The other students in our class thoughts on our short film.
Character Representation
Narrative
Mise-en-scene
Sound
Camera Angles
Throughout our short film the convention of real media products are being challenged from start to finish. For our production ‘Lost’ is inspired by the well know film ‘The Blair Witch Project’ in the sense that we have seen the great success from the type of acting and camera work they used to achieve the fantastic thriller they created and it has helped us to re-think before filming and we realised that by using a handheld camera it will give us the effect we desired, that is seeming as real life and realistic as possible, through the use of film and making our piece seem as though, the audience are more or less a fly on the wall and can relate with the general talking that takes place, rather than having a big Hollywood type production.
So Sarah and I decided that by using a handheld camera, we would also be convening conventions of a thriller, as we have the shaky camera movements, which add to the feel of not knowing what others are seeing and the facial expressions of the characters, also it gives the fear factor, when the camera is not in focus or the character holding the camera doesn’t have the camera in the place where action is taking place and all the audience can hear is the dialect, the audience will automatically feel involved with the production, this also causes confusion, an emotion we wanted to cause. This is why we added the illness to Sarah’s character, which was a mixed/split personality, therefore when it came down to the editing we had a decision to change up the original scripture of how things were going to pan out by created many scene where the editing would be purposely very quick and choppy straight cuts back and forth of similar scenes. Overall we thought this was a much more success way of portraying the murder of her best friend Grace, yet in a more hidden way, where the audience are left guessing, I believed by doing this sort of editing we challenged the conventions of a thriller and I was really happy with the mood and emotions you are left with after watching the short film, just through doing that.
Other ways in which we developed and used the thriller convention was by using the night time to film as well as the woods, for over the years, scary films have used both this things to their advantage, seeing as audiences react to darkness and being alone in the woods and a fearful and scary thing, therefore we picked this convention up to bring a more familiar feel to our short film, for we wanted to have something our audiences would relate to, we did this to stop the switching off of their minds due to the unfamiliarity of the film so far. I believe that we added just the right amount of both into our short film for audiences to enjoy.
So Sarah and I decided that by using a handheld camera, we would also be convening conventions of a thriller, as we have the shaky camera movements, which add to the feel of not knowing what others are seeing and the facial expressions of the characters, also it gives the fear factor, when the camera is not in focus or the character holding the camera doesn’t have the camera in the place where action is taking place and all the audience can hear is the dialect, the audience will automatically feel involved with the production, this also causes confusion, an emotion we wanted to cause. This is why we added the illness to Sarah’s character, which was a mixed/split personality, therefore when it came down to the editing we had a decision to change up the original scripture of how things were going to pan out by created many scene where the editing would be purposely very quick and choppy straight cuts back and forth of similar scenes. Overall we thought this was a much more success way of portraying the murder of her best friend Grace, yet in a more hidden way, where the audience are left guessing, I believed by doing this sort of editing we challenged the conventions of a thriller and I was really happy with the mood and emotions you are left with after watching the short film, just through doing that.
Other ways in which we developed and used the thriller convention was by using the night time to film as well as the woods, for over the years, scary films have used both this things to their advantage, seeing as audiences react to darkness and being alone in the woods and a fearful and scary thing, therefore we picked this convention up to bring a more familiar feel to our short film, for we wanted to have something our audiences would relate to, we did this to stop the switching off of their minds due to the unfamiliarity of the film so far. I believe that we added just the right amount of both into our short film for audiences to enjoy.
The editing process was an extremely hard period for Sarah and I, for we encountered several problems with the editing software 'Adobe', constantly having to re-editing the short film for the saving of our piece wouldn't work, therefore we had to use 'Windows Movie Maker' so our range and style of editing was very limited! However, I feel a good job was the outcome from this software and we can only hope now that the correct software did work for us, but we had to overcome this obstacle and more onward with our work load so that we didn't get left behind. I was very inpressed with the ending of our short film, the editing was very well excuted, using a rewind of the whole tape was a shocking and unexpected ending for the audience to endure, just what we wanted.
