Preliminary

Planning

Before we shot our short film our big problem was deciding on what we were going to shoot it about and how the very linear story we had to follow with camera maps and etc could be tweaked to make our film more original than others.
 After a brief discussion we came to a decision of making a crime thriller as it would suit our surroundings best. Once we had done this we ran into two problems: The first being, we would have to try and wear similar over the two days of shooting and we would also have to get past a security lock door without involving any of the cast to open them. We sorted the first problem extremely well as we shot the whole thing in one day of two and for the second problem we learnt we could quickly unlock the door and then instantly open it when the cameras were rolling.

Evaluation

What was the task?

Our task was to shoot a preliminary video of somebody walking down a corridor from multiple angles to make it intriguing and for them to proceed to opening a door with an extreme close up so that we were introduced to continuity editing. We then had to film us both saying dialogue from over the shoulder shots which both enforced our knowledge of continuity editing and the 180̊ rule. This dialogue could be whatever we wanted so we decided to do crime thriller.

How did you film it?

We decided to film it very close and personal to try and translate the aggression felt by the character to the screen. It also helped that we had 4 members in our group so that the jobs could be distributed so that there was two camera men allowing us to film much faster and have higher quality shots. We also tried to maintain a very unique and aggressive flow of the cameras to enforce Jordan's masculinity. We wanted it to be always shot from a low angle shot to emphasis his dominance.

How did you put it on the system?

We transferred it to the system using adobe premiere. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the schools selection of cameras as they were all using tape instead of a modern method of using memory cards. This presented me with the first problem that involved using old technology: We had to find a method to upload the footage onto a computer. This lead me to the first solution of recording it with Adobe Premiere suite with the USB cable. I was surprised this worked as I didn’t think it would be compatible as the cameras were from the middle 90’s

How did you edit it?

I edited it using Adobe Premiere. This was extremely easy to use as I already had a decent editing base knowledge from using Sony Vegas previously. This made the cutting and transitions much easier to handle but took a slight bit of time adapting to the program. This wasn’t too much of a problem but I still found it difficult to edit things to an Nth degree as the editing bar wasn’t able to handle small imperfections in the video.

What sound did you add?

We added an ongoing soundtrack that played constantly underneath with very low volume to create a very tense atmosphere to reflect upon Jordan’s looks and persona. I wanted this to fade in from the start of the film and change only once at the end of the scene when the credits rolled. I did this to create an interesting undertone underneath the tense interview scenes portrayed.
 It took quite a while to choose the sound and after making the short film I realised that when I was going to do the final version I would have to try and either record my own music which would take quite some time of composing and playing or I would have to find a piece of music to complement and enhance the piece just so that certain points of the song would reflect a climactic scene rather than having a poor judgement of various moments.
 Once we had found the track we realised it would take quite a while to also edit it as I would not only have to shorten moments of the soundtrack to reflect the scene but I would also have to try and make this then follow on in synchronisation to the next clip of it so that it perfectly looped.

What did it achieve?

I hope it achieve a very tense crime thriller that had a very cinematic feel through the use of continuity editing and non-diagetic audio. This was my plan to keep it very subtle to emphasise the tension. If I didn’t make it very subtle I think the scene would have seemed almost comical, which was the polar opposite of what I wanted.
It also taught me quite a few things when making a film. First of all I now realised that I would constantly have to have the exact same mise en scene in every shot and how the subdued music in the background emphasised a lot of the scenes and created hugely dramatic and atmospheric scenes. I also caught myself 'barrelling the camera' by complete accident which I would have to avoid in the real thing as this both looks extremely unprofessional and adds comedic effect without realising you have done it.