Short Chase Sequence

For our chase sequence we decided to base our storyline around the comedy genre as we thought it would be the most suited to our entire group. I was in a group with Jessica, Rebecca and Rachel however we all took on different roles. My individual role was as an actress.

Research and Planning

Before we began filming, we watched many other chase sequences to gain ideas and conventions to use in our own chase scene. For example, we used shots of our feet and high and low angle shots as we thought these were common in chase sequences. After this, we decided that the genre of our chase sequence would be comedy, as we could only film the scenes in and around school, giving us a short time to do it. Also, we thought genres such as ‘horror’ and ‘thriller’ may not fit in with the school location and target audience whereas comedy would. As well as this, we researched what music would fit with our chase scene, as it would have to be funny and entertaining. The target audience for our chase sequence would mainly be teenagers; however it reaches a wider audience like young children and adults too as we believe it would be entertaining for them too.

Production

During the filming process, we used a video camera and tripod to keep our scenes steady so that our sequence looked professional. Steady cams are also particularly useful when actors are moving around the frame as the shots will keep their high quality even when moved around. We used many camera shots in our scene. For example, we used high and low angle shots when the bullies were chasing the victim around the school and in the yard to show the most important parts of our chase sequence in different angles rather than a typical medium shot. We used medium shots for the majority of the filming, but also close ups of the bullies and victims eyes and faces to show the expression on their faces for comic effect. There was little dialogue in our piece as we added music and voiceovers in the editing stage. For the choice of location we used a school, as this is a typical place where bullying would take place so this fitted in with our storyline.  My main role in our project was acting. Jess and I played the part of the ‘bullies’ whilst Rebecca played the role of the ‘wimpy kid’. We kept to conventions and dressed Rebecca as the typical ‘nerd’ by wearing pigtails and a buttoned up shirt. I listened to the director’s instructions (where to stand, what facial expressions to use, what to do in a certain scene) and tried to follow them as best as I could.

Post Production (editing)

Jessica took on the main role in editing, however the whole group made decisions together. We used a MAC computer and the software ‘iMovie’ to create our sequence. The main techniques we learnt was how to speed up certain clips, mute background noise and how to add an audio to our sequence properly. At first we picked all the clips we wanted to use, and then put them together so we had our basic storyline outlined. Then we decided to mute the clips that had no dialogue in so that there was no extra background noise in our scene as it sounded more professional without typical school background sound. Lastly, we added the ‘Benny Hill’ theme tune to our scene so that it gave the storyline a ‘comical’ sense. We chose this over ‘Trashman – Bird Is the Word’ as we believed it fitted the storyline better, the Benny Hill theme tune was at the same pace as our chase, whereas Bird Is the Word wasn’t. We did incur problems when adding the audio to our chase scene as we could not download it onto the Mac; however we overcome this by transferring the song by phone onto the Mac. The victim’s voiceover was also added at the beginning of our scene to introduce the narrative. All in all, our short chase sequence only took approximately one day to complete.