T-15 FILM EXTRACT: Nicola Taylor Evaluation

Monday 2 March 2009

Nicola Taylor Evaluation

We had chosen the genre of neo-noir as we had recently seen a number of films in this genre and so we had quite a few good ideas that we thought of that were in this style. It influenced the way that we filmed the sequence as we had to constantly think how the shots would be edited to gether at the end and would create the Neo-Noir feel we were after.
In our group we had all pitched in with the idea that we had finally come up with. However we did have a first idea that was like the one that we had filmed, however we had just changed a few of the main ideas as to where it will be set and the rough outline of the opening film. As for the character I had helped come up with what he will be doing and what he should wear, also I had thought of some of the minor but still important shots that we could film. In our first idea we had planned to set the scene in a classroom with a young boy sitting in the room and there would be cut shots of him to the clock that would have been in the room, but never seeing his face. This changed to him walking alone down a hall and out into the open, then you would hear footsteps in the background and then he would be shot. Later on in the film you would go back into time and find out what had happened to cause him to be shot and under what circumstances.
When James is walking down the corridor, we filmed a front shot and then filmed a back shot of him walking down the corridor and outside. When it came to editing I did match on action cutting and tried to match his speed of walking together, so it cuts from front to back smoothly. I feel that I had done this successfully and it works very well and gives the right tone to the beginning of the sequence. We decided to keep the camera close to James so that he filed the whole shot, as with the back shots the gap between James and the camera gives the sensation of you following him through to outside.
Through the second half of our sequence you see James going outside and the colour of the image changes, this was because of the time of day that we filmed. I had to use the colour corrector on the images to make them darker so it looked like night. However in doing this it doesn’t look that realistic, but still you get the idea that it is suppose to be getting dark.

One Neo-Noir film that had influenced us to go down this path was Brick,(Rian Johnson, 2005). This film is edited in such a way that it has both fast and slow editing but still effective, the editing also leaves the viewer wanting to know more and keeps them hooked to the story line. In Brick there are quick shots all from different camera angles which to helps with keeping the audience interested with what is going on through the film, there are cuts from close-ups to mid shots, long shots then back to close-ups. This gives the unique look of a noir film and what I had tried to achieve. The rate of editing in this Noir film is fast paced and always shows interest in the main character. There is one scene that influenced our scene of walking down the corridor, it is of Brendan running through the school and having lots of different shots following him. I thought that this was a good idea as it gives the editor a chance to pick what camera angles to put where and in which order.
We had gotten some class feedback on what people thought and whether it could have been improved. Most of our feedback was positive; the feedback was centered on micro areas. For Mise-en-scene people thought: fairly simple and fewer props draws attention to the character, setting was an easy option, however it works as it is about school, Times of day change from night to midday. Cinematography, Good range of shots and camera angles, Point of view shots used well, Good range of shots. Editing, the pace of the film was good and the varied length of the shots was effective, Saturation applied was nice. Sound, the sound captures the emotion of the boy well, the voice over throughout was good, though gunshot sound would have been good.

Labels: Nicola Taylor

posted by AS Film Studies Students @ 06:51

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