Evaluation- Amber Kinnair

2-3 minute film clip evaluation

The film clip that my group and I produced was due to come at the beginning of the feature film, before the complication arises. The clip charts the journey of a young woman who returns to the scene of an attack that she was the victim of, and in which she killed her attacker in self defence. When she reaches her destination she suffers a flashback.

In our group I took on the roles of editor and director, both of which were affected by the choice of genre we chose for our film which was a physiological thriller, like for example “Panic Room” (2002, David Fincher). The fact that this film was a thriller and was supposed to be scary in a psychological way, i.e. “The Others” (2001,Alejandro Amenábar ) made me as the director want to try and create a very gloomy atmosphere, one which reflected this particular part of the film. For this reason the location we filmed at was perfect as it was very desolate, especially as the day we filmed it was very misty. I also wanted to have very few shots to start with of the girls face, just her from behind and from the side so the audience was unaware of who they were looking at. Hopefully this added to the building up of tension.

As the editor I was also “in charge” of designing the effects that were used in the characters flashback sequence that she experiences when she goes under the bridge. In preparation for this I watched several flashback scenes from films on Youtube including scenes from “The Butterfly effect” (2004, Eric Bress) and “Resident Evil- extinction” (2004, Alexander Witt). From watching these I found that in flashbacks the footage is often blurred slightly which looks very effective so this was used in our flashback. I also saw that, particularly in “The Butterfly effect” the colour was made far brighter and more vivid during the flashback. I didn’t think this particularly fitted in with the genre of our film so instead I made the flashbacks in black and white, which was a noticeable change.

Another element of the making of the film I had to consider as the director was the narrative structure. The ‘plot’ of our film was very simple, the majority of it was the travelling sequence at the beginning and the female characters flashback sequence. Therefore it was important to me to keep this as realistic as possible. For example during the scene where he pushes her up against a wall and she escapes by kneeing him in the groin, she escapes in a plausible way, she is not for example; overcome by superhuman strength and able to push him away. However there are some parts of the sequence that although plausible are quite cliché. For example when she is running away from her attacker she falls over. This is used in many horror films, for example “Urban legend” (Jamie Blanks, 1998) and is usually used as a tool to build suspense, (However in our film it is used as a way to ensure her attacker catches up with her). Another commonly used film cliché is that there is always a weapon around when you need it, i.e. “Black Christmas” (1974, Bob Clark) in which a girl is stabbed to death with a crystal unicorn. Our weapon was a rock, which was conveniently positioned by our actresses hand! However I did dot several other rocks around the area in order to avoid continuity errors.

So far the response of the audience to our film has been mostly positive, with people mostly saying that they particularly liked the sounds and the camera angles used. However one thing that many people have said it that during the flashback scene they found it difficult to understand what was happening. This is partly due to the fact that, dressed completely in black and in black and white our two actors looked quite similar and partly because there are many very quick changes of shot. Therefore as the editor if we were to make the film again I would try to make each shot last slightly longer in order for the audience to fully establish what is going on. However people also said that they found the effects used in the flashback very good and appropriate to what was happening and every person that watched it understood that there was a flashback happening!

My main success in this piece of coursework, as both editor and director is the flashback scene as I feel this comes across very well on screen and fits perfectly with the genre of our film. However if we were to make the film again I would like to make it longer and focus more on the beginning ‘journey’ bit of the film as opposed to the action of the flashback sequences.

9 shots

Shot ideas

Close up of eyes, camera moves around face i.e http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98slWr22fas
Feet walking
Camera circles head
When 'Flashbacking' camera tracks quickly towards her face
Over the shoulder
Pans scene
Camera films woman in profile from left/right
Close up of hands trailing
She looks at blood covered hands, blinks, and they are clean
Foot stepping on chain
During flashbacks camera goes blurry/jerky

Youtube clips

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4 - Psycho shower scene - camera angles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZERiV0nw0c - Resident Evil ending - Flashbacks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKGfiaH2Uvc - Butterfly effect - Flashback ideas

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