Shot Evaluation - Antagonist

This shot is a low-angled mid-shot that gives our audience the best look at our antagonist so far. The low-angle was chosen to make our villain look as imposing and powerful as possible. We chose to put this shot at this stage in the scene as our main character has just been wounded and is lying on the ground, therefore our villain will be seen as more of a threat anyway after what our audience has just seen him do. The low-angle helps to reinforce the characters power. We have our villain walk towards the camera, taking up more and more of the screen until everything but him is blocked out. This leaves no doubt in the audiences mind as to who the most important character is at this stage of the scene as this shot focuses entirely on our villain.

This shot also gives a good shot of our villains costume. Preferably we would have liked our villain to have an all black outfit but a fitting jacket could not be found in time for filming. I think the one our villain does wear is a suitable replacement though, and carries the added benefit of having a hood which covers more of our villains face and makes his identity harder to make out for the audience. Originally we were going to give this character a pair of gloves to wear as well as if he was concerned with fingerprints. However, we changed our mind as we wanted the character to seem like more of a loose cannon which fits in well with his choice of weapon. The crossbow is also highlighted here which gives the audience the chance to associate this character with violence and blood even further, as he has only been shown with that crossbow to the audience so far.

Shot Evaluation - The Pace Slows

I chose to evaluate this shot as we hope it puts the audiences focus on the props. It is an over-the-shoulder shot that shows our antagonists point-of view whilst also showing the audience his actions, which is important in this shot as we wanted the crossbow being aimed and fired at our protagonist to be shown fully. We lined up this shot and directed our actors so that the crossbow could be seen fully and also our main character being shot. This will appeal to our target audience as they don't want rough edits and cuts made so that they can't see the violence in the film, they want to see everything and this shot achieves that by fitting everything in. At this stage in the scene, the audience should know of the importance of the briefcase, and the way our protagonist runs onscreen and the way he falls means that the briefcase is visible. Hopefully, the audience will always be keeping one eye on the briefcase and where the briefcase goes as they know that the briefcase is what our villain is after.

This shot was quite difficult to achieve, as it was quite muddy on the ground where we were filming which meant our actor could not get the fall wrong as if we re-filmed the shot his costume and the prop would have already been muddy before he fell to the ground, ruining the realism of the scene. For this reason we made sure we ran through every part of this shot carefully so every small detail such as positioning of the actors, positioning of the props, camera angles and the actions our characters make were exactly how we envisioned. Luckily, we got the take we needed first time so we didn't have to re-film it. This shot also allowed us plenty of room on the left third of the screen to put in another title, which was useful.

Evaluation Targets

Well done so far - although you need to evidence the group tasks like director's commentary and your annotated final piece. Revisit your recent posts and see if there are any more opportunities to use specialist terminology to explore mise-en-scene, editing and camera composition and comment on the way you intended to appeal to your target audience even more - a good start to this section of your coursework project. Well done!

Shot Evaluation - The Chase Shot

This shot is a mid-shot of our hero and villain in a chase scene. Our hero runs in from the left of the screen and exits on the right, with our villain following shortly after. I chose this shot to demonstrate our editing and special effects in our scene. This is by the way we got it to look as if our villain wiped our title off the screen as he runs past it, making the titles seem as if they are part of the scene and less of an add-on.

It also looks more professional and changes things up a bit by breaking away from our format of having our titles simply fade in and fade out again. This change in titles makes it more obvious that the pace of the scene has changed as well. Before the action began, the titles would just slowly fade in and out. After the arrow is fired and the villain begins to chase after our hero, the titles flash up on screen straight away and leave the screen in this fashion. I feel that this would appeal to our target audience of male teenagers as they would want an increase in pace quite early in the film to grab their attention, so this influenced our decision to change the titles. When the pace of the scene slows down again we return to the format of having our titles fade in and out.

This shot also gives the audience a substantial look at our villain. The main factors of our villain that our audience are likely to notice first would be the crossbow he is wielding, the balaclava covering his face and the hood he has up, meaning only his eyes are visible. The crossbow as a prop choice should appeal to our target audience as well, as it is associated with blood and gore which male teenagers would be interested in. The crossbow is obvious in showing the characters threat and demeanor, whereas the combination of the hood and balaclava show he is concerned with hiding his identity and makes the character a mystery that the audience will want answers to.

