'Chump' Sequence Evaluation Sam Bols

Film Evaluation

Watching the finished sequence from my groups British crime film ‘Chump’, I am very pleased with the outcome. Taking ideas from the films ‘Kidulthood’ (Menhaj Huda 2006) and ‘This is England’ (Shane Meadows 2006) my group attempted to combine ideas and themes from both films. We used the idea of violence and youths thuggish lifestyle from ‘Kidulthood’ to create the main antagonists personality. We also based our sequence in an estate and tried to make the sequences setting portray a rough lifestyle. We took ideas of loneliness from the film ‘This is England’, and attempted to portray our main protagonist as being very seldom and extremely lonely in the beginning of our film.

My Microelement I chose to work with was sound.

(Screen grab of timeline in final cut express)

Sound is a highly important role in any film. There are two types of sound in a film; the first one is diagetic sound. Diagetic sound is sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film. For example voices of characters, sounds made by objects in the film, music coming from different sources such as instruments or sources of media. The second type of sound is non-diagetic sound, this is sound that is not visible on screen and has not been implied to be present in the action of the characters in the film.

Whether the sound is diagetic or non-diagetic without sound then it is next to impossible to create a tense atmosphere. This is because sound is used to add emotion and rhythm to a film or sequence. An example of non-diagetic sound that is used in films is when the music builds up to make a more tense atmosphere, this tends to happen in thriller films when something scary is about to happen. Sound allows the audience to build up in suspense.

For our groups soundtrack I developed a piece of music entitled ‘Bring On The Bassline’ on a music developing program called Fruityloops. The sound was built from scratch using no loops of sound taken from other songs, or any loops made by the Fruitloops Company on the program. To achieve the final out product I used a lot of different musical instruments, and a plug-in called ‘Predator’ to develop the bass. Some of the instruments I used to create this piece include guitars, drums, sythns, orcastral, and piano. All layered on top of each other with different roles and beat patterns to create the final piece.

Personally I am very pleased with the music and think that it creates atmosphere very well. It also builds up energy and tension in the film, as at the beginning of the sequence the film starts of slowly just like the main protagonists’ (Wally) life.

In addition to the soundtrack my role was also to put in sound effects in the sequence to help build up and develop atmosphere. In the sequence I included the sounds of a harsh loud engine of a car roaring down the road followed by the sound of ‘sirens’ from a police car. This works well in the sequence as it adds to the impression that the setting is very urban and rough.

The original plan would be to have a fight or a chase seen in the beginning of the sequence. However we thought that to start a film of with violence straight from the roll of the titles, we decided would not be appropriate for the begging of our film as we wanted to introduce the main character and show his life to get the audience more involved and have more feelings and sympathy towards our main protagonist as the sequence unravels.

Once our group finished the sequence, an audience viewed it we had a great response to the clip. The feedback that personally applied to my role as sound man, was extremely positive and the soundtrack was a success as it did what I wanted it to do, which was to build up a tenser atmosphere.

To conclude, overall I am very pleased with the final sequence. Given more time I am sure my group could have improved on the sequence as we all had a lot of good mixed ideas about the film and storyboard. But overall I am hugely pleased with the outcome and I hope to be able to do something like it or similar again soon.

Editing

After we had completed the filming i started the editing using Final Cut. With many different and interesting camera angles produced by the cinematographer made the editing a fun and interesting job in trying to make the most of the different shots effective. With having so many different shots to choose from, it was difficult to decide which shots to use and the ones not to. It came across that the film ended up too long and was pushing 5minutes, so i had to be more strict on the cuts and some of the footage i used. I managed to use the editing technique as i mentioned in my previous post in the shot where the main character "Wally" is walking through the hallway to the bathroom.

Filming and Location

The filming will take place in different areas around Cambridge. The first location will take place in Cambourne in a house, this will be the house of the main persona and involves him awaking to the start of his daily routine. Another location is a barren car park in the center of Cambridge which is a fatal scene and consists of confrontation from the 'cooler boys' leads to the unsettled climax of the opening sequence.

In the opening scene of our film 'Chump' , the main protagonist is a teenage boy called Wally. Wally is extremly lonely, and isolated by other people his own age. His parents are rarely back at the home before late, and his younger steps brother get him in trouble with his mum and step dad if he doesn't get his way with his brother.

We introduce Wally as the main character right at the start of our film. The shot starts with Wallys alarm going of next to his bed, and stirring him to consciousnesses.

Editing

Working closely with the cinematographer, i hope to collect various carmera angels of the same shot in hope that i can create different effects. Using editing techniques such as the start of this scene in 'The Matrix', as it has great effect in making the editing seamless. In which is shown between the first 10seconds of this scene...(Unfortunately Video Embedding is disabled)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arcJksDgCOU&feature=related

Roles

I will be playing the main persona in our opening film sequence, playing the role of a young teenage boy put down and tired of being ignored and having no recognition or awareness from friends or family. The clip follows him through an average day routine emphasizing his loneliness and troubles of trying to fit in, until he is confronted by the 'cooler' group and finds himself in an avoidable situation. Alongside playing the key character i am going to take the role of cinematographer, setting up potential shots for footage and experimenting with the environment around me for scenic frames and conveying shots.

The opening film sequence is a gritty British in-depth story teller. Largely influenced from producers such as Danny Boyle and Shane meadows creating similar movies such as Trainspotting and This is England. This style and genre attracted us because of the great use of sound, cinematography and conveyance in emotionally involved and in-depth movie telling.

Here are a few short clips of the movies used for ideas:







Kyle Warwick

Possible Film Sound Tracks

Possible songs that can be used in our sequence

Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats
Or

Jose Gonzalez -Crosses

I like these songs because they are quite solitary and sad song, it would be a good track for our film sequence because i think it gets across the emotions of the actor well and how he is feeling in the sequence. If we used one of these songs then they would be used in the begging of the sequence when we are irst introducing the main character.

House Of The Rising Sun - The Animals
Or
Golden Brown - The Stranglers

I like these songs because they both have a more positive feeling to them and are alot more energetic than the song choices by Jose Gonzalez. We would play one of these songs when our main character in the sequence leaves his house and goes out.

Skins Music - "Dj Shadow's - organ donor"

I like this song because it is extremely airy and builds up a tense atmosphere very well. We would be using this song near the end of the sequence in a chasing scene or when our main protagonist wakes up after being abducted and finds himself in a scary hostile environment.

By Sam Bols