Mini Brief and evaluation of Mini Brief

Evaluation of Mini Brief:

The location used in our Mini brief was a good choice as it fitted in well with the horror genre due to the isolation that we would normally expect from a horror film. Although this was a good area to shoot it did come with issues, for example to maintain a spooky setting we had to wait until it was dark, but this also meant that lighting was limited which resulted in us using our phones as torches, this created a very artificial and fake look towards a film. On the other hand, this could be seen as a positive as the black background could give the audience a sense of abandonment or danger as we are unaware of what is behind. Also we used fake blood to put on the tree which strengthened as it is key iconography in the horror genre and was very realistic.

Our mini brief is accurate to that of our storyboard as we managed to maintain most of the scenes and cuts we had planned. However it was deemed that we couldn't have many of our props that we had first thought to use; for example we were unable to start a fire which our characters would sit around as we were in a park that was private property. This affected our script which meant we had some minor changes to the conversation between the characters. 

An issue was raised with sound during our mini brief because we didn't have a microphone, only a camera which means the digetic sound in the mini brief often changes depending on the different locations of the park we are in which can alter the flow of the film. Also the dialogue was affected by the loudness of background noise which makes it difficult to hear what me and Liv are saying which means it will be hard for the audience to know what is going on in terms of the plot. Although we have found an issue here with sound we countered this by adding our own sound effects, these work well as they have been put in places that do not have dialogue, and when the character Morgan walks up to the tree the music builds tension and mystery as there is a long wait to see what he is looking at. The non-diegetic sound works well as it includes the noise of a dog. 

Another issue raised from our mini brief is that our camera angles were sometimes wrong, one of which was our 180 degree shot of me and Liv talking where we filmed over the line which took the shot out of place and this meant we were unable to use a valuable shot. In future we can counter issues like this by filming more of the angles needed before we move onto our next shot. Its vital that we use relevant camera angles that fit the horror genre and the 180 degree rule is important for horror as we can see both parts of a conversation between the two characters and keep the flow of the scene which is vital to maintain momentum for the horror film.