The first aspect of the film I would like to evaluate is the
narrative as I think it has led to the fact that we have been able to use any
interesting location we want to shoot as the main plot driving factor is the
fact that the protagonist keeps touching things and teleporting away from where
she is. The portal at the end of each scene has also meant that we had to
really challenge ourselves with the long take and I believe this is a good
thing, the long take required lots of co-ordination and working together to
make sure that the entire sequence went to plan and I had to maintain all of
the framing while walking backwards and then some difficult manoeuvres in the
middle/end of the take. Also the way we have used colour to alert the audience
to imminent danger works well with the cinematography because it allows us to
use a wide array of different colours and they are not pointless, I think it
really adds to the aesthetics of the film. To be critical of the narrative I
would say that it almost makes it too easy for the protagonist to move from
place to place therefore not creating much of a challenge in meeting the
parameters of the brief. We can easily justify any change of location and not
have to show travelling between them although I think this also works very well
as we can use this process to show massively contrasting environments.
The
shots that we acquired on the first few shoots in Grindleford were often quite
wide/long shots causing some distancing between the protagonist and the
audience but it is just such a shame to waste these surroundings by confining
them to close ups although on reflection maybe a little more variation would
have been good as we got very few close shots. I really like the way we moved
through the woods with the background being dominated by different general
colours. For example parts of the woods looked more orange and other parts
appeared greener due to the type of plant life in the surrounding area. We also
had the character in a little blue outfit moving about in the background of the
shots which I think worked really well sometimes especially in the long shot
with the side of a large hill in shot. The shot is mostly green therefore the
antagonist is a long way from the protagonist showing that the peril or
ominousness is at its lowest and then when we get into the orange part of the
woods she is suddenly very close to the protagonist showing the progression of
danger. The way that the whole mood of the shots becomes darker at the tree
also shows that it is both magical and dangerous to the audience, I like how
this works. We then flashed battery lights off the coins in the tree to create
a magical shimmering effect which worked quite well most of the time when we
got it right. We also got a really nice wide shot of the tree and kept it in a
fixed position for the teleporting shot, with a standoff between the characters
although this did highlight a lack of acting that we made the cast do.
We then
filmed the long take section of our film which also happens to be the opening
shot of the entire film. This is a moving handheld shot in which I had to walk
backwards down a street. The walking backwards without being able to see where
I was going caused a small amount of shake and difficulty with framing while
moving backwards trying not to fall over or hit a lamp-post. This meant that
the framing was not always perfect and the camera would occasionally shake
noticeably in most takes that we did and with practice I managed to get this to
a minimal amount although it did take an hour or two. To evaluate the finished
shot I would say that the complexity of everything that is happening in the
shot is really good and I am very pleased with how it turned out as it required
a lot of hard work and co-ordination from everybody in the group. The timing
was key in all aspects of the shot as I had to move the camera from position to
position seamlessly to capture the movement of the people acting in shot and
they had to time their reactions and expressions accordingly. The final section
of this long take was the most difficult and may also be the undoing of this
section of the film if we did not manage to make it work although when playing
it back we couldn’t spot any mistakes. Also using handheld to make a perfectly
still shot was a risky move and the danger is that this will be noticeable in
the final film. We used a battery light in a kind of nod to Pulp Fiction and
the glowing briefcase they use, I think this worked really well in the dark
alleyway and created a dark and ominous mood. Also I think that the following
shot looked really good as Sam performed as strongly as he could in that role,
the following seemed really convincing and menacing vastly improving the shot. Also
the timing of Lucy looking back and Sam disappearing back into the alleyway
worked so well after we had worked out the timing. Also a bit further on when
Lucy hides and I step back into a long shot as Sam passes by before moving
forward into a tracking shot following Lucy down the alleyway was very hard to
get right and took a lot of takes to perfect it. We then had to rotate the shot
around the front of Lucy getting a close up of her face lighting up when the
bag opens then panning out to a wide shot to finish it off. I think this
movement was all quite fluid and smooth which took a lot of practice runs like
the rest of the shot. This is the longest amount of time I have ever taken on a
single shot but I am really happy with the results as it is so complex with all
the movement and using handheld. The bad thing about this take is the
transition from a light street to a dark alleyway is quite noticeable as it is
one take you cannot change the settings while you are filming. We also had to
make sure that the moving shots at the start had a mid/close up of the
protagonist and a long shot of the antagonist to make sure that there was no
confusion with the audience as to who was the main character in the scene
especially since this is the opening shot of the film. You do not really get to
learn much about the protagonist in the opening shot but you get the fact that
she has taken something and that the people following her want it back.
