Exterior Footage Review

As I did with the interior footage I checked over the shots of the second day, the fight scene day to see if we needed to re-shoot any of it.

These are an example of some of the insert shots we got when back in the flat at the end of the day. By showing all these films we wanted to get across further that she spends a lot of times in imaginary worlds, or as the title suggests in her 'Headspace'. I think this quick brief shot shows that fairly well. I also framed it diagonally to make it a bit more visually different and therefore more outstanding than basic horizontals and verticals. This pan across the colourful cases is also similar to what they did in the end scene of Super, so I utilised that idea but put it in my own way here.

Here is the opening shot of Lucy walking down the alley before seeing the fight. We chose to do this so we can discover the scene along with her. I like the depth created by the mugging being in the background, it gives a good sense of 3 dimensions (utilising the z-axis of the frame) to the scene and also in a way shows the whole scene to the audience so they understand the basic layout of the location.

Here is the moment she first looks round and notices the mugging. There is a lot of negative space because I wanted to show how she had a clear head or a lot of thinking space around her, before she realised the situation and we went into closer shots where she would be more focussed on the situation in hand. I don't think this works that well and doesn't really fit in with the visual theme of the film, so ultimately I wish it had been framed differently. The idea is there I just think it's a bit tenuous and more in my head than visible in the frame.

This is almost the counter shot so that we see the muggers eye line and can establish again in our head where they are, you can tell this because I stuck to the 180 degree rule. Also by doing this it means he's looking to the right and it is more natural for the eyes to move to the right to explore the frame, since that's how we read.

Here to establish the victim of the mugging we chose to do the shot from a high angle over the muggers shoulder so we are looking down on the victim, so he appears visually inferior and clearly doesn't have any power in the situation.

This works again as a sort of reaction shot, we see the mugger about to hit him then run off. Furthermore this further pushed the power of the mugger through the visuals, he is standing high above the camera so seems much more imposing and overbearing on the camera which is at the victims level. This gives us an insight to both perspectives of the mugging, letting us understand both characters power.

Here I ran backwards with the camera while the mugger ran at me. This makes it feel like he is running directly at the audience, which gives it quite an engaging feel. Since we're also moving quite fast it has a good energetic feeling to the shot. Furthermore we get to see the victim in the background too so you keep that character involved in the film visually and understand where he is in the layout of the scene, helping build a wider picture.

The moment before they begin to fight we move in to show both of their eyes in extreme close up as their eyes squint before they fight. This has a nice western stand off feel to it which I like quite a lot. It is also sort of a cheesy thing to show but I think because of that it works, and has very much a a comic book feel to the framing. It also reminds me of the kind of things you see in fighting games cut scenes before they fight, a sort of 'vs' moment which I think works a lot.

Here is one of the dolly shots I said I like the use of bars in, the background it quite flat to make it fit with the idea of 2D fighting video games, Mortal Kombat esque, but nonetheless it is still interesting because of the complex lines and provides a good backdrop for the fight. You can also see the shadows here something that I tried my best to show when the sun was out because it adds an extra layer to the film and visually looks good. With both the actors and the shadows moving it get across more of a feeling of movement in the frame too.

Here is one of the shots where we got a close up of Lucy during the fight as she's about to punch. This partly shows some part of how I learnt to let the actors get emotion across from my analysis of Super. It also feels this way like we're more involved in the fight as we can see their emotions, we aren't just watching it, we as an audience are involved too. Furthermore when we see things more close up they look more real for example when the mugger gets hit in this shot because of the angle it looks like it connects and he goes flying off screen, implying a big impact.

Here is the selfie joke mentioned in my analysis of the day filming. It's subtle enough to be there and get a slight smirk out of but it's not the main focus. Showing the victim over there also again implies the depth of the frame again and reminds viewers that he is still here. Lucy actually moves into this frame too, something that looks quite good. It might be too much of a tenuous reading into a situation but it could be viewed as a comic book cell that Lucy flies into because it is pretty much a fixed shot.

Again here you can see the shadows are being utilised and shown when the sun is out so it is possible to get that extra level to the footage.

Here is a good example of how the right angle makes the punch look real, from this point you feel like the impact is hard because of not seeing the punch  connect but seeing the muggers head jerk back as if it had. This is more down to the reaction of Craig the actor making it seem real, helped by the angles we shot this at.

Here we have the mugger falling down onto a crash mat we have off screen, we wanted to utilise everything we had so by having him thrown around a bit it makes it a more interesting fight.

Here we have a nice close up of Lucy filling most of the frame and again utilising the idea of looking from her hand in the foreground to the right of the frame since it's natural to see her, the main focus. Unfortunately in this shot though you can see the dolly tracks on the floor, something we didn't notice at the time of shooting so despite it being quite good it is a redundant and unusable shot. 

This bit where the mugger gets a sword out is when it is quite obvious that this sequence isn't real (the powers make this obvious too), as a result this is quite a funny moment. We also have a bit of a reference to Indiana Jones here since he starts swinging it all around professionally and flamboyantly as he moves towards Lucy. This build from fights to weapons is also an idea from the two fight scenes I analysed Kick-Ass and The Raid. It is our own slightly more comic take on it. Sadly there is a man in the background working on his car here though, something we managed to cut out most by moving shots around but here it was hard to not show him, and is something we should have planned for but also something we could do nothing about on the day.

This is one of the shots I'm most proud of from the shoot. From one of the sheets we got in seminars we found out the easiest way for the eyes to travel around the frame is down and right, because of reading and gravity. This shows me utilising that very much. Both characters are very well framed and the sword is coming right across the frame and towards the camera slightly because of the angle of it so it gets the depth of the shot too. Therefore this frame utilises the x, y and z axis to the best it can.

This shot too utilises depth because we see the mugger fly back towards the camera then down out of frame to reveal Lucy having pushed him with her powers. It works as it feels like quite a flat frame but by utilising the crash mat again we create a sort of sense of depth as the mugger falls towards us showing Lucy further away. This also fits in with the sort of middle framing idea we used a lot in the interior scenes. 

This is the finale, if you like, of the final scene. I think it works well because it's quite a simple frame but you get to see all aspects, the mugger downed, the victim happy he got his wallet back and Lucy happily running away. It seems like quite a gleeful scene and the light helps that, though it's unintentional and if anything would be a problem to colour correct in post, but the shot its self works I think even if it needs a bit of visual manipulation.

Here you can see how the sun coming out improved the colours of the scene, again this causes a bit of a colour correction problem, but in this shot the colours pop extremely well.

Again here you can see the use of shadow shown as clearly as it could be. Yet again the sun makes the scene look very good, even holy to a degree with the bright light coming from the top of the screen, and though may be a slight problem for colour correction it undeniably looks good. Depth again can be seen a bit here since Lucy is very much in the foreground while the victim is further into frame, it's not so clear here but still evident nonetheless.

Looking back at this footage shows that it all seems to be of a good quality and there is enough to get around any problems of shots that aren't quite good enough for the final cut. Most importantly based on the strength of what is here that we shot based on the storyboards and shot lists we created and discussed I don't think we will need to re-shoot any of the scenes.