Evaluation. Bronwen Martin-Miceli

Our film clip was a British crime drama like kidulthood and adulthood, we wanted something that faced similar issues as the films themselves, also looking at films like snatch and 4321 we found certain things we liked and inspired us, for example the soundtrack of the 4321 trailer. The choice of genre played a massive part in all details from macro to micro to ensure that we delivered a believable film clip that people can watch and enjoy without getting distracted by mistakes and unrealistic circumstances within the genre. For my character I wanted to have her dressed like a little sex kitten as she was meant to be seductive; the guys we had dressed up in trackies and hoodies which linked in well with the personalities of the characters. We really tried to get the mise-en-scene perfect for the genre as if there are slip ups here this is when they show and effect the film, it's important to make something authentic.

My main responsibility was the sound which I thought about carefully, I watched other clips and listened to build up music before learning how to construct a suitable soundtrack of my own; I had to make sure it built tension and suspense in order to grab the audiences’ attention and keep them gripped in the chase. At the end I made the decision to replace the end part of the soundtrack with a grime track from youtube (Ill crack your skull- Napper.) I wanted to do this near the start as I thought to myself it would be a really great ending but I left it until the last minute in case my idea didn't work; there was a point when it would've been easier to leave the soundtrack as it was but I'm glad that I put in the extra time and took the risk, this way it gave the credits more of an impact when they came on. Being responsible for sound I wanted to create something that involved the audience more, hyped them up, this for me keeps the audience gripped in the picture, without sound it’s very easy to lose interest despite what’s going on onscreen. I played around a bit with diegetic and non-diegetic sound once I was taught how which actually adds a lot to a film, by mixing the two forms of sound together you can make a really effective piece; diegetic sound allows you to build up the setting and atmosphere and non-diegetic plays a huge part in hyping up the audience and showing when the film is changing.

Our plans changed as we went along, although we knew the genre we wanted to base our film around it did take us a while to come up with some sustainable material. We knew we wanted a film clip including a fast paced action chase scene but we needed a plan and a story to back this, even though it’s not 100% necessary to think up a whole film it is very useful and less stress when you spend the time to come up with a clear idea. Eventually we came up with a small part in the story where the modern day femme fatale is used to break up two close friends in a gang; from there we changed our ending ideas going from pulling out a gun to kidnapping him in the boot of a car and burying him in the woods to our final idea of the punch. I personally wanted to go with the gun idea but this was seen as unnecessary and unrealistic for the situation which I totally disagree with, I mean we’re talking about London here not Cambridge.

We received feedback from Jake and Tom, two men who are both skilled in this area which is perfect for those last minute touch ups. It was Jake who showed me how to upload the grime track off youtube but it was Tom who spent the most time with us. Tom helped us on editing and sound, he first of all showed us how to cut our editing to make it more snappy and our chase scene more fast paced; it was Tom who showed me how to use diegetic sound to build up the atmosphere from scratch instead of relying on the shoddy natural sound which was naff and all over the place. We also used our classmates as our target audience; this is where I got feedback from other people in charge of sound which were all very positive.

Over this task I think I have come away with many new skills not only in using garage band but also in final cut, even from watching I have picked up skills in all different areas which I can now use in the future. I have also learnt how well sound and editing work together, I now realise how powerful macro and micro details are in creating a strong and authentic piece of film.