T-13 FILM EXTRACT: Richard Balfour- Editing Evaluation
Thursday 26 February 2009
Richard Balfour- Editing Evaluation
Our film project is called The Lockup. I took on the role of editing. It is about a lone hero who is surviving in a post apocalyptic Britain. Our extract takes place in the middle of the film where he has fought of some zombies and has found an abandoned room to make camp.
The genre we have been working in is horror. And this has definitely reflected in my editing work. In all horror films there is the calm before the storm, where something good has happened to the hero and the whole feel of the scene is a lot more slowly paced. In the beginning of the extract I tried to make the editing and the speed of the cuts quite subdued to show that our hero is safe in his new hideout but near the end where he hears the knock on the door the editing speeds up, perhaps with his heart rate.
Die Hard was an influence in terms of character type
As was 28 Days Later The narrative of the film in our extract is driven primarily but the emergency radio broadcast. I tried to vary the shots during the announcement with a combination of close up and extreme close ups of the radio and over the shoulder shots of Alex. I did this because I didn’t want it to be visually boring during the talking but I understand that this wasn’t to everyone’s taste and they preferred the idea of a constant close up of the radio while the broadcast was playing.
My group worked closely to discuss and agree on an appropriate location and prop list for our chosen genre. My group used all the different micro elements to develop narrative and portray character and genre. Mise-en-scene was carefully used to show the characteristics of hero and his situation. The costume is a stereotypical tough man hero with a dirty tank top and a bandage, which implies he has previously been hurt without having to tell the audience of our extract what exactly happened. Also the location is very suitable for our narrative, it is a dark depressing place, symbolising our protagonist’s state of mind at this point in our story.
In the filming process we had many different ideas that sadly because of budget and technical capabilities we could not put into practise. One of them was the actually zombies being featured in the extract but because of fact we did not have any face paint, we agreed to never show the actual zombies in Jaws-esque style suspense. I feel that this has made our extract much more effective and thought provoking.
As editor, I wanted the audience respond to our sequence with these exact words, “Oh my god, this is the greatest piece of editing ever.” Unfortunately this was not the case. I received criticisms about the radio, which I mentioned earlier. But also I received a number of criticisms about the match on action shots not being entirely accurate. I don’t personally see it. I wanted my audience to feel pity for the hero but also feel some sense of what he is going through, when he is contemplating ending it all with suicide. I feel this that I managed this but other people who have seen our sequence beg to differ.
The Feedback we have received has informed us that our film extract was a relative success but it does have some minor flaws that I have mentioned before. I.e. The match on action shots and the shots of the radio during the emergency announcement. But apart from these insignificant failings, I believe that we have produced a compelling marvel of a film.
Our technical skills have defiantly enabled us to make the most of our creativity and imagination. As editor my technical skills comprised entirely of using the Apple Mac and staying well clear of the camera. I already had a strong grasp of using Final Cut and used it accordingly but I also learned a lot of new skills while completing this project. The only aspect I feel let us down was our point of view shot with the gun which did not turn out the way we envisioned it at the planning stage.
In my personal opinion, I feel that our film sequence was a success. All my group did well but I personally excelled in my field and made the film what it is, a triumph.
This is a screenshot from me editing out film sequence.
