l03
OXIFF PRODUCTION evaulation
The class was set the task of individually produce our own original 3 -5 minute animation or 20 - 30 minute short film that includes skills we have leared throughout this term. The films must not contain any drug use or unnecessary bad language must come from our own ideas and can be entered into the Oxford Film Festival 2017 which will take place from the 5th - 7th May 2017 at the Phoenix Picturehouse.
I decided to create a film focusing on whether we equally have the oppertunity to achieve our goals as we climb the education ladder into adulthood. I first though of this concept as my film pitch when I was interviewed for this course, but over time the idea has developed into a story line I can apply the skills I have learnt this year to. The orginal idea was just of two school kids who came from different backgrounds which affected their performance in school however, I felt the storyline could be more a more interesting one where my characters could develop in some way and my audience can relate. I then decided I would place the two school children at the same point in the future, where their lives hae crossed once again altough the are in very different positions. Deciding these two positions was one of the hardest tasks I faced as I wasnt sure what I wanted Tom and Lucy to be at this stage. It was when a class member mentioned the police force to me, I had the idea that Tom could have commmitted a crime and Lucy was the officer interviewing him; throghout the piece we see flashbacks of their lives, that were very similar, and we see how the two ended up so different. They both have the same routines but are affected in different ways by their family background which shows in their educational success. We learn how Tom had to help his mother with tasks such as looking after his siblings and staying up later to wash clothes whereas Lucy had many things done for her by her parents making school life easier. At this point I had not come up with an ending to the story as I felt research into genre and target audience would give me an insight as to which direction my film should go.
When planning our film we had to decide the films genre, where it will be aired, what elements it would include, what ambitions we have and what limitations there are. I found some of these decisions were harder to make before really researching into the subject, and I was sure I would come back after researching to change parts of the plan. To avoid this I did a small amount of research per question to ensure what I was writing was correct and my film was going in the right direction. For example, I quickly researched into the genre of drama, to find out its purpose is to move the audience emotionally with realistic characters dealing with emotional issues. I then knew, before thouroughly researching the genre, my film was going to be a drama. The film had to include skills we have leanred throughout the start of the course such as mise-en-scene, montage, parallel editing, seamless editing, jump cuts, Todorov's Narrative Theory, and contain no continuity errors. My ambition project was for my audience to question whether young people have equal opportunities in the UK however I was aware actors, locations and equipment may be limited in the production.
I feel my research into short film, drama and my target audience was thorough and eventually helped me come up with an ending to my film. I used my own words to draw information from around eight different resourses which allowed me to gain a proper understading of the topic, genre and target audience. I spent a lot of time learning from just reading through discussion websites and watching videos that I could not necessary reference however, opinion has taught me different approaches to short film and drama which although I may not have used in my film, gave me the opportunity to try different approaches when producing it, because I had that knowldege. I feel the examples of short films I chose based on both the topic and genre ('Apricot' and 'The Mink Catcher') really influenced the storyline and style of my film. If I had not done this research and never saw the films, the structure, mis en scene, pace and aesthetics of my film would be a lot different and much less effective. When researching target audience, I ensured genre and age group were investigated together, so I questioned a group of teenagers finding out how a short drama film wouldappeal to them. I feel my work was presented professionally as well as clearly, and shows I understand how important research is when producing a film. In my next research assignment, I would like to use questionaire applications such as survey monkey more effectivley by reaching out to a larger group of people so I can draw more accurate conclusions from the resarch. I feel if I had done this my target audience research would have affected my final productionas much as my genre and topic research did and my piece would have been more successful.
I feel when I planned the production, I did not anticipate how time consuming writing the script would be, and this put me slightly behind schedule when it came to start filming. However when it did come to filming I brought all the equipment I needed and conserved the battery I had so no more time was wasted on shoot. In hindsight I should have dedicated myself a longer amount of time to write the script to ensure I was not behind schedule and worked at a quicker pace. Overall I feel my planning was sucessful because I managed to catch up with myself when I was behind, no mistakes were made on shoot and I knew what I wanted to film on each day.
