Evaluation of Rough Cut

How successful was it overall?I think that as a whole, considering the amount of time we have had to edit and film, our rough cut title sequence has been pretty successful. When we showed our final rough cut to our classmates and our teacher, they seemed very impressed with the lengths that we have gone to and the stage that we are at right now compared to others. Although our rough cut may not be in the order that we originally planned, the shots still make sense and flow well. We ended up not paying much attention to our storyboard and just decided to put our shots together to see what looks good and what doesn’t. However, we did stick to the original idea of the title sequence having two main parts to it; the beginning section inside the garage of the psychopath killer, and the ending with wide and establishing shots of the outside such as parks and the insides of a church.

Certain shots looked good one after the other as they told a very vague story. Since our title sequence was originally planed to be discrete, we made sure it doesn’t tell away very much of the story but still hints certain elements of the plot to the audience.We have managed to hit the 2 minute mark exactly and so I don’t think that we ned anymore footage than we already have.

Camera WorkI’m impressed with the quality of camera work in our group and how clear the shots actually turned out. When looking back on all of them in the editing suite, we were quite satisfied with how clear and steady some of the shots were, even the close ups. It was important for the close ups to be in focus and clear as a lot of them imply certain elements of plot. For example, the close up on the bible with the bible quote circled in red implies the character’s motive for killing innocent women. There is a necklace laid horizontally to the quote to imply that the trinkets he collects belong to the women he kills and somehow tie in with the motive too. With that being said, I’m not convinced that all of our shots conveyed the message that we were aiming for since some shots just weren’t clear enough. Other shots were shaky and sometimes out of focus but this was somewhat intentional. When looking back at the footage that we had, we came to a conclusion that some shots looked effective out of focus because they add to the sense of mystery and the eerie effect. The shaky shots create an unease atmosphere and almost give the impression that we are seeing through the eyes of a distressed victim who is running away from danger.

A shaky, pov shot of the woods

A close-up of the bible quote

A slightly out of focus, close up of a necklace

Shot types The main shot types that we used in our rough cut were close-ups and cut-ins, wide shots and panning shots. We were set on not using any shot types which are commonly used in narrative title sequences such as match cuts because we didn’t want the story to be revealed through our shots. That is why we used quick and snappy close-ups and used a large number of different shots in order to set the pace, occasionally slowing it down with some pans.

Camera pans down the corner of the garage to establish setting

Close-up of a pin being stuck into a part of the globe to make the location very clear

Wide shot of the woods

Cut-in to a cigarette packet

LightingFor the footage inside the garage, most of the shots were dimly lit with nothing but the small light above the desk switched on. This gave the setting a very dark, creepy and mysterious atmosphere which is exactly what our aim was. For certain shots that were only candle lit, we placed the dedo light behind the camera just so the shots weren’t too dark to make out. One issue we faced whilst filming was coming to the realisation that we were constantly switching between different lighting in between taking shots. We thought that this may disrupt the continuity editing and make the shots appear as if they were filmed on different days. However, when it came to editing the shots, the continuity editing wasn’t really disrupted since the main focus is not on the lighting in the shots. Another problem we faced with lighting was that as the camera was recording, group members had a tendency to accidentally walk in front of the light. This would make the footage appear as if there is someone moving in the background which is not necessarily what we aimed for. When it came down to editing, we concluded that the shadows actually created further sense of mystery and looked quite effective. In the footage outside the garage, i.e. in parks, we didn’t need to worry about artificial lighting as we wanted those shots to look ordinary and resemble everyday life. However, as the sun started to set, we set up the dedo light and used that to make sure our shots were clear and lit well. Some shots were still dimly lit, with only a small amount of light coming from a clear source e.g. the shot with the dedo light pointing through the glass window.

Dimly lit garage scene, with nothing but candle light

Dedo light being shone through a smashed window

Natural sun light

Dedo light shone from the corner of the shot to emphasises the mis-en-scene

Dedo light being shone from behind the camera to ensure that the globe is well lit and clear

Shadow created by a group member walking in front of the dedo light, creates a mysterious effect

Performance of charactersWe tried to keep our title sequence as discrete as possible, therefore we didn’t include anything that could give away the main character’s appearance of physicality. The one shot that we have which implies what the character looks like is of their hands pinning a drawing pin into the globe. However, this shot only includes the character’s hands and nothing else so the performance of our actor wasn’t that important.

Mise-en-scene

Location: We used multiple locations in our title sequence to establish where we actually are in the world. We filmed shots outside two churches in Crouch End and the inside of one of the churches, paying close attention to the fact that our chosen location is supposed to give the illusion that we are in the United States. Because of this we had to make sure that the outside of the churches didn’t look to Victorian but rather modern because we knew what churches in the US are supposed to look like. The shots inside the woods were filmed in Finsbury Park and the shots in the garage were filmed in Enfield Lock which is a fairly suburban area and so gives the illusion that we are somewhere within the Bible Belt where most houses in towns look suburban.Props: We used various different props when recording inside the garage. Across the desk we laid out a bunch of pages that we ripped out of an old book to make the desk look messy and unkempt. On top of these papers, we put various different trinkets and pieces of jewellery such as necklaces and rings. These were supposed to imply that they belong to the psychopath’s victims and his obsession with making sure that he has something to keep to remember each girl. Along with the jewellery, we also used a globe to establish the location of the title sequence and make it very clear. Candles were used to create dimly light lighting as well as add to the religious aspect of the sequence, this also correlates with the bible (another prop).

The main two aspects of mise-en-scene that our title sequence relied on was location and setting, and props. The costume in this case was irrelevant because we didn’t include the character’s face or body in our title sequence at all.