Research and Planning: The Test

The Chase.

Our task was to create a video which would fit with the title 'The Chase' and we had to create the video in a short space of time within college and use any props/mise-en-scene we could find.

Editing 

We used minimal transitions in our camera test because we felt that it did not need lots of transitions and it would have ruined the effect of the scenes we were trying to create. For all the beginning scenes where it if flipping between the two characters we used a simple dissolve so that we wouldn't have the dramatic jump cuts as we planned to use them further on the video, I think the dissolve transition is the best choice to use here because it allows the scenes to move on from one another but it's not as harsh as a jump cut and adds something different rather than a straight forward straight cut. The next transition we used was a jump cut and we used it in the scenes in the middle which we have sped up, I think the jump cut and speeding up of the scenes work really well together to create the atmosphere that we wanted which was a comedy so all the aspects put together here including cinematography and sound work together to create that. The last few scenes we wanted to resolve the video so we decided to use the slow motion and just use the straight cuts to keep it simple, and again here I think that all the aspects work well together to create a good scene. Through speeding up the majority of the clip by a generous amount (100% to 400%) we did lose quite a bit of time which made the overall clip shorter so to improve what we could have done is either expand the middle part with all the speeding up by adding new scenes or to expand the ending again by adding more scenes or maybe creating a title scene at the beginning just to extend the length of the video a bit more. 

Cinematography 

We have used a number of different shot types and angles in our piece so that we can see different perspectives of characters for example in the main middle section the shot types and angles vary in every small scene, from low angles up to one character on the balcony and the an eye-line match down to the other character and they are both wide shots so that we get the perspective of how far from each other the characters are. And again we use the high angle to get the other characters POV, and these shots vary from over shoulder shots following each character and also close up shots of the characters feet coming down the stairs. I think that the dramatic changes and various amount of camera shots/angles works well in this scene because we are trying to create the chase scene obviously and also a sense of comedy chaos so the chopping and changing only adds to it, although I think to improve on this section some of shots could have been better executed so keeping the shots in focus and using a tripod so we can get steady shots rather than wobbly angles.  The beginning shots are again varying but mostly all are wide shots and we just have different angles slightly, so we had one shot where it was slightly over the characters shoulder and then from low/high angles just so that it's a flat scene and it adds dimension to the scenes. The last shots in the ending scene we wanted to keep it really simple because it was all going to be put in slow motion so we couldn't have to changing between shot types too much because it would only be emphasised through the slow motion, so we just used a mid shot and panned the camera round the follow the characters, looking back it probably would have been better and more effective if we would have used a long shot and give it a little bit more of a dramatic effect rather than the close tight framing which doesn't really match up with the slow motion dramatic scene.

Sound
Our video was split into three sections so a different soundtrack was to be played underneath each one, we made the decision to mute our clips and not use any dialogue, just to express each different atmosphere through the soundtrack. We wanted to use music and soundtracks that people knew because we were going for the comedy side; in the first section we used a classic song that people knew (Blondie) which would fit with the feel of the scene so because the theme of the video is a chase we wanted to create that and we thought one of the best way to convey that would be through the sound so by using the 'I'm gonna find you' song it ties it in quite nicely with the cinematography as well. The second part was sped up a lot and as soon as we did that we knew that the best soundtrack to use would be the iconic Benny Hill song because that is where the influence to speed up the comedy scenes came from, so I definitely think that this part of the video in terms of the sound was successful. The last bit, was obviously the finale so we decided to match up with the slow motion we would use an iconic soundtrack for another slow motion clip, the Baywatch theme tune and again I think this works really well because the timing is just right for the clip. I think that with each individual soundtrack it has been succesfull in terms of cutting it down and fitting the music in well, and sychronising the clips and soundtrack together with appropriateness and timing however I think that three seperate soundtracks is just too much for such a short video, maybe the last two sections could have worked along side each other but the first song maybe needed to be cut out and replaced with some dialogue or just normal sound effects. If I was to just alter what we had already, I would try to find a way of blending the music together or fading into one another so that it isn't such as harsh cut into each one because I think that is one aspect that does let the video down slightly.

Mise-en-scene 

Because we were filming the video in college and had a short time to do so then we had to adapt to the mise-en-scene given to us. Although I think that we have done a successful job of fitting the mise-en-scene with the video. The theme of the video is 'a chase' so we decided to do a take on that and have people trying to find eachother so we wanted to have them coming in from different places but essentially heading to the same place and I think the beginning scenes work well, in terms of mise-en-scene because they have different settings and backgrounds but they don't look too different so it all fits in well together and as they are entering the buildings, you do get the impression that they are entering the same building because again the mise-en-scene in the background does relate to each other because it's clear that the first character is entering into a college/school building because of the big doors and stairs in an old style and then the second character is again entering through doors which look like the belong to a college/school, although I think that they still do fit with eachother maybe if the second character was to go through some older looking doors rather than new more modern looking ones then it may look slightly more cohesive. I think that within the middle clip all the mise-en-scene works well with eachother because essentially we were using the same location over and over just from different angles, but the idea of one being higher than the other on the balcony works well to create the idea of them being seperated but still within a small distance of eachother. Although I think maybe this clip maybe have worked a little better if we found a quiter area with less people because all the surrounding people do make the scene look slightly cluttered however this was something that would have been difficult to overcome under the circumstances. Another part of the mise-en-scene was the characters, we did get placed into groups however I think although the two characters are randomly placed with eachother, they fit quite well with the surroundings and each other because they look young and both are wearing casual clothing as you would for college and each character doesn't look to different to each other, in the sense it wouldn't be hard to believe that the two are friends and go to college. There is one part of the video where the two characters havea close-up seperately of them looking around for the other, and they are wearing different clothes, this is infact because we had to film this part again the next day so it does look very disjointed from the video, to improve on that we could have had them in the same clothes again but because of circumstances a quicker fix would probably have been to film them on a more extreme close-up so it's only their face so we wouldn't have seen any clothes and the clip wouldn't have looked as disjointed.