The first problem I faced when I started filming was that not all my actors were able to make the shoot dates we had planned due to college work. However I rearranged my schedule so that my editing stage of the production started on the Monday 6th of December. I was comfortable with this as I can edit my footage a lot quicker than I can film it, giving that I was filming during the Autumn period, it gets dark earlier so more time can be spent indoors editing. This was also easier for my actors as they could act at the weekend for 3 hours, and continue with their college work as well. This also gave me time to work both on my research project and my film. Darker evenings, another problem I faced during filming. I had arranged with my actors to act after college for scene 2 and 6, outdoors set midday. Unfortunatley it was too dark to film after college so I chose to film in the afternoon on Wednesday 1st December, a day my actors did not have college and it was still light outside. While scene 4 was being filmed I found that there were too many items of furniture in 'Lucy's Room" for me to film at the angle I wanted. To overcome this I moved the bed side table away from the bed, as well as unscrewing the door stop so the door could swing completely out of the way of the camera. Also, while the interrogation scenes were being filmed, the microphone I use picks up very fine sounds. On location, myself and my actors spent most of the rehearsal trying to catch a wasp stuck in one of the lights. I could not film beacuase the wasps was causing a lot of noise the microphone was picking. Eventully we caught the wasp and contniued the shoot. The final problem I faced when filming was that my actor, Ben Gipson, who play TOM KELLY got his haircut inbetween shoots which easilycounts as a continuety error if I were to include it. To avoid this I chose not to film one of the last shots of TOM in the interrogation room as it would have been odd to see his hair completely short. I also could not get young actors to play young TOM and LUCY so scene 2 could not be filmed. I spent the week asking around and it got to such a late date, I was unable to film that scene so it was cut.
I decided to create a film focusing on whether we equally have the oppertunity to achieve our goals as we climb the education ladder into adulthood. I first though of this concept as my film pitch when I was interviewed for this course, but over time the idea has developed into a story line I can apply the skills I have learnt this year to. The orginal idea was just of two school kids who came from different backgrounds which affected their performance in school however, I felt the storyline could be more a more interesting one where my characters could develop in some way and my audience can relate. I then decided I would place the two school children at the same point in the future, where their lives hae crossed once again altough the are in very different positions. Deciding these two positions was one of the hardest tasks I faced as I wasnt sure what I wanted Tom and Lucy to be at this stage. It was when a class member mentioned the police force to me, I had the idea that Tom could have commmitted a crime and Lucy was the officer interviewing him; throghout the piece we see flashbacks of their lives, that were very similar, and we see how the two ended up so different. They both have the same routines but are affected in different ways by their family background which shows in their educational success. We learn how Tom had to help his mother with tasks such as looking after his siblings and staying up later to wash clothes whereas Lucy had many things done for her by her parents making school life easier. At this point I had not come up with an ending to the story as I felt research into genre and target audience would give me an insight as to which direction my film should go.
When planning our film we had to decide the films genre, where it will be aired, what elements it would include, what ambitions we have and what limitations there are. I found some of these decisions were harder to make before really researching into the subject, and I was sure I would come back after researching to change parts of the plan. To avoid this I did a small amount of research per question to ensure what I was writing was correct and my film was going in the right direction. For example, I quickly researched into the genre of drama, to find out its purpose is to move the audience emotionally with realistic characters dealing with emotional issues. I then knew, before thouroughly researching the genre, my film was going to be a drama. The film had to include skills we have leanred throughout the start of the course such as mise-en-scene, montage, parallel editing, seamless editing, jump cuts, Todorov's Narrative Theory, and contain no continuity errors. My ambition project was for my audience to question whether young people have equal opportunities in the UK however I was aware actors, locations and equipment may be limited in the production.
