Evaluation

How have you worked at different stages?

I think I worked well at all the different stages in the process of making a film. I came up with the main idea for our film and played a big part in planning, from creating the storyboard to choosing locations. However I don't feel I did well with filming, as I was put in charge of the camera and I had never used it before. I think it helped having a plan with a basic plot of the film split into stages because otherwise we would have had to improvise too much and the story wouldn't have made sense.

What problems and successes did you experience and what are the strengths and weaknesses?

In this project our aim was to convey the aftermath of a 'storm'; we decided this would be a fight. We started by brainstorming ideas, this didn't turn out very well as we couldn't think of many ideas. We decided to chose the first one we came up with.
We then created a story board with our 10 shot plans. We did not stick to this so i had to re-do my storyboard, as it was hard to stick to it on the day. We also wrote down locations and times of our filming which we did not stick to, as our original place for filming had no passers by to act, so finding a new place with actors stalled time so we did not stick to our time sheet. When filming, we realised the camera we used did not have a black and white function. we needed this to portray a CCTV shot, so in our film it is hard to understand. we also wanted to use in-camera effects to show the audience when the shot was a flashback, but couldn't so the film is confusing to watch. I think another weakness for our film was the acting, as it was not serious enough and did not match the plot.

What influenced your work?
As we were given a title, 'after the storm', we were very limited as to what we could do, so this influenced our work. We were also only allowed 10 shots in our film, so we worked the film around that.

What have you learnt?I have learned about all the different camera angles and shots. I have also learned how to work a camera, and how to get the film uploaded onto a computer. Next I would like to learn how to edit a film as I feel this would have improved our work as we could use the effects we needed.

Filming

Following the previous weeks planning, it was time to shoot our film.
First we had to decide the location of each of our 10 shots, which consisted of lots of different locations around the town.
However when we went out to shoot we decided to change our locations, and situated all our shots around a small part of the college. This not only made it easier to find actors to be in our film, but also gave the audience a sense of navigation as it was set in a recognisable location.
As part of the challenge, we were not allowed to delete any scenes that we shot, which meant we had to get the shot perfect first time. this made it very important to plan the shot carefully before shooting. however it also gave an effective outcome as the shakiness of the camera gave the feel of tension.
Overall i feel that the filming went well and the outcome was strong for our first time creating a short film.

Short film from Charlie on Vimeo.

Planning for short film

We were assigned groups of 3, and needed to plan a 10 shot film entitled 'after the storm' to shoot the following week. we started by creating a mind map of ideas that we could link to 'after the storm' and chose the idea that our film would be the aftermath of a fight. Other ideas we had included a literal storm and a divorce.
we then decided to plan out the content of our 10 shots by creating a story board. This included the basic story, the camera angles and shots and the conversation, which we decided to keep to a minimum to add effect.

Fear from Robin Whenary on Vimeo.

This short film was made by a media student to create a sense of tension. It is about A young man returns home in the dark and is unnerved by a sound and trys to understand the source.

It begins with an eye level shot from inside a car, this makes the audience wonder where the car is going. The man then gets out the car and the car drives away, this creates a good use of light as the headlighs of the car fade out as the car moves further away from the camera.The camera angles used create a personal feel, such as the use of close up shots of certin objects to show where the character is looking, and also close up shot of the characters face to show the characters emotion and . The lack of sound also creates suspense as the audience can only hear him breathing. I like the use of black and white when filming as it gives an eerie feel. There are shots in the film where the camera is under the bed or from behind a door which creates the feel that something is watching the man.

I like this film as it uses lot of different camera angles to create tension and does so well. I also like the story line of the film as it is basic and yet uses lots of techniques to make it interesting.

Weather

18th September 2009

I had to create a short film of 3 different scenes portraying different types of weather. The 3 shots had to include a long shot, and medium shot, and a close up shot. The first shot was of Jadine shivering in winter clothes. This was my close up shot.This worked well as it gave the effect that she was cold, and you could see her emotion. The second shot was a long shot of Abi walking away with an umbrella to portray rain. This did not work very well as the weather on the day of filming was sunny so the effect of rain was not given. The last shot was a medium shot of the sun shining through the trees to show the sun. This shot worked well as the leaves were blowing calmly to give the effect of a Summer breeze. The sun shining through the leaves have the tree a silhouette.