Production Evaluation!

Ancillary Task 2; Film magazine review page.

For the second ancillary task I had to make a double page spread from a magazine. I did this in the style of popular glossy film magazines like Empire and Total Film. Even though it would be unconventional for them to write about an experimental short film, it was a simple and recognisable format. To make this spread, I used Adobe Illustrator which is an industry standerd for design, not always for magazines. Useful techniques in this programs were the ability to have multiple pages and arrange them around each other to have the image spill over the pages, I also used text wrap so I could 'wrap' text around an object like the 'talking point' circle and the drop cap. Another feature I used was linking text boxes so that I could draw the text boxes so they fit around the element and then the text would automatically flow around them.

Ancillary Task 1; Film Poster for Black Dog

Final Cut; Advanced Production

First Shoots.

I have finished the first set of shots for the short film, I got all of the shots that involved the first character out of the way. I have also done a rough edit of this to get a feel of what else needs to be in the film.

The reason I like to shoot and edit at the same is that i can experiment with music and editing styles to see what kind of theme and feel I can get and then be more specific as shooting goes on. In this first day of shooting we experimented with lots of ideas so that we can have a lot more choices in the editing room.

Story for the short film 'Black Dog' (Working Title).

The main premise for the film was that I wanted to show the suicide of a depressed man but in a surreal expressive way. In his life he is surrounded by all the objects of modern life but this only seems to worsen his condition. I also wanted to make his depression personified just like someone can place their problems on someone else. In the film this 'someone' is a religious salesman that comes to his house and tells him about god and hell and the 7 deadly sins. This, amongst other things, scares him out of the house that he seems to of been in indefinitely.

WINTER SUNLIGHT HOURS!!!!

When I tried to organise shooting times for the film which has to be shot very soon. I began to realise that getting a time when the actors are available with sunlight is pretty much impossible due to school and other commitments. However I think that this will add to the surreal nature of the film if its always dark outside and will add references from film noir like 'The Third Man' and neo-noirs like 'Se7en'. The only other problem that will arise is matching the real night look with the day for night look at the end of the film. However I hope that the viewer will have invested enough into the film by this point to forgive any visual inaccuracies.

NIght Shoot

For the last scene in my film I wanted to have it shot at night, to increase the tension. However after deciding this, several problems arose. Mainly how would I light the scene? The only way I could think of was to use torches, however this would require many powerful torches and even then they are not ideal as they project rings of light. I came to the conclusion that I would shoot during the day when it is overcast and use a technique called 'Day for Night'. What prompted this was me watching an episode of the internet film making show called Film Riot, in this particular episode they covered how to shoot day for night. Even though this seems simple enough, the time of year makes it difficult to find daylight as the sun goes down before 5 O'clock. Making it very difficult to film outside of school.

Huge Re-think!

I have recently made a big decision, and that is to stop the production I have been working on so far. The reasons for this are that is got to big and complicated for what it needed to be. It also needed many actors which made it very difficult to arrange.

I have now started pre-production on my new idea, which is a lot simpler having only two characters, one of which isn't in many scenes. The story is also much better as it has an ending that is much more satisfying., there are also many more meanings and metaphors.

Part of the reason I stopped on the original was that I had lost all appreciation and excitement for it, instead of dragging on with the project and making compromises I started something new. This is much better as it will mean that I will have a much better film at the end of it and something I can be proud of rather than just something I felt contracted to make.

Here is an image of some of the pre-production notes that I have made.

Plans for editing

In the editing I need to change when the Bjork song finishes in the titles as it ends too soon, this was my initial intention to have it like this so that the sounds of the waves fade in for the final title however this wasn't effective and most people it more distracting that intriguing. Also the titles are too long overall for the type of project and seem rather pretentious when put next to the short film.

In the main scene that I have filmed, I need to have more close ups and 'coverage' of the scene to make more sense of story. I wanted to have longer drawn out shots, in the style of Sam Mendes in American Beauty when he just points the camera at the scene and lets the actors do there thing. This doesn't work in my film as there is no character interaction in the scene so the audience needs something to watch.

I am going to reshoot some of the scene i had already done and will shoot the next scene the next time I meet up with my actor. It is hard to timetable there schedule with mine and another schedule of another actor.