Evaluation on Video: Preliminary Activity Final Video

To begin with, our groups credits are as following:

Zara- Director, Filming, Voices, Part time editor and Story
Usman- Part time editor, Voices and Main actor
Whitney- Part time editor, Side actor, Sound helper
Baiyaan- Part time editor, Voices, Side actor, Main sound instructor
This was my first ever group project for Media Studies so overall it was a positive experience
even though are group reached a few disagreements along the way. Firstly, our original idea
was adapted and changed because we wanted to create suspense to match our theme of
physiological thriller. I did not want to have a normal bully themed story so I decided to base
the story on the idea that, our biggest bully is ourselves and we are the ones who let others
words destroy our self-confidence. Therefore, the main character(Usman) is eventually
captured by his negative side and cannot escape the dream-like world back to reality and
the scene ends with his scream and a blackout which engages the audience to find out what
will happen next because of the cliff hanger ending.
We used two different sounds in
this 4 second beginning- one is from
YouTube and the other one is from
IMovie audio because we did not
want to get a plagiarize strike. The
sounds fitted in well with the
overall theme.

Scene 1 in detail:
This is the only written
sentence that appears
throughout the whole
video because we wanted
to reinforce the idea that
the story is in a dream
world so we repeated this
sentence twice. In the
first 4 seconds, there is
sound effects and music
specially chosen by
Baiyaan to compliment
the theme of thriller with
elements of horror. To
improve, we could have
made each letter slowly
disappear instead of
fading away together to
create suspense.

The beginning part of the sentence

may be less engaging for older
audiences and quite repetitive with
Get ready. Also, we should have
created the non-diegetic sound
ourselves with instruments like piano
which we debated about but due to
the low budget and time limit we were
unable to create our own music.

The word Nightmare is associate

with the theme of horror. Most
horror films are rated 12+.
However, we did not change the
font which can be overlooked as a
criticism because it does not look
spooky. Also, we havent decided an
age group which should have been
our first aim

In my team, I (Zara) suggested to add in another page with credits so the audiences are
aware who constructed and took part in each scene. However, the importance of this task
was not the acting or credits but understand match-on-action and 180 degree which is why
we decided not to listen to my idea.
Scene 2 detail:

As a group the actors were easy

to choose because they
volunteered themselves which
made the process much
simpler.
We decided to put a dream-like
filter which is very bright.

As a group, we
decided to get paper,
books and pens to
make the other
classmate have a
school theme.

The sound in this scene is just a

phone ring and silence. To add
more realism (Usman)
character should have yawned
when he awoke.

To create this scene, we used a tripod and at

first we had troubles where to place it. We
moved the camera and setting around a few
times to make it more suitable because the
lighting was too bright near the window, so we
moved to the middle table.

When Usman stretched, we cut

out the top part of his head
which is something we should
change next time but we did
not want to change the camera
angle because we wanted the
scene to flow.

Scene 3 detail:
According to the storyline, there is a close-up of a phone but had no message. Therefore, we
decided to repeat the title name again to emphasise that the something scary is going to happen as
part of the nightmare. We did a close-up which is commonly used in scary movies to make the
audience focus on something else it also makes the film exciting, mysterious, smoky and dramatic.
We should have added a voice at this part saying those words Get ready for your nightmare in a very
quiet whispering tone to make the audience feel scared but also engaged.

Scene 4 detail:
We did an extreme close-up shot of the phone this is significant because it grabs the viewers attention, my group liked
the blur even though it was unintentionally we stuck with it. At one point, it lost focus. At first we were going to edit
that out but it fitted well with our spooky thriller theme and looked like we did that on purpose. However, having a
zoom in shot whilst the camera is still recording could be viewed as lazy effort because we could have made the scene
scarier but zooming it in makes it stand out and obvious. The overall effect of the blur and extreme zoom in makes the
scene seem tragic and foreshadows the consequences of ignoring the stop button to end the dream. To exaggerate this
scene, we could gave shown the action of Usman finger pressing the snooze button and hearing a whisper laughing in a
creepy way.

Scene 5 detail:

In this scene Usman looked at camera with no emotion in his

face. As a group, we know the acting is not important but
having a serious face can confuse the audience. In this scene,
it would have been better if his face was more relaxed. His
costume/outfit is very formal considering this school based
setting that we had to fulfil the task in.

Scene 6 detail:

This is a low shot which includes the mise en scene- setting of the classroom is relevant to the genre
of the plot. Also, the footwear is commonly used by boys at schools. We speeded up the footsteps
to create tension and added on our own sound of footsteps using the microphone.
When we added our own footsteps, we had to be very accurate to match to his foot placing the
ground pace.
The angle of the camera was on the floor, which meant as the camera person I had to balance the
camera with some papers which are cropped out of this shot. Overall, this shot shows his legs
moving from left to right. However, we could have done a tracking shot to show how the camera
follows him to the door.

