Evaluation
Cinematographer
Pre-Production Evaluation
In any film, there are many roles which need to be fulfilled to ensure that the piece is planned, filmed, edited and completed to the best possible quality. This was no different for the opening of our psychological horror film, Home Video, and with just two people in our group, it was obvious that we would need to participate in many different areas. However, I chose to focus on the role of cinematographer.
As cinematographer, my main responsibilities will come once the planning is complete, and shooting begins; yet there is still a lot of things that I can do to ensure that our film is as professional as possible.
Before we had even decided what role we would take, we watched several horror films to try and find inspiration for the type of film we wanted to make. We came to a rather swift decision when we discovered that both Sam and I love psychological horrors, due to the fact that you scare yourself, and they really make you concentrate from first to last. Our biggest inspiration was Gore Verbinski’s classic ‘The Ring’, as this focused on the supernatural elements affecting a young, vulnerable girl at home. As soon as we watched the opening of this film, with its tense camera angles, brilliant mise-en-scene and tense music, we decided upon a psychological horror, not dissimilar to the 2002 hit.
Once the plot of the film was decided, it was important to get an immediate idea of how we as a group wanted the film to look and run. This was done through the creations of step outlines and written storyboards, which gave us an exact image of each shot that we would later shoot; this was clearly vital to me, so I took an active role in devising each shot choice and type. We devised exactly 78 shots that we were going to film over the entire four minutes and sixteen seconds that we thought it would last, and this encompassed a range of shot types and lengths, from panning long shots to dramatic close ups. After this, I began to consider the mise-en-scene of the film, as the generic conventions of psychological horrors are what make them so identifiable. Props such as the cloak of the ghost and the home video itself were vital, as well as creating shadows and shot angles that accentuated the genre.
Although we had decided on a definite amount of shots (in the written storyboard), this was flexible, and I believed that we would shoot over 100 shots to create a lot of items to be used by the editor. These decisions firstly lay with me as the cinematographer, although I constantly conferred with Sam to ensure that he was happy with each shot or re-take. The relationship between the cinematographer and the editor is vital in film, as they must both know what they want; if I had shot scenes that looked aesthetically brilliant but lacked continuity, Sam would have found it impossible to link one shot to the next.
With planning complete, we moved on to actually shooting our film, something that we both looked forward to as we really enjoy the process of shooting aesthetically pleasing shots.
Production Evaluation
As soon as I took the role of cinematographer, I realized that my main responsibilities would come during the shooting of the film, and so I began to take a more active role from here on in.
Firstly, I assessed each location that we would film at to ensure that it was suitable for what we wanted to film, and to check that there would be room for us, the camera and any other equipment, such as lighting. Furthermore, I worked in conjunction with the editor, as I wanted confirmation that each shot would allow for continuity; if the setting was likely to change over time, or if costumes didn’t remain constant throughout, then we may have had problems. Keeping the length of each shot long enough was also vital, as it meant that the editor would find it easier to cut each part and fit it with others; we understood completely that shooting more shots than were needed would mean we would not have to reshoot at another time.
My favourite part of filming, and being a cinematographer, is shooting aesthetically pleasing scenes with good composition, thus making the film look more professional. Throughout filming I strived to ensure that each shot used the rule of thirds, which means that each section of the shot shows good composition and there is not much ‘empty space’ that is unneeded; I was assisted in this by activating the nine square grid on the camera screen. Using this function also helps in the editing suite.
Possibly my favourite scene in our entire film is the one at the graveyard, when our protagonist goes to see her mother’s grave. When filming this scene, I spent a lot of time over each shot, considering the composition and ensuring that Sam would be able to edit the scene, as there is a lot of walking in the scene. My favourite shot involves both Zara and the cloaked figure, as they walk towards each other, as shown in the image. When placing the camera, Sam and I realized that the graveyard and the small branches that grew up it added to the eerie effect that we wished to create. However, the entire scene is aesthetically pleasing, as we use close ups, over the shoulder shots mixed with both high and low angle shots.
Overall, the scenes that we shot look professional, but most importantly contain good composition and continuity, the two aspects that I was most concerned with when beginning my role as cinematographer. We have used a range of shot types and angles whilst still ensuring that it is aesthetically pleasing and fitting for the horror genre.
Post-Production Evaluation
When beginning the filming process, Sam and I decided that we would watch back all of the shots we had taken at the end of every shoot, and if either of us saw anything which looked amateur or showed bad continuity or composition, we immediately rectified it to ensure that no reshoots were necessary. An example of this came when we were filming in the graveyard, as we moved the camera slightly to take a shot of Zara walking towards the grave. When watching this back, it showed not only poor composition (as there was a lot of empty space to the left of the girl) but would have given Sam a problem with continuity when editing. For this reason, we immediately moved the camera back to its original position and reshot the section. Although this added time to the shooting duration, it did allow us to feel comfortable when going to the editing suite.
As the editor, Sam took the major role in editing; after experimenting with imovie prior to the beginning of our shoots, he was very able using the software. However, my main role in the editing process was to suggest which shots were the best out of the array we took, and would work best in an aesthetic way. In many cases, we had three or four examples of each shot, and so deciding which one to use could've been difficult; by discussing this together, we ensured that the film looks as both of us imagined it. Furthermore, the effects that we used on the home video were ones that we chose together, after experimenting with various effects to try and make the video look just like a classic home video.
Although my role in the actual editing of the film was limited, I took the responsibility of creating the music that would be used in certain sections of Home Video as the non-diegetic sound. To do this, I familiarized myself with the software Garageband, as this allowed me to create music with all forms of instruments through the laptop. Before creating the music, I watched the edited sections of the film that the non-diegetic sound would be used for, so I could understand the atmosphere. The three scenes that I would create the music for are all tense sections, so I attempted to use ‘instruments’ that helped build up the dark atmosphere, such as strings and low bass noises. I found that it was difficult to make complex music, but the pieces work well in the film as they don’t take anything away from the footage whilst informing the audience that something key is going to occur.
Overall, I feel that my contributions to the film were vital before, during and after shooting, and I fully enjoyed the process. Although I could have taken more shots in the graveyard to assist Sam when he attempted to create an effect with the hooded figure, as well as using more lighting to illustrate the battle between light and dark in the film (shadowing Zara’s face), I do think that the film looks quite professional and many of the shots are both aesthetically pleasing and allow for good composition and continuity, which were my main aims at the start of the process.
Joshua Murray
