Evaluation on Video: Preliminary Activity Final Video

To begin with, our groups credits are as following:

Zara- Director, Filming, Voices, Part time editor and Story

Usman- Part time editor, Voices and Main actor

Whitney- Part time editor, Side actor, Sound helper

Baiyaan- Part time editor, Voices, Side actor, Main sound instructor

This was my first ever group project for Media Studies so overall it was a positive experience

even though are group reached a few disagreements along the way. Firstly, our original idea

was adapted and changed because we wanted to create suspense to match our theme of

physiological thriller. I did not want to have a normal bully themed story so I decided to base

the story on the idea that, our biggest bully is ourselves and we are the ones who let others

words destroy our self-confidence. Therefore, the main character(Usman) is eventually

captured by his negative side and cannot escape the dream-like world back to reality and

the scene ends with his scream and a blackout which engages the audience to find out what

will happen next because of the cliff hanger ending.

Scene 1 in detail:

This is the only written

sentence that appears

throughout the whole

video because we wanted

to reinforce the idea that

the story is in a dream

world so we repeated this

sentence twice. In the

first 4 seconds, there is

sound effects and music

specially chosen by

Baiyaan to compliment

the theme of thriller with

elements of horror. To

improve, we could have

made each letter slowly

disappear instead of

fading away together to

create suspense. The beginning part of the sentence

may be less engaging for older

audiences and quite repetitive with

‘Get ready’. Also, we should have

created the non-diegetic sound

ourselves with instruments like piano

which we debated about but due to

the low budget and time limit we were

unable to create our own music.

The word ‘Nightmare’ is associate

with the theme of horror. Most

horror films are rated 12+.

However, we did not change the

font which can be overlooked as a

criticism because it does not look

spooky. Also, we haven’t decided an

age group which should have been

our first aim

We used two different sounds in

this 4 second beginning- one is from

YouTube and the other one is from

IMovie audio because we did not

want to get a plagiarize strike. The

sounds fitted in well with the

overall theme.

In my team, I (Zara) suggested to add in another page with credits so the audiences are

aware who constructed and took part in each scene. However, the importance of this task

was not the acting or credits but understand match-on-action and 180 degree which is why

we decided not to listen to my idea.

Scene 2 detail:

As a group the actors were easy

to choose because they

volunteered themselves which

made the process much

simpler.

We decided to put a dream-like

filter which is very bright.

The sound in this scene is just a

phone ring and silence. To add

more realism (Usman)

character should have yawned

when he awoke.

To create this scene, we used a tripod and at

first we had troubles where to place it. We

moved the camera and setting around a few

times to make it more suitable because the

lighting was too bright near the window, so we

moved to the middle table.

As a group, we

decided to get paper,

books and pens to

make the ‘other

classmate’ have a

school theme.

When Usman stretched, we cut

out the top part of his head

which is something we should

change next time but we did

not want to change the camera

angle because we wanted the

scene to flow.

Scene 3 detail:

Scene 4 detail:

According to the storyline, there is a close-up of a phone but had no message. Therefore, we

decided to repeat the title name again to emphasise that the something scary is going to happen as

part of the nightmare. We did a close-up which is commonly used in scary movies to make the

audience focus on something else it also makes the film exciting, mysterious, smoky and dramatic.

We should have added a voice at this part saying those words ‘Get ready for your nightmare’ in a very

quiet whispering tone to make the audience feel scared but also engaged.

We did an extreme close-up shot of the phone this is significant because it grabs the viewers’ attention, my group liked

the blur even though it was unintentionally we stuck with it. At one point, it lost focus. At first we were going to edit

that out but it fitted well with our spooky thriller theme and looked like we did that on purpose. However, having a

zoom in shot whilst the camera is still recording could be viewed as lazy effort because we could have made the scene

scarier but zooming it in makes it stand out and obvious. The overall effect of the blur and extreme zoom in makes the

scene seem tragic and foreshadows the consequences of ignoring the stop button to end the dream. To exaggerate this

scene, we could gave shown the action of Usman finger pressing the snooze button and hearing a whisper laughing in a

creepy way.

Scene 5 detail:

Scene 6 detail:

In this scene Usman looked at camera with no emotion in his

face. As a group, we know the acting is not important but

having a serious face can confuse the audience. In this scene,

it would have been better if his face was more relaxed. His

costume/outfit is very formal considering this school based

setting that we had to fulfil the task in.

This is a low shot which includes the mise en scene- setting of the classroom is relevant to the genre

of the plot. Also, the footwear is commonly used by boys at schools. We speeded up the footsteps

to create tension and added on our own sound of footsteps using the microphone.

When we added our own footsteps, we had to be very accurate to match to his foot placing the

ground pace.

