So I am going to reflect on our rough cut. Basically I have some questions i am going to answer based on how I view the rough cut. Soooooo… yea, lets jump right into it.
Q: How Much Continuity Does The Video Have? Can it Be Improved Anywhere and How?
R: The opening has good continuity in costumes, background, prop location, etc. Seeing as everything was shot in one day, nothing was moved during shooting and so everything is in the same position throughout, making this very consistent. However there is an improvement to be made, and that is the lighting of our last 2 shots. While shooting our camera died, so we had to charge it before getting our last 2 shots, meaning they are much darker than the rest. This can and will be fixed in editing, but for our rough cut it remains a problem.
Q: To What Extent is The Video Readable Within Your Genre? Can You Tell? How Can This Area be Improved?
R: I would say very readable as horror. While I am biased as I made the opening based on horror tropes and therefore know they are there beforehand, I would like to think that they come across very well. The setting, cast, and lighting all contribute to a horror vibe as a campsite with teens at night is basically horror 101. This could be improved with sound such as creepy ambient music to help set the mood and give a more sinister context to the fact that it is night in the woods. Overall the lack of sound makes the scene feel, well, without feeling. Without sound it doesn’t inspire an specific emotions such as suspense like we want, but like with the lighting continuity this will be fixed in editing.
Q: To What Extent is The Video Readable as a Film Opening? Can You Understand It’s an Opening? What can You Do to Make it More Readable?
R: As for readability that this is an opening, this doesn’t do well. This scene could go maybe 1/3 of the way into a film to set the beginning of the actual murder part, and without any credits or a title sequence there is nothing that screams opening in particular. While it can and does function as an opening, this fact is not abundantly apparent, however this is easily fixed like the other problem: in editing. By adding credits and a title screen, all of the problems mentioned above would be solved, and we would have this as very recognizably a film opening.
There we go, self reflection done and dusted. I’ve worked on a script for my CCR, and that will be posted tomorrow. The, I will film my CCR and hopefully, if all goes according to plan, have that up by Tuesday, March 31st.
Film Project 