31) NARNIA EVALUATION

 

Narnia Assessment 

Our set task was to recreate a scene from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. As a team of 8, we were given the scene which The Pevensie Children meet Mr and Mrs Beaver. Our initial response was to assign each other roles which suited our strengths and best abilities. This way, we managed to all begin and progress upon different aspects of our production; ideas were established amongst roles which could then continue to be worked upon. 

When discussing the style of filming we were to use, we decided that a specific photography style/directing style was not necessary. We decided to film in a way we thought would represent the story best; we wanted to achieve a good visual telling of the story. We used close up shots more than wide shots, but there was no reason for this other than we couldn't use wide shots otherwise the setting would not represent Narnia as well as possible. For example, a house is visible in one of the shots of the children approaching the beaver's house - if the shot was any wider, other houses would also be very clear, further eliminating a Narnia-esque sense than before. As a group, we preferred the idea of close up shots anyway as it allowed the actors to present their emotions through their voice and facial expressions to a higher quality and with more ease. Medium shots were also needed when necessary, regarding the actor needing to use body expression or their surroundings. We decided a tripod wasn't necessary as there was too much movement in the characters and their roles; as well as this the camera constantly needed to pan out to show the characters moving, so all that was needed was a steady hand for the camera which emily delivered. We split some shots up if the actors had an extensively long line, to make the scene more visually interesting for the viewers rather than one long line having the same shot. 

For obvious reasons, we had more control over the setting of the beaver's house as an interior setting is much easier to manipulate than an exterior environment. However, our choice of exterior setting was very suitable, as in every instance there wasn't a huge amount of forest/vegetation, so the shot wasn't filled but there was still a selection of trees, one of which Mr Beaver would pop out by surprise. The day we chose to film was a winters day so the lighting naturally suited the coldness of Narnia. For the inside, we decided we wanted warm colours to show a cosy atmosphere in the beavers' house. So we used browns, reds and other dark tones for the furniture and other items to represent this. The cosy interior of the beavers' house represents their warm and welcoming personalities as the actors portrayed successfully.

Although the environment was easy to manipulate, there were fallbacks with filming inside a summer house - with limited space for movement and the angles of relevant shots. As well as this, the actors did not have enough space to use body language and express themselves as much as they would in a more open space. The limited space area did create a cosy effect, which was needed to represent the beavers house, however it limited the abilities of our actors to an extent.

Regarding sound; filming the interior shots produced a better quality audio than the exterior. This was because there was no dominant environmental factors present to disrupt the filming - we discovered this after filming exterior shots with a strong wind apparent. Although we didn't have proper recording equipment and there was a static still, it was a much better product than the exterior shots.

The lighting in all of our exterior shots for this production worked well to our advantage. We managed to film at good times in terms of available light, on the brisk of dawn, which is perfect for the effect we were attempting to create. In terms of interior lighting, this became less effective as it became darker outside (we filmed the interior shots just after he exterior, after dawn). We had the soft glow of bedside lamps, as we did not want a dominant light, from perhaps a big light, to disrupt the cosy effect made by the soft lights. However, as it became darker outside, the available light became limited; the soft glow was not present for means of visibility, only effect - our visibility. especially on the camera, depended on the light outside. To have evaded this we could have filmed the interior shots first to make more use of the natural light, and then filmed the exterior after. 

In terms of casting, we had to consider, for each role, the personality of the person, their ability, their willingness and overall how well suited they were for the role. 4 people auditioned for the role of Lucy, and although they all presented great qualities, we chose the young girl who we thought best displayed the qualities we wanted in our production for the role of Lucy. She seemed very passionate about he role; she was quiet but when needed she stood out and made Lucy to be what we wanted in our production. She empathised as Lucy very well - this helped by her having seen anaemia previously many times. As we had limited options as who to have for the other roles, auditions were not necessary, however the people available to us for these parts were brilliant in terms of the same qualities as Lucy - they were all well suited to the part and empathised well with their relevant characters.

The two beaver characters we chose had to present quite different personalities, and we think we did this well. One had to be very welcoming - he offered the children food and warmth, and cared of their wellbeing; the other was more concerned to tell them of the prophecy they were unaware of, a much more powerful and dominant character. This contrast made them appear as a stereotypical couple, always bickering as well. We decided to cast two people who knew each other already  as the beavers needed to be comfortable around each other in order to work the way they did; it was successful. They had to move around the set whilst the Pevensie children sat most of the time; their body language was more important in comparison to the children's. They had to comfortably too, which I think they did. They had to move in relation to their words, which worked well in the end.

The costumes we chose for our actors were quite simple yet effective. For the beavers, we had available to us two fur coats, which we thought would be perfect to represent their fur. Because of this, the actors only needed to wear simple clothes underneath, as the fur coat displayed the costume of the beaver well. In terms of the Pevensie children, warm clothes were required for them to display the cold weather of Narnia. This meant they needed hats, scarves, gloves and coats. So all in all, the costumes were quite simple and easy to create for the correct effect.

Aston edited our final product and put it all together. During this process, he edited the colouring to create more of a sense of Narnia. It made it look colder and darker rather than natural light, to represent the coldness of Narnia. He encountered an error which took him a period of time to fix, situating the timing of the audio vs the video, but once this was resolved it ran smoothly and successfully. 

Our planning as a group was successful and effective - we all gave our opinions on the decisions we wanted to make and valued each other's opinions. We all worked together and brainstormed different ways to create Narnia. We valued everyone's ideas as even if we chose one location, in terms of filming, and it was unavailable, we had other ideas to fall back on. In the end we chose the summer house as it was the easiest for everyone to get to, there would be less of a limit on how long we could film there, and the addition of props would be easier. Whilst this sort of planning was happening, the rest of the group would be thinking about other ideas revolving the casting or costumes.

We communicated well throughout this task. We created a group chat on social media to share ideas outside of school and decide on plans. We communicated well with our actors as well; we had true numbers available to our convenience and also communicated with them through school with the help of our teacher. We were capable of making plans in advance to their positions and let our actors know in advance. Due to good communication we were able to plan our production well; it helped that as a group we all get on well and value each other's parts in the project.

Our organisation lacked at the start and it took us a while to get into the swing of filming; we struggled to find an available time where rough people were free to film with the actors. We got past this however, and when it came to the days of the filming we had as much already prepared as we possibly could. The interior setting was already prepared thanks to Emily, so we could jump straight in when we need to. We managed to film everything quite quickly too. 

Overall I think this project was a good, successful task. We could have improved by starting off the filming sooner so it could have allowed Aston more time to edit, but this was a small error which didn't effect the process too much. I am happy with the final product as I am sure the whole group is, and for a first project I think it went really well!