Evaluating

OPENING SCENE

The opening scene in any film is particularly important. It establishes the genre, sets the tone, introduces the narrative and major characters, and most importantly, catches the audience’s attention and engages their interest so that they want to see more. In this way it functions exactly like the opening scene of a play or paragraph of a book. If The Crucible has proved that it already has an engaging opening sequence in play form, what was the need to change it for the film?. It may help to think of the differences between theatre and film. In film the dominant imagery is visual, whereas in the theatre, much of the dominant imagery is verbal.

• When shooting my film I looked at who I could use to be my actors and actresses, because this plays an important role when filming. The actors have to match the right criteria for the role and type of the film. Luckily I needed a male character at the age of 14/15 to play the role of a protagonist, whereas I also needed a young female character around the age of 10/11 to play the role of a psychologically damaged school girl.

• Location was essential, and I needed to find a deserted forest which I managed to locate in Overlane, Almondsbury. This location was perfect as there were enough ditches and different levels of terrain to make the film appear believable. After shooting all of this footage I have decided that I may need a little extra footage to tie everything together, for example a short video clip before the title sequences of someones eye looking frightened, this will be followed by heavy breathing. Or perhaps at the end of the film I will add another clip to introduce the next victim.