Film Opening- Marking

Level 4 48–60 marks

There is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills: 

• material appropriate for the target audience and task; 

• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; 

• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set; 

• shooting material appropriate to the task set;, including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; 

• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects

The material was consistent with a thriller rather than a horror. Twisted Pictures is a company associated with horror. You mentioned horror/thriller as your intended genre but this feels more like the crime drama end of the scale. A good crime drama though!

I thought the titles were appropriate and like the way you timed their arrival along with the music. It didn't matter that this wasn't consistent throughout. I thought it worked well.

The music was a good choice with the right amount of threat and menace. As with the titles, you timed some of your edits with the stresses in the music which worked well. I liked the occasional uses of diegetic sound- it's hard to tell but I believe you used it when the car drove past the camera early on and then increasingly towards the end. Shame you didn't end the music and the clip effectively-it seemed to fizzle out!

The material used was very good. You didn't try to do too much and I liked the camera angles you used throughout. The setting  worked well apart from the poles and I liked the barbed wire, smouldering pile and even the miserable looking dog which added to the sense of impending nastiness. The varied shots of the car and of Alfie at the end seemed very natural and took your audience on a journey. I wish you'd done more with the end. It was a good idea but it felt a bit rushed and you should have timed that final punch with a beat of the music and ended there with the title on black!

The meaning of the sequence was obvious and I thought your choices of shot and where to cut showed a really good feel for timing (until the very end!) I really liked it. I'm going to ask a few others to watch but provisionally: 51/60