Film Sequence Evaluation


I took on the important role of cinematographer, within this role I created the genre and main plot of our teen vigilantly film and also I had to decide the camera shots that I would be using on the day of filming. The story I first created was influenced by such films as ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CfVgcSltjc, which helped me create the main character Mr Morson. From this I was able to involve this character in a modern situation, like being pursued by two yobs; to begin this character was going to be between the ages of twenty to thirty, but as the cast only consisted of sixteen year olds we decided we couldn’t do the makeup that would create such a older character; so instead we changed the film sequence to show Mr Morson in his younger days but still in the same situation.



The sequence involves Mr Morson being pursued by two yobs un-knowing of Mr Morson very strong and capable character, which ends with the whole sequence being flipped on its head, as Mr Morson becomes the attacker. This brought about my first problem, showing that Mr Morson is being pursued and allowing the yobs to believe that’s the case consists of a lot of walking scenes, shooting back and forth to each other’s reaction and pace. But walking shots are far from exciting and even further from entice my audience as it doesn’t contain any mystery. Although sound played an important part at keeping the audience engaged I also had to keep on putting ideas in the heads of my audience, so this is a technique I decided to use; by shot both Mr Morson and the yobs from the same angle I created mystery and engaged the audience as their unable to see who are the most dominate characters; this also means the audience are unable to predict the outcome of this sequence.

As a class we’ve been studying Noir Films and thought it would have been a good idea to try and accomplish stylistic and genre themes that are shared in a Neo-Noir Films. The setting I choose to film in I believed was perfect and at moments it was but in the larger open areas of the scene there was too much lighting. But the corner scene for instants I’ve perfectly accomplished a Noir style with light shining on the left side of the young Mr Morson and also the same light creates an image from ‘The Killers’ of to dark figures, in this case the yobs, but in ‘The Killers’ case two gangsters , both characters with evil intentions, appearing from the dark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3gYa2ceFh4&feature=related .




I wanted to keep most of the filming plan nothing too complicated for the audience to follow. I made sure you could tell that Mr Morson was being followed, but rather than using over the shoulder tracking shots I just decided to show Mr Morson and the yobs go round the same corner one after the other; and just relied on convincing acting to show that the youths are intending to mug the young Mr Morson. I wanted to show that Mr Morson shouldn’t be taken lightly but didn’t want to emphasis it to much so the corner shot of Mr Morson coming round the corner was shot from a slightly low angle and the shot after of the yobs coming round the corner was shot from a reasonably high angle.

A difficulty I had from the start was how to pull of a convincing fighting scene, although it was easy to move the camera around and shot it from different places being able to recreate the fighting scene the same each way was incredibly hard. So instead I decided to not shot the fighting scene. Just have both the yobs and Mr Morson disappeared round a second corner and rather than the camera following it waits behind; and the victor at the end of the fight would once again appear. Sound however plays a much larger part as it creates the noise and tension that the atmosphere of I fight would have. Furthermore, it would have been brilliant to pull of an action fight scene but the awaiting victor scene has its advantages as well; for instants it enhanced the tension which was something the sequence was lacking as a large part was walking.

All in all, my group developed a good standard of work in the time limit we had and the low budget we were working with. My job as cinematographer went accordingly as a lot of detail was put into planning. And along the way I found that things that I had to change or adapt in some way, ever because we as actors were unable to perform convincingly or disadvantages within the setting, the change I made seemed to work just as well as the first idea in my head. I’ve learnt that when filming there’s more than just one way you can do or show something and it’s not necessarily always for you to decide if the choice you’ve done is going to be perfect. That’s the job you give to your audience.