Evaluation for After the storm

The film title "After the storm" was interpreted during the film as the storm being the happenings of the day and the girl finding the bag and the aftermath was the murdering of the girl because she knew what was in the bag, she knew too much.

Our initial idea was to take the title literally and show a natural disaster happening and its aftermath. However I think our film worked quite well in showing this.

We first started gathering ideas in a brainstorm then took the best idea and drew up a storyboard for it. The story board showed our two locations; green park and the river just outside of green park. It also showed detailed sketched, angles and shot types and also a little bit of the actual story was explained in it.

We originally decided to recruit people from MAPA at bath college (Preforming art students). But as none were free at the time we were filming, we improvised using Jenni and Tom as actors in the film. I did the camera work myself. The only problem in acting was in one of the last shots where Jenni got hit and fell over and laughed but other than that everyone worked really well.

The location we used worked out very well as the weather in the park and the darkness created by the surrounded trees created a sense of mystery, tension and suspense. Another thing that created suspense was the idea that no one ever finds out whats in the bag that shocks the girl so badly.

I think that some of our other strengths were the amount of different shot types we used such as, close ups, medium shots, long shots, panning, over the shoulder shots and shots of people running during the chase which I think worked really well as it was unique. We tried to make the audience feel as though they we're part of the chase.

Some of the problems we encountered we're in the location as there were lots of dog walkers around who's dogs kept on coming over and getting in the way of some of our shots. We also could have planned to bring props in before hand. We had to improvise by going to get ketchup to use for blood from Sainsburys (which actually worked quite well) and also having to find sticks around the park to use as weapons. Another problem was getting the bag out of the river aswell because we didn't want to litter but we got it out eventually with a long stick.

Some of the things I have learnt whilst filming were to use more time for planning and that communication within the team is really important. It was also my first time using those specific cameras and using the tripod as well which took a while to work out but was fairly easy. If I could change anything in this project i would have given myself more planning time and worked more closely in that time with my group.

Production of After the storm

For the location of our film we chose Green park and the river by green park in Bath. We chose this location because its quite quiet and there was a great atmosphere created by the darkness of the area because of the amount of trees.

Whilst filming i think our only problem was dog walkers in the park who's dogs kept on getting in the way of some of our shots. Another problem was that we didn't really use our time to plan well. other that that i think everything went quite well.

I think some of our strengths we're the variation of shot types we used for example, close ups, panning, medium shots, long shots, over the shoulder shots and shots of peoples feet at street level for the chase.The weather also created the kind of atmosphere we needed an stayed dry throughout filming, it would have been difficult if it had of rained. Over all our shots we're between 10-20 seconds and the film about 2-3 minutes and i think it worked very well.

Pre-production for After the storm

2nd October 2009

This week we were given a brief for our next project. The title we had to work with was called after the storm. This week we had to make story boards and start planning before filming next week. Our first shot is a shocking scene of a girl lying in a pool of blood on the floor dead, she's been murdered. Our film is about a girl who is on a walk in the park and finds a bag. She is so shocked as to what she finds in the bag she throws it in a bush. Then she sits down again and a random man hands her a newspaper then disappears. The girl then reads the paper which has a message in it which reads: "Look what you've done!" she is shocked and scared and throws the paper . She then gets a text with the same message:"Look what you've done!" She is then getting scared and paranoid and grabs the bag and runs out of the park but is being followed by the man who owns the bag, she throws the bag in the river and runs on, we get a shot of the chasers feet chasing her and then him hitting her on the head and murdering her by the river. The final shot is the same as the first shot. The idea for after the storm is that the storm is everything that has gone on on the day and the aftermath is the death of the girl.

Our story boards show the basic idea of the story and also the shot type and location.