credits that are usually screened they would be the following;

• Name of the studio - Queensbury  School
• Name of the Production Company - S&M Productions
• Producer Names - Shona McGuire and Emma Smith
• Director-Shona McGuire
• Writers -Shona McGuire and Emma Smith
• Starring - Emma Smith
• Films Title - The Worst Is Yet To Come
• Voice over(sound) - Shona McGuire
• Editor -Shona McGuire

Story Board

The Worst Is Yet To Come - Script

Title Sequence: Melancholy piano music 

Jump cuts of main character running, into a building and down a corridor. Shots shown from every angle. Heavy breathing throughout.

Voice over: Trust that the worst is yet to come, Horrors and terrors and then yet some; Be aware of the curses that await your mind; For the master is coming, Turn and face behind.

Girl gets phone call. Falls over. Scene ends on a closed eye. 

Changed scene

Girl sitting in her room listening to music and on a laptop.

Girl believe she hears a noise, stops what she is doing to listen, hears nothing so carries on and puts her head phones in.

Girl then believes she hears another noise, takes out her headphones and says 

Main Character: "Hello...?"

Girl gets no response so puts her headphones back in and carries on, then for the third time she believes she heard another noise. She takes out her headphones and says

Main Character : "Mum...?"

Girl gets up off her bed to walk towards where she believes the noise is coming from.

Her mobile phone rings so she turns to read the text, she reads it out loud

Main Character: "Trust that the worst is yet to come, Horrors and terrors and then yet some; Be aware of the curses that await your mind; For the master is coming, Turn and face behind. What does that even mean?"

Character turns to walk away and the shot is left on the message sent from an unknown number.

Distribution

Before we came up with the idea of S&M productions, JASE was created and researched into. We presented to the class about the production and distribution company that we had created, what they had to offer as a company, and what they focus on bringing to their audiences. Personally I think that this logo looks more professional that the S&M productions one, i believe it looks very amateur and rushed. However for the task that we are doing, an opening sequence for a horror/thriller genre, JASE does not look to relate back to this. This looks more happy and upbeat, not the type of logo you would expect when thinking of a horror film, however the spikes are sharp and ready but the bright pink colours would not mix well.

Therefore, even though S&M productions we created especially for this film we still included them as the producers of the film. JASE was not mentioned in the credits as we only included the bare minimum, but we would use JASE as a distribution company to help to get our film to our audiences.

Institution- S&M Productions

We created S&M Productions as the institution that we wanted to be involved with the production and distributions of our film. As you can see the horror picture in the background with a colour scheme of black and white has a spooky sense about it and makes you believe that all of the films that S&M Productions are involved in would be a film in a horror or thriller genre. The red writing of the logo stands out as it is a contrasting colour it is bold and clear to read. The name for the company was really simple to create as it would stand for Smith and McGuire Productions.

Title of the Opening Sequence

There was many different titles that i considered when choosing the title name for the opening sequence;

• 9 Missed Calls
• Unknown Number
• Turn and Face Behind
• The Curse
• The Worst Is Yet To Come

In the end the final one I went with was "The Worst Is Yet To Come", the reason for this was because personally i believed that it was the best one that we came up with to match with our short film. It is part of the saying of the curse, 'trust that the worst is yet to come, horrors and terrors and then yet some, beware of the curses that await your mind, for the master is coming turn and face behind.' This curse is repeated twice through the opening sequence so having part of the curse as the title does make sense as it relates to the storyline but does not give anything away and spoils what will happen. From the words 'the worst is yet to come' you then think, what is going to happen? this makes you think something bad WILL happen and to give an audience a phrase like this it drags them in to make them want to see the rest. 

Location

Here are some photos of the location that we used for the first 30 seconds of the film;


When we were coming up with ideas for our final piece we had to think of this in detail, so all ideas had to include the location and the key concepts of the location and if it fitted in with the story. Our first location was actually set within our school of Queensbury Upper School however in the scene it is not clear that it is set in a school ground. The colours in the location are bland and boring and nothing really is very interesting to look at. This is good as it makes the film more general so the audience can relate and imagine that it may have been somewhere they know and what is happening may also happen to them too! It was key to make sure that we were shooting our piece of film at the right time of day and when filming on different days that the location looked exactly the same as it did the previous time. This made sure that it was to a level of professionalism and looked realistic.

Here are some photos of my second location ;

The second location was my own bedroom, this was used because quite frankly we needed to use a bedroom. The last scene is meant to be the 'normal' teenager in her bedroom doing 'normal' things that teenagers do, listening to music, on the laptop etc. The room is based on pinks blacks and white colours, and is quite girly. It gives off a happy friendly environment, not something to expect that anything could go wrong. This helped us as because this is so realistic it could relate to the audience, which may spook them out and make them want to watch more and more. Showing that 'this curse' could really happen to anyone.

