It was very important for me to make this film turn out as good as it looked on paper. In order to achieve this I left as much time as I could to give me the opportunity to improve it and edit to the best of my ability. In hindsight I am glad I make the decision to film early, as I needed to re-film the majority of the shots. When watching the rough edit back something just didn’t look right, it wasn’t as poetic or engaging as I had planned for it to be, this, I discovered; was due to two key things missing from the film. The first was the fact it was shot at night, not much was clear, you couldn’t see the surroundings, you couldn’t make out facial expressions and there wasn’t much emotion you could gather from it being so dark. The second was that many of the shots were facing away from the camera; you couldn’t see her face or eyes, therefore couldn’t connect with her. I decided it would be beneficial to the film as a whole if I were to re film the bridge scenes during the day. This way it would be easier to get more shots of the characters face, more shots of the surroundings and it would look more professional and of higