Year 10 Media Arts Short Film Production – Term 01 Mr. Andrews
Task 1: Self-reflection and evaluation:
Please answer each question using complete sentences, including as much detail as possible.
Discuss your feelings about the production task: Please explain your responses:
· Did you enjoy creating your short film?
Yes, because it was a different experience, being behind the scenes and when you look at the overall movie you remember how hard it was to get it on that angle and how many times you had to shoot that same scene. I got to learn how to use a camera which was really fun because I kind of played around with it, and the lighting was a bit challenging because I was scared it would fall. It was kind of funny how much effort went in it to create a 1.20-minute video, it certainly did use up a lot of time but it was worth it we would look back at our mistakes and try to fix them together as a group.
· Are you satisfied with the final result?
No, I think we could have done better because of the amount of skips we had, so much to tell on that 1.20-minute time frame. I feel like we could have used a lot more of lighting techniques in our starting part, and because of that we had to leave one of the best parts out the dart board scene because the lighting was dark. But I am satisfied with the story line and how it played although I feel like it could have used more specific shots to be able to show what we were looking for, except we didn’t have the time to after school to get together that much, most was just me and Gurleen trying to figure out what part to video.
· Did your film turn out as well as you pictured?
No and Yes, I think that I thought it would have been more clear and smooth going and yet it was pretty fast to put everything in at once. I thought I would have some digital effects as well but I couldn’t do that we ran out of time because the places we needed to use were out of our daily reach. So we had to see our parent’s availability and that was the weekend before our assignment was due.
· Would like to change or improve any aspects of your final film (storyline, shots, editing etc.)?
Yes, I would have been better at editing now that I saw the final product and I would say, I would cut many scenes and re-film a lot of the scenes and make sure the lighting was perfect, and also I would have made sure that we used a variety of different shots to make the film more interesting. I would have had added less shots and have done better in limited shot to make sure the message gets across and also maybe change the story a bit to make t clearer about what we are looking for.
· If you could start the project again, what would you do differently?
I would right a production schedule at the very start and made sure we all did equal amounts of in put in the film making. I would also ask more questions, because when I was in class I got it but as soon as I went out to produce it was much harder to remember how we could do different types of shots and how we could tell the story in limited shots and go through with my group a bit more. I would also use lots of different lighting and use fake blood to emphasize more meaning and effect into the murder scene.
As this task focused on mise-en-scene and cinematography, describe:
· How you used specific elements of mise-en-scene to depict your film’s genre and enhance the narrative?
I think that we used mise-en-scene good because we had some many shots to show if the character was powerful or weak and we also used other shots to indicate emotions such as right angle face shot to emphasize what the character was feeling so we closed up on it. We usually used shots like these to show the anger on the main character’s face (Gurleen) in scene 24 through to scene 28. I used power shot for many parts of the film as when Gurleen was killing the half sister (me) she had to look powerful so we would do a far away shot with me in the shot on the ground but it only empowered Gurleen.
· How you used specific shot types to convey the storyline without dialogue?
I used a close up in the scene when Gurleen was looking at her half sisters photo, the expression matters but depends how we use cinematography, so I used a close up eye level to her and it helped show the anger and frustration of the girl when she saw her sister.
· Whether the intended genre is depicted clearly or if this could be improved?
I think that it could be improved in the horror part I think it did have thriller and that it was suspenseful as well. I think that we could add more terrifying shots e.g. the shot of the dead half sister dead with blood or that the sister doesn’t even realize when Gurleen is in the room and could be really fast and slow as she falls to the ground.
Reflecting upon your completed task, respond to the following points:
· How did other people respond to your rough-edit? Did you use their feedback to make changes to the film?
A lot of people gave valuable feed back where we could use some lighting and how it wasn’t suspenseful enough. But we did make it suspenseful but I guess we didn’t really finish the draft so if it had some parts we were missing otherwise we could have had more valuable feedback. We could told that our film was a little unsteady and that it could be more still so we re did that and used different angles, and we used less close ups this time. They were really useful because to me the the film was perfect but when people pointed it out I was like “oh, how did I miss that”.
· Did your group use the planning and analysis tools effectively? (storyboards, shot lists, mise-en-scene evaluation).
I think we could have been more specific in our planning and used more bits of it and that the storyboard really helped me, because I was the person who did 75% of the video and it helped me and I did redo the whole storyboard from scratch as we changed the story through out, it was easier and I think that it made it much more helpful for me to do it as I wasn’t able to keep contact with my group.
· Did shooting require more or less time than you thought? Why?
More, because I thought we would only have to do this one Saturday and class, but when no one was ready to be the lead and so we had to spend more time outside of class. And it is hard to get someone who is in another grade to get them to do it for you. Because sometimes I was ready and wanted to do the film but then she had her homework, and she could come up with different idea’s and to put them in it took us longer, because they were good ideas.
