Film Studies

The story:

The story we were trying to tell, was based on two school boys. These two boys were having a normal day in school, talking about normal things like any other guy would. They have a quick conversation about recent events in Dagenham, which associates with a murderer, not from this world, people know him as man-like. Man-like ends up arriving at the school and stalking the two boys, watching their every move as they walk down the corridors. Eventually the boys realise that they are being followed and manage to get away, but with their surprise man-like uses his abilities to teleport in front of them and manages to trap them in a room. What happened to the boys is still unknown.

Shot types and camera movements used:

The shots we managed to use involved, long shot and high angle at the beginning of the film as the intro, a medium shot from waist to feet as the two boys walked up the stairs, also a medium shot from waist to head as they walked down the corridor. Some camera movements that we included in the film were: pan as the boys ran away from man-like, tilt movement as man-like walked up the stairs. We used a long shot and high shot as the intro as this gave the image that the boys are small and vulnerable, also the long shot was effective as it allowed the audience to get an idea of what environment the boys were in/walking into. The medium shot enabled us to focus on just the boys and their conversation. We used tilt in order for the audience to see a whole head to toe view of man-like, also the pan shot was used to represent the boys running, it showed a sense of how quickly they panicked as they saw man-like. Most of our choices of movements and shots were successful as they were used in the right way, but I believe that the long shot wasn’t successful as even though it was meant to represent the surrounding environment, there was no need for it as the whole film was recorded in doors.

Technical Capabilities:

Throughout the whole film I do believe that all the shots were steady. This was due to a good camera man, with a helping hand with a tripod which was mostly laid on its three legs of the floor allowing these steady shots.

Overall:

The most positive aspects of our film were that you got to know the characters in such a short time, and that the basis of the plot was good. The improvement that would have been good is if we had executed the plot properly. I say this as the film seems disjointed, as we had to end up rushing it, so we couldn’t enable the whole plot to unravel slowly; we had to rush to the end in a way. The end was not thought up in much detail (due to it being rushed) but we managed as a group to make a finished piece, which is better than no finished piece. So we need to work on our time management.