FMP Evaluation

A Second Chance -

What would you do if you lost a loved one…

For my FMP I wanted to make a film that made people think. I want people to watch this film and feel affected, I wasn't expecting people to of gone through the things that happened in the film. I just wanted to make a film that make people think. The theme of this project is a short nonlinear dramatic film. I wanted to do a dramatic film because this the type of films I have been making over the last two years, and I feel that I can pull them off well. The reason I decided to make a nonlinear film is because I am interested in how they are made. I looked at nonlinear films in my Unit 12 and decided to make on for my FMP.   

When I look at this film I can see some strengths and weaknesses. Here is a list of strengths and weaknesses for my film.

Strengthens

1. Interesting story
2. Emotional, speaks on a realistic level
3. Good use of dialogue
4. Emotional, speaks on a realistic level
5. The locations that were used

Weaknesses

1. The mix between dialogue and music
2. Using college students as parents
3. Colours are a bit different from scene to scene
4. The dialogue audio needs to be boosted
5. The beginning needs to be faded in

I know that all of these problems/weaknesses can be fixed by the time the film is shown at the showcase.

As this was a nonlinear film I was able to get influences from directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan and David Fincher. These three helped me understand what needs to go into a good nonlinear film. I had to see how they made the films interesting yet not to complicated that people would find them hard to watch. With the story I wanted to make it more of a simple nonlinear film as it was only going to be 7 minutes I didn’t want the film to be to confusing.   

In the film there is a car crash, as this is a college film we didn’t have the budget to crash a really car or buy a crashed car. So instead I used an audio piece that me and my AD created. We had to test that this would work with the film. Also we experimented with changing the direction of the sound. We wanted to have the audio go from left to right. By doing this it helped when editing the film as I wasn’t sure how I would go from scene to scene. Having an idea of how the audio would sound before we started to film help come up with the ways we can cut to the next scene. From a visual point of view I wanted to try some different transitions. After doing this experiment I liked how it looked and was going to try and use it in the film. When it came to filming the scene I was going to use this effect in it didn’t work. I wasn’t able to get the actor to walk close enough the the lens. As I had a wider shot the actor wasn’t able to cover the lens. Even though I didn’t use this effect in the film I was still happy that I tried it. So now I know how to do it if I need to in another project.     

When I showed the film to people in my class I was happy with how the film looked. I knew there was a few problems with the film but in a whole I was happy with how it turned out. When I asked for feedback people said they liked the story and the emotions behind the story. This was one of the best things I could've heard. I was worried people wouldn't understand the story or think it didn’t have any emotions to it.  

For the final showcase I will work on the audio and music to make sure it's properly mixed. As I feel like that is the biggest thing that is letting the film down. Another thing that I would change it the actors, I really wanted to use actors who are in there late 20’s so it looks like they could be parents. However people pulled out last minute that is why I have college students playing parents. Also as people pulled out I had to change a scene where Adam's parent's found out he was in car. I was meant to have an actor playing a police officer. I had to change the scene to what it is know and I wasn't happy to do that but I didn't have a choice. With all of this happening it has shown me that working on a bigger set will have it’s problems but that's what I like. As a director I want things to go wrong I think that is what makes a good film maker. You should be able to think on your feet and recast or change scenes if something goes wrong.

I am wanting to remake this film when I am at uni and use a full cast with the actors because I feel like this will be a good and powerful film when I can get the right cast. I had to cut lines and scenes out because I didn't have enough actors. I look forward to see how this film looks when I reshoot it. This is the sort of films I want to make. I know this hasn't been my best piece of work but I love working with larger amounts of actors and bigger sets. When I look back to the beginning of this project and when I first stated this course I told my self that I'm this film making that loves dialogue and think it's the most important thing, now I know its about the base of the story the emotions that get shown on camera. That is what I've learnt the most in the project and about my self as a filmmaker.

Script

Focus group Write Up

For my focus group I wanted to get a good understanding of what people liked and thought what would make a good nonlinear film. From doing this I had the same answers as my survey. This is a good thing because it backs up what I thought when I first started this project. In the focus group people said the film needs to have an interesting story it keep them engaged.

For doing this focus group even though it is short I was able to learn how media students felt about the idea of a nonlinear dramatic short film. From this focus group it backed up the base of the film, it it showed me things that I need to make sure I include. I.E making sure the story is interesting and captivating. This focus group is going to help me when it comes to writing the script.

Test Footage 1

Here you can see two different types of test footage that has been created for this project. The first video is of how some of the transitions will look. The second video is just audio, it is how the car crash might sound with the final edit.

Development

After my pitch my lecturer said that I need to make sure what my role are for this project. As I am working with someone it’s important to make sure you don’t cross over with the roles as something will get forgotten about. I was also told I need to make sure that I have the research to support what was said in the pitch.

Test 1

Here you can see I did a test on transition. For the scene that this would be used for is when you have Adam lead in the hospital bed, then it will cut to Emily in bed. the reason I'm doing this transition is because We only have access to one bed so I can't have one continuous shot going from one room to the other. I was really happy with how this test turned out. When we do the real shot I will put markers on the floor to make sure the camera stays in the same place. This is the most important thing for this shot as if the camera is in the wrong place the cut will look wrong and jumpy.
Here you can see screen shots from After Affects of what the time ine looked like and how I created the shot.    

Interview with Tobie Lang

Me and Em decided we would interview Tobie Lang on how he became a technician.

We asked him;

Why did you decide to become a media technician?

Is it what you thought it would be like?

Is there anything that you don’t like about the job?

What’s your favourite part about the job?

What is the next thing in your career?