Katie Blunden AS Media Blog: 2016

I have learnt a lot about picking settings so they are vibrant and interesting to the audience. There’s nothing worse than watching a film with a back ground that is dull and has no significance to what is really happening. In our opening, we deliberately used areas that looked rough to reflect the fact that our character comes from a deprived background. In the preliminary task, there was no such indication into the characters background by using setting so characterisation was not properly fulfilled. As you can see in the pictures below we chose a house that way very dull which created a rough look. Additionally, we found a wall with graffiti on it to emphasise the fact that he comes a deprived background

Also, in the preliminary task, we used a poor quality camera that detracted from what was going on in the scene. To combat this in our actual opening sequence, we used a DSLR camera that has full HD so the images were the best they could possibly be. Moreover, using a DSLR camera enabled us to be able to focus a particular person or object so the audience knows exactly where they should be looking. For instance, we changed the focus on the camera to a deep shot so that the characters in the background were the primary focus so create the sense that our main character (Zachary) cares greatly about what they think of him and that they have a lot of authority over him. Below is an example of the focus change.

When we picked the setting in the preliminary task, we didn't really think about the lighting so when we watching back our footage, we found that the windows made the scene look unrealistic and washed out the colouring of the picture. So, when we filmed, we tried to only film outside so that the lighting would complement the footage, and, when we filmed inside, we closed the blinds a bit so natural light still entered the frame, but, it didn't dominate the picture. Below is an example of how the inside lighting has changed

When we edited the preliminary material, I had no idea what I was doing, so it was helpful in the sense that I got to experiment before I came to do the real thing. I now really enjoy editing and have learnt about how to use effects to shape meanings. For example, in my final product, I used the effect 'Dream' to show that my character was having a flashback and I used a fade to black transition after this to show that his flashback had finished. Also, we used quite a few jump cuts to show that time had passed without having to show all the journey from two places. This enabled us to engage the audience because the clips jump around. Here is an example of the 'dream' effect- as you can see it is very easy to spot in comparison to a normal shot.