Evaluation of the Main Task

For the main task I had to create an intro to a film that was to last approximately two minutes. I decided to give myself a production name, ‘Laur Productions’, because it’s the beginning of my first name. I was inspired to make an action-adventure fantasy film about pirates and ninjas because of debates, with my friends, about which is better. For the cast I had Darren Stapleton and myself who were pirates and Connor Laurie, Tom High and Jonny Ellis who were ninjas. We needed to have something that the two rivals were fighting for, instead of just mindless fighting so I chose to have a special stone. The stone is called “the stone of eternal life” and contains power to keep the group who hold it alive forever and immune from pain. I did some research for a symbol to put on the stone. A phoenix represents immortality and I thought this would be perfect for the stone and it fits in with the fantasy of the film. To edit my film I used video editing software called Premiere Pro. The location I chose for my film is Catton Park in Old Catton, Norwich. I looked at some micro elements for action-adventure fantasy films such as ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and noticed that some tense, affective chase scenes are based in woodland/field areas so I wanted to do the same. Also I needed a place for the Ninjas to hide as they are arguing over who keeps the stone, I originally wanted to have a secret base for them and film it in a shed but I were not able to gain access to a shed so I changed it so they were hidden deep in a forest. I did my best to maintain continuity in my film; I filmed in the correct order following the script. But unfortunately I had to re-film twice because of lighting difficulties this is because during my first time filming it got dark too quickly, I were filming in the afternoon and it was getting dark by 3:30 because of the time of the year, which was November. The next two times I filmed I planned my time better, I filmed earlier in the day and the lighting was perfect. But this became a problem whilst editing because of the lighting in the different shots was too different. I tried to edit the brightness and contrast but this made the quality of the film very bad, the colours were dull and because the original footage was dark everything was blending in with each other. I decided to swap the end and the beginning around so instead of having the dialogue then the chase it was vice versa but in the middle there is a black out and it then says “earlier that day”, this is so it shows the audience a flash back of how this chase was evolved, this turned out very well. There is hardly any dialogue in this film so it’s hard to decide on what the language I used was but if I were to give it a language I would say it would be modern and childish because I used sentences like “that‘s no fair“ that was said with a winy tone. If I were to use the language at the time it would be a completely different language all together that no one would understand. I made a few mistakes, first of all with the different lighting whilst filming at different times. I also made the mistake of using different cameras whilst filming at different times, I used two wide screen cameras and one that wasn’t wide screen, this made a problem when it came to editing because the screen sizes were different, to solve this I had to change the size of the screen on the editing screen. Unfortunately I had lack of technical support due to the technician’s illness, so I had to learn by ourselves how to use the programme. If I were to do this again I’d make sure I film it all in one day preferably in the morning so it doesn’t get dark too quickly, this will also save time with editing and keep the continuity. Also, if I had to re-film, make sure I use the same camera as before so it doesn’t cause difficulties for editing. I think I have improved from making errors in the preliminary exercise because you can hear the music better, it was better planned, the location suited to the plot. Although I made the same mistake by not taking multiple shots in case of errors whilst editing, for example because of the problem with the screen sizes you cant see me and Connor standing both sides of the screen and instead you see us run along then Connor stopping and not me. I followed the storyboard as much as I could but I had difficulties with some of it. I had a third member in my group but due to his lack of punctuation I gave him a small part in my storyboard. Unfortunately he stopped attending lessons and we couldn’t get in contact with him so I cancelled him out. I had to change the location for when you see the Ninjas arguing, I originally wanted them to have a secret base and film it in a shed but I were not able to gain access to a shed so I changed it so they were hidden deep in a forest. There is one part of the storyboard where I am supposed to trip over a log, but due to lack of lighting I had to abandon this. That caused a problem with the length of my film so I filmed more of the chase where Connor hits Tom with the nun-chucks, this was changed from an accident to Connor doing this on purpose so he could get the stone for himself. Also I filmed extra bits for the build up before I all attacked each other. The genre for this film is action/adventure fantasy. I think what I have done is typical for the genre because there does tend to be a chase scene in these sort of movies, such as in ‘Indiana Jones – Temple of the Crystal Skull’ there’s a chase with jeeps driving through a jungle and to make it even more tense there’s a sword fight on top of the moving jeeps. For my chase I wanted to make it not as outrages than Indiana Jones and keep it simple so it’s more realistic and believable. There are also fight scenes in action/adventure movies, I did follow this but the all of the fight was shown, because I only had to film the two minutes into the film, I wanted to make it so the audience want to watch more and by doing this I showed the characters starting their fights then ending with the title of the movie. If I were to continue to film after the title of the movie is shown I’d have it go straight into the fights but with close ups of their weapons, faces and injuries at first so the audience can’t see completely what’s happening and creates tension and suspense. My film had no elements of deliberate pastiche or parody from other movies or historical events because this didn’t fit with the genre. I chose not to do this because I wanted to create my own material. I wanted to create suspense and confusing for the audience at the beginning of the film, because the film starts with the chase the audience doesn’t know why it is happening. I also flicked from one chase the other to create suspense. With the dialogue I wanted to create tension and comedy for the audience, I had the characters arguing and for comedy I added childish comments like from when Tom says “Just because you are the tallest out of us doesn’t mean you have to be the most trustworthy, remember what happened in Egypt? In the Pharaoh’s tomb?” I did this to show that Toms’ character isn’t as mature as the other two.