Scene 7 detail:

We decided to show the back shot first of

the match on action to express what is
happening before he approaches the door.
So the audience can follow on.

Scene 8 detail:

Just before this shot, a reflection

of me(Zara) the camera woman is
showed which we did not realise
at the time of filming. This mistake
is very noticeable and makes the
story less scary. At this scene, we
muted the sound instead of
continuing the footsteps which
could confuse some people, due
to the transition. To make it more
like a story we could have added
narration or spoken thoughts to
help the audience understand why
Usman is opening the door.

In this scene, we showed a close-up of the door handle moving which is

part of the match on action. Additionally, there is a diegetic sound which
is the door creaking this was natural part of the video so we did not add it
on. The door sound was very low volume but despite this its still clear.
In match on action the spaces between shots become more evident so we
could have used different cuts like fade in, fade out, dissolve or wipe.

Looking at this scene in another perspective, the story does flow then it
stops at certain points. Also, it seems as if the classroom has not changed. In
a matter of fact, we changed the classroom from Maths to Media which is
not obvious at all.

Scene 9 detail:
We took this mid shot on a tripod, also we took it twice because the
camera was not balanced in place. Baiyaan helped move the camera
into place. We wanted the shot to seem very relaxed and flow with the
match on action.
To improve, we could have added dramatic music to increase the
excitement of him opening the door to match well with the theme of
Physiological Thriller. Or we could have added creepy/scraping noises
to increase the tension and make the audience more engaged, because
in this scene the sound is muted and so the story does not create much
emotion. Like many mainstream films do as the plot is based on social
issues of boys which society does not emphasis on as much as they do
for girls.
Scene 10 detail:

We decided to do another tripod shot but of

the corridor to give the audience an idea
where the story is heading and what director
Usman will go out from. In this shot you see
his head coming out of the door. The lighting
and setting looks like a typical school which
could encourage teenagers to watch this as
they can relate.
We had planned which shots to do and this
shot was not part of the plan but we thought
it would be a good idea to add it on as the
audience would understand the atmosphere.
Next time we should plan things before we
do them and not last minute, but it worked
well.

Scene 11 detail:
In this close-up hand help shot it gives more realism to the
audience of his action. My group gave me directions on where to
place the camera so it looked focused. we used the natural sound
from the recording for this, it was much longer but there was
talking in the background so we had to crop it.
When we were editing this whole match on action scene we faced
problems because it did not flow and seemed unnatural.
Therefore, Usman helped solve our technical problems after we
reviewed it as a class. Feedback was overall very positive but we
did not feel like this scene was complete so it took us some time to
make it well. Personally, I had planned the match on action
differently. But as a group you release how much you do not know
and how to improve it because everyone gave their own ideas on
how they thought match on action was perceived.

Scene 12 detail:

This scene was the same scene as scene 10 but at a

different time since we cropped it out to make it look
like he naturally walked out. It is not obvious to the
audience that we duplicated scene 10 which is good.
Before we shot this scene, we did a few practises to
see how it would turn out before we make any
decisions or start filming. This was useful to do as it
allowed Usman to know where to go and what to do.

Scene 13 detail:
The camera was so close to the ground, when we were filming this low hand held shot. We used lots of hand held shots
mainly because bullying is such a common problem in every school we wanted to make the issue more realistic and show
how serious it can be and how it can affect people in their illusions. In this shot I had a few troubles where to place this
camera and I did not want to repeat a low shot again, I wanted to do a high shot to show our ability of moving the camera
and having different views, however the rest of my group agreed on this low shot. I feel like the low shot limited the facial
expressions of Usman face which was important in a bullying themed story because it would have expressed his feelings
and emotions. I also wanted to redo the diegetic sound in the corridor and not use the same recording as the drawing
exercise. But my group disagreed. Due to the mild to strong language the certificate for the age may have to be 15.

Scene 14 detail:

We kept changing from no sound to sound which

meant the story kept flowing then staring again. So,
to improve we should have merged the sound
together. We did overlap the sound but its obvious
when it stops and starts again. Just before this scene
it would have been good to have a high shot from
the stairs.

Scene 15 detail:
This shot is interesting because of the back angle of
Usman. At this moment Whitney took over as the
director because I was focused on the camera more.
This clearly shows how we managed to change roles
very effectively to give every member a chance at
doing what they want. This back shot was taken
whilst sitting down, I think the story would be more
realistic if I did a moving shot of him coming from the
2nd door to the pathway as its very unclear how he got
there. We had to move around the location of the
pathway because people were filming on the side we
desired to use.

