Reflective Analysis

Making this film has been a massive job, and I have learned many things over the period of pre-production, production and post production. 

For starters, I feel as though I need to be a bit more picky with who I work with, as sometimes certain members of the group weren't really pulling their weight, so it sometimes made the task a bit more stressful. However, since we were all focussed on specific roles, I now realise fully what I love most in film making, and that's post production. Editing is something I love, I have the patience required to sit at a computer and create the final piece from footage that either I have filmed or someone else has filmed, and I feel knowing that this is what I most enjoy will make future projects a lot easier and make the outcome overall a lot better.

Looking back on pre-production, and the planning that went into the film, I feel most of it was a success. The majority of the time we were on top of everything, and what really helped was the creation of the gantt chart, it made us constantly alert and always on task and on top of everything, it is definitely something I will be creating for almost any project I do.

In terms of how long I gave us to film, yes, it was enough time, but it was a very stressful process, as we relied on the final day to get the recording done because if we didn't get it done on that day we'd be behind on schedule, so in future projects I would make sure to give us perhaps 2 weekends instead of the one, just to make everything a lot less hectic and to ensure we definitely get everything done in time.

From the actual weekend of filming I have learned many things, one of them being how to work cameras better. Unfortunately, I didn't check the majority of the footage until I got back to university after the weekend was finished, only to see that I had set the FPS too low, so I get a lot of motion blur within the clips. If I were to do this project again, that is something I would definitely change. I have learned a lot about lights, and how certain lighting can really effect the mood of a scene, and how easy it is to change the lighting to make a room look either early morning or late afternoon, which will really come in handy in the future. Even though it isn't my forte, I learned how to record audio, and what mics to use in certain situations and how audio recorders actually work. After finally getting everything filmed I realise how long it actually takes to film certain scenes, I feel I can take this experience into my next project and really improve on the one I have made.

Overall the project was a success, other than the camera difficulty, everything went how I wanted it too, the editing process went well, and we were never really behind at any point in the task, so onward and upward from here.

Editing

After 3 solid days of filming we had 2 weeks to edit and create the final movie.

I like to be extremely organised when it comes to editing, so I split all the clips up into Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. Something I did not anticipate when filming is we used a boom mic to record our audio, however we did not plug this into the camera, we plugged it into a different audio device, so that means we had to sync the audio and visuals together. Fortunately, we did realise this half way through filming, so just before every scene we got the actors on camera to clap for us, to enable us to sync the two together perfectly.
I started off by renaming all the audio clips to the appropriate video file, so that when it came to importing the clip onto the timeline, I could find the audio file with ease.
Whilst editing I had the script next to me, ticking off bit by bit how much I had edited so I could manage my time better and see how much I had left to complete.
As I edited the film, I noticed that all the clips used in Day 1 are much quieter than the ones in the other two Days, this was obviously a problem but something that could be resolved. I was editing in AVID Media Composer, it made it a lot more difficult for me as I am used to Premier Pro, but I was very keen to use and learn a different software. I decided that it would be easier too import all video files and create an overall good seamless edit first, and then focus on the audio levels after.
I went through each scene and gathered all the clips and takes that were used for that scene. I viewed them all and decided which take is most appropriate/best acted out. After doing this I was able to create each scene bit by bit, and after each scene was complete, I would tick it off on the script.
After the full edit was complete I was to then go back and work on the audio levels. I used keyframes to do this on specific clips that were too quiet, or in some cases, too loud. One part of the edit which I paid particular close attention to was the opening scene, in which there is quite a loud bang, I wanted to get the levels perfect here, as the speaking is too quiet and the bang is too loud, so I evened them out and got it sounding perfect. Another part of the audio I paid particular close attention to was when we are first introduced to Max's bedroom, he is playing 'Ridin' by Chamillionaire through his speakers, I had to put this song over the top but drop the audio so that it sounds like it's coming from his speakers, and isn't in fact a non-diegetic piece of audio over the top.
One problem that tended to occur was sometimes when the edit cut to another shot, the audio in the background was different, so it left a horrible clicking noise each time it cut, to resolve this problem, I used audio transitions, which worked the majority of the time, however, during the restaurant scene, there was simply too much background noise in one of the shots to avoid it, so what I did to resolve this was I actually got a small audio clip of the background noise, and put it over the top of where the cut takes place and over the next shot, so it seems seamless, it worked a treat.
After all this was done I had one small thing left to do, which was add a small record symbol into the corner of some of the shots, as they were to emulate stock footage, being filmed by the cameraman. This took a lot longer than it should've as I'm not used to AVID, I had to make one from scratch in Photoshop and import it in, but there were numerous problems with the alpha channel, but after around 35 minutes, I managed to sort it.

Fish Tank

Fish Tank is a social realist film, a film in which represents the minority and often uses specific cinematography techniques to create empathy toward the characters involved.
Social realist films try to emulate real life, so the cinematographer try to make the film come across as realistic as possible. One way in which this is achieved in multiple scenes is by the use of hand held cameras.

In this clip of Fisk Tank, whilst Mia is walking around her estate, no cuts are used, there is just one hand held shot following her around as she walks, in modern, mainstream cinema, there would be a multitude of different shots and camera angles used, but as this doesn't really portray real life, the cinematographer decided it would be best to use one hand held camera, so it's almost as if we are walking alongside Mia. 

