Evaluation
The opening scene is essential to all films as this is what brings the audience in and one of the most important parts of any film. With any opening scene you can’t give too much away but still keep the audience intrigued. Myself and my partner Sedat worked together to pitch this idea and create it.
The forms and conventions that contained in our opening scene were not obvious or literal. They were how teachers are portrayed to be trusted and harmless in our society and how danger can be any where; even the one place where parents believe to be extremely safe, a school.
The genre Alone is due to be based on horror this is because it has similar structural elements to a modern horror film such as ‘Stranger’ they both have the characteristics of horror. Films that have the same genre have distinctive characteristics or conventions. The form of our opening scene also included action which comes natural to some horror films. After our critic lesson with my class we established our video was lacking in suspense. We took this back and reworked it and improved the sequence. The elements of horror that were included in our film were a designated school with empty corridors.
To start with our video was revealing to much of the film so me and my partner Sedat studied a few opening scenes and deleted chucks out of our sequence to mystify the audience and not give so much away.
Our opening sequence is based in the modern times; we slightly made the sequence darker as the natural lighting was too light.
Our organisation of actors was fairly smooth but could have been a lot better. The making all went to plan, such as all the permission that were needed was sorted and actors were on time and at the right place, this was all down to organisation. But at one point, we had to reshoot one of the shoots and the teacher we used in the previous scene was not available but fortunately, we got him at the end.
Our chosen location was Bexleyheath School and Goals car park the location seemed quite easy to get permission for that was one of the points why we choose it. But it actually became a bit of a hazel as we had to ask 6 or 7 senior staffs. Then finally the site manager gave us permission alongside Goals were happy to let us shoot on their property. Due to our opening scene being based on a horror, genre we needed our school to be completely empty so we waited till after school so we were alone.
Costumes/ Props- We wanted to show the audience that the students that are targets were in sixth form, so we went for the casual look but for the teacher we wanted him to look like the average teacher so we told him to wear what he’d normally wear. Some of the other props that were included in the film were a white board, car, desks, and chairs also a marker and pictures of the victims.
Shotlists - At the start we used a stabling shot for the audience to engage with the charters and to create an image around the surroundings. A lot of our opening was kept at a midshot angle; we also used an angle called tilt up which proved to work well. They angles that were used towards the teacher were also tilting up giving him the power and control. One of the films that our opening scene was inspired by was ‘The Blair Which project’ as there whole film is using the free hand method we tried to apply this skill to some of our work which work well as it gave the sequence a bit more suspense.
The layout was arranged well I believe as everything was in order to shoot. The layout we used was so the student can run to his car and the school to be still in the frame. Also as the student runs from the class so we needed to be close to a door so we got the end class room of the corridor.
We created a storyboard showing each scene step by step. We drew this up briefly and the explained each scene by scripting it. When we done our sequence first it was slightly confusing to what, was happening and everything was happening to fast we then slowed it down by taking bits out and making previous scenes last longer. It then became a lot easier to understand the storey line.
Our time was used well at the beginning as we were the first group to go and shoot, which allowed us more time to edit our film. After our critical session me and Sedat were told by the rest of the class there was not enough suspense in our sequence and needed a bit more excitement also we found out we were giving too much, of the storyline away. So due to us filming earlier we were able to correct it. We used our time well to edit as we had the time to put things in and take them out.
Overall I have enjoyed doing this production and have learnt loads from it. It took a lot of dedication to have the sequence completed. I have also enjoyed working with my partner Sedat as we dealt with every problem together furthermore I have worked closely with my teachers and took on board everything they’ve said. The software I have learnt to use were I movie which I‘ve never used before
I have also provided my continuity sequence which I also done with Sedat