DepicT! Video Textual Analysis

For this task, we were assigned groups and had to create a 90 minute short film. We settled upon the idea of a group of friends talking, but one seems to be an outcast (made obvious by always being on the end of or slightly behind the rest of the group, no-one looks at him or speaks to him) and doesn't speak throughout the entire conversation, until upon reflection the group begin to discuss an incident that occurred a few months prior. At this point he tells one of the group that it wasn't his fault, and as his friends stand up and walk away, he remains and begins to fade. Using this effect made it apparent to the audience that he was a ghost, and this subconsciously causes the viewer to realise that he was the friend that was killed in the accident.

Camera Use

A range of shot types were used throughout our short film, but the most common was a medium close up as this shot type seemed the most appropriate to use when filming the characters talking, and the film is primarily conversation between the characters therefore it was the most frequently used. A variation from this is the opening following shot. 

I particularly liked this shot as it's a unique way to begin the film. Instead of beginning with opening credits, it gives some context and immediately sets the scene instead of beginning with dialogue straight away. The following shot is also an over-the-shoulder view from 'James' (the ghost), and he's slightly trailing back from the rest of the group. This also helps to establish the scene and give context as right from the start it shows that this character is an outsider and that he's different to the rest of the group. 

Close up shots tightly frame a person or object, and are a good way to focus in on one character, usually either when they are talking or to capture their reaction to something that's either being said or done (which is what we used them for). The majority of the time they were used to focus on a character that was speaking, but it was also used twice to capture James' reaction when the friends are talking about the accident in which he was killed. As we were filming, we realised that we had included shots of James from over the shoulder and when the group sat down on the bench, and actually weren't going to include any appearance of him until the final shot in which he speaks to the group and then fades away, but we quickly noticed that this may confuse viewers as it's possible they may have not initially realised him. We then decided to include a few reaction shots of James as the friends fall upon the topic of the accident. This included James smoothly and also meant we had the opportunity to break up the conversation, and to use some new editing skills such as overlapping the dialogue of the conversation through two scenes.

Another type of shot that was used was a medium close up. This type of shot is halfway between a mid shot and a close up, and seemed like the perfect way to subtly include the James character into the conversation without even having any dialogue. This also enforced the feeling that he's an outsider to the group, as he's sat on the end of the bench, and the body language of the other characters block him out, as the screenshot above shows.

The final type of shot that we used is a wide shot. A wide shot shows the entire bodies of the characters, almost like a close up long shot. This shot was used so that when all the characters are sat on the bench, he's on the end and still looks as though he's left out as he was throughout the film, but when the 'alive;' characters leave the location, James is in the centre of the shot, as he's now the main focus. 

This frame uses the rule of thirds, as the first character's head is in the top left intersection, which is where your eye naturally falls to. This placement was intentional as this character begins to talk, and we wanted to draw further attention to the subject. This shot is also quite linear, as it contains the continual lines of the fence behind the characters, and also implied lines created by the characters heads, which causes the viewer to follow the line from left to right. 

The angles that we used in our film were carefully chosen to show that James was an outsider to the rest of the group. Throughout, it seems as though he's not included in the group, and originally we decided we didn't want to show him until the very end, but we quickly noticed that it would look odd and so decided that we needed some shots to remind the viewer that he was still there. This was achieved by the angles used in these two shots (left and below).

There is also two specific camera movements which I feel really add to the casual conversational aspect of the film. The movements create the feeling as if you are viewing the characters speaking from someone's point of view, as the first camera movement is a shaky following shot of the group, to establish that James is an outcast from the rest of the characters. The shaky quality almost implies walking, as though you as the viewer is watching through someone elses eyes. The second camera movement is a pan shot from the right on Josh, to the left on Raffi, and finally to the centre on Toby. I personally liked this shot as like before, it creates the feeling that you are watching the conversation through someone's eyes, as the pan shot is meant to replicate a head movement as though someone is listening and following the conversation as the characters speak.

Editing and Sound

We decided that we wanted our film to be as raw as possible, so we decided against using any music as we thought it would actually ruin the film. At first we debate whether to have some music through the final scene in which James fades away, but we decided against it as we couldn't think of or find a soundtrack that would be suitable, and it would probably boarder on 'cheesy' and cliche. Whilst we filmed, there was a lot of ambient sounds (background noise such as wind, birds and rustling leaves that are naturally found in the filming location) behind the dialogue, and we felt that these had enough effect on their own in place of anywhere that we would add soundtrack (the opening following shot and the final shot of James fading away).
As for editing, we also wanted to keep this short and simple to continue with the raw, personal feeling of the film. We used simple cuts to transition from shot to shot, as we felt as though these were the most appropriate transitions to use to keep the film as stripped back as possible, and much like the soundtrack, we tested different type of transitions but some of them seemed out of place and even comical at times, retracting from the solemn atmosphere that we were trying to give to the viewers. We used a fade up from black effect at the start of the opening shot as when we watched it through without, the film started immediately and it was very jarring and strange, whereas when we added the fade up effect, it created a smooth transition from black to film, slowly introducing the audience to the scene and the situation. 
One other effect that we used was the 'fade' effect, when James disappears. We all knew that we wanted James to fade away as the group stood up and left the bench after their conversation, as if we hadn't it would not have at all been obvious that James was supposed to be a ghost and could possibly confuse the audience. We also thought that this would be a unique twist on the story, and consequently the opportunity to learn a new editing skill. Surprisingly, the fade effect was quite easy to produce, but did require some pre-production planning. The fade was created by layering two shots on top of each other. The first 'base' shot was of just the bench (no characters in shot), and layered on top of it was the second shot, in which the characters stand up and walk out of shot and leave James sat on his own. This second shot consisted of roughly four seconds of recording of James on the bench by himself. By layering the second shot (characters) over the top of the first (bare) and then increasing the transparency  of the second shot once the characters had left James on it's own, it created the ghost-like illusion used on James. As the two shots were of exactly the same location and there had been no camera movement at all between shooting, it made for a really smooth and almost touching end to the film. I felt that James' short yet revealing dialogue and simple fade out completely brought the whole production together.and completed our vision. 
I felt that we certainly managed to maintain continuity throughout our film. We correctly enforced the 180 degree rule (a cinematography guideline that means the characters in a scene maintain the correct left/right relationship to each other) which we originally thought may have been hard as there are more than two characters in each scene.