The angle of the camera was on the floor, which meant as the camera person I had to balance the

camera with some papers which are cropped out of this shot. Overall, this shot shows his legs

moving from left to right. However, we could have done a tracking shot to show how the camera

follows him to the door.

Scene 7 detail:

Scene 8 detail:

We decided to show the back shot first of

the match on action to express what is

happening before he approaches the door.

So the audience can follow on.

Just before this shot, a reflection

of me(Zara) the camera woman is

showed which we did not realise

at the time of filming. This mistake

is very noticeable and makes the

story less scary. At this scene, we

muted the sound instead of

continuing the footsteps which

could confuse some people, due

to the transition. To make it more

like a story we could have added

narration or spoken thoughts to

help the audience understand why

Usman is opening the door.

Looking at this scene in another perspective, the story does flow then it

stops at certain points. Also, it seems as if the classroom has not changed. In

a matter of fact, we changed the classroom from Maths to Media which is

not obvious at all.

In this scene, we showed a close-up of the door handle moving which is

part of the match on action. Additionally, there is a diegetic sound which

is the door creaking this was natural part of the video so we did not add it

on. The door sound was very low volume but despite this it’s still clear.

In match on action the spaces between shots become more evident so we

could have used different cuts like fade in, fade out, dissolve or wipe.

Scene 9 detail:

Scene 10 detail:

Scene 11 detail:

We took this mid shot on a tripod, also we took it twice because the

camera was not balanced in place. Baiyaan helped move the camera

into place. We wanted the shot to seem very relaxed and flow with the

match on action.

To improve, we could have added dramatic music to increase the

excitement of him opening the door to match well with the theme of

Physiological Thriller. Or we could have added creepy/scraping noises

to increase the tension and make the audience more engaged, because

in this scene the sound is muted and so the story does not create much

emotion. Like many mainstream films do as the plot is based on social

issues of boys which society does not emphasis on as much as they do

for girls.

In this close-up hand help shot it gives more realism to the

audience of his action. My group gave me directions on where to

place the camera so it looked focused. we used the natural sound

from the recording for this, it was much longer but there was

talking in the background so we had to crop it.

When we were editing this whole match on action scene we faced

problems because it did not flow and seemed unnatural.

Therefore, Usman helped solve our technical problems after we

reviewed it as a class. Feedback was overall very positive but we

did not feel like this scene was complete so it took us some time to

make it well. Personally, I had planned the match on action

differently. But as a group you release how much you do not know

and how to improve it because everyone gave their own ideas on

how they thought match on action was perceived.

We decided to do another tripod shot but of

the corridor to give the audience an idea

where the story is heading and what director

Usman will go out from. In this shot you see

his head coming out of the door. The lighting

and setting looks like a typical school which

could encourage teenagers to watch this as

they can relate.

We had planned which shots to do and this

shot was not part of the plan but we thought

it would be a good idea to add it on as the

audience would understand the atmosphere.

Next time we should plan things before we

do them and not last minute, but it worked

well.

Scene 12 detail:

Scene 13 detail:

This scene was the same scene as scene 10 but at a

different time since we cropped it out to make it look

like he naturally walked out. It is not obvious to the

audience that we duplicated scene 10 which is good.

Before we shot this scene, we did a few practises to

see how it would turn out before we make any

decisions or start filming. This was useful to do as it

allowed Usman to know where to go and what to do.

The camera was so close to the ground, when we were filming this low hand held shot. We used lots of hand held shots

mainly because bullying is such a common problem in every school we wanted to make the issue more realistic and show

how serious it can be and how it can affect people in their illusions. In this shot I had a few troubles where to place this

camera and I did not want to repeat a low shot again, I wanted to do a high shot to show our ability of moving the camera

and having different views, however the rest of my group agreed on this low shot. I feel like the low shot limited the facial

expressions of Usman face which was important in a bullying themed story because it would have expressed his feelings

and emotions. I also wanted to redo the diegetic sound in the corridor and not use the same recording as the drawing

exercise. But my group disagreed. Due to the mild to strong language the certificate for the age may have to be 15.

Scene 14 detail:

Scene 15 detail:

Scene 16 detail:

We kept changing from no sound to sound which

meant the story kept flowing then staring again. So,

to improve we should have merged the sound

together. We did overlap the sound but it’s obvious

when it stops and starts again. Just before this scene

it would have been good to have a high shot from

the stairs.

This shot is interesting because of the back angle of

Usman. At this moment Whitney took over as the

director because I was focused on the camera more.

This clearly shows how we managed to change roles

very effectively to give every member a chance at

doing what they want. This back shot was taken

whilst sitting down, I think the story would be more

realistic if I did a moving shot of him coming from the

2nd door to the pathway as its very unclear how he got

there. We had to move around the location of the

pathway because people were filming on the side we

desired to use.

