Evaluation, Alex winter

For our film studies coursework we had to create an extract from a film, we had to come up with an initial idea then storyboard it, film it then finally edit it, we worked in small groups and each member had a different job, I took the job of cinematographer. The genre we all agreed to do was music/drama we were very inspired from films such as crossroads and august rush. our first idea was to have our main protagonist preforming to an audience and having various flash backs , but after feedback from this idea we realized we were telling the whole story with the flashback instead of it being a film extract. we then changed our idea to our main protagonist being an outcast and being bullied but plays guitar to escape the troubles of his life.

After we chose our genre of music/drama, having the role of cinematographer i decided to watch two films of that genre, crossroads (walter hill) and august rush (kirsten sheridan) both of the films gave me an insight into the conventions of my genre and a lot of ideas on the kind of shot types i wanted to use for our film extract this helped a lot when coming up with the more in depth narrative of our film, it also helped when it came to storyboarding as i had an idea of some shots i definitely wanted to use and also helped to keep our film within the conventions of our genre which is very important for both the extract and the audience.

these are the two films that influenced me the most throughout the project.

I was in a group of three and we all worked well together and there were no conflicts which made the project and enjoyable experience, this was also useful as when we were coming up with our initial idea for the narrative we thought of the idea as a group and it wasn't just one persons idea so we all had an in depth understanding of what our film extract was about and what we wanted to portray to the audience.

my first individual job as cinematographer was to storyboard our idea and make a shot list so when i came to film i had a good idea of what i was filming this is very important as it stops u filming to much which is annoying for the editor or filming to little, while i was storyboarding i was taking into consideration that i had to make sure i was portraying to the audience that our film was of a music/drama genre this was also the case when i came to film it. i did this by using generic shots and iconography from the genre for example in the guitar performance scene i used close up of fingers on the fretboard and another close up of the guitar cable being plugged into the amp, all of which are shots in films of the genre like crossroads this is important as when people watch the extract they can identify with the genre.

some of the shots I described above

I tried to use as many shot types as possible to make the extract interesting, for example i start with close ups for the waking up scene and the guitar scene then the walking to college scenes i used mid and long shots this was done partly for variety of shots which helps with keep the audience interested, but also as more of the narrative and the protagonist is revealed the more is shown in the shot. to get the most shot types in i decided to film a shot reverse shot set up in the conversation scene and not a two shot sequence as i think shot reverse shot looks more professional and suited are extract and narrative better. I had to work closely with sound because of our genre in other films like august rush the sound compliments the cinematography very well, i think we achieved this, the constant non diegetic sound of the guitar playing when perfectly with the shots.

One of many varied shots i used and described above

I think the filming went very well and the only problem was the lighting of the shots which couldn't be helped, but no one commented on this in the peer feedback we received, the peer feedback i received for my cinematography was that there was a good variety of shots and also shot composition was good, I am pleased that people liked are extract and also that i succeeded in my role of cinematographer.

overall i am pleased at how well are group worked as a team and at how well our finale piece turned out and pleased that i successful completed my role in the project.

Alex Winter

806 words