Reflective Analysis of short film Matthew Flanagan In my creation of a short film my aim was to create a thriller.

. In doing this my objective was to keep the viewer on edge by using suspense through various methods which I will later talk about. I wanted to keep the conclusion and reveal of the main surprise which was slowly building in suspense till the very end leaving the audience with subtle clues as to what may be happening but in general shocking them and leaving them with the une pected giving them a thrilling and enthusiastic feeling to the event. !e also wanted to use point of view to put the viewer in the mind of the characters in the aim that they feel what we want the characters to feel. !hen the idea to create a short film came into option I was very e cited as film is something which I am very enthusiastic about and the idea of making films has been appealing to me for many years. "efore anything# me and my group had to come up with a initial idea and the genre that our film would be. !e all agreed that we did not want much dialogue to be used as a creating a complicated narrative for a three minute film was un$practical. !e wanted to be creative with different shots and use editing techni%ues such as various music and sound effects to draw suspense therefore the idea of creating a thriller was sprung up. Adding onto that we decided at first we would have a &chase'follow( idea but with a twist ending# in our film that would be that the chaser was not dangerous whatsoever but was actually a man trying to give the boy back his wallet. )his would create a somewhat comical effect different from the almost frightening and thrilling atmosphere our film would attempt to give throughout the start'middle. *ur aim was to have a very broad intended audience but more specifically from ages +,$,- and suitable for both genders. )his was decided as we did not want to create a horror which may not have been suitable for some ages but instead a thriller which# as the name suggests# give the viewer a &thrill( and seems appealing to a wide audience. .ow that we had the idea it was time to put our idea into creation. !e had two actors who were willing to play the roles that we re%uired so it was time to plan the actual filming. /sing shot list and storyboards we were able to plan the entire 0 minutes of the film using accurate timings for each and every shot. As well as this we had a planned script however our film involved very little dialogue so this was easy for the characters to remembers their lines. *f course we were open to changing things on the day and changing little things if re%uired for some reason. !e took out a hdrm 1--- camera reliable for what we re%uired and so this gave us the option of vast 2oom and various focusing capabilities. !e also took out a tripod# a track and a boom mic. *ur film involved two people walking out of a shop therefore we had to ask permission from the shop manager. )here was no problem and he was happy for us to film outside of the shop. !e understood this could lead to problems such as people walking past but it turned out to be little hassle. !hen setting up the camera the professional boom mic did not work. )o our fault we should have checked it beforehand but luckily we had had the boom mic that came in the camera case. )his gave reliable audio %uality and also because our film had very little dialogue this did not turn out to be an important issue. For most

shots such as simple shots like a wideshot outside of the shop entrance of the two characters simply walking out we used the tripod to make the shot as smooth as possible. 3owever when using a point of view shot we used a handheld camera to get the affect of a persons body and using natural movements that a person would when moving around. )here was one continuity error we made where one of our actors walks out the shop with his hood down yet in the very ne t shot and all after it he has his hood up. It would be impossible to re$shoot this so unfortunately we had to leave it in the final edit. Apart from that the shots flowed very well and there was a clear narrative which was easy to follow. I am proud with certain shots we used# such as the point of view shot when the two are around the corner and the camera 2ooms in on the boy so the viewer gets a sense that the person had his eye on him then the camera cuts straight to a shot of the boy walking out of the gate and the camera 2ooms in on the man watching him# giving reassurance that something dodgy is' is about to occur. I was worried about the constant switch between + st and 0rd person camera shots but in the end they worked out and were very clean for the effect we desired. !e implemented a car into the narrative which meant# using a point of view shot we had to be creative. As the mysterious man is watching the boy he drives past# so# we used a camera to give the impression that the man is looking at him through the window. )his was complicated as only + person could drive the car so when we used a shot of the car from the outside as the boy watches it we had to make the driver# 4ake# wear the man(s jumper and put the hood up so it looked like he was driving the car. !hen the actual chasing was happening we wanted to film lots of short clips so when edited they could be %uickly put together to give a feeling of rushing and intensity# again building tension. *nce all filming was finished it turned out we had to edit +5- clips into our target of three minutes which seemed like a task at first. My job in the group was to be the main editor. I was happy with this as I have had lots of e perience with editing in the past and as a hobby I have Adobe 6remiere 6ro on my home computer which I have e perimented with many times in the past and luckily this is the program we used to edit in college. At first I had to watch through the clips and select every clip that we would definitely use and some clips which we may use. )hen with that done it was a case of cutting the clips down to the correct time and putting them in the correct order from start to finish. I saw this as a rough edit just so I could see the narrative in full. I then noticed that as the clips went on# the light was getting darker and darker as when it was filmed the day was coming to an end. )o combat this I had to increase the brightness of the clips sometime by as much as 7-8. I wanted to make sure all clips had the same brightness levels to them so one did not stick out. !ith this done I started working on various transitions and effects to give the films some sense of time passing to it between a series of events. I didn(t want to use cross fades because it gives it an unnatural look so I varied time and styles of fade to black which in the end I feel worked very well. I wanted the shots to tell the story so did not want to ruin this by using un$ needed effects. An edit that I am very proud of is the title screen about 1seconds into the film. 3ere I used a %uick white flash with a bass boom and

the title &A tale of assumptions( popped up along a clip of the boy walking out of shop and then the clip fades to black. )his both introduced the film and gave the audience a sense of a weary atmosphere which was an intention of our aims and also with the fade shows that time had passed from that clip to the ne t one. )his was an idea though of through improvisation when editing and I feel has adds a level of professionalism to our film. !ith transitions done it was finally time to sort out audio' music issues. )he audio levels of the clips were peaking so re%uired me to tune down the master audio but even with that some audio clips were much louder than others due to things such as the wind. It was a strenuous task making all clips have a similar sound level but when finished was worth it for the professional feel. I feel that the film did not have the effect I wanted before this point due to the lack of sound makes it seem uneventful and the clips cutting with no audio makes it seem choppy but being a thriller the music used is e tremely important to give the correct feel. )he story starts with the boy putting on earphones and then turning them 9with this he can not hear the man shouting telling him he has left his wallet: so we found a soundtrack and used key frames to increase sound levels when he turns it up on his phone. !hen the chase scene occurs we found a fast paced track to go along with the fast paced editing which I feel works very well especially as it fades out as soon as the man confronts the boy. ;iving a tense and long awaited feeling to it. I feel this had a good effect as it almost completely changed the feeling of the film from beforehand and gave a much different feel when viewing the film in the role of an audience member# keeping to our aims# as appose to just an editor. Finally with all main aspects of the film finished it was just a matter of small changes to give it a professional feel such as cutting clips a slight bit and adjusting audio levels further when dialogue occurs. I feel like me and my group worked very well together and each had different roles which we e celled in. )his friendship and teamwork made it easy to communicate and meet up# also made it simple to give constructive criticism or praise to benefit the work. )here were a few errors that with e perience could have been solved although with that said I am proud of what I have created and most importantly had fun in doing so. It has given me good practice for future events.