Scene 16 detail:

This shot was a bit useless but I put it in because I wanted to

focus on the bushes more, to emphasis what will happen
next but I think I should have showed Usman running
backwards then zooming into the bushes, then him running
forward again to make the bushes significant and engage
the audience. However, due to time limit it seemed very
pointless to portray what we meant, me and Baiyaan tried
to fix it but it did not work. Next time, if we do not have
time we will not attempt something unless we have time to
finish it.

Scene 17 detail:

At this scene, the filter suddenly changes to a bright

saturated orange- green colour, to be honest I
disliked the idea of having a filter in the first place as
it made the product look cheap, I feel like we used
to much visual special effects which makes the
production look very tacky. However, all my group
members wanted to add it as they thought it would
make it cooler because we used the filter dream-like
for the light one. At this scene, we tried to make it
spooky by adding a scary creepy soundtrack which
Baiyaan found then to not get plagiarised I added
this other sound on top which runs throughout their
interaction.

Scene 18 detail:
In this scene, we wanted to create an over shoulder 180-degree angle
shot as we did not portray this properly in our cartoon version. This was
one of our weaknesses so we used the interaction between the ghost
and the boy to do this. I asked my teammates which side should I shoot
on so we do not break the rule as this can easily happen. Since my
In this scene
teammates already knew the story it was easy for them to tell what is
going on but for a newcomer this may take some time because the
audience know the ghost is them which may be confusing so to make it
less confusing we could have added dialogue to state he is in his
illusions.

Scene 19 detail:

In the 180-degree shot the only problems we faced where

are actors going out of character which happened often so
we had to film this a few times and edit out the laughing
which made every shot very little. Therefore, our video
ended up being a bit over a minute because of these short
scenes. Whilst filming I realised that we had set high
expectations for ourselves to do more than 27 scenes so we
cut that down due to the pressure and time limits.

Scene 20 detail:
When he was removing his mask, we made a
little adjustment to the shot by bringing the
camera closer to the person. This was quite
unnoticeable because it happened so quick
which my teacher suggested we should do,
then Usman and Baiyaan said it would be good
to edit back to the ghost character to increase
the tension of removing the mask.

Scene 21 detail:
We used this transition to go from the saturated
effect to the dream like, we did not want to make it
too obvious so we used this transition to suggest
that our worst enemy is ourselves. Also, we are the
creators of our horrors and our lives so the transition
to dream like proves that Usman fears his negative
self that does not exist and that everything is just an
imagination. The audience may be confused to what
is happening so we could have added a voice over
saying you create your own illusions, I am you, you
created me.

Scene 22 detail:
It was very easy to choose a transition both me and
Baiyaan picked one then showed it to Whitney
which tested a few more then we finally agreed to
the first one we choose.
When we were editing this mid shot scene we could
not show our other team members because they
were helping another group shoot their video. So,
me and Baiyaan had points where we were terribly
stuck but we worked with what we had and asked
other groups for feedback.

Scene 23 detail:
This was the final turning back scene to the main character, at
this moment he realises he was the one who brought this upon
himself and his recurring nightmare will never stop which is
what the music was trying to emphasis by its continuous playing
in the background. The story creates a sense of mystery and
confusion because no one knows what the ghost who is himself
will do to him.
At first we did this scene with lots of zoom in which made it
look badly made so we decided to do crop to fill instead. To
improve for next to time, we will add dialogue so the audience
can follow on and read the story as it plays out for example,
IM AFRAID this would make the audience think why hes
afraid and sympathise for him.

Scene 24 detail:

Since the theme of the short clip is psychological thriller by using these transitions it makes the ending seem
very tense, mysterious, weird and engaging because of the switching of sides then a sudden hand grabbing the
leg in a mysterious hand mask. Instead of doing this jumping shot, we could have moved the camera violently
forward to Usman face to show how the nightmare is getting closer to him. Then showed a hand grabbing, then
a blackout with dialogue a scene with blood on the floor or something graphical. We were planning to do a
failing to floor scene but my teammates thought that was too complex. Whitney felt it was an issue in the group
and brought it up then the majority agreed to remove it.

Scene 25 detail:
With this blackout, its very mysterious and may be
unexpected to some viewers due to the sudden
scream. This cliff hanger makes people curious
about what has happened to the boy and what the
ghost did which only we saw and himself. I think it
would have been interesting to show a scene of
him acting frightened with other people staring at
him in the background thinking why is he acting
weird. The blackout is quite a simply way to finish
the scene to exaggerate it more we could have
shown a shattered camera falling onto a mirror on
the ground then a blackout.