Here I will be writing about what I thought was successful about my 1 minute short film and what was not successful within all aspects; planning, directing, producing and editing. Doing the preliminary task has enabled me to see what I need to improve on for my 5 minute length film and what I already plan on doing.
When creating a short film there is not masses of planning compared to a full length film although planning is vital in the process of making a film and keeping organised. As the preliminary task title was 'A Day In The Life Of....' we first thought about whether we wanted to use a person, animal or object. Me and my partner then both agreed on using the animal of a dog and my partners dog to be specific; named Tilly. We thought that using an animal perhaps would be slightly different and thought that we could be creative with our ideas. Moreover due to the fact that our main focus was going to be the dog we had to film out of school hours as her dog evidently would not be on school premises. Therefore we aware of this and were willing to do the filming out of hours, this meant that our planning had to be immediate in order for us to film straight away and continue with the editing. Also we used our own Camera and equipment as we were unable to use any school equipment as none of our filming was done on school premises.
Once this was initialised our film basis we decided that it would include three characters; the dog and two of its owners therefore enabling the focus to be maintained upon Tilly. The next step to our film making process what the story/plot to the film allowing us direction into actually filming the shots. In addition we used the idea of a storyboard as this would allow us to have a clear vision of the order and context of our film. A storyboard is so simple yet so effective; just a plain piece of paper, with six boxes to fill(draw) in of the six main events of our story and underneath we made notes of the ideas we had for that particular moment typically being the specific camera shot or piece of sound. For example; our first box we drew Tilly in her dog bed as she wakes up in the morning and our notes where that it would shot at a high angle and that upbeat non-diegetic music would begin as the introduction to our film. Overall the storyboard was a success in the planning process and made us clear on our storyline and which camera shots/ piece of sound we were using at particular moments and I will most definitely use this when planning my 5 minute long film.
In the filming process it went rather smoothly although It was difficult to initiate when we would do the filming as it needed to be out of school hours, in the end we managed it well as we made a schedule and did the filming in one day. We used three locations for our filming; at home, in the park and on the way home from the park (all of which was in Kettering). We used various high angle shots when filming to convey that the owners were in a more powerful position than the dog herself, we used a long two shot when Nicki (actress) to convey the relationship between Tilly and her owner, a close up of Tilly's face as she eats her food to capture her features, we also used filmed the grass and the walk home from Tilly's point of view so that the audience see what the dog see's herself and to grasp the life of a dog. Once we had done all of the filming we imported it from the camera straight on my partners Apple Mac so that it was not accidentally wiped.
Editing was the most complex and time consuming part of the preliminary task as this is where you put all the pieces of filming and sound together as one. Both me and my partner did the editing together, firstly we overlooked all of the filming that we done and we actually had more than 1 minutes worth therefore we decided which parts we more effective and what we were going to keep. We used Final Cut Pro to edit our film and we did not find it too difficult to use as we had used this application in our first year of AS Media on a small project called Cops in which we edited shots together and dubbed over parts non- diegetic music. We had an order of which we were going to place the shots due to the title 'A Day In The Life Of' therefore we set the filming from Tilly in the morning and her routine throughout the day. Once we had edited the shots together we then wrote a script for the voice over that I was going to record, as I thought it would be easier for me to think of a script once I had inspiration from the filming and the shots edited together. Therefore I wrote a brief script but I also improvised a lot as I am a theatre studies student and improvisation plays a role in the study of Drama at AS level. We thought that the voice over would add an element of comedy to our short film and it would also give the dog a voice as though the audience were in the mind of Tilly and were really living a day in her life. Recording the voice over itself's was done on Final Cut Pro also so it uploaded directly onto the edits of our film. Once that was done we also used a non-diegetic piece of music over the full film at a low volume so that the audience were aware that the film was upbeat and humorous.
To conclude overall I found the process of the preliminary task successful, I found that the process overall was not too difficult although doing the filming out of school hours meant re-scheduling filming time rather than doing it in our media lessons therefore resulting in us having spare time in lessons until the filming was done, so perhaps next time I would pick a topic of which would consume my time more in lessons. Also I feel that using certain applications to edit will not be as difficult as I initially thought as I have had practice with this task given.
No comments:
Post a Comment