Home Video Analysis:
In order to produce the best possible film we needed to designate certain roles within our group. I chose to focus on the editing.
My role as editor is important for an excellent film. I get given several hours worth of shots and filming, and must decide which of them look best and fit into our final piece. My job is to deliver good Composition and Continuity throughout the 5 minute assessed piece so that the film can be scary for all the right reasons. Bad editing can lead to the audience becoming bored, the film not being scary where we want it to be, and it could deliver the wrong messages.
I had to edit the film in the correct way to make it enjoyable to watch and in order to this I had to have the idea for what my group wanted our film to look like constantly in the forefront of my thoughts.
The idea that we have set out to portray come from several classic horror films of the same genre that we have seen and enjoyed in the past. These films include; ‘The Ring’, ‘Poltergeist’, ‘The Grudge’ and ‘Psycho’. My other group member and I also wanted the film to be a horror which keeps the audience constantly thinking. We believed that making a supernatural/paranormal horror would make it enjoyable to film and to edit, and would be the most effective way of scaring our target audience.
As editor I was inspired by the editing and sound design of the four films mentioned above. The scene which especially influenced me was the TV scene in The Ring, where the girl goes over to the TV and tries to work out why it won’t switch off. This is followed by another supernatural event in the kitchen. This scene grips the audience and creates a great deal of tension through a series of fast shots with good continuity. My aim was to try and edit our piece to a similar standard to cause added tension where necessary, which I believe I achieved.
Another example of good editing is seen in The Grudge. A long durational shot is used in the attic to create tension. This is then followed by a couple of shorter shots to scare the audience. I looked at doing the same during our bedroom scene towards the end of the film.
Also, as part of my role I needed to advise the director/cinematographer on shots and shot lengths depending on what I believed would look nicest when edited. I also needed to make sure that we took as many shots as possible and at the appropriate length so that I could make the most of the material I received and we wouldn’t have to film it again. My role was vital throughout the process, from the storyboarding at the beginning to the editing of shots at the end.
During the shooting of the film it was vital for me to make sure that the camera shots were where we decided to have them on the storyboard and that they looked good. After every scene anything that I thought was not good enough was re-shot. I was continuously looking for good composition and made sure we applied to the Rule of Thirds and the 180 degree rule. Shots that were not up to the right standard were either removed or we said on tape that it wasn’t a good shot to make it easier for the final editing. This, I believe, was one of our strengths. On looking back at what we produced, all of our shots look good. We used the rule of thirds to make sure there weren’t any big spaces around the main character. This means that the audience is not confused about what the main focus is in every shot. We also left enough space for the characters to walk in to without panning very much.
During the filming process I was constantly liaising with Josh (cinematographer) to make sure that we placed the camera in the right position and that the shot lengths were appropriate. Every shot we tried to film as much as possible so that it would make it easier to cut later. We also made sure that the shots were not too fast or too slow. If the pan was fast when we actually wanted to stress the point that it was meant to be a slow pan, it wouldn’t have had the same effect on the audience. A fast pan could make the audience feel uneasy instead of creating tension (which is caused by a slow pan). A weakness that we came across was that the bedroom scene was probably not scary enough because we couldn’t get several different shots due to the lack of space. This meant that we only took the shot from one angle, which doesn’t cause a lot of tension.
However, once we had finished the 4-5 minute long film it was clear that we had managed to keep good composition and continuity throughout. When looking back on all the footage that we had, any shots that josh or I did not think were good enough were removed during the editing process. As we had had several shoots, we were therefore able to reshoot anything that we had missed or that we didn’t think were good enough. An example of this was when we forgot to remove the hat from the actor as she left the graveyard, even though we saw her put it on to the gravestone. This poor continuity meant that we immediately reshot that bit to correct our mistake.
As I took the main role as editor, I took it largely upon myself to make sure that anything I edited josh was happy with. The effects added to the home video were quickly decided after agreeing that they look most fitting to what we both had in mind. Other effects that worked well were the fade-ins and fade-outs in between scenes. These helped the film to flow throughout the five minutes.
The scenes that I edited inside the house I believe worked very well and looked very good. I used the mixture of slow pans and close-ups to create tension, for example when the main character walks down the hallway to her mum’s bedroom. I was also pleased with the scene where Zara places her hat on the gravestone. We shot that from two different angles on two separate occasions, but I managed to make sure that we had good continuity throughout. However, I would’ve liked to have made the hooded figure fade away in the graveyard after Zara and her bumped in to each other, but because the camera wasn’t in the same position we couldn’t.
In conclusion, the main weakness was the lack of shots I got from the shoots, which hindered me from adding an effect to the graveyard scene that could’ve been important. But my main strengths in my role as editors were; the good continuity throughout the film, a good mixture of slow and fast shots to create tension (e.g. kitchen door opening a second time), a mixture of camera angles and pans, and all in all a very well flowing film.
Sam Van de Schootbrugge
