Video link: https://vimeo.com/468022517
My goal in this assignment is to create an authentic and relatable character, along with a story that demonstrates the character in the most effective and resonating way. Plus, in the making of the film, I aim to deliver a final product which possesses my cinematic vision with least technical issues.
The situation with COVID-19 and the resulting lockdown is a significant context that impacts on the creating of my story and character from the beginning. Because of the lockdown, the overall story has to be constructed in my apartment, which denies my opportunity to demonstrate my character’s connection to a broader story world. If I have access to a broader context, I wish to let my character engage in different discourses with more people, preferably in outdoor environment for some of them, using different characters to reflect on the protagonists rather than letting himself go back and forth to dig deeper inside. However, I would not alter my character even if we were in a different circumstance. There are two videos from Week 7 on Jack Preze and Jill Chamberlain enlightens me the most. Preze believes that a great story should be character based, and Chamberlain believes that story is not all about situations; Among all viewing materials in the course, these two enlightens me the most, and that is why I would not change the character but only the plots if in a non-COVID-19 circumstance.
Although a situation is not a story, the character still needs to be ‘tested’, which is also mentioned by Chamberlain. Her opinion corresponds with Robert McKee’s idea in ‘Story: Structure and Character’, “true character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure” (pg.101). In this assignment I felt it difficult to use plots showing a character’s inner self. I drew inspiration from Craig Batty’s ‘Screenplays: Shaping Characters’, which is crucial to my writing process for bringing up the importance of ‘asking backstory questions’. In Batty’s book, he writes, “it’s (more) effective to focus on questions to try and reveal something that will fuel both plot and theme (pg.63-64)”. Batty’s book enlightened both me and my character to explore him in a creative way, which became the main plots in my film. To test my character in a more pressing circumstance, I set a deadline for him. I always consider the word ‘deadline’ quite threatening for it contains ‘dead’ in its spelling, and that would be a reasonable motivation for him to dig inside.
Looking back to reflect on my writing process, I have to identify my disappointment in it. The story of a writer writing a story seems self-reflexive and fresh, but in a way it is also lazy writing and can apply to anyone who has trouble writing. I will not do that again in the future.
There are also other aspects I want to improve on creating a character, which is language. I used to misbelieve that cursing language is a key to a successful character, however it is not always the case. Cursing language does make a character authentic and vivid in a way, but it is not necessary, and it got into a bad habit of using them to substitute proper words which should help my characters express meaning and emotions accurately. I managed to avoid cursing language in this assignment, which I see as self-improving. However, I see more effort can be made in the future in my character’s language. For example, next time I want to give my characters a distinctive language pattern such as particular choice of words or a catch-phrase so that they are more memorable.
Another aspect that could be improved in a non-COVID circumstance regards to the cast and crew. Due to lock down, I had to play the role myself and leave the camera (my phone) to an inexperienced helper. I do not have any acting experience, I felt nervous and distracted in front of the camera; plus English is my second language, I could not deliver the lines in the appropriate pace, tune or emotion. If I could have someone else to play the role, even though they might also be inexperienced actor, I could direct them into the right mood, and they would be more fluent in speaking English than me. What’s more, I would also be available to take the camera myself.
I prepared storyboard for this assignment because the shooting was chaotic in during assignment #2 when I did not. Yet, during the production stage, I still discovered myself lack of vision. There were two types of shot I wanted to experiment in the making of this film. First, I wanted to use point-of-view shots from the roommate character to give a closer and more direct perspective on my main character. However, when switching between the point-of-view shots and the conventional shot angles, I found that applying a drastic transit between those two types of shots work better than trying to do it smoothly. Also, I realized that I should not abuse the use of point-of-view shot in the future, especially not using it to start a scene too often like in this film. It could cause the film look divided if not carefully utilized. The other type of shot I experimented is rotation, which I picked up from Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Nonetheless this type of shot requires a more fitting context, it is uncommon because it does not always work. Although I kept the shot in the final cut, I consider the experiment failed. I will consider carefully before I use the a similar shot in the future
I compare the making of this film with assignment #2 to see what has improved in technical terms. The main light source still comes from the natural light, but the day is longer now so it can provide a sustainable light for me to shoot for several hours. To avoid the situation where the video quality automatically drops because the light is not strong enough, I activated the manual mode on my phone to adjust aperture and ISO so the image brightens and the quality remains high. Audio is still an issue. Even if I started using a separate phone to record audio, it still catches the high pitch noise caused by the wind passing through our apartment door. The sound of the wind does not only distract audience from the dialogue, but also affects the continuity of the film; it can be heard clearly where I made the cut because the volume of the noise does not match. In the post-production stage, I have acquired some skills about reducing the noise by editing the audio in Adobe Audition, which is the most useful skill I picked up in the process of making this film. I can see myself dealing with similar issues more proficiently in the future. Also, if I were to work in a proper studio with professional tools, I might not need to worry about the disruption from the environment as much.
It was a pity that we could not work in groups to collaborate in this assignment, but I received useful feedback from my group members on the creating process. The group made me realize that the concept of my film can be confusing to the audience, so I should avoid unnecessary confusion and keep the story neat and direct. Their opinion actually helped me build a relatable and understandable story.
I think there are a few outcomes in this assignment are significant to me. First, I adopted the principle of ‘character as the centre of the story’ as a guideline for my future writing. Second, I realized that how important language choices can be for establishing characters, which I overlooked for a long period of time. Most importantly, I picked up a more positive attitude towards making my film product. I started to embrace the process of acquiring new skills when encountering a problem rather than just ‘let it slide’ which I always do. This assignment had a therapeutic function on me, just like the theme of my film.
References
Batty, C., 2012. Screenplays: How To Write And Sell Them. pp.63-64.
Film Courage, 2018. Characters That Serve The Plot Are Less Interesting Than Ones Who Motivate The Plot – Jack Perez.
Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESH6-baIAWg> [Accessed 15 October 2020].
Film Courage, 2019. This Is How 99% Of Screenwriters Write A Story – Jill Chamberlain.
Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aprQXvWRXU> [Accessed 15 October 2020].
McKee, R., 1997. Story. p.101.
Rebel Without a Cause. 1955. [film] Directed by N. Ray. USA: Warner Bros.