Lighting

The lighting for my opening sequence was totally different in two parts in the two different scenes. One being the opening scene, set at night in the a very dark setting, was hard to film as if we had no light at all you would not be able to see anything on film. So therefore some of the shots were filmed in the night where the darker shots were needed, some (when shot from inside the building) would have some kind of background light to help highlight what the camera is focusing on but still letting the set look dark. On one day we did film in the daylight and what we did there was edit the lighting on the macs, by editing the colour scheme on the actual clip. On some clips it looked really good and others it either washed out the whole clip or did not look like it was set at night at all. The jump cut at the beginning was from a mixture of shots that were set at daytime and at night time and watching the clips together, you would not notice. It was very hard to make sure that where in some shots some areas were highlighted or there was light coming from a certain direction, in the following shots this same light had to carry through. 
As you can see in the following shots below;

The light starts off coming through the door and then in the next shot....

You can see the light coming from the same direction, this was from where we were shooting in the daylight as you can see we have just edited the clips to change the clip colours. Below is how you do this...

 In the last scene, in the girls bedroom, it is set in daylight which was all natural light and as you can see from the image below the light is coming through the window on the left.

Costume

The costume that was used was casual clothing in both scenes for the girl, to make her seem normal to add to the fact that the story has a sense of reality to it. It was nothing to bright or fancy as that would distract the audience's attention to look at what the character is wearing rather than what is actually happening within the scene. So the colour scheme for both scenes were, blues, blacks and creams which worked well. We also had to make sure that Emma was wearing the same clothing as we filmed the first part of the opening sequence on two different days, but it was essential that she was wearing exactly the same clothing so the audience would not see any difference betweent he clips that were showing and they would flow from one to the other.

Writing the Script

Most of the dialogue will be included within the storyboard but there is one main piece of dialogue which will be repeated throughout the piece as well as the title being included within this riddle.

Trust that the worst is yet to come,
Horrors and terrors-- and then yet some;
Be aware of the curses that await your mind;
For the master is coming soon. Turn and face behind.

Through the first set of clips i have created a voice over in a whispering voice to spook the audience, the words alon are scary words but when this is paired with images it adds more tension and emotion to the journey of what the audience is viewing and feeling then to reach the climax of what is then going to happen.

Time Management

Our first idea we had in mind was to do video but create an intro for a chick flick genre, basically a 'London themed Sex in the City'. We had plans for this idea and shot locations buit this meant we had yto travel and go to a number of different places, we couldn't film anything unless we took a train to london centre or till we went to a concert as that was one of our main ideas for filming. We then had second thoughts about this idea and how it would plan out, so we started to look at horror and decided that it would be better if we went with another idea of a Horror/Thriller film. We started our planning and research all over again even though we had already planned a lot for the chick flick genre.
In order for me and Emma Smith to get our main task finished before the deadline we created a plan so therefore we would not be wasting our time doing nothing when we could be using that time doing something relevant to the task. These were;

• Research into the Horror/Thriller genre
• Watch a selection of Horror/Thriller DVD intros
• Create and draw up a story board
• Write a script for the opening sequence
• Look and research locations and places to make sure that they are suitable
• Look and research different shots and angles
• Look at certain types of editing to make horror look realistic
• Start recording footage
• Upload footage to iMovie and begin to edit
• Go back and film more footage when needed
• Finish editing piece
• Edit to get the intro of the film to a two minute mark and include everything we have researched

if we then have extra time this is what we could do;

• Create a DVD cover for our film
• Create posters to advertise our film

Titles

The title of the film can show what the film may be about or even just give a small insight of what will happen during the film. This can be due to images included, fonts, colours, words etc. All of these add to create a sense of what the film would be. A title should never show everything on what the film is going to be about, it should have a little mystery to draw in the audience and make them want to know what is going to happen next.


SCREAM

As you can see in the title it has a very dark background in the colour 'Black' which you can then get the feeling that the film is going to be dark, scary and spooky. Black does not usually represent happy things so this may be able to give you an insight of what sort of theme will be going on during the film. It is essential that you should make sure that the title, fonts, images and colors that you use all relate back to the genre of the film. The font is white which is a huge contrast to the black background which makes the title stand out even more so. With the title being plain it is straight to the point and does not give off a lot of information to what the film will be, a sense of mystery is then formed.
THE GRUDGE

I
n the picture above it yet again has a black background to add mysetery as you cannot see or will now know what is next going to happen. The font in the top left hand corner is scary as if scratches have been make through the letters which may mean somethiong has done this to it. The colour is red, which may realte back to blood or death and stands out well against the black background. The image is peeping out and you can hardly see much of the girls face just an eye, which also adds mystery as you know that the image must relate to the film but you have little to see so the mystery of the film starts.

