First draft critique:
To improve our film at this point we plan to add more graphics announcing the directors, editors and actors as well as the film title to the audience. We will also be improving our current graphics that are at the beginning of the first draft. As well as this, we plan to film the rest of the film and edit it together with the already existing shots in order to have a complete opening sequence. Furthermore, we need to film more shots that will link to our current scene as we feel that we could make it flow a lot better, for example seeing how the protagonist got to the point of sitting on the sea wall at the start of the scene. Additionally, we plan to refilm the shot when the protagonist declines the call from his mum, as it was suggested in the group critique, because the audience cant fully see what is on the phone and misses the symbolic part where Chris declines the phone, as this is critical to understanding the character. On top of this, we need to add sound effects on top of the loud wave and wind noises that came from the natural and open setting we used. We are planning to use a soft acoustic original song at the point where the protagonist puts in his earphones as diegetic sound, and take out the harsh diegetic sounds of the sea and wind which distract the audience from the narrative.
Second Draft:
Second film edit critique:
A lot of changes were made in comparison of the first edit to the second edit. We changed actors and re-filmed the whole scenes due to trouble with actors not being available. This edit flows a lot better as a story and narrative than the previous. It is less confusing for the audience as well as being enticing and engaging the audience fully. The general positive consensus from our peers was that this draft of the film is a massive improvement from the first draft.
The added title sequence and production company images were well received, as heard in our critique. They were positively described as being 'original' which was our aim for them. We believe they give the scene a more professional and finished look. Whereas, without these two sequences the film appears to be less polished in the desired way. Furthermore, another positive attribute to our film that was picked up by our peers was that some of our shots showed good use of composition and the rules of thirds. As well as this the music was picked up as being beneficial to the scene in a way that it compliments the narrative. The Narrative itself was also described as 'original', as it has not been explored by anyone else out of our peers, and the overall concept was liked. As well as this our class also mentioned that they liked the use of lighting throughout out scenes as it represents the protagonist's mental illness well as the shots are quite dark with very low key or back lighting.
However, there were a lot of critiques in which our peers pointed out the ways in which we could improve our film:
- One of the first issues that arose was concerning the continuity of a small part of the narrative. This problem was that the different shots we used early on in the scene to show Chris denying his mother's call were edited in a way that it made the character appear to deny the call twice, which was not our intention. A way in which we can ensure that this continuity error is corrected is by taking out one of the shots of him denying the phone call.
- Another improvement that is to be made, as suggested by our peers, is to fix concerns with the quality of sound and ability for the audience to hear dialogue. Due to our first filming location, as well as the weather conditions of the day we filmed, some of the dialogue spoken by our actors cannot be heard over the sound of the sea and the wind. A way of fixing this could be to dub over the original sound in the film by recording the dialogue (with the same actors of course) and placing it on top of the scene's original audio, thus replacing the unintelligible conversation.
- Next, another suggested improvement was to have the costumes of the protagonist and his alter ego differ in some way as they both wear dark clothing in the opening sequence. However, we discussed that our intention behind this was to represent the dark characteristics of Chris Mark 2 in his dark clothing and the dark feelings/mindset of Chris through his similar dark clothing. We also discussed that this suggests a link between the two characters as they are both wearing clothing that is alike one another's. On top of this, the character of Chris Mark 2's personality traits wouldn't be correctly represented if he was wearing bright and colorful clothing, as was suggested at first by one of our associates. We also discussed the fact that Chris, the older character, wearing the hood symbolises his child-like attributes, as wearing a hood is often associated with younger people and most commonly teenagers.
- Additional to these critiques, we also need to add in more graphics to our sequence. This would include director's, editor's, actor's, etc. name. We would need to do this in order to add a higher sense of professionalism to the sequence as well as make it seem more like a real film's opening sequence. This is because it is conventional throughout all film genres to have graphics stating these names at the start of a film.
- A further piece of constructive criticism we were given by our peers was to edit the scene in which Chris is in his house. What was said was that the scene is too long and gets a bit repetitive as Chris is shown to walk in and out of the bedroom twice. To combat this issue and thus improve our film we can edit one of the shots out so long as it remains understandable. It was suggested that we may want to use 'jump shots' when editing as not only will it cut out some of the unnecessary shots but it would also fit the theme of Chris' mental illness. It would do this by not flowing perfectly consequentially representing the mind of a mentally ill person compared to the mind of someone with good mental health, which could be shown through straight cuts.
- The final major criticism that was mentioned by our peers was that the title graphics were not clear enough and did not put a big enough emphasis on the actual title of the film. It was said that it looks like a production company logo rather than a film title. In addition to this, one member of the group repeatedly mistook our title for 'Smash' rather than its actual title 'Sane'. It was suggested to us that to enhance the title we could keep the current footage but add a black out screen and white font introducing the title more prominently. This is something that can be done easily and successfully, which will benefit our sequence greatly.
- Another issue that we came across ourselves at this point was being too far over the time specification for the sequence. To counteract this we are going to cut out some scenes that are unnecessary and use jump cuts where they are needed. Although Gritty Realism films do not use jump cuts often, the film 'Submarine' uses them in its opening sequence so we will still have some conventionality in our piece. We also thought that the jump cuts could represent how Chris' lifestyle does not flow as well or as simply as people with a stable mental health.
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