Depict Evaluation

Our task was to create a short film for DepicT about anything we wanted to. "DepicT! challenges filmmakers on any budget from anywhere in the world to show their stuff in just a minute and a half."

When it came to the camera work, we tried out a load of different shots to see what fitted well but used the shots that we said on the storyboard because we thought that the shots we selected worked well and that they would get the emotion/tension across the best. Our shots ranged from extreme close up to long shot to a pan shot. With the shots we ranged from having them on the tripod to having them handheld. Shots from 0:01-0:17 are shot using the tripod, 0:18-0:29 are shots with the camera being handheld.

The in the rest of the short it is mainly us using the tripod apart from one other shot when it zooms in. A couple of shots I think worked really well was at 0:11-0:13 when it was an over the shoulder shot of the detective looking at the newspaper because it worked really well with the music and was tense because it is a clue. Also I think the pan worked well because if goes from one detective to the other one and then the shot after it focuses on the detective it panned onto which made it flow quite well. A shot that could have been improved was the pan on the detective, we didn't use a tripod for the zoom and it was really shaky which didn't really give out the effect we wanted it to.

With the mise en scene I think we worked things well. I think the settings we used was a good choice, the park was a good place for the death because its not used a lot and when we filmed it you could tell that it wasn't used because it wasn't busy The office we used worked well as well because detectives need an office to do the work in and all the things in the office such as the notes on the wall and the computer made it look a bit more like an office a detective would use.

With the props we used we made sure that they were suitable for the our film. We used a long coat, which a detective wore to make it more realistic as detectives wear long coats in crime dramas and then we used props for the clues to the crime: necklace, brand logo, newspaper and a photo. They all worked well because they linked to the crime and I thought that they were good props to have as evidence.

I think we could have improved with costume. With the main detectives they were dressed reasonably but the costumes could have been improved by wearing smart shirts and trousers or suits so it looked more realistic which would've worked better. The lighting through out the film was good. There wasn't any clips that you couldn't see clearly because they were all clear. The lighting we used was natural light for the outside shots and then the lights that were turned on in the office.