Second Project - The Affair - Critical Analysis

For our second project, we were given the task of producing a scene of a conversation between two people. On the first day of recording the sequence, our group was producing a scene in which consisted of a conversation between a teacher and a pupil. This was the first time we had filmed a sequence with the use of a microphone. It was mainly attached to me, on the back of my collar, so I wasn't aware of how visible it stuck out in the camera footage. We had managed to gain all the necessary footage for the scene on this day; but only just about, as we had only left ourselves with about twenty minutes for filming, due to spending quite a bit of time figuring out what we were doing for the scene. The next day, when we entered the editing process, we unfortunately discovered that no sound had been captured, due to a faulty microphone. This meant that we had to go back out, and re-film all of the sequence.

However, we decided to use this opportunity to change it around a bit. We had lost confidence in the scene we had done before, so we changed what happened in it, and instead did a scene between a homosexual couple, in which one man admitted to the other that he had an affair with another man. We had a better idea of what we were doing as we had used the sound equipment the lesson before, but nonetheless, we still spent too long figuring out what we were doing for the scene, so this once again limited the amount of time for filming. We had managed to film the scene from three different camera positions, which consisted of the master shot, a shot of David and a shot of me.

Our final footage was good enough visually, as we used the tripod entirely, giving us a much steadier shot. It also helped having a third person in the group to operate the camera, whilst the other two people performed in front of the camera. However, the audio of the footage was just terrible; it turned out very quiet. Even whilst turning up the speakers entirely, the sound is barely audible. I’m not sure what caused the sound to turn out this quiet; perhaps the microphone was not close enough to our mouths, or perhaps we were just speaking too quietly.

When we went to edit the sequence, we imported all three sets of footage onto the computer, and chose which parts of each shot we were going to put into the final sequence. We then put the clips together, giving us the full scene in one sequence, with a variety of camera positions. When the clips were put together, we realised that the full scene turned out rather short, so we could have done with having a longer script to also have longer footage. The continuity turned out all right, as the transitions between each shot changes comfortably; the only issue that I may have had with the transitions is that two occurred in a short space of time, due to one shot being too short.

There were two different versions of the sequence which we produced; one featuring parallel non-diegetic sound at the end, and the other with contrapuntal non-diegetic sound at the end. These two different sounds both give a different mood and tone to the sequence. The parallel music during the end gives off a quite mellow mood to the watchers, making this appear as a sad scene of a couple breaking up, whereas, the contrapuntal music during the end gives more off an uplifting mood to the watchers, creating a more cheerful, or even humorous, scene.

There were improvements which we made during this project, compared to our first project. For instance, we managed to maintain a much more steadier shot as we had made better use of the tripod, and also had a third person operating the camera. This time we had decided what we were doing for the full sequence, instead of making it up as we went along, so we managed to produce a scene which flowed quite nicely, and ended appropriately.

The Affair (contrapuntal)

The Affair (parallel)

First Project - The Kidnapping - Critical Analysis

For our first project, we were given the task of creating a short sequence scene of a kidnapping situation. On the first day, we were mainly getting to grips with how to use the camera and the tripod, so not a lot of footage was captured that day. On this first day, we were trying out the different angles which we could achieve with the tripod, such as a high angle and a low angle. We spent a lot of time fiddling around with the tripod legs in order to get the tripod angling upwards and downwards, so this left us with less time for filming and so we produced a small amount of footage.

On the next day of filming, we had a much better idea of what we were doing and how to use the equipment, so we decided to start from scratch. We had a rough plan of about what we doing for around the first half of the film, so we followed that, and then began to improvise the rest of it, leaving us with a messy ending. We felt that we were limited to what we could do with only two of us, as when the camera was on both of us, the camera had to remain in the same position as there was nobody else to move it. For the majority of shots, the camera was being handled by one person, whilst the other one was performing. This caused these shots to appear wobbly and unsteady.

I feel like we could have been a bit more risky with what shot types we used. We used shot types such as low angle, point of view and over the shoulder, but each of these were just for a brief few seconds, so I doubt it’s obvious that these small variety of shot types were used.  Our excuse for a small range of shot types used would probably be because we were limited to only two people, but even so, a lot more shot types would have been achievable if we had attempted them.

The quality of our footage wasn't amazing, but it was decent. The handheld shots were shaky, especially the scene where the cameraman is running behind me whilst doing an over the shoulder shot; this scene also has the cameraman clearly visible in the reflection of a window. The acting in which we did was not brilliant either, probably because we not focusing on delivering a perfect performance. We managed to gain over 90 seconds of footage, which was a substantial amount to develop a reasonably lengthed sequence. However, whilst filming, if it didn't appear obviously that we had messed up a  scene , we didn’t do more, so when we entered the editing process, we found ourselves with single shots for each scene. So if we didn’t like a particular scene, we had to stick with it, because it was the only one we had. We were lucky to not have come across any major mistakes, but there were a few minor issues such as; seeing the cameraman’s reflection and producing a poorly performed fighting scene.

This clearly wasn't the best sequence produced by someone of our ability, but we did manage to learn what changes we need to make for when we go out a film again. I think we would be able to develop a better sequence if we had more than two people both operating the camera and performing. I also believe we should make better use of the tripod, to enable us to produce steadier shots and therefore better quality footage. We could also try and experiment using a larger variety of shot types, which may include; a high angle, long shot or extreme close up. We should also do multiple shots for each scene, so when we enter the editing process, we can cherry-pick out the best scenes. I think it is also essential that we plan out exactly what we are doing before we begin filming, as with this sequence, it was very apparent that it was improvised throughout.

I am Daniel; this is my blog. Have fun.

The Kidnapping