I feel my research into short film, drama and my target audience was thorough and eventually helped me come up with an ending to my film. I used my own words to draw information from around eight different resourses which allowed me to gain a proper understading of the topic, genre and target audience. I spent a lot of time learning from just reading through discussion websites and watching videos that I could not necessary reference however, opinion has taught me different approaches to short film and drama which although I may not have used in my film, gave me the opportunity to try different approaches when producing it, because I had that knowldege. I feel the examples of short films I chose based on both the topic and genre ('Apricot' and 'The Mink Catcher') really influenced the storyline and style of my film. If I had not done this research and never saw the films, the structure, mis en scene, pace and aesthetics of my film would be a lot different and much less effective. When researching target audience, I ensured genre and age group were investigated together, so I questioned a group of teenagers finding out how a short drama film wouldappeal to them. I feel my work was presented professionally as well as clearly, and shows I understand how important research is when producing a film. In my next research assignment, I would like to use questionaire applications such as survey monkey more effectivley by reaching out to a larger group of people so I can draw more accurate conclusions from the resarch. I feel if I had done this my target audience research would have affected my final productionas much as my genre and topic research did and my piece would have been more successful.
I feel when I planned the production, I did not anticipate how time consuming writing the script would be, and this put me slightly behind schedule when it came to start filming. However when it did come to filming I brought all the equipment I needed and conserved the battery I had so no more time was wasted on shoot. In hindsight I should have dedicated myself a longer amount of time to write the script to ensure I was not behind schedule and worked at a quicker pace. Overall I feel my planning was sucessful because I managed to catch up with myself when I was behind, no mistakes were made on shoot and I knew what I wanted to film on each day.
The first problem I faced when I started filming was that not all my actors were able to make the shoot dates we had planned due to college work. However I rearranged my schedule so that my editing stage of the production started on the Monday 6th of December. I was comfortable with this as I can edit my footage a lot quicker than I can film it, giving that I was filming during the Autumn period, it gets dark earlier so more time can be spent indoors editing. This was also easier for my actors as they could act at the weekend for 3 hours, and continue with their college work as well. This also gave me time to work both on my research project and my film. Darker evenings, another problem I faced during filming. I had arranged with my actors to act after college for scene 2 and 6, outdoors set midday. Unfortunatley it was too dark to film after college so I chose to film in the afternoon on Wednesday 1st December, a day my actors did not have college and it was still light outside. While scene 4 was being filmed I found that there were too many items of furniture in 'Lucy's Room" for me to film at the angle I wanted. To overcome this I moved the bed side table away from the bed, as well as unscrewing the door stop so the door could swing completely out of the way of the camera. Also, while the interrogation scenes were being filmed, the microphone I use picks up very fine sounds. On location, myself and my actors spent most of the rehearsal trying to catch a wasp stuck in one of the lights. I could not film beacuase the wasps was causing a lot of noise the microphone was picking. Eventully we caught the wasp and contniued the shoot. The final problem I faced when filming was that my actor, Ben Gipson, who play TOM KELLY got his haircut inbetween shoots which easilycounts as a continuety error if I were to include it. To avoid this I chose not to film one of the last shots of TOM in the interrogation room as it would have been odd to see his hair completely short. I also could not get young actors to play young TOM and LUCY so scene 2 could not be filmed. I spent the week asking around and it got to such a late date, I was unable to film that scene so it was cut.
I thought the lighting if my film was moderatley sucessful and worked extremely well in some parts of my film, for example, the way DC MICHAELS was well lit when he spoke to LUCY outside the interrogartion room. The dark shadow across his face suggests to us he has brought some bad news of sort. However, the light tones on his opposite cheek sugest he is on LUCY's side.
I also like the lighting in the interrogation room. It gives the police station quite a dark feel, and gives the impression people don't like staying there long, not to mention it seems as the police officers do not get on amazingly. I think the shadows upon TOM's face show his guilt he trys well to hide which shows I have tried to turn this piece into a drama where some of the storyline has come from visuals.
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I did not however like the lighting in the shot as I had to light my actor's face in post production during the colour correction stage because the original footage was too dark. If I were to shoot this again I would have lit the front of my actors face so the light would come from the left hand side of the screen. This would have also allowed me more time to edit as I spent ut colour correcting.
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Overall, I was pleased with the mise-en-scene in this piece, as I think it translated the storyline well and stayed consitant throughout. The mise-en-scene in scene 11 I feel worked really well. A mid shot to translate how TOM feels combined with a long shot to give the audinece an idea of the setting works as we have just cut from a completley different scene.
