Our opening scene is basically to do with a young girl who is alone as the residents of the city have been wiped out. However we did not make it obvious in our sequence we did this to create a tension to our film.
It begins with an establishing shot of the city of Manchester where we can see the Hilton Hotel, the palace theatre etc, and a text (type writer effect) came up on the screen stating where it is located, the time and the date. We did this shot by having the hand held camcorder on a Tri-Pod at the window on the top floor of the Ball building in our college. Then it cuts to a Low angle shot of the opposite side on the Hilton Hotel and pans down to show the deserted area of the AMC/The Great Northern and then cuts to some closed shops which would usually be busy at the time said at the start of the sequence.
Then we see a young girl who seems to be running from someone or something, where we see a close up of her face and shoes as she is running, a Point Of View Shot of her looking at the place she is about to go (car park), A Panning High Angle Shot looking down at the girl running through the street, and another POV shot of her entering the Car Park.
Above: POV
When she is in the Car park we are able to see her running in and we also see another person walking in the distance who seems to fall to the ground. When she gets over to that person it changes to POV shot again of the girl on the floor and then there are shots of other people, who seem to be dead on the floor, and the girl runs off and the scene ends.
In our opening sequence we added a voice over on a few scenes to make it more dramatic and are used to give a sense of how the girl is feeling.
When we were in Post-Production Process and editing all our footage we came to realise that some of the shots inside the car park where the colours did not match, therefore when we had cut all are clips together we used the ‘Colour Corrector’ on the Apple Macs to adjust the colours.
Also some of the shots where in Wide Screen ratio 16:12 to a Full Screen ratio 16:9.
We didn’t use many effects in our film but we did use a Fade in Fade out transition in some cuts to make them smoother.
In some of our scenes we removed some of the Diagetic sound in some scenes and added mood music to make scenes have more of a dramatic effect. We also enhanced the sound of footsteps to speed up some scenes such as when she is running up and down the stairs.
Our media project uses the conventions of many thrillers out in the last five years ‘I am Legend’ , ’28 days later’ ‘final destination’ ECT’. Though it’s alike the desolate scenes of the films ours is more fluent in that there’s the same the same buildings in two shots and some panning which makes it all relative to the previous mis en scenes. It’s similar to the films by being desolate area’s and frequent use of panning and POV shots as well as the use of an Ariel shot to give the impression that the main character is small compared to the scale of the situation. It challenges conventions of film by having no effects and little dietetic sounds.
Our piece doesn’t represent any kind of social group of society but it does show an aspect of the human condition .How someone can mentally degenerate without human interaction ,the despair and anguish when completely isolated. The car park scene shows the desperation for companionship and the distress when they realise everyone around them is dying.
I think that an independent British company might distribute our film because it’s the style were renowned for. British films success relies predominantly on a good interpretation and performance from the cast, because we don’t have a big budget for CGI effects and massive advertising campaign.
The way that we tried to attract the audience is by trying to make our film dramatic and confusing. We wanted our film to look mysterious and keep the audience guessing what is going to happen next. This will keep the audience engaged in the film making them want to watch more to see how the movie if going to progress. We have learned how to use the camcorders, we have also learned how to connect the battery and insert the tape to begin filming. Also we learned how to use the buttons/controls on the camcorder correctly such as zoom and how to get play back. We also learned how to assemble the tripod and were able to correctly read the spirit level to get the tripod even. Then we learned how to use the Mac computers and many various programmes such as Final Cut Pro and Garage band. On Final Cut Pro we edit our film such as cutting and changing speed and the colours of the video. We also learned how to use Motion which entitled us to make animated titles to go at the beginning and end of our film to make it look more professional. We have learnt that better camera angles and more planning makes a much better final piece than if you rush through these things. Also the location has to match your piece for example we had to film most of our film when no one was around to match our plan of a deserted city. We also learned that in some cases dialogue is not nessecery and all you need is non-diagetic sound in the background to give the film an emotional feel, such as in ours we used a constant sound throughout yet enhanced it at some points to create more intense scenes. We have also learned to keep an eye out for continuity to make sure the film flows and there is not dramatic change in the costumes we went for keeping the coat and the bag throughout the film as this would probably help with and costume errors. We have also learned that the more work you put into your film the better the final piece will be. The use of titles in our main task makes our work look much more professinal done and shows that more effort has gone into it.
The Genre of our Film was a Thriller, and has the kind of Theme to the films ‘28 Days Later’ and ‘I Am Legend’.
There are many Similarities and differences in our Film from editing, structure, camera work, use of sound and mise-en-scene. Such as in out opening Sequences we shown shots of empty areas, which is very similar to the opening shots used in the I Am Legend opening. There is a differences with sound, this is because in our opening we used dramatic music to build up the tension, however in the “I Am Legend” Sequence there is no Non-Diagetic sound just natural. There are many similar shots used such as Long shots, establishing shots to view the cities i.e. Manchester, London (28Days Later).
As there are many similarities our film is very different and Unique to the others, as there are not of a higher budget and quality.
Screen Shot from I Am Legend: Empty Streets - Only One man and his Dog
Screen Shot from 28Days Later - Empty London Streets, Only One Man
Our Screen shot from our film Death City - Empty Greater Manchester
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