This is my own personal evaluation on our final piece.
As the sequence starts you see our “HEC Productions” clip which Mr Earl kindly created for us. We felt that by using an original production company instead of using an already existing one it would show how unique we want our film to be.
I feel the first shot is a key shot as it gives the audience an idea of what the film is based on. The fact the camera is positioned behind Callum’s character and is focusing on him “shooting up” shows the audience that the main focus of the films is drug abuse.
This shot really sets the scene as the framing means there is no need for any camera movement so the audience can focus on one shot and take in the whole setting. I think the gravestones in the foreground are very well placed within the shot as they are very prominent yet when the focus is on Callum’s character they don’t interfere. The flowers were very important in this shot as the connotations they carry, love and respect, emphasise how Callum’s character feels about the death of his girlfriend.
The voice over tells the audience the storyline whilst the music in the background sets the mood very well. I think these two components coupled together are very effective in creating empathy for the character as he is visiting a grave, and by his body language shows he is clearly very upset.
This shot is very believable as we used a real kitchen and real props whilst filming, for example the bowls of food, which really helped the believability as we didn’t need to change anything, it was already as a normal kitchen would be. We edited this shot a lot compared to the rest as we felt to create the idea that it was a memory it would have to be hazy or fuzzy. We did this by using the “roughen edges” effect and I feel it worked really well! Also, the black and white effect adds to the look of a memory as it appears older than it would in colour. The date in the bottom right corner is a very important part of the shot as it shows the time periods have changed. We added this as it was confusing that the female character was dead in the first part then alive again, I think it definitely cleared up the confusion.
Callum found it quite hard to act to a script so he and Hannah just followed the basic guidelines and said what felt right to them which really worked for this conversation as it made it far more believable than when they were using a script.
As the conversation became more serious as Hannah’s character mentioned drugs we decided to start using shot reverse shot to show the conversation which was very effective as it showed the emotion and reactions of both characters. This part of the film was crucial in showing how drug users can be within any stereotype, not just “hoodies”. The fact they are a couple and one abuses heroin whilst the other has never used it before shows how not all teenagers are drug users and how just because Callum’s character does drugs doesn’t mean Hannah’s character should be doing drugs too.
I really like this shot as it carries on from the first shot in the graveyard and shows how the previous scene was a memory. I like how the music starts from where it left off again which also emphasises the idea of the memory. The date in the corner is shown again to stop confusion between the time periods. This shot also shows the regret Callum’s character is feeling as his body language shows he is upset as he is hunched over and has his hood up. Unfortunately when we filmed this shot we thought we would be able to edit the gravestone to a different date of birth so it fitted with the age of Hannah’s character however we were unable to do so but felt you couldn’t really see the date anyway so it wasn’t a massive mistake.
Overall I feel our project was a success and although there were a few issues I really enjoyed created the opening sequence and I think in the end we created a much better sequence than we thought we possibly could.