Before creating our short film Sarah and I did a lot of research into such films as ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and others such as ‘Cloverfield’ purely because they both use the real life and there in the moment feeling to the audience, so that the audience becomes part of the film. We then went on to looking at just other well created short films on ‘YouTube’ we did this to grasp how much they get in the film within the short time, therefore helping us to think about what we wanted to include in our with the little time we had when it came to editing. When it came down to the editing we had many problems with the uploading and saving of the film, therefore causing us to fall behind in some respects, however Sarah was able to take the film home to edit and I believe that a great success was created out of the little time of hard editing we had left, for example our ending was changed greatly for the better and was left with more of a cliff hanger effect than the previous one did, Sarah and I loved this effect more and agreed that but using the use of rewinding the film very fast backwards at the end of the film would be a very good way of ending the film and getting the audience interested and wanting to know more.
From our audience feedback we got very mixed reviews, but many were great for they really appreciated the how we used Sarah illness as a way of telling the story through editing, also the ending was popular as it was very unexpected and unusual, however if we were to do it again I think that the middle of the short film needed a bit more work, to possibly run smoother by having longer scenes, to help establish the story more so, also boosting the idea that Sarah has a mixed personality - we needed to give the audience more clues into this, so that hopefully this would stop the few that didn't fully understand our film and that it was all about Sarah's personality problem which caused the ending of Grace.
To conclude, I am extremely happy with how our short film turned out as I believe we created a clever way for the audience to catch on and grasp the concept of Sarah’s illness throughout without making it obvious that she was ill or the murderer of Grace, seeing as the ending was very well created and put together, we added a brilliant extra, where right at the end of the short film the whole tape rewinds back to the beginning, very fast and very unexpected, which I think was perfect for our short film to increase the genre of thriller for the audience will have a fright for this and cause more to talk about.
Before creating our short film Sarah and I did a lot of research into such films as ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and others such as ‘Cloverfield’ purely because they both use the real life and there in the moment feeling to the audience, so that the audience becomes part of the film. We then went on to looking at just other well created short films on ‘YouTube’ we did this to grasp how much they get in the film within the short time, therefore helping us to think about what we wanted to include in our with the little time we had when it came to editing. When it came down to the editing we had many problems with the uploading and saving of the film, therefore causing us to fall behind in some respects, however Sarah was able to take the film home to edit and I believe that a great success was created out of the little time of hard editing we had left, for example our ending was changed greatly for the better and was left with more of a cliff hanger effect than the previous one did, Sarah and I loved this effect more and agreed that but using the use of rewinding the film very fast backwards at the end of the film would be a very good way of ending the film and getting the audience interested and wanting to know more.
From our audience feedback we got very mixed reviews, but many were great for they really appreciated the how we used Sarah illness as a way of telling the story through editing, also the ending was popular as it was very unexpected and unusual, however if we were to do it again I think that the middle of the short film needed a bit more work, to possibly run smoother by having longer scenes, to help establish the story more so, also boosting the idea that Sarah has a mixed personality - we needed to give the audience more clues into this, so that hopefully this would stop the few that didn't fully understand our film and that it was all about Sarah's personality problem which caused the ending of Grace.
To conclude, I am extremely happy with how our short film turned out as I believe we created a clever way for the audience to catch on and grasp the concept of Sarah’s illness throughout without making it obvious that she was ill or the murderer of Grace, seeing as the ending was very well created and put together, we added a brilliant extra, where right at the end of the short film the whole tape rewinds back to the beginning, very fast and very unexpected, which I think was perfect for our short film to increase the genre of thriller for the audience will have a fright for this and cause more to talk about.
I believe that we achieved the want of designing and creating a thriller, with clear conventions as well and some unusual ones thrown it to add more excitement to the audience. I feel that we achieved a very well thought out story to which audience all over will enjoy.
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