Evaluation #3 - How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

My production skills

Before working on my film opening, I had little production skills as I hadn't been able to do Film Studies GCSE before I went to Tanglin, however this allowed this project to help me develop what little skills I had beforehand from previous smaller projects I had worked on this school year, and I learnt a lot of new techniques overall. One example of a skill I learnt whilst working on this project was using After Effects, something I decided not to use in my final product as it took too long to work on each individual credit and I found it too complicated to work with. Therefore I thought it would be better to stick with what I knew and make a better product than waste too much time working on something I wasn't proud of. Despite this, I still learnt how to make creative credits and present them in my opening in a unique way, for example with a credit on the road the car was driving on, or in the pomegranate juice on the table. The use of this new technology I hadn't worked with before expanded my skills and way of editing films. After I finished my product, I made these two Top Trump cards to show how my skills have adapted before and after creating my film opening, in categories for the different types of skills I have improved on.

Codes and Conventions

After working on this project, I have a much better understanding of codes and conventions in thrillers and what to expect from a thriller film opening. When me and Olivia were working on the pre-visualisation for the opening, I analysed multiple thriller openings including The Silence Of The Lambs and Joker to gain a better understanding of the codes and conventions present in those films and to work some of them into our own opening. From looking at these openings and researching different sub genres of thrillers and what their differences are, I now have the ability to understand basic iconography of thriller films and am able to use them in my own work. When discussing our film, me and Olivia recognised that while our film opening isn't entirely conventional like other classic thrillers, we still used certain conventions taken from other thrillers, for example the use of making the food look unappealing and gory was inspired by the opening to the TV show Dexter, which features a cannibal making breakfast and getting ready in the morning. However, one thing we did with these conventions was to contradict what they usually mean, for example by making our characters look rich and stable, as well as making them wear colourful and glamourous clothing, a contrast from the usual darker shades and more evil looking costumes that have previously been used in thrillers. The setting in general was also contradictory, with the two characters listening to pleasant music in the car on their way to a picnic, whilst still being fully aware of the dead body in their car and the evil things they have done prior to the events of the opening. Me and Olivia were also introduced to the enigma code in class, a device used in film to create some sort of mystery or clue to the audience as to what is really going on in the story. We used this effectively in our film as we made sure the characters' faces were hidden for the entirety of the opening, making their identity a mystery to the audience, and also emphasizing the way they acted and were dressed. Apart from this, I also had a look at how credits are structured in a film opening and how different thrillers use these to give their openings a little more character or style.

Camera work

Before this project, I had barely any experience with cameras outside of small films I had made with friends outside of school or using them for photography for my GCSE Art coursework. Me and Olivia used a gimbal for the first time in this project, which we found difficult at first because it was hard to balance properly and had to be set up which took a long time. From this, we learnt to set it up before filming with it as to not waste any time doing this, and eventually got to filming with it which was really interesting. We used it in the last scene, where we filmed a tracking shot from the car to the characters getting ready for their picnic, which we thought was a little shaky, but still fit the scene well. Olivia also used a suction mount, which she placed on the hood of her car when filming the experimental shots I wasn't present for in January. Overall, I believe that my camera skills have improved with this project, although I do still have a lot to learn about setting up and working with some equipment, something I wasn't familiar with before this coursework.

[Shot using the gimbal]

[Shot using the suction mount]

 

Planning and Organisation

This was something that was a strength for me before we started the project, I am often quite organised with my work and tend to stick to lists and mind maps I have created before a piece of work is made. However this still improved during this project because I had not worked on pre-visualisation for a film, other than any smaller projects outside of school, before this. When planning for our film, me and Olivia scheduled our filming and when certain tasks were due, for example, shooting the kitchen scenes, or the story board being finished. We would also call or message each other when we weren't at school to organise costumes and staggered when our actors would be on set, giving them time to arrive only when they were needed and so there was not anyone unnecessary on set when we didn't need them. For example, our actor, George, was needed for the cooking scene and our actress, Emily, was not in any scenes before the shot of her putting her necklace on, therefore she did not need to arrive until a little later. I think our planning was very effective overall, as it also gave us plenty of time to focus on editing after filming, with us finishing filming in late January and having lots of time to edit before the deadline in March. 

Visual effects

I hadn't had much experience with credits before this project, other than basic ones I used when editing small videos before. When working on my credits, I tried using Adobe After Effects to create credits that blend in more with the film itself, for example I had a concept of the title 'Red Herring' appearing in the pomegranate juice on the shot with the juice dripping onto the knife. I ended up trying to work with After Effects, but it just ended up being too complicated as I hadn't used it before and it took a very long time to make the credit stick to the background and not shake or wobble around - so I decided to just stick with Final Cut Pro. Apart from this though, I did some research into different fonts to use and settled on the American Typewriter font, as I believed that it fit the opening's theme well. My credits were all moved to the corner of the screen with some of them being on the car or above it. Other than that, not a lot of visual effects were used in the film, however I still improved with this skill as I had not had much experience with effects on Final Cut Pro before this project.

[The title credit shot]

 [Credits merged with objects]

Editing

Editing was crucially important in my film as me and Olivia chose to not include any dialogue between any of the characters. Therefore the narrative and themes getting across to the audience relied entirely on the editing. I had edited small films I'd made in class before on Final Cut Pro, so I knew how it worked and had a basic understanding with how to edit simple films. This was still a skill I improved on as I learnt how to add text to a film and tilt it on the y and x axis to move it around. I also learnt how to add music to the film and colour correct shots. Before my final film, I made 3 drafts showing my progress whilst editing the footage. The first thing I did when editing was just place the clips together in order and at the length I wanted each of them to be. Then I did the colour correcting, something I found quite challenging as I wasn't sure how to make the colours look normal but also bright enough to make the red imagery stand out. I had not used this kind of meaning before so I really wanted it to be obvious in the final product. In the end, I was quite happy with this, apart from a shot with the red looking a little too bright and over saturated in my opinion. If I could go back and change this I would as I realised after watching my film over and over that I didn't think it looked too good. Another shot I found difficult to colour correct was this one outside the car window. This was because it was difficult to make the greenery outside stand out without making the entire shot look too green overall. In the end I think it was ok, however I would probably go back and change this too if I could. After colour correcting, I made a final draft without the music, then added it and changed a few things for the final product. One of the things I changed was the flashes at the end of the shots, recommended by my film teacher, to make the film a little bit more creepy and suspicious before the reveal of the body. Overall, I think my editing skills have improved very much during this project, and I now have a lot of new skills I can use in future tasks which will be really useful.

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Creative confidence

Me and Olivia were very creative with this project and how we went across making it. Some of our ideas were very last minute and were added in at first as a test but then ended up being used in the final product. For example, on the day of filming I came up with an idea for a shot of the pomegranate juice dripping onto the knife in droplets, to give the image of blood dripping onto it instead. This was not a part of our storyboard and it ended up being the shot we used for our title to our film. Another effect we used was microwaving the pomegranate we used so it was more juicy and the seeds popped, giving it a more battered effect. This worked very well as when we made a slit for our actor to open it, pomegranate juice leaked everywhere onto the chopping board. This was good as it meant that the board looked red and stained in the final footage. It was also now easier for the actor to squeeze the pomegranate as it was softer after being heated. Using the pomegranate, tomatoes and jam to create the impression of blood was a step outside the box for us as well as experimenting for our film coursework overall.