Evaluation of The Exchange

Our exchange exercise was based around a "noiry" thriller with a hint of supernatural on the side. During the making of the project, I was largely responsible for acting in the extract, as well as doing some of the editing that was needed on the finished film. The acting responsibilities took up a lot of time on the filming side, but in the shots I was not in, I played a big part in capturing them on film. Particularly the first half, unless I was in the shot. Most of the shots that I shot were reasonably good technically, we were particularly proud of a shot that we managed to get Becca to walk to and sit on a bench, right below a hazy sun in the sky, with condensation on her breath, we thought this was very effective in ramping up our project. We did, however, have some continuity problems in the second half of the project; we could have made this look better by putting in an establishing shot, to show the movement of the character in the background. Overall during the film we kept to the 180 degree rule. From the exercise we learned to take as many shots as we possibly could, as in "its better to have too much than not enough". We also learned that we need to take our time with the story and use more establishing shots. We made use of a very good piece of music and were able to put the "stings" in the right and relevant places, to make it more effective. I think that the idea was very good, if slightly too complex for a three minute extract. We were given mostly good reviews, it was given good technical reviews, and the music was enjoyed particularly. Our project compares to the real thing, in the way of mood, and music, i.e. slow and moody. Overall I think our project was quite successful, but it needed a lot of work to make it perfect and would need a complete re-shoot. We hope to do better than this in our final project.

Exchange Excercise Brief

We have been asked to, in groups of 4 people, prepare, shoot and edit a sequence lasting around 1 and half minutes. The project we were asked to produce was to be called "The Exchange". We have been asked to produce the sequence in a neo-noirish style displaying some of the codes and conventions of the genre. We were also told that we must all contribute to all of the different stages of the production, meaning we must all help with paperwork, we must all have a go at shooting the project and we must all have a go at editing the piece.

Idea for a Film Noir Opening

Rough Synopsis: Beginning: Starts with a man carrying a package being followed by another man, gets robbed and killed.
Middle: Several killings and exchanges over the package
End: Through some sort of misdirection and deception, the first guy comes back and steals the package.
Detailed First 3 Mins: Man walking along the waterfront carrying a package (Carrier), being followed by another man. Carrier turns the corner, sees he's being followed start moving quicker, the killer starts to move quicker as well, we see the carrier running through the woods, being chased by the killer then the carrier stumbles onto the floor, and we see the killer pick up a rock and repeately hit the carrier with it, killing the carrier. We then see the killer throw away the rock, pick up the package and walk away from the camera.