Deliberate Film Reflection:

Throughout deliberate film I feel that I have gained the ability to plan out what I am doing more thoughtfully, and the importance of having a purpose with every shot. Although not being able to experience most of the course physically made things more difficult and I was unable to improve my technical skills as I had initially hoped, I believe I have learnt the importance of slowing down when shooting something and thinking of everything critically. I have particularly enjoyed the collaborative aspect of this course, working with people with more skills in certain areas has really helped enrich my learning and skills. Throughout this course I have begun analyzing the media I consume much more critically, paying particular attention to the different shot types and angles I see on TV. I feel much more comfortable deconstructing and understanding scenes, I have also found it makes TV that I would have previously found unenjoyable, much more interesting as I like to attempt to deconstruct each scene. Throughout the assignments we have completed, I have found my ability with Premiere Pro has gotten much stronger, and I now feel slightly more comfortable editing and trying out colour grading. Although this course has differed from what I initially expected because of lockdown, I feel that  I have learnt a lot in terms of my ability to shoot and deconstruct shots.

 

Assessment #4 Reflection:

For my assessment 4 media piece, I chose to use the script ‘Unlocked’ because I was very intrigued by the confusion and suspension the script utilised, and felt it could be portrayed well as a short film. Although I am quite happy with my final product, given the difficult circumstances I had creating it, I believe I could have done the script more justice if it were shot in a more typical manner. In hindsight, I probably should have considered the tricky logistics of shooting a piece of media over zoom, as I believe I was slightly unprepared and unaware of the unique difficulties it would pose. Although I may have been able to produce a more cohesive film with a different script, in retrospect, this script definitely tested my creativity and lead to me thinking more outside of the box, as I adapted the script to make it appear more seamless and cohesive. The adaptation I made to the script was to utilize a phone conversation to make it more understandable to the audience. I aimed to not lose the captivating suspension that attracted me to the script in the first place by adapting it, but felt it was a necessary adaptation as the initial shots were very incohesive and the two different shooting locations couldn’t be merged together.

Below I included my floor plans of the shots I wanted after the adaptations:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My final film definitely has some continuity errors (due to isolation the actors had to use different coloured boxes as props) but I am choosing to focus less on whether or not it makes perfect sense and more on the atmosphere and tone it has. I am quite happy with my final product despite the obvious errors, as I am very happy with how I edited it together with very little footage (I forgot to pin the video on zoom when I was recording the footage, so a large portion of my shots were my face) and was able to present my desired mood through editing. This has been a huge lesson about the necessity of checking footage immediately after I shoot to see if I need to reshoot.

 

Collaboration Reflection:

A consistent theme for me throughout my time creating media has been my general disorganisation when it comes to planning what shots I need and why, I believe I made a definite improvement throughout this media piece, in large part due to working in a group setting. Working with my other group members really helped me remain organized and prepared as we would have set times when we needed to shoot and I believe this rigidity with timing extended into this media piece. It was also motivating to be in a group with people who had planned out exactly what shots they needed, and had a very clear vision of what they were hoping to achieve with their film. Vision is often something I have struggled with throughout this degree, as I usually am unsure of exactly what I want my final product to portray until I am almost finished creating it. Because of my difficulty knowing what I want to produce and making decisions, I often do not direct when working in groups, which is sometimes a pitfall for me as I am not pushed to make creative decisions as frequently. I found this assignment to be a perfect balance for me as I experienced a wide range of roles of media production, yet was also motivated by my group members organisation.

 

Experimentation and Colour Grading:

I experimented with attempting to edit ‘Unlocked’ into more of a horror genre film with some new colour grading and suspenseful music. I was very happy with this experiment even though as a viewer it doesn’t seem to make much sense, I was still proud of the atmosphere I was able to create through editing. I chose to focus more on one bigger experimental edit because I did not have enough footage to do a compilation of multiple edits. I’ll include some colour grading stills below, first is the original shot, next is the colour graded version for the final film and then there is the colour graded version for the experimental film.

 

Summary and What I’ve Learnt Through Filming in Isolation:

I believe my film could have been of a much higher quality, had I been more prepared with a more thought-out shot list. This would have  given me more of a sense of which essential shots to priorities and which shots to get if I had excess time. Had I been prepared with a few more shots-such as an establishing shot of Amber’s car-my film could have been much clearer and easier to understand for the viewer.

There is no question that, for me, filming in isolation has posed a new set of challenges that I had not been anticipating, but I believe that being more self-reliant throughout this assignment has taught me the importance of truly preparing myself for shooting to ensure a concise and understandable final piece. This is a lesson that I will keep in mind in the future and will implement with practical measures such as a well thought out shot list or an animatic.

Note: Again I have embedded both of my videos, but they are only showing up as blank white squares when I check it – here are the links just in case!

Final

Experimental

Unlocked experimental – Deliberate film from Media Factory on Vimeo.

Unlocked final – deliberate film from Media Factory on Vimeo.