For this project we were put into groups & given specific roles for the short film. A script was also given to us - ours being "Herds" I was given the role of Assistant Director.
The basic storyline is that a man unknown to what reason he does it - walks about, knocking on people's doors and entering their house like he knows them. They are unsure how to react but him entering & he then proceeds to eating their food in the house.
We changed it slightly in the fact that Agnew is cooking a romantic meal for his girlfriend when Monty knocks on the door. Agnew is portrayed as a very weak character who doesn't know how to handle the fact a strange man is in his home. Monty is very upfront & confident - he drinks the wine & food Agnew prepared. We changed the script as well as it is actually Agnew who lives his own house & lives Monty alone.
My main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were: That we had been given a script & had interpreted it in our own way as a group – it may not have been how the creator of the script wanted it to be read but how we produced it into a film is how we saw it as a script. Wanted to express the idea that there was something wrong with “Monty” – it’s clearly not normal to do what he was doing but wanted the audience to have their own idea of why he did it. Was he mad, sick, rude? We wanted to create a strong character but at the same time not give too much away about him as a person.
The methods I use to develop my ideas were: (brainstorming, , visual research, storyboards etc) I have blogged all my methods since starting this project that developed my ideas. Being assistant director, I felt this was quite an important part of my role – to keep the group organised. WE created a group blog so we could always blog ideas & updates about our film and give feedback to each other on how well we thought it would work. At the start of the project I created a brainstorm and storyboard – which have changed slightly but this gave us a good insight to the idea we had to follow which made it a lot easier on the day of filming. Me, Joe & Harry also researched into quite a lot of film clips to get inspiration for shot & angle ideas. “Hot Fuzz” with the quick edit gave a tense atmosphere which is what we also wanted to create – so we have adapted this into the start of our film. We also had a seminar about lighting which helped when coming to film as without the lights it does make a big difference on how good the final piece looks. Posters for our film were created in a seminar.
I took a risk by trying something new. (Explain): Normally when working in a group we don’t have roles we are all expected to do the same. I feel having roles & being assistant director did give me more of a chance to suggest my ideas more than I have done in past situations. I liked the role of having to be organised & not just stepping into the background. Although some of the ideas I suggested we didn’t use in the film, we did try them to find they didn’t work very well. For example, Agnew is cooking a dinner for his girlfriend & I suggested her & Monty walking past each other on the stairs when he leaves but it didn’t really fit into what we had filmed already & looked a bit out of place.
Some of the unexpected problems I had to solve while working were: I think at the start of the project we all really had our minds set on the film & did a schedule for what needed to doing & by when. Then we kept putting off filming and in the end when we finally decided on a day to film – our actors couldn’t do that day. The lighting was quite difficult, either too dark or too bright but after a while we did manage to set it to the correct balance. Working in a group is always hard as sometimes people don’t turn up to seminars or can’t make it which was slightly frustrated when we wanted to edit our footage to find the editor wasn’t there.
The decisions and choices I made to help solve these problems were: We improvised on the actors and used Mark & Joe in our group – which doesn’t make the film as effective as it could be. Our group did communicate well through Facebook and texting and we would try and say if we couldn’t make it and then we could do something instead to make up for missing what had been done. For example Harry said he would take charge of finding actors but he then had to go home that weekend so I said I would do it, it wasn’t a problem to have to do it as Harry had let me know in plenty of time.
The things I have learnt from this particular project were: (Specific examples should be cited.) Although it was only a 3 minute film, it takes a lot of work and equipment to make a really good effective final piece. On the first day of filming we thought we could get away without using lights & looking at the footage afterwards it looked pretty bad, it made such a difference when the lighting was used. We have used dialogue which is recorded on the camera and sound effects such as wine being opened, water boiling and plates being used on the microphone and the quality of the sound is a lot better on the microphone. It does take a lot more effort to do it but its better in the long run as the quality of the film when doing it properly makes it so much better. For a 3 minute film we had about 2 hours worth of shots & although we didn’t use a lot of them, I’m glad they were filmed because if we hadn’t of had the right shot it would have been nearly impossible to re shoot it trying to get the same lighting as the previous footage.
Areas for improvement , If I were to do this project again I would change or do differently: I have really enjoyed this project and the group I worked within made me enjoy it. I think if I could do it again I would like to have a different role. I did like being assistant director but I would also like editor, sound or camera in which I could actually get involved and not just give ideas of how to hold the camera but actually be able to do it myself. We have still got the original footage so I may do my own edit of the film to add to my presentation as well as the group edit. I also think the theme and genre is a bit vivid, it is suppose to be a thriller but I think it lacks a little bit in some of the conventions so is also quite hard to pin point a specific audience for the film. I would improve this to make it stronger.
A new project that might grow out of my experience maybe: I liked the fact we got given a script and only had that to work from, if I did choose moving image as my pathway I would like to do adverts/commercials. So could perhaps look at scripts online for adverts that have been produced and film them how I think they should be interpreted to the audience.
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