At the beginning of the clip Mia is in a room just finishing off her dancing, the lighting in the room is completely natural, you will notice as the shot cuts to an over the shoulder of mia, we can see the outside is perfectly exposed, but mia is slightly under exposed. No artificial lighting was used to keep that element of reality within the scene, something the cinematographer would've thought about when shooting the scene.
As we all know, real life does not include a soundtrack, there is no non-diegetic music that plays to reflect what mood we are in or when a certain situation gets better or worse, so this means within Fish Tank there are no non-diegetic sounds used at all, as it would ruin the realistic feel to the film.

However there is some music used throughout the film, like in this scene, 4 of the characters are in a car, the camera man is inside the car with them with a hand held camera, to capture the bumps and turns of the car to make it more realistic. The male character, Connor, then puts a CD in the radio and the music begins to play. In mainstream cinema, you would hear the diegetic music for a moment and then it would eventually be played over the top as a non-diegetic soundtrack, however, because Fish Tank is a social realist film, we just hear the music in which we can see playing on screen.

Filming

This weekend we are filming. I have gone on SISO and booked all video equipment that will be required this weekend, 2 HMC Cameras, 2 tripods and 3 30 Watt lights. Oscar will be in charge of booking out Audio equipment, as he is in charge of sound.
We have organised exactly when we are filming what scenes and what locations we are using. As Kate is art direction, she was in charge of going to these locations and making sure we are able to use them, as director, I made sure she did this. On Friday 28th we shall be filming in the halls of residence, from 12pm. The next day we shall be filming in the lounge, the restaurant scene and anything else we may need to film in there. I hope to get everything filmed in those two days and maybe even start editing on the Sunday, if not, we have Sunday to carry on filming, however, if filming isn't completed this weekend, we will be behind on schedule and will no longer have that spare week at the end, so we have to make sure we are all prepared to film.

The Result:-

Filming was completed over the weekend, Sunday included. Everyone involved had their own copy of the script, I made numerous notes on mine telling me what shots would work best a certain points and then split the script into two days.
Day one, Friday, didn't go as well as planned, but was still a day in which things got done. It took a lot longer to get the actual room set up than we thought, getting the lighting right took quite a while and finding a good place to put the boom mic was reasonably difficult too.
Our actors weren't fully confident with the script and found it even more difficult on camera, this is something I probably should've anticipated, and the next time I organise filming days I will be sure to include more time as a just in case, better to have more time, than not enough.
Day two was a success, everything that I wanted to get filmed on that day, was filmed in plenty of time, I think this was probably because it was in the University Lounge, there was already reasonably good lighting, and as for audio, we had learned from our mistakes the day before and were able to set it up much faster.
Day three was used to film the bits that weren't completed on the Friday, so I am very happy that I gave myself a little bit of lee way just in case.

The Office

Keyboard Warrior is a mockumentary film. I have found inspiration from the TV series The Office, to help base my filming and editing.

This clip of The Office shows how I want to film and edit Keyboard Warrior. The camera isn't still, it's slightly shaky and pans around the room and zooms in and out, giving it a documentary feel. There aren't that many cuts, a lot of it is just one shot, rather than cutting from one character to another, the camera just moves. The clip often cuts to a different scenario, an interview of one of the characters in the scene, and then cuts back to the original clip. This is very typical of a mockumentary styled film, and will be doing this frequently throughout our film.

In this clip of The Office we are shown two characters having a conversation in an office. The shot-reverse-shot technique is used to shoot this scene. There is a scene within Keyboard Warrior in which the main character and a female character are on a date in a restaurant. I shall film the scene in a very similar way to which this is filmed. Each shot is slightly shaky still, not placed on a tripod, to give it that documentary styled effect. Plenty of lead space is given in both shots used to get that feel that they are actually talking to one and other. The 180 degree rule isn't broken, this way the audience follows exactly what is happening and doesn't get confused by the complex camera angles and choices of camera positioning.

Watching clips from shows like The Office helps me get a better understanding of how our film is going to look visually. 

Characters and Gantt Charts

After the script was selected, and all roles were assigned, we then had to take into consideration the characters. There are 4 characters, Max, Kane, Elaine and the interviewer. All 3 of us asked the best possible people that we feel fit the roles, fortunately for us, they all agreed to act for us.
As I am partly the director, I made sure I got the script online and pasted it to a word document, in which I then printed off, and gave to our actors, and told them what lines to learn for when.
I organised a rehearsal date and filming date, the rehearsal was purely to see how well the actors knew there lines and how good there acting was and what they needed to work on, I made sure it was at least a week before the actual filming, to give the actors plenty of time to work on any problems they may have.

After this we all decided it would be easier if we to create a Gantt Chart, a chart in which shows us what we will be doing each week up until the deadline. All 3 of us pitched in to do this, and we left one week at the end free in case we needed any extra time. At the moment we are on track.

Role Selection

In our production we have decided to film the script Keyboard Warrior:-
http://www.australianshortfilms.com/keyboard-warrior.html

I am working with Oscar Evans and Katie Donaldson, we split our roles into 3, to make sure we are all doing an even amount of work and to make sure the work gets completed at a reasonable pace.
Oscar is in charge of sound. He will edit sound, record the sound, and make sure all sound in our film is to a high standard.
Kate is in charge of art design and costume, creating storyboards, getting props, sorting out costumes for our actors to wear.
I am in charge of filming, I will film the scenes, I will edit the film, as I have most experience in those areas. I feel as though all roles were appropriately selected as it's our key areas, and the production will come out better if we are given those roles.