Feed the Fish

My Group:

• Iveta
• Inoshan
• Fahad

Throughout the first two months of our AS media course we have learnt about a variety of different shots and what they can symbolise. We then applied our knowledge by creating our 'Feed the Fish' sequence.

We first did an establishing shot of the building and Iveta walking inside. This enables the audience to see the entire setting and to recognise Iveta as the main character. I was impressed by the steadiness of the camera despite not using a tripod. This, in my opinion, is the best shot of our sequence. 

Our next successful shot was the match on action used when Iveta is walking into the building. This created the impression of a sense of continuity. We then did a low angle shot of her walking into the building. I feel that this fitted in well as it hides Ivetas face. This makes the audience question who this character is and what importance she may have. However I learnt that a low angle shot is often used to increase the height of a character or to inspire fear to the audience which definitely did not fit in with our sequence. Another problem with this particular part was the sound. As Iveta is walking off screen we can hear a loud laugh which only lasted a second. There was no sound we would intentionally use, so to improve this we would block out all surrounding sound. 

I have learnt that it is important to discuss what is the right camera angle/shot to use and what meaning we want to project to the audience. 

We did a tracking shot of Iveta walking up the stairs. We felt that this was a decent shot, however it could be improved. The camera was not really steady, so to improve I would use a tripod. Another issue with this shot is the lighting. Although this is quite hard to improve as we are not able to control the sunlight. However, there are many stairs in our school so we could of gone to a different part of the building. Again the sound is another problem. As said before, to improve I would block out the sound. 

One shot I thought did not fit was Iveta opening a fence door. I feel that this did not make sense as the previous shot was of her walking up the stairs. From the group feedback, our audience members stated that they were confused by this. To improve this I would stick to filming indoors as it would of made more sense. However, i feel that the close up on the sign 'Danger of Death' worked well to build up the tension of where the character was heading. I felt that the shot after of Iveta trying to close the fence door on the other side was pointless. 

I felt that the 'over the shoulder' shot worked well as it revealed the reason where and who this character was travelling to see. Although there was a pointless low angle shot used whichIi felt did not fit in with the conversation. To improve this i would of stuck to the 'over the shoulder' shot. 

The flashback part could be improved in many different ways. The sound of students in the background was the main issue with this part. To improve, instead of blocking out the sound we could of filmed it at a time where students were in lessons to reduce the noise. Our aim for this shot, as the sequence was called 'Feed the Fish', we wanted to show Iveta actually feeding a fish. We were hoping that the audience would think that feed the fish was code for something different. To make this more clear we could of used real fish food to feed a real fish. This was a problem however as none of us had a pet fish. 

This whole task gave me an insight into how the editing process would be when it comes to devising our own opening movie sequence. It helped me understand the meanings of different camera shots/angles which will be very useful.