Looking at the rough cut of our film I would say that the
best of the close up shots happen in Grindleford such as the over the shoulder
shot of the mirror revealing the person that is following our protagonist and
the close up of the cast’s feet walking through orange leaves on the ground. I
think the pull focus on the mirror scene is one of my favourite shots of the
film because it is so simple but I found it to be really aesthetically pleasing
and made use of the surroundings in the woods. The use of these close ups was
quite important as we do not have many close up shots of any of the other
scenes in the film meaning that to keep some kind of variation it was
imperative that we got some closer shots in when we could afford to. Also these
shots help draw the audience closer to the protagonist and help them make more
of a connection by being physically closer to the character. If I could
critique that section of the rough cut I would say that we seem to jump from
walking about a little bit too immediately at the strange tree without much
in-between, almost as if the tree is literally twenty feet from the doorway. Also
the actress does not seem as distressed as I would be if I suddenly appeared in
a strange woods after opening a glowing bag, seems to make the story less
believable as the reaction is too minute and laid back. I would personally be
going crazy if I got magically teleported into the middle of nowhere.
The red
room section of the rough cut looks really good on screen with the 360 degrees
lighting all spotlighting the centre of a pitch black room. We put red filters
on every light and pointed them all at the key object in the frame and I think
this worked really well to create a really ominous mood with the suggestiveness
of red as a colour. We also managed to use the lights to fade up at the start
of a shot meaning we could bring up the red lights as the protagonist appears
in this room/void. We used many lighting setups in this room and my favourite
of these was probably the alternate lighting as we tracked the antagonist
walking towards camera and saying a strange sentence. The lighting was
alternating from side to side and in-between there was nothing causing the
actress to disappear every second or two. We actually made the actress say her
lines backwards and tracked backwards following the actress so we could flip
the recording in final cut and come out with a really ominous and creepy
monologue from the character. We also got a track shot moving towards the
strange table and props in the middle of the room and as the main character
touches a Deer’s head on the table the lighting shifts from Red to Green again,
opposite colours on the colour spectrum causing a sharp and definite difference
of mood in the shot, the audience is on alert. I like how this works and it
really makes the shot seem jarring and scary, this is also when the antagonist
appears again and it turns out she is actually trying to help the main
character get home as she passes her a goblet and they both disappear.
The
final shot is of the alleyway in the first long take shot as the protagonist re
appears and is confronted by the man who was following her. I like the shot
here as you see the shadow of the man appear before I pan round to see him
staring at our Protagonist. I really like this shot as the shadow appearing is
really intimidating and by this point the audience has forgot all about this
man who was following her at the start. The shot then pans up as the two
characters in shot run around the corner allowing the strange blue character to
pop up into shot and stare into the camera before running after them. I like
the way it makes her seem more magical as if she is aware of your presence and
the fact that the shot is in black and white but everything that is blue
remains in colour (Her clothing and her eyes) also adds to the magic of this
character. Also this character is one of the only things to remain constant in
the whole film making her a bit more prominent and obviously a pivotal
character. The issue with this final should would be that it does not really
inform you of anything, there is not much of a revelation and more simply the
documentation of a strange journey.
To
conclude I would say that as a whole the film has fit all the parameters of the
brief and done so in a quite interesting way and I particularly like the way we
have played with the magical feeling that you get when you are in Grindleford
as it does feel almost like a fairy tale location. This theme of the magical is
repeated throughout and I find it to be very fitting for the location that we
used. To be critical of this idea I would say that while being quite
un-predictable it was also a bit hard to follow as I can picture the audience
wondering why anything in the film is happening.
