We used various shot types and angles in our preliminary task along to make the short clip interesting. Some of the shots we mainly used were close ups and mid shots, we used the close ups for when Eva and Georgia were having a conversation to show the audience what their facial expressions were - Georgia was indifferent and Eva was worried - and we also used it when opening the door to put emphasis on it and to show that it's one of the main features of the film. The long shot we used when Eva was walking towards the door and after entering it was to display to the audience where the character is heading and where she has come from.
Since
progressing from the preliminary task to our film opening, I feel that a
lot of things that I had done in my preliminary task have been improved.
One of the things I felt that I have improved on is using a larger
variety of shot types and angles; in my preliminary task, I used about
3-4 different shots but in my film opening I used a wider
variety. In my opening title sequence, I used pans, close ups,
extreme close ups, mid shots and long shots. We used tracking when
Madison was walking to school as this emphasises how bossy and important
she is in the film. We also used a large
pan in the film to draw attention to Madison, as she likes to boss
Jennifer around. Finally, we used a close up on the main character when she is in the toilets applying her makeup to show
the audience that Madison is a stereotypical teenage girl who likes to
wear make up and takes care in her appearance.
Framing
The room we filmed our preliminary task in was very empty so we could avoid getting too much unnecessary things in the background that could draw the viewer's attention away. When we filmed our opening title sequence, we made sure that we didn't get anything we didn't want in the shot so that the film looked more professional - for example, when we shot opposite a door we let the film run for a couple of seconds so we could get out of the reflection and then we cut it down when in the editing stage.
Mise-en-scene
We didnt really focus too much on mise-en-scene in our preliminary task but it was one of our main focuses in our opening title sequence. The lighting that was used in our preliminary task didn't come out that well as we were new to filming. We tried our best to use low key lighting to match the sadder feel of the film and we achieved this by turning off some of the lights so that it was easy to see the people but it wasn't too bright. When it came to our opening film scene, the lighting was a lot more important as most common teen angst films use high key lighting, this was to show humour and an overall positive attitude.
Costume was not as important in our preliminary task but very important
in our opening scene. I felt that this was important as it tells the
audience who the character is, their personality and even how they are
feeling. For our preliminary task, however, we didn't have a specific
genre so there was no need for specific costumes but this did help us
decide what we would need for our film opening as it would display to
the audience that our film is teen angst. Therefore, we thought we would
use trendy modern clothes for our main character Madison, nerdy
school-like clothes for Jennifer and smart causal clothes for Ethan. Because we had a wide range of different clothes being shown to our
audience, it meant that they could relate to all the characters.
We used a lot of props for our opening title sequence and they were mainly just what we owned anyway because we wanted the film to seem realistic. We used a purple school bag with badges on for Jennifer as she is a nerdy student and a trendy handbag for Madison as she is popular and likes to keep up the trends. We didn't really use anything for Ethan as typical teenage boys don't tend to carry much except maybe a phone. For our preliminary task, we didn't use any props as again because the characters were just having a general, everyday conversation.
The main setting for our film opening was our school because typical teen angst films are set in a high school - for example, 'Mean Girls' and 'High School Musical' - and we wanted our film to be set somewhere that the teenage audience could relate to. The preliminary task was just filmed in a computer room at school because we only had one lesson to film in - this allowed us to see how much we could film in a limed place and in a limited time which helped us when it came to the final film opening.
Mode of address
In our film opening, we initially wanted the actors to be American so that the film was more typical of the genre but then we decided to make them speak how they normally would so that it seemed more natural and not like we were forcing an accent upon them. In the preliminary task, we were taught beforehand that it is important to speak proper English with no slang words used so that it's easier for the audience to understand what's being said.
Editing
Match on action was used in our preliminary task when Eva was walking through the door to cut out any unnecessary footage from the final product. We also used this in our opening title sequence film to emphasise Madison walking through the door to give a sense of power over Jennifer. In our preliminary task, we had to concentrate on sequencing so our film was in chronological order and this was pretty easy to do as we filmed the shots in order.
We progressed very far with transitions and effects as we did not use transitions or effects in our preliminary task as it was meant to be simple and short. However, we did use quite a few in our main film - and example of one is a dissolve, which we used to make a effect of passing time when Madison is standing at the lockers with Jennifer. We also used the 180 degree rule so that the viewers don't get confused about where the characters are placed; the rule ensures that the camera doesn't cross an invisible line within a 180 degree turn. This was used during our preliminary task and a little bit in our main film.
Most of the effects in our film were at the start of our opening title sequence. When we introduced our production company logo, we used a star-like effect in a circle which we thought looked good as it connotes quality and a spotlight on our company.
Use of titles
We didn't use any titles in our preliminary task as the film itself was very short and we didn't see the need for them. In our film opening, we had titles for all of the main characters and used a different colour for each person. We used bright blue and red for Madison, green and blue for Jennifer, then red and green for Ethan - keeping to similar colour scheme for them all. When Jennifer was introduced, the screen went black and white to emphasise that she is very important to the plot.
We used the same font for the main characters and then different fonts for cast and crew names; we used sans serif for the job title - for example, "Produced by" - and then a serif font for the actual name.
The size of our characters titles were fairly big as we wanted the audience to know who the characters were called alongside the voice over but our over titles were a lot smaller as we thought these aren't as important as the main characters to the audience. We put the names in different corners of the screen depending on the shot as we didn't want them blocking the shot and we didn't use effects on them so they didn't draw attention away from the action.
