evaluation

CANARY
Evaluation essay

Canary is a film of an emotional rollercoaster during this economical downfall of a man who through greed in his career in the financial district of canary wharf mistreats his family forcing them to leave him. But when a big gamble doesn’t pay off and he loses his fortune he has nobody to turn too so he starts from scratch living in homeless shelters and working at the bottom seeing scenes which are hard to imagine, the experience opens his eyes then his attention into making up for lost time with his loved ones.

However the task was to create an opening sequence so it was hard to think of how to translate this situation into the sequence. However this wasn’t our original plot as we had a number of ideas, the first one was a typical action film roaming around in the forest in Danson Park Rambo style causing all kinds of trouble. However we wanted to do something current and different so I came up with the idea of the credit crunch, we started brainstorming ideas on what we were going to do; the idea of a documentary came into place however the exam question request a short title sequence of our own fiction film, so we decided to make a drama which led to the plot above.

Just after Christmas we organised the test film day where we were going to look at several locations of where to film, before all this we done some research into films with similar plot and look at the mise-en-scene especially, the two films I looked at were pursuit of happyness (miss spelt on purpose) and fun with dick n jane. The main thin we notice in the two films is the use of shots of tall sky scrapers, modern areas and men with suits. so the first place I think of straight away is canary wharf itself and the surrounding areas. After getting some test shots we thought “nope this is an opportunity not to waste.” We gathered some amazing shots so there was no need for any other location, we were extremely lucky that day with the weather and the low sun gave us some amazing light and reflections of buildings, reflecting on other buildings and so on. We were also lucky as no one complained and nobody asked for filming permits so the day went extra smooth.

After collecting the amazing shots we started editing where we had an idea to make a place look extremely busy by filming people in the same place twice then overlapping the shot while speeding them up as well as adding an affect called ghost trail. However the idea just didn’t look right at all so we decided to scrap it and think of something new.
That’s when the idea of the down shots came in, after being advised to add at least one character we decide to play with the whole going down theme representing the downfall. But this meant more shots, so after I agreed to be the man to dress up and carry a briefcase around we need to find a modern place with plenty of escalators and elevators. So we sent off planning permission to blue water shopping centre twice, with both attempts being un-successful and time running short we decided to dash up to Broadway Bexleyheath where we got nice shots which were simple to apply.

Joe created the perfect slow and catching theme tune which to be honest makes the opening sequence then it was the time to get it checked out by the class to see if any improvements were needed, the sequence was a hit with one tiny miner glitch which was quick and easy to complete.

In conclusion it has been a pleasure working with Adam and Joe to create this sequence which I must say I am proud of it and personally fell we achieved far greater than expected and manage to make it fit the plot. There were no regrets and no ideas for improvement for me and now I wish we as a team could go out there and create the film its self.

By Ross Wood