180 Degree Rule

In filmmaking, the 180 degree rule is a basic guideline that states that two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera were to pass over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects then this would be called 'crossing the line'. The new shot which is from the opposite side will be known as a 'reverse angle'. 'Crossing the line' means shooting consecutive shots from opposite sides of the line. The 180 degree rule is a huge aspect within film grammar, the director's template has a tool of drawing and to get used to it, it is worth while to draw it out to understand the concept.

Insted of the standard 'Coverage' showing the iner-relationship of characters, another method of shot/reverse/shot can be utilized where the characters Point of View is seen, this effect is mainly used to create a connection with the character, and the basic format for this would be;

• to show that the character is looking
• to show what the character is looking at
• to show the characters reaction to what he is seeing

An example of a 180 degree rule would be;
Between two characters, if the first character is on the left, the second one on the right should be facing right at all times even when the first one is off the edge of the frame, just like how the first character should always be facing to the left.

Another example would be within a sequence of an action scene, like a car chase if a vehicle were to leave the right side of the frame in one shot then it should enter the shot again from the left side. Leaving from the right and entering from the right will create a simular sense of disorientation as in the character example.

In this diagram you can see the two chairs, the line that shouldn't be crossed and the camera. The camera can move anywhere within the half circle, but it shouldn't stay across the red line. Otherwise, cut shots between talking characters would have them facing the same direction.

Research on Lighting

Lighting can also have as much affect on what the audience feels from the film as well as what is happening in the clip and what you hear, the three different types of lighting are;


SOFT LIGHTING: makes a scene look more real, help to ease the audience.
HARSH LIGHTING: makes a scene look more artificial, give the audience more discomfort and make everything look ugly.
BACK LIGHTING: make someone look more powerful.


I will think about how I will film my piece and the lighting that will be considered as the beginning part is in the dark but needs to have certain parts of the character light to help it to stand out. Then the second part of the film being in a very bright location creating a 'happy, normal' environment. 

Research on Sound

Sound plays a vital role in film and helps shape the way in which the viewer reacts and watches a motion picture. Sound influences and enhances what we see on the projector screen. It is able to influence what we see and affect its images by bringing to life the images on the screen. For example, the sound of a grenade making a huge explosion magnifies it effects on the scene at hand. The noises make the scene and actions come alive and seem more and more real. Sound can help to capture the viewers attention and wraps them into the scene.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF SOUND THAT MAY BE INCLUDED;

• Music - can enhance emotions, suggests a particular type of film and sets the theme to the film.
• Voice-over - The pitch and tone of the voice will affect the way you imagine your character and you will create an image of what the character looks like.
• Sound Effects - (e.g. door closing, footsteps, screams, laughter)
  Types;
  Diegetic - sound who's source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film (voices of characters).
  Non-Diegetic -  sound who's source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action (mood music).

SAW

As you can see in this clip which is the opening sequence from 'Saw' it constantly has included sound to affect the audience. To make them feel a certain way or keep them hooked on what will happen next. There are both sounds that are diegetic and non-diegetic. 

Shaky Camera Technique

A technique that is known as either, shaky camera, shaky cam, handheld camera or free camera is another cinematographic technique which is simply created by filming which holding the camera which filming or at least giving the appearance that the camera is being hand held. This technique suggests unprepared, unrehearsed filming of reality, and can provide a sense of dynamics and nervousness. However a bad use of sing this technique would be that too must shaky camera motion can make the viewer feel dizzy or sick. I used this in my opening sequence to create a sense of reality, as well as feeling like you were in the shoes of the main character that is running away from 'The Unknown', because the camera is hand held this means that yu can see everything that the person who is holding the camera can see as if you were looking out of their eyes. So you get the whole feeling and start to think of the emotions that may be involved if you were the character. The way it was filmed was by the main character 'Emma Smith' running from the first long shot towards a building. It was very easy to film and did not take much time to plan however it still added a creative feel to the film when this clip was included.


 I used this in a few clips at the beginning of the opening sequence. The clips at first are very short and have fast transitions between them so the shaky camera breaks it up to help you to see the situation from her perspective too. I really like this movement of camera, i believe that including it within my work it has added the right atmosphere to my film and worked well amongst all of the other clips.