Thomas Pinney

Film sequence evaluation

From watching the two-minute clip our group made I am pleased although feel that it is very different to what I visioned it would be like. We attempted to create a scene near the beginning of a film which entails a rural murder through flashbacks and crime scene analysis. The general approach to this scene was a similar approach to that of the tv series C.S.I.(2000-Ann Donahue) in terms of crime scene analysis while the murder is similar to Pyschos’ (1960-Alfred Hitchock) shower scene. Especially in looking back it seems that there were some good ideas but were not properly fulfilled or focused on.

As this is within the detective/crime genre we as a group had many influences as this is a very familiar and well used genre. We ended having a very similar approach to C.S.I. (2000-Ann Donahue). because of the dialogue over the top which explains everything in technical terms while there was an element of giving little information to the viewer letting the viewer make sense of it. This idea of making conclusions from artefacts, evidence and short unusual shots for me was influenced by a memomarable scene in Tarkovskys Stalker (1979-Andrei Tarkovsky) I tried to recreate this through my cinematography with shots of reflections and close up shots of certain items and parts although much of it did not go with our adopted style similar C.S.I (2000-Ann Donahue) so much was cut although there is a clear reference in some of the shots such as left. We as a group also understood that this clip will stand out as being in a very English setting and could be recognizable as a British horror. Because of this we looked to similar films and Dead Mans Shoes (2004-Shane Meadows) came to mind. We decided that it would be a good thing to set the scene at the beginning of the clip with still shots of the landscape similar to the beginning of ‘Dead Mans Shoes’ and ‘Deliverance’. This contrast of raw natural beauty and stark terror is a very affective tool which has been tried and tested in this genre for a while. We tried this out although (see screens) when editing the film it seemed to ruin the flow of it and take up too much time. Also when thinking about how to film our murder scene we thought it would be useful to take some aspects of Hitchcocks’ shower scene in Psycho (1960-Alfred Hitchcock) We wanted to use the same features of very small frantic shots of obscure bits to create a sense of terror and mystery although this was not fully adapted in the final edit as Hitchcock used around fifty shots in just two minutes while ours has a comparatively tiny amount and so was not as successful.

I believe we worked well as a group and generally was well organised. We began the task by having proper and indepth brainstorms on possible ideas and techniques. We covered pretty much every aspect and this meant we got a broad range of ideas form each member and then could try some of these ideas out. We didn’t start filming straight away and put an importance into planning as we had a reckie to the location before filming to deepen our understanding and feeling of the place. This helped a lot with the direction and for me the possibilities of interesting shots in the cinematography. As we attempted to film most of the possible ideas it meant we could easily adopt and experiment with different possibilities. On the whole each persons section worked well with the others such as the fast paced editing and sound effects which wok together to give a good rhythm and complement each other well.

We did not really encounter any serious technical difficulties or problems and our technical skill was proficient enough to see us through. We became a lot more familiar with Final Cut and found out more features and effects. We also learnt to see the importance of organisation and planning. On looking back I’m quite pleased although find it very different to how we all thought and hoped it would turn out. By watching it back ourselves and feedback from other people we found out that there are some things which could be done differently and improved. The main points were, first of all, making the clip more ambiguous as it leaves little for the viewer to interpret and think about especially considering we do not give too much away when this is at the beginning of the film. This could be done through many things like the voiceover saying less, more obscure and closer shots, faster editing and narrative aspects like anonymity of characters. Also effects like sound and colour filters could be done with a bit more precision to help the clip flow and make it look more professional. Another aspect was the lack of character building or apparent importance to any of them.