Editing
When we
began, I felt like my strongest skill was editing. Since my main contribution
to the project was the editing of our film intro, I have learned and become
familiar with a professional grade editing software: Adobe Premiere. I feel
that I have improved greatly in editing by branching out into new programs,
researching its functions, and trying to perfect timing with visual and audio
elements.
Script
Writing:
In the
first stages of planning our project, I struggled with creating a detailed
script. I had a general idea of what I wanted to happen, but didn’t know how to
turn it into a script that was clear and easily communicated to others. By
communicating with my group, we worked through the scenes step by step, and by
doing so I was able to relay my ideas in a way my group understood and they
helped apply our knowledge and vocabulary of film techniques that we had
learned prior to started our project.
Understanding
of Elements and their effect on a scene:
When we
started filming on site, many factors came into play we had not originally
planned for or at least underestimated. For example, during our first shooting, we
filmed right as the sun was setting, so our first draft had inconsistent
natural lighting from shot to shot. We improved this in our second shooting,
making sure that we were on site at noon to ensure we would have plenty of
sunlight.
Another
element our group struggled with was pacing. Our concept of a super powered
protagonist being approached by a secret agency was failing to be portrayed
clearly because of its pacing, order, and timing. We tried to have as little
dialogue as possible for the actor’s sake, but it meant a lack of exposition.
After our first draft was critiqued by the class, our teacher helped us
rearrange the timeline of our film and adding shots to create exposition and
context without dialogue.
Before
this project, I had not worked with sound effects. Using royalty free
incidental music as well as sound effects meant my options were limited. I
could never find a sound that fit a scene exactly the way I wanted. For
example, finding a sound effect for the close up of the robber punching (fake,
of course) was difficult because all the free punch or fight sound effects were
either too unrealistic or sounded too plain. I ended up looking at different
sound effects entirely, using an audio bit from a compilation of people
falling. Working around these limitations as well as timing
them up with their events helped me improve greatly in finding and editing
audio.
Overcoming
setbacks:
There
were many non-technique factors that hindered our filming. Our film site was a
part of St. Armands because of its large number of people walking past shops
and restaurants. We thought a crowded place would be what was best for our film
introduction because it made the background feel more natural, created tension
that the protagonist had forgotten to conceal her powers in front of other, and
made the scenes where the agent character is following our protagonist more
dramatic because they contrast with the crowd. However, to get these effects,
our filming had to be in the middle of crowded foot traffic. We had to move our
camera multiple times after a shop keeper was worried that people, while trying
to avoid the camera, were being “blocked” from her store. At other times, we
would finish one shot, and when we would replay it to see if we liked it- it
would be ruined by a passerby looking directly into the camera, even pointing
at it, as they walked by.
Another
setback came from a crowded restaurant. When we were scouting locations to film
our intro, I had hoped to get an above view. So we asked one of the restaurants
who had a second story if we could take a few pictures from their upper deck.
While they were more than happy to help us, on the night of our first filming
their upper deck was so crowded they could not let us up there. We overcame
this by having our tallest actor stand on a bench, holding the tripod fully
extended above his head to get at least an above angle. When it came to
refilming, we had chosen a less busy time of day and were able to get the above
shot we originally wanted.
Through
patience, retakes, and proper scheduling we were able to improve all of our
production quality by learning from our mistakes.
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