EVALUATION OF PAST STUDENT WORK

Today I will be writing an evaluation of the previous year's work. I will write distinctive strengths and weaknesses along with some comments.

I will go into detail with two pieces of work in particular that I thought had a great contrast with each other , and then write a short summary evaluation for the rest.

Lets begin with the two most contrasting pieces of work.

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I marked this as 24/60 and the actual mark was 29/60.

Strengths -

The footage starts off with a longshot pan of the location.This is a great establishing shot as it helps the audience get a feel for the setting. 

The students vision was made clear because it was filmed on location which made it look more realistic.

The typography fits well with the storyline and has been carefully chosen.

Weaknesses-

Although the title represents the storyline well , the graphic has been blacked out which takes away the smooth editing. BSR films usually have titles with a transparent background that goes over the footage.This relates to my own work I will be doing myself soon and evaluating their work has given me a tip on what I need to ensure in my own editing.

The titles/credits are too small so its hard to read.This is an issue because the audience wouldn't know who the actors were if this was a real film.'Bridges' has a lot of room for improvement in editing because the sound levels are all over the place and the dialogue against the music goes out of sync.

Now lets take a look at Drained!

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I marked this as 33/60 and the actual mark was 58/60.

Strengths -

Drained had a good range of shots, for example at 0.33 the actress brushing her teeth is shown in different shots which makes the audience more interested, even if the action is mundane and simple.

I also like how the title of the film is placed over the washing machine which is used a prop to set the location.

I like how the camera shows the actor when walking at 1:13 to highlight the location of the laundry store.'Drained' has great mise-en-scene as the characters are made clear from their wardrobe also as the manager is dressed much smarter than the young woman.

Weaknesses-

The music is boring and does not fit in for an opening for a film , especially a BSR film.The music was upbeat and classical but music in BSR films should be more urban and gritty. I have chosen 'Drained' to contrast to 'Bridges' because in my opinion it follows more conventions used in a BSR film. They both strongly differ from the storyline to the location and music.They both have their strengths and weaknesses and I have learned from analysing these two pieces of work in particular what to include and what to look out for in my work.

'Bridges' has helped me to consider the location I film in more and to make sure my title has a clear background rather than a black one and 'Drained' has helped me to consider using a variety of shots but to make sure the music fits the genre.


    

The first thing I noticed when watching their work was the music which fit well with the theme because it represented the teenage character and their region.South paw was interesting due to the lack of dialouge and had a good breaking up of clips with titles , but there was a lack of closeups and not enough mise-en-scene to give more a representation of the area and social class.I marked this as a 30/60 and the actual exam mark was 34.

I was first pulled into their clip with their establishing shot which illuminated the location greatly.The typography and music fit in with genre but the music level was too loud and there were too many longshots which gave their footage a lazy appearance.I marked this as a 25/30 and the actual exam mark was 32/60.

The storyline was clearly shown through their work and I found the plot to be unique and there was a good range of shots to show the repetition of the main character.character. Unfourntately , the lighting was very lowkey and you could barely make out the characters and the graphics were blacked out and should of played over their footage.I marked this as a 40/60 and the actual mark was 57/60.

Suffocation was brilliantly put together with the titles and range of shots, I particularly liked how the titles were stacked above the folders on the desk and the music sounded like an opening to a film and wasn't too abrasive so it fit in well. On the other hand, the ending needed more polishing and I think this was due to a lack of time for editing. I marked this as 55/60 but the actual mark was 42/60.

Last to evaluate is Maze.Maze had good graphics,a good range of shots such as close-ups and high angles along with long shots and midshots.The theme and location fitted well together.In my opinion,the music wasn't synced well with the dialouge.I marked this as 55/60 and the actual mark was 56/60.

Evaluation

Today I will be evaluating my own work on 'The encounter' by analyzing the planning , production and editing processes I had faced.

Rule of thirds

I have made sure to keep the actors eyes 1/3 of screen to give their facial expression and language more focused.

Match on action

The match on action was much easier to film than anticipated. I filmed the actor walking into the room twice. Once from one side of the door and the second from inside the room on the other side of the door. This was then edited to make it look like you could see the actor walking into a room , it shows a shot from behind , the actor making her way through the door and then once into the room. This was a good example of continuity editing as it was clear with no transitions or not jumpy editing present.

During production there were very few problems , but there was still some things that could of made filming and editing much easier. In a more technical approach , the tripod wasn't always at the right height for filming as we wanted to originally include a birds eye view shot , but this was difficult to do so , so we cut this out. The lighting of the drama studio was often too lowkey and dark in certain angles , so we had to make the lighting more brighter but this often took away the mood of the setting, but we overcame this by using the studio lighting rather than artificial room lighting.

The biggest problem was the 180 degree rule breaking, during editing we had realized the rule had been broken.We tried to re-film but the person who played the interviewer was not able to re-film due to their own schedule, so the 180 degree was therefore broken, so If I had the chance to re-film I would shoot the 180 degree rule again. In my opinion, breaking this rule may have theoretically given me a disadvantage but in real life film industries, not all plans work out , and I have made a good job of editing regardless and did the best I could in my situation , so although this may have been a problem I had faced, I had learn alot from it and it has given me an insight on how filming and editing problems can easily occur but can just as easily be concealed.

Post-production was personally my favorite part of creating 'The encounter' as I enjoy editing, but if I was to edit again , I would of used more of the footage I had.I was very adamant on making my work short and to the point but I could of edited in more shots to add to the story line.
I would rather  re-film these parts because I felt like the parts I didn't use were not put in because they could of been made better, for example , the interviewer was meant to throw her chair , but the chair was out of shot too quickly which was too hard to edit smoothly for continuity without looking like the camera was out of place, so if I had the chance to work on this again , I would re-film this and also re edit it.

One of my overall strengths of my work , is my creativity.My theme and my ideas were much different than the others in my class which made my work stand out more.I was creative with my props ,such as creating the newspaper article myself, using fake blood and making an outfit for Sally.
Another strength I had was with my digital technology because the cameras were very efficient to use and the iMacs had iMovie already installed so editing was sleek.Logistically I needed different lighting than the average natural and artificial and low-key type, so it was my idea to use the studio lights for colour ,such as red, to give our finished work an edge and set a much darker mood. This made my location a strength as it was easy to work with and had all the necessary equipment such as the blocks and curtains and studio lights.