Shot Evaluation - The Action Begins

At the beginning of this shot, the audiences main questions have changed. The main characters face has been revealed, and now the question is who made that noise that caused the character to say "he's here," and hang up the phone. This shot is a long shot, and we decided to subvert audience expectations by making the action happen in the part of the screen they'd be most unsuspecting of (the least important third of the screen) with the arrow being fired into the tree. This shot also suggests to the audience that this is an action film as this is the beginning of a chase scene and involves weapons which is conventional of an action film.

The trees in the background look good in this shot as they look dark and twisted and visually interesting as opposed to straight and perfectly spaced out trees that would make the scene look brighter as opposed to the gloomy atmosphere the suspense in this shot works to create. We were disappointed not to be able to experiment with the focus in this shot, as the camera we used didn't have this function. If we had have had this to experiment with, we could have achieved our original idea for the shot, which was to have the tree out of focus and then brought into focus as the arrow hits it. We think this would have looked better but the shot still works without it.

This shot also serves as an introduction for our villain. The first thing our audience associates with this yet-unknown person is violence and threat. The main character clearly knows and fears this man through what the audience hears him say on the phone ("He's here, I'll call you back"). His choice of weapon of a crossbow shows our villain is a loose-cannon and he's not afraid of blood, making him seem more crazy and therefore more of a threat.

Shot Evaluation - The Bridge Shot

This shot is one of my favourites from our opening scene. It is a long-shot that also acts as an establishing shot, as it is this bridge that signifies the beginning of the forest. This is the best look at our main character the audience has got so far in the scene, with previous shots having shown him from below the waist, behind his back or had his face covered by the branches of a tree. However, the distance our actor is from the camera and the angle of the shot means his face is still not fully visible, saving the full reveal for later in the scene whilst building suspense. The audience does get a better look at the characters costume though, with the full suit being shown as well as the briefcase remaining in shot. The manner in which the character holds the briefcase and walks whilst on the phone should give him a cold air of professionalism, and the suit helps to reinforce this idea. It also further pushes the idea that this character may be a spy or some sort of government agent, which is never confirmed until later in the scene when he is referred to by the antagonist as 'Agent Matthews.'

The location of this shot is what makes it one of my favourites. The leafless trees in the background behind our character are symbolic and can draw comparisons with our main character. The trees could be described as cold and dead which are descriptions that could also be applied to our protagonists impression on the audience. The bridge the character walks across is very old and dirty, reinforcing the concept that the character is now far away from the human contact you see at the beginning of the scene. The bridge shot is just more interesting to watch than the character just walking down a pathway. The bridge also offered us a large space to put another credit in, that I think looks good in this shot as it is integrated into the scene.

Shot Evaluation - The Briefcase Shot

This was an important shot in our opening 2 minutes as it served to let the audience know that the briefcase prop was an important one, setting up the story of our film. We achieved this effect by making it a close-up shot of the prop, with the briefcase taking up most of the screen. Ideally we would have liked to have followed the briefcase as the character walked along as opposed to a stationary shot so that it was more obvious that the prop should be the audiences focus, but this proved difficult to achieve whilst also making the shot look professional rather than shaky. In the future, we'd hope to have some better equipment that would allow us to achieve tracking shots such as the one we had in mind.

This shot should also help create more enigmas, mainly by the audience being able to see the padlock attached to the briefcase. This makes it obvious that this is not a normal briefcase simply full of office related work but instead a briefcase that holds something important, something its owner is taking extra care of protecting. Therefore one of the questions this shot should raise is 'what is in the briefcase?' The mystery of our main character should also be on the audiences mind at this point, as he is clearly the focus of the scene and the prop he is holding means he has a shady background that the audience would start to question. They should wonder why the focus character of the scene is being introduced to them in this way, with his face not being shown as if his identity is important. This teases them into watching the rest of the film to find more about the characters background and answers to more of their questions.

This shot is also important in linking the 2 locations for the scene. Without this shot, there would be a sharp, noticeable jump from train station to forest with no shots to explain how the character got from A to B. This can be confusing for the audience as they are left to fill in the blanks themselves. What this shot does is have the forest setting in the background, so the audience know where the 2nd location is in respect to the train station. We originally filmed this shot in a spot without the metal fence, but realised that without it it seemed like the character was already in the forest because of all the trees and bushes around him. Because of this we re-filmed the shot in this spot so that the metal fence can show the character is still near civilisation as opposed to deep in the forest.