AS Evaluation
For our short film we chose the genre of a psychological thriller, it is based on a girl who has been given the gift of reading peoples minds, but she doesn’t really take it as a gift ,as she soon finds out what people including her close friends truly think of her. The filming was done in Cambridge city centre, and then a bit was filmed in an average family home, this made the film more realistic, as it was filmed in everyday places, that we could all relate too. The opening scene is black, then there are some crackling sounds in the background, and a tape sounds like its rewinding, then the girl says, “I always new there was something wrong with me” referring to her so called ‘gift’ then the first actual shot you see is of her face, just looking directly into the camera., this was a good opening shot because its concentrating solely on her face, so its like getting an insight into her mind, instead of doing a full body shot, and not really concentrating on anything specific..
This is a good facial shot because your thoughts are concentrated on his face and his expression and what he may be thinking, as you can see one of the shots from our film is practically identical.
Near to the beginning of the film the girl is sitting on a bench, in the background people are just walking past... she is looking around everywhere, then there is a 360 shot of her, but the shot blurs. As if it’s in the mind of the girl and it seems very messed and jumbled, much like the shot itself. This particular shot is very effective I think because of how its makes it seem so busy with all her thoughts. When filming the scenes where the girl was reading people’s minds, the people were filmed in secret, so they had no idea that they were actually on camera, so they just acted natural, they were completely oblivious to the camera which made it more effective. And it made it easier to add voice over’s to all of the people, because of all the blank expressions you could say anything. The scene of the busy street is very effective, because of the movement of the camera is darting around everywhere; it gives the illusion that she is very stressed and panicky because she can read everybody’s thoughts. With all the voice over’s all merged into one and all jumbled up works well with the camera shots, because it darts frantically everywhere, concentrating on the public.. It is sped up to make it seem like the public are in a rush, and its all just one big blur...
This photo is like the clip in the film where the camera is darting around on a busy street blurring the people, this is effective, because its such a busy shot, there’s not much space for anything, much like in the characters mind, she cant think of anything other than other peoples thoughts.
I would edit the next scene because the phone dialling doesn’t fit in with the clip, because you will notice that the girl is typing slower than the noise effect. The next scene of the girl’s friend on the bed is very effective because as she flips over on her bed, the camera moves round with her, making this a better shot because she is always the right way up with the camera, because of the flipping of it. I think the feedback we got from the rest of our class was very positive, the majority of it was good comments, for example “liked the busy street shots and the storyline.” Some of the negative comments were “shaky camera movement,” we could of used a stand., but one it is inconvenient in such a busy city centre, and two the shaky camera movements adds to the effect of her messed up “shaky” thoughts. The storyline was actually quite a simple but effective one, it is sort of like the film “What women want” with Mel Gibson, who also hears the thoughts of others around him, but instead of seeing it as a gift he sees it as a curse, much like our character, but What women want is a romantic comedy instead of a psychological thriller, but it still uses the same concept of being able to read minds.
This is a picture from the scene of the phone call where the camera rotates round with the girl, it is much like the shot with a different girl.
Overall I am very happy with the outcome of the film, if I were to change anything, it wouldn’t be anything major, just small things like the dialling of the phone, and maybe the music, but I am very pleased with it, and I think it has been portrayed in a very effective way. The group seemed to work well together, and I have picked up more skills and understandings of good camera angles from this.
This is a good picture of eyes; much like one of the shots in the film, by concentrating on the eyes it makes you think that the person is deep in thought or concentrating on something themselves.
 Labels: Fern Clark |
