Evaluation

During the first stages of the video production project me and my group (Dean, Sian, Corinne) decided that we wanted to create something with a horror or thriller theme. We wanted to keep the audience in suspense through out the film. After doing some initial research into this and looking at trailers for television programs and films, we came across the 2007 emmy award winning title sequence of the US drama series 'Dexter' (shown on my blog). What the group liked about this was the suspense the viewers are kept in up until the very end when his face is revealed. The content of the title sequence and the scenes within it have a eerie twist to it create by marco close up shots and garish contrasting colours even though it is just about Dexter getting up and doing his morning routine. Within the title sequence there are a lot of short shots showing the same things but from different angles. This was something we wanted to imitate in our film as we liked the 'jumpiness' and the variation of angles. The music to the title sequence I believe plays an equally important part within it as the repetitiveness of the tune helps build up suspension and keeps the audience on edge. We also liked the background noises such as the sizzles from the pan and it makes it more realistic for the viewers.

As a group we thought of ideas of how we wanted our film to look and what exactly we wanted to film. The look we decided to go for was a horror theme with a comical twist that was possibly going to be created by the music. We decided to film cooking food, as this was our favourite section from Dexters title sequence. As a group we all worked together and participated with the filming. We used quite a few shots of knifes and things that could look like blood such as tomato ketchup, brown sauce and jam. We made everything look quite dirty and gory without a direct reference to death. We took different shots from different angles so we could recreate the jumpiness like in Dexter.

During the editing stages we again worked as a group. Me and Corinne didn’t most of the editing but everybody was there to participate and give their opinion and ideas of what shots they wanted where and how they wanted the film to look. Our film consists of a lot of layers of shots and changing the opacity to create the look we wanted. In some parts of the film it isn’t clear as the what is being shown due to how much we zoomed in and the overlaying but we liked this as it makes the viewer concentrate more and makes them ask questions in their mind as to what it is. It gives them the freedom to use their own imagination in some respects.

There were stages within this project where I wasn’t completely happy with how our film looked such as just after we had done the filming. I couldn’t imagine our film looking and turning out the way I had expected and hoped it would. Once we had started the editing process though, I became more confident as our film was very much about mixing layers and distorting this image slightly so that if in some parts for example the filming of the egg, it wasn’t meant to look obvious that it was an egg.

I found the editing part the hardest and the most stressful as things began to go wrong and didn’t save correctly when we came back to continue editing everything was out of place and mixed up so in effect we had to start from the beginning with that which was very time consuming. Although this was the most difficult part of this project I feel it was also the part I enjoyed the most as it was challenging to over comes some of the problems we came across and it was satisfying to see our film coming together and working as a group with everybody contributing and having an impact on what our film looked like.

The last thing we had to do for our film was find the music. We decided not to use any background noises that were picked up in filming and just have background music that fit well with our film. We had the help of Deans brother to find our music as he was experience with this. We ended up with two versions. One with a serious thriller soundtrack and the other gave the film a more comical twist which is initially what we wanted to create. Once the music was added to the film it looked totally different and complete. The music in our film is just as important as the footage.

Overall I am pleased with how we have worked as a group through out the whole of the film and have enjoyed working together. I am more than satisfied with the final film and think we have worked hard to create what we initially wanted.