This shot was a bit useless but I put it in because I wanted to

focus on the bushes more, to emphasis what will happen

next but I think I should have showed Usman running

backwards then zooming into the bushes, then him running

forward again to make the bushes significant and engage

the audience. However, due to time limit it seemed very

pointless to portray what we meant, me and Baiyaan tried

to fix it but it did not work. Next time, if we do not have

time we will not attempt something unless we have time to

finish it.

Scene 17 detail:

Scene 18 detail:

In this scene

Scene 19 detail:

At this scene, the filter suddenly changes to a bright

saturated orange- green colour, to be honest I

disliked the idea of having a filter in the first place as

it made the product look cheap, I feel like we used

to much visual special effects which makes the

production look very tacky. However, all my group

members wanted to add it as they thought it would

make it cooler because we used the filter dream-like

for the light one. At this scene, we tried to make it

spooky by adding a scary creepy soundtrack which

Baiyaan found then to not get plagiarised I added

this other sound on top which runs throughout their

interaction.

In the 180-degree shot the only problems we faced where

are actors going out of character which happened often so

we had to film this a few times and edit out the laughing

which made every shot very little. Therefore, our video

ended up being a bit over a minute because of these short

scenes. Whilst filming I realised that we had set high

expectations for ourselves to do more than 27 scenes so we

cut that down due to the pressure and time limits.

In this scene, we wanted to create an over shoulder 180-degree angle

shot as we did not portray this properly in our cartoon version. This was

one of our weaknesses so we used the interaction between the ghost

and the boy to do this. I asked my teammates which side should I shoot

on so we do not break the rule as this can easily happen. Since my

teammates already knew the story it was easy for them to tell what is

going on but for a newcomer this may take some time because the

audience know the ghost is them which may be confusing so to make it

less confusing we could have added dialogue to state he is in his

illusions.

Scene 20 detail:

Scene 21 detail:

Scene 22 detail:

We used this transition to go from the saturated

effect to the dream like, we did not want to make it

too obvious so we used this transition to suggest

that our worst enemy is ourselves. Also, we are the

creators of our horrors and our lives so the transition

to dream like proves that Usman fears his negative

self that does not exist and that everything is just an

imagination. The audience may be confused to what

is happening so we could have added a voice over

saying “you create your own illusions, I am you, you

created me”.

When he was removing his mask, we made a

little adjustment to the shot by bringing the

camera closer to the person. This was quite

unnoticeable because it happened so quick

which my teacher suggested we should do,

then Usman and Baiyaan said it would be good

to edit back to the ghost character to increase

the tension of removing the mask.

It was very easy to choose a transition both me and

Baiyaan picked one then showed it to Whitney

which tested a few more then we finally agreed to

the first one we choose.

When we were editing this mid shot scene we could

not show our other team members because they

were helping another group shoot their video. So,

me and Baiyaan had points where we were terribly

stuck but we worked with what we had and asked

other groups for feedback.

Scene 23 detail:

Scene 24 detail:

This was the final turning back scene to the main character, at

this moment he realises he was the one who brought this upon

himself and his recurring nightmare will never stop which is

what the music was trying to emphasis by its continuous playing

in the background. The story creates a sense of mystery and

confusion because no one knows what the ghost who is himself

will do to him.

At first we did this scene with lots of zoom in which made it

look badly made so we decided to do crop to fill instead. To

improve for next to time, we will add dialogue so the audience

can follow on and read the story as it plays out for example,

“I’M AFRAID” this would make the audience think why he’s

afraid and sympathise for him.

Since the theme of the short clip is psychological thriller by using these transitions it makes the ending seem

very tense, mysterious, weird and engaging because of the switching of sides then a sudden hand grabbing the

leg in a mysterious hand mask. Instead of doing this jumping shot, we could have moved the camera violently

forward to Usman face to show how the nightmare is getting closer to him. Then showed a hand grabbing, then

a blackout with dialogue a scene with blood on the floor or something graphical. We were planning to do a

failing to floor scene but my teammates thought that was too complex. Whitney felt it was an issue in the group

and brought it up then the majority agreed to remove it.

Scene 25 detail:

With this blackout, it’s very mysterious and may be

unexpected to some viewers due to the sudden

scream. This cliff hanger makes people curious

about what has happened to the boy and what the

ghost did which only we saw and himself. I think it

would have been interesting to show a scene of

him acting frightened with other people staring at

him in the background thinking why is he acting

weird. The blackout is quite a simply way to finish

the scene to exaggerate it more we could have

shown a shattered camera falling onto a mirror on

the ground then a blackout.