Critical Analysis of The Affair

Edited Sequence with Parallel music

    

Edited Sequence with Contrapuntal music

When making this video, I and the people I was working with did not make the same mistakes as we did in the previous edited sequence, however several new problems arose during the filming and editing.

The first and most obvious problem I believe is the quality of the sound when me and Daniel were speaking. When making the sequence we encountered a problem with the microphone (the batteries had ran out), causing us to have to re-film the entire video.

However as we began our second attempt at filming, we appeared to have not been speaking loud enough or close enough to the microphone; to hear our voices the volume needs to be turned all the way up, and even then the you can't make out the entire conversation. The problem with this is that we did not want the lead of the microphone to be visible in the shot, meaning that we could not get as close to it as we would have liked.

This teaches me that after filming a clip, we have to check on the video camera to see that the sound came through effectively, so we have a chance to look at our footage and only re-film parts of it again when needed, and not the whole thing. Also, before we begin to film our video, we should check to see how close the microphone needs to be to us to hear us properly, by filming one of us speaking and checking the footage afterwards.

A less obvious problem I noticed in the video was when I stand up towards the end, a part of my head has been cut out of the shot, however it does not look that bad, and we jumped to another angle soon after, making it less noticeable. Also, I don't think that the slap looked real, but we chose to use that shot because that was the only one where Daniel's face was not showing, meaning you are unable to see how I purposely missed him.

A small issue I noticed at the beginning was with the opening title; the is a two second blank screen between the title screen and the beginning of the footage. To fix this we should have cut two seconds from the end of the title screen sequence.

I believe that the sequence shows a lot of continuity, meaning that when we were editing, we made sure that the conversation continued without any jumps. We did this by making sure we filmed the entire conversation as repetitively as we could from each angle, so when we wanted to change camera angle, it would follow on.

Parallel Music: When watching the parallel music clip, I thought the music went well with the video as planned, however I believe that the music should have played during more of the actual footage. This is because I noticed that almost as soon as the music begins to play, the credits appear. We should have solved this by filming more footage where there is no conversation, so the music would have been easy to fit in. Another problem I noticed with the music at the end is that because the sound of the conversation is so low, the loud music greatly contrasts with this, and seems too loud. To fix this, we should have reduced the sound of the music when editing it, to match the audio of the rest of the clip.

Contrapuntal Music: Unlike the music in the parallel music clip, I do not believe that this was the right song choice for the contrapuntal version of the video. After looking back at the video I think that we should have chosen something that seems to fit in with it less, as the song is about love, matching the theme of the video. I  think that the same two problems arise which did in the parallel music clip; the first being that not enough time in the video is left for the music to be played, making it seemed rushed at the end as it is played during the credits. The second problem is that the music is too loud again, causing the person watching it to most likely have to turn the volume down, as the rest of the audio in the video is so quiet.

From the last project, I believe that we improved a lot on camera work. This is because that we implemented the use of the tripod a lot more to create a steady shot for the conversation, and when we had to turn the camera, it did not look rushed and wobbly. Also now we've got a third person in our group, it is a lot easier to have a scene which involves two of us, and also have steady camera work which follows the scene.

The Kidnapping

Critical Analysis of Edited Sequence

Critical Analysis of my Edited Sequence

When I looked back at my edited sequence, I noticed several mistakes that could have easily been avoided.

At the beginning of the video, I and the rest of my group where in such a rush to make a title sequence, we did not have much time to add in much detail, hence the basic opening. Also if I was to do it again, I would have made the opening title shorter as I think it goes on for too long; the only reason this is, is because we did not know how to change the length of time the title was present.

The next problem I spotted when I watched the video back was the transition between the first and second scene. I changed the position of the camera between the scenes when the second was meant to continue straight after the first, so I had to add in a fade between the two so it was less noticeable.

A problem I noticed during the fight scene, apart from the bad acting, was how a third person holding the camera was needed for when I fell on the floor. The lack of a third person limited our edited sequence in my opinion, as in this scene the camera needed to be faced towards the floor, however half of what happened what cut out due to the camera being on the tripod with no one positioning it.

A scene which I thought wasn't as good as we intended is the scene where Daniel is hiding, and the camera turns to look for him. When we filmed this we wanted it to be a POV shot of a search scene, however I think the fact that we didn't use the tripod in this part makes it looked messy and rushed. This shows me that we should look over our footage more carefully straight after recording it, so we can see what scenes weren't as good as they could have been, and we can change it.

Furthermore, I think the scene where Daniel is running away could have been a lot better, however it was fairly rushed. We attempted to do an over the shoulder shot, however we were both running, which made it hard to keep the same camera position throughout the whole scene. Also, I noticed that I should have placed the camera on a tripod in this scene, because using a tripod would have made the shot a lot more steady and less unprofessional than holding it in my hand. Another error in noticed in this scene was the fact that you could see my holding the camera in the reflection of the window, which shows how we shouldn't hold back on re-filming scenes that didn't go perfectly.

In the final scene, I think the end faded abruptly after Daniel placed the box on my head. This is because I accidentally lost some of the footage at the end of that scene, and to make sure that it didn't suddenly end, we added a fade out effect.

Something else I would have changed is how we did not have any music in the entire sequence. If I were to add music, I would have added a short horror music clip at the beginning title sequence and the end credits, to add suspense and tension to the film.

Overall, I think that if we took more time to plan the sequence and build a storyboard, the film would have looked less rushed. I've also learnt that when a scene is filmed, we should check for any mistakes, and re-film if anything did not go the way we wanted it to.