Film Reflection

Jemile Kendjer

 

I selected the script, “Midnight Intercom” for assignment 2. When choosing this script I saw the potential to play around with genre, rather then the drama film implied in the script- I looked to the horror genre in order to create a foreboding and uneasy atmosphere. I did this primarily through sound- adding suspenseful music that I managed to find online to the start and end of the film. I hope that this came across but looking back on my final product, I should’ve added made other stylistic choices in order to emphasise this.

When it came to shooting and editing the film I struggled a great deal and I’m not entirely happy with the final result that I produced. I did not allocate enough time to pre-production and planning everything out, so as a result I found that I had to change the lighting and camera angles around while shooting and had to re-shoot a lot of times so the shots would come out presentable. As a result, my partner who was acting as Nathan in the film was getting tired and I had to stop before I was entirely happy with how they turned out.

In terms of editing, I found that the dialogue did not come out as I imagined and my phone didn’t pick up the dialogue well. I moved the audio to Adobe Audition and tried to fix it. I attempted to increase the volume, but in doing so all of the background static noise increased as well. To fix this, I tried to add the denoise effect which improved it some-what but the audio still came out very patchy and the background noise detracts from the scene a bit, particularly in the final shot (I’m definitely planning on getting some mics for my next project). Then, because I spent so much time playing around with the audio, I didn’t leave enough time for transitions and the transitions between certain shots aren’t very smooth. I also picked up on the fact that the lighting between different shots wasn’t consistent, but by that stage it was too late to fix it.

Team-work also proved to be difficult, because of conflicting schedules and the short time-frame of this project my group were unable to meet up and it was primarily done by communicating and offering suggestions over email. As I was struggling with this project, I believe that in-person assistance and in-person classes would’ve helped me more, but unfortunately it just wasn’t possible.

I’m planning on using this assignment as a learning experience and hopefully I’m happier with my next project.

Reflection and Practice

Jemile Kendjer

 

I selected the script “Midnight Intercom” for this assignment. As there was such a short timeframe complete the project, I planned to get the pre-production done in 1 day, allowing more time to shoot and edit it.

I chose this script because it worked well with the layout of my small studio apartment (unlike a lot of other scripts) and just involved the entryway (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MCom-N7V73843a86k_1DFLYhHkrK4Bke/view?usp=sharing ), and could be shot at night because I work during the day-time.

In my shot list (https://drive.google.com/file/d/17flelFvq7ECnl3NC-NZekdjjdOGDQPQH/view?usp=sharing) I limited my shots to wide-shots, mid-shots and medium close-ups and didn’t give much thoughts to camera angles. I believe that using different shot types and considering the impact of camera angles could create a more dynamic piece.  Additionally, I didn’t plan out my lighting effectively for the scene and struggled to get consistent lighting across the different shots.

As the audio on my phone is not the best, I decided to outsource for the sound effect of the door knocking. I retrieved this from the royalty free site Free Sound (https://freesound.org/). I also chose to include some background music throughout the scene to add to the atmosphere of suspense that I was aiming for in my piece.

I also had to change the original script slightly (https://drive.google.com/file/d/18kwgYLn2m8qMwLSy512ZgifqFSsVE_e7/view?usp=sharing). Because I don’t have an intercom in my apartment, instead I substituted the intercom with the peephole on my front door. I took advantage of this to include a POV shot of a character looking through it. However, I don’t believe that this had any negative impact on the final product that I produced.

Overall, because I rushed this preproduction process (specifically the shot-list) I found that I struggled when shooting my project and I definitely plan on allocating more time to this in the future.

I have an iPhone X that I use for filming my projects. Although I find that the shooting capacity can be just as good as an expensive camera. 

Frame-Rate: 

I was unaware of this earlier but I learnt through the studio that the frame-rate of my camera can be changed through settings and it’s easily adjustable. The standard frames per second for a video in Australia is 25 fps, and I was able to change my camera to 24 fps in order to replicate this. 

Zooming: 

My camera can easily zoom in and out by simply pinching the screen while recording.

Focus: 

Like zooming, the camera can focus easily just by simply tapping on the screen whatever you want it to focus on. This is extremely useful and effective, particularly in contrast to other cameras. 

Sound:

However, sound quality of my phone is poor and I usually record it through voice memo after the fact and edit it in. I’m looking on investing in some microphones to increase the sound quality in my videos. 

Applications: 

I primarily use editing software after I have shot my video on my phone to enhance the quality of the shot. I haven’t really found any effective applications to improve my camera. 

Jemile Kendjer

Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq9t-7fIjII 

 

I based my assignment on a scene from Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void. 

In this film, I enjoyed how Noe used a point of view shot for most of the movie to show life from the perspective of the main character, all the way down to the blinking. I also loved the colour palette of the movie and his use of bright and vibrant street lights that contrast with the often dark clothing of the characters. 

In my own adaptation of this scene, I attempted to replicate the point-of-view shot throughout my scene and the pops of colour he used. I set it up so I shot everything at night in order to capture the contrast of bright lights and darkness that the scene has (using both street lights and coloured lights).

One main thing that I struggled with was recreating Noe’s blinking when shooting my own point-of-view shots. I was unable to do it and make the blinking look natural- both while filming or in the editing process. However, it is something that I would love to learn. 

When filming this, I had a lot of different shots planned from the outset that I wanted to try but I had to cut many of them out in the editing process because it would’ve brought me well over the time-limit allocated. Additionally, spending this much time filming definitely didn’t leave me enough time to edit my project, and I should have allocated more time to the editing process.