Out Of Fright

Design Practice 1 - Short Film Assignment – Individual Edit.
Our first assignment of the design practice section of the course was to produce a short film that met a brief that was given to us. We had 3 weeks to film and edit our production and present it in this way.
The process started with storyboards, mind maps and sketches to initially gather ideas from members of the group. We each pitched our ideas to the group and came to a decision together in which to pursue. We decided as a group to follow Becky’s idea of a monster/horror film that fit the given brief well and conformed to a genre which had a specific style. The film had to contain an interview sequence, flashback and a range of shots.
Having chosen the idea we met on Monday 17^th at Boots library as a group to discuss the filming day which we chose to be the Wednesday 19^th that fit into all our plans. This meeting was vital to the success we had whilst filming. During this meet we discussed at length the list of shots we wanted, tightened the narrative of the story, shared ideas of locations and assigned roles.
In doing this it meant when Wednesday came, myself and Dean who were elected equipment/cameramen knew what to expect and what we would be doing. This organisation proved invaluable and made the day of filming more enjoyable. Apart from operating the camera we each took an interest in each other’s roles, for instance I would check everyone was happy with the shots I was getting and it developed more on location but the day had structure. The equipment list is as follows

-           - 1x Panasonic 151

-           - Manfrotto TrIpod

-           - Rode K6 Microphone

-           - Rode Boom Pole

-           - Softy

-           - Lastolite Reflector

-           - Xlr Cable

-           - H frame dolly and track.

In my role as cameraman I regularly carried out kit checks when moving to and from different locations to check we hadn’t lost or misplaced anything.
Another bonus to the planning was that after setting up a shot, capturing what we wanted we were finishing each other sentences and knowing where to go next which made it easier when moving the gear.

Editing
During the editing process which was entirely new to me, I came across problems such as a setting the pace of action using cuts and pauses. This idea of controlling the viewer’s heart rate with just a click and a drag was a concept I was not until now appreciative of.

When I felt I had come to an acceptable stage to share the film with draft effects and cuts in I wanted to get feedback so to gain a fresh perspective as I felt it was very easy to get bogged down on the smallest thing and lose sight of the big picture.
In doing this I found that I had made silly mistakes when connecting scenes together for example, when Becky (The Woman) sits on the bench and takes out the sandwich, the next scene is that she winces. This makes it appear as though she has cut herself on some particularly sharp bread. By putting in an extra few seconds of her sitting still with the sandwich it separates the action of taking the sandwich and her wincing. I would have avoided this by on the day, gathering more footage of her eating the sandwich so to distinguish between the two actions.
Towards the end of the editing process I added light saturation to the clips due to advice from Dean (a member of the group who I had asked for feedback from). After doing this I found it suited the style of horror more and gave the scenes an eerie dull twist.
As the more observant will notice my edit runs up to 5mins. This was another aspect I found difficult in editing, keeping to a time frame. I found that because of the genre of horror a lot of time was needed to create tension for a more powerful shock. In doing this I made full use of longer clips.
In editing I also used Adobe Photoshop, Archive and Danosongs. These were for resources such as a soundtrack and effects from archive.org and danosongs and Photoshop was used to create the monsters vignette vision.