The mis-en-scene during the interrogation keeps the focus on both characters which is crucial as they are both involved with the action. One the I shot I would change is in scene 12, where LUCY receives the phone call from TOM. The shot has the correct setting and character but the shot itself would have been more effective if it was taken from a lower, side on angle so LUCY's reaction to the call was more obvious, the audience would get a better understanding of th characters emotions. I wont make these mistakes again by thoroughly planning my mise-en-scene when I am script writing.
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The majority of my sound was of good quality as I recorded my audio with the Rode Videomic. However the DSLR I use has a built in feature where when the recording volume goes low, the camera increases the background noise whereas when the recording volume increases, the camera decreases the background noise. This feature causes my microphone to pick up a slight hiss when recording, which has effected my entire production. It means when clips are layered upon each other this hiss just got louder so I needed to work a way around it. I did this by fading the audio of the clips over each other so the hiss is not to loud and the hiss can only be heard one clip at a time. The best option for me record the audio separate to the camera by purchasing an audio recorder however this can be an expensive piece of equipment and was therefore not possible to use during my production. Without the slight hiss, my Rode Videomic has recorded good quality, much better than the DSLR itself so I am grateful I could use it during the production despite the problems it caused.
I believe the camera work in this production was to a professional standard and gave the film some really nice aesthetics. Using a 50mm lens for some of my shots was really beneficial as filming with an aperture of f/1.8 meant there was a really long depth of field which I believe looked professional and more aesthetically pleasing to look at to the audience. But filming at such a low aperture meant focusing had to be precise which it was not in some parts of the interrogation scene. In some both LUCY and TOM's faces are out of focus which I think downgrades the films quality. Also in this scene contains some shakey footage; I tried to stabilise the clips in post production but the shots were more distorted than stablised so I enlarged them to make the footage appear less shakey.
I think my narrative suits the genre of drama as it features a story line that moves the audience emotionally with realistic characters dealing with emotional issues. The audience watches TOM deal with his consequeneces after he spends the majority of the film indenial. The audience sees a change in TOM, similar to a drama, before he calls LUCY.
During this unit I have learnt how important focus is in a film as I am not happy how some of my footage came out the way I wanted it to e,g scene 2. I also learnt that for my next production I need to find an alternatuve way of recording good quality audio, as I do not want the hiss my Videomic gives my footage. Another thing I have learnt during this production is how to edit quickly during a short time frame as I dedicated more time to filming.
I managed to submit most of my work on time however there were certain documents such as my production plan and one of my location recces that did not get uploaded until a later date. To avoid this during my next production I should ensure all my work is on my weebly site before the submission date.
I believe the camera work in this production was to a professional standard and gave the film some really nice aesthetics. Using a 50mm lens for some of my shots was really beneficial as filming with an aperture of f/1.8 meant there was a really long depth of field which I believe looked professional and more aesthetically pleasing to look at to the audience. But filming at such a low aperture meant focusing had to be precise which it was not in some parts of the interrogation scene. In some both LUCY and TOM's faces are out of focus which I think downgrades the films quality. Also in this scene contains some shakey footage; I tried to stabilise the clips in post production but the shots were more distorted than stablised so I enlarged them to make the footage appear less shakey.
I think my narrative suits the genre of drama as it features a story line that moves the audience emotionally with realistic characters dealing with emotional issues. The audience watches TOM deal with his consequeneces after he spends the majority of the film indenial. The audience sees a change in TOM, similar to a drama, before he calls LUCY.
During this unit I have learnt how important focus is in a film as I am not happy how some of my footage came out the way I wanted it to e,g scene 2. I also learnt that for my next production I need to find an alternatuve way of recording good quality audio, as I do not want the hiss my Videomic gives my footage. Another thing I have learnt during this production is how to edit quickly during a short time frame as I dedicated more time to filming.
I managed to submit most of my work on time however there were certain documents such as my production plan and one of my location recces that did not get uploaded until a later date. To avoid this during my next production I should ensure all my work is on my weebly site before the submission date.