Q1: Rate on a scale of 1-10 how did you group work as a team. Support you rating. What could have made it a 10?
My team worked at a nine out of ten. We have been good friends for a while now, so I know I can work well with her. Since we are only two people, we are efficient and can divide work easily. My partner directs while I edit, I work on music while she films most shots, etc. However, because we are only two people, we need more actors. That means we have to resort to asking people in classes, and when scenes pop up with both of us in them, we need a third party to film for us. This takes even longer because they do not know what we have in mind or our view of the film, we can only explain it the best we can. Because of these setbacks, even though they have nothing to do with how we actually work together, I only rate us at a nine.
Q2: Explain how you organized and prepared for the project. What went well and what could have been improved?
The first thing I started working on once we had the idea for the film opening was the storyboard. Soon after, I also realized I should work on the shot list so, before finishing the storyboard, my partner and I worked on our shot list. We both came up with the shots we would need for the film and added additional ones in case we liked them better. As soon as I finished typing the shot list, I finished the storyboard and we started filming. Everything that I did on paper to prepare for -the script, storyboard and the shotlist- went well. However, there were some difficulties when it was time to film. One thing my partner and I wanted to focus on was lighting since we had disregarded it in our previous film , “The Break-Up”. I had the idea of filming myself playing the piano, so we went to the Music room and into one of the ensemble rooms, with permission from the teacher. Since it was her planning period, it was already quiet. The lighting ended up working out great because the days that we filmed were rainy, and filled with dark clouds. I played around with the darkness settings on iMovie and made each scene darker than when it was filmed and also made them colder. I had done this for The Break-Up already, so it was no problem. A problem did occur of the noise in the classroom scenes. I had to ask out classmates to quiet down several times and in the first couple takes of the attendance calling scene, a few of our classmates thought it would be comedic to yell out “here” when we specifically asked them not to. The scenes with all the students missing was also problematic because we needed to keep track of which students sat where and which ones would be missing and the accuracy of it all.
I prepared myself heavily for the song, as I am the one playing a cover of Nirvana’s “All Apologies”. As I am a big Nirvana fan and happen to play several of their songs on the piano, I decided to play this specific one slowly, as I had already experimented with it and found that it has a somber element. However, I did have to record myself several times, playing it at different speeds each time to see which ones I liked better and which ones went with the scene. Overall, I am quite happy with how the music came out.
Q3: What difficulties did you encounter when filming? How did you overcome them?
While filming, we had problems with background noises. Since we did not have any microphone to speak in, I asked the class to quiet down. There were still some sounds like people whispering in scenes that there should have been complete silence, but it was out of our hands because we had a certain time limit on how much time we had to film scenes. Occasionally, the lighting would not work in our favour, but I was able to darken those clips while editing.
Q4: What difficulties did you face when editing?
While editing, since we had filmed so many different clips of the same scene, it was difficult to choose the best one. There was also the question of the time limit we had on the film, which it was supposed to be from one to 3 minutes. I had to end up cutting out a lot of the scenes we filmed and all the different recordings I had of myself playing the piano ended up not coming out. The day I edited, I decided to film the end credit song (still All Apologies by Nirvana) but not too slowly. I recorded it at the pace at which the song is actually played, or at a similar tempo. Fixing the lighting was also a struggle because I wanted to make sure the scenes looked similar in lighting, but would get progressively darker and colder. However, the scenes where Mallory appeared, I wanted them to be warmer, but not make too much of a drastic change. I think I accomplished this pretty well, but want to get better at making smoother transitions.
Q5: Discuss how you prepared for the audio of your film?
To prepare for dialogue, we made a short script, because we did not want to be unprepared or improvised. Once we learned the couple lines, we filmed it. However, we found that it was not very clear what we were saying because of other noises in the background. I had to ask the class to quiet down. Then, throughout the majority of the film, I recorded myself playing the piano at different tempos to see which one matched the film. In the end, I was able to match the tempo of one recording to a clip that my partner took of my hand’s shadow on the piano while I played. I told her to take that shot because I wanted these very strange distorted shadows throughout. It worked perfectly because the shadow is synchronized with the music. I am quite happy with how the audio of the film came out.
Q6: If you were to repeat the project again, what would you do differently?
The wardrobe did not match perfectly to what I had imagined because I wanted there to be obvious contrasts with the way that Mallory dressed versus the way that Lola dressed. However, because of a time shortage, we could only film on a certain number of days. This meant that whatever my partner was wearing that day was what she wore for the scene. I normally wear dark colors and she wears brighter clothes than me, so it worked out alright.
I also would like to improve the editing in reference to lighting, specifically. I feel that it is too harsh and I cannot make it too dark. But in other scenes, it looks completely normal, and not dark enough. This has to do with the lighting in the places we filmed, which we could not control very much.
Q7: Analyzing the final production, what aspects are you happy with? What could have been improved?
Overall, I am quite happy with the result of the film. I feel that my editing skills have improved and can continue to do so. My acting could improve too, and I would like to do a more complicated script for the final project. There are several things I am happy about. For instance, one part that came up completely by accident was the lighting for the end credits. My phone was being used to film so I had my partner’s phone. I was also using a little clear container for the fake blood and I ended up turning the flashlight on to see something and it fell behind the container and I got a flash of red light. I realized we could use that for very cool and creepy lighting, almost as if me character were in hell, a demon, or something evil of that sort. I also want to compose a song, instead of covering one, for the final film opening. I am happy about the fact that the music was not super overpowering, and was just something in the background. When I had started editing, I feel like I was trying to put too much music. I feel as though I also did that during editing of “The Break-Up”. I want to find a perfect balance between silence, background noises and music.
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