Homework Assignment (Tom)

Our first attempt at making a 30 second horror film sequence was decent but there was a lot that could be improved, but there were some good areas of filming.
Our use of the camera was good in the actual shooting of the scenes, although the continuity of the shots was quite poor and our use of the 180 degree rule was almost non-existent. The scenes we shot though were clear, steady and the rule-of-thirds and composition was used to good effect as there were no scenes with parts of characters 'chopped off' and most characters were in suitable positions on the shot and had space to move in to (e.g the photo scene where the main subject of the scene was set on the left hand side and had a full close up view). The variety of shot types available in the example was limited to just 2 main types - mid-shots and a couple of close-ups, but we used these shots effectively. We didn't use composition techniques too well in the case of the 30-degree and 180-degree rule which made the whole video look quite jumpy.
Our use of editing was quite limited due to the poor composition of the clips as no matter what way they were put together it looked quite jumpy, but we did manage to make the clips go together well and flow in a way which mildly improved the quality. We had to use a few difficult effects on the camera scene including a fade blur and a true fade to white to show a 'camera flash' and also used a camera sound effect, and this scene was edited very well and is a very effective scene.
Our selection of content was good and bad, the good part was our props and make up was quite effective in the use of white foundation, eye-liner and fake blood to make the zombies look realistic and more sinister, which was done in a good and mature manner which essentially looked good on camera. The location we chose was a decent choice and a pretty good match to the real thing (Canning Circus Graveyard) as it had headstones and it was quite a menacing area, but the fact that by the time we started filming it was dark made the location poor as it had very poor lighting so we had to stick to areas with lighting which weren't as effective as the areas we wanted to use. The actors we chose worked quite well in the film with 2 good actors (Eve and Pete) as 2 of the survivors and one mildly expereinced actor in Sean, made a good team on the surviving actors side, and even though the zombie actors weren't experienced they were mature in their work and looked good on camera.
Finally, my contribution to the film was quite large as I filmed most of the scenes and focused/white balanced the cameras to enhance the quality, aswell as doing a large sum of the editing (including the effective camera scene which I figured out how to use). In the final coursework film, there are quite a few improvements I would like to make, including better timing of the film so availability of actors and space to film is good, and also a lot better composition and continuity of the shots so that the film flows a lot more effectively.