Evaluation.

For this project we were asked to make a two minute opening for a film. We were not given any thing that we had to include or told which genre the opening had to fit into, only that it could not be over two minutes.
We decided that we would produce a thriller with a massive twist at the end. Our plot line was a schoolgirl would be kidnapped and the massive twist at the end would be that the detective looking into the case is actually the kidnapper. We decided to film between two locations, outside the school, and on location in a cave. We came up with this idea because we all had a similar idea that we wanted to do for our preliminary but it was too long. We came up with the twist because we felt it needed a big ending that would shock the viewer, instead of having no real storyline.


Once everything was in place, we knew what we were doing and the equipment was working correctly, the filming and editing of the opening was really enjoyable to create. We all contributed to the camera movements and deciding what shots should be used and where. Filming in the cave was the best part of the whole process. The whole experience of filming on location, using lighting to create the desired effect and learning how to overcome difficulties we faced was definitely a valuable one. We faced a fair amount of difficulties during the time we had to plan and organise where and when we were going to film. Firstly there was the problems we faced producing our animatic. After filming it and deciding loosely where the zooms and pans etc were going to come, editing it all together and finally choosing the music and where and when it would stop or fade out the laptop decided that it no longer wanted to work and deleted the progress that we had made so far. This was frustrating because we have put a lot of work into getting it roughly the way we thought that we wanted the actual opening, but we all got our heads down and managed to complete a second animatic within a double lesson. Next we had a problem with finding a location that would not only allow us to film, not have prior commitments or that was not too far away for us to get to. We emailed and rung round many places before we were finally contacted by Fort Horsted who seemed really eager to have us in, and even supplied us with extra lighting and rigged us up to a generator for our lighting kit. Finally we had problems with sticking to our time plan to film because our actress was not allowed to leave lessons, although this was not a major problem, it did mean that we had to film during the Christmas holidays to make up for missed time.


I do not think that I would change anything about the way that we filmed because I think that we filmed in a really economical way. We took lots of shots of the same thing from different angles and camera movements so that we did not need to go back and re-film anything. I would, however, change the way that we planned. I think that we should have made a realistic time plan and tried to stick to it as close as we possible could. We also should not have left finding a location until the last minute. After we had sent out loads of emails we just expected the locations to get back to us, however, this did not happen with many of them. I realise now that we needed to be more pro-active and ring around locations and show that we were eager to film and explain our situation.


I have learnt a lot from producing this opening. I have learnt that its important to not just expect someone to email you back and that you need to show that your eager. I have also learnt that making a time plan is important if things need to be done, especially if there is a deadline. Learning how to overcome difficulties that arise that you did not expect without getting angry or frustrated about them. I learnt how to use editing equipment to get the most out of it and what to expect should things go wrong. Finally, learning what it is like to film on location has been the most valuable lesson for me. It has given me insight on how you should conduct yourself if you need to talk to a location manager, how to deal with problems that might arise filming in a remote location and that there are some excellent locations out there, you just have to really dig around.


Overall I have really enjoyed the process of this project. It has taught me valuable lessons, such as backing up your work constantly, how unreliable equipment can be at times and how frustrating it is when things go wrong. It has enabled me to learn about which shots are most appropriate and when they should be used. I have learnt about techniques that I had never used before and learnt how to put them to good use. even though problems occurred and threw a spanner in the works, I think our opening looks really professional with little continuity errors and some techniques, such as the telephone call, which we would not have thought to include initially. We all worked really hard to achieve the best finished product we could and i think that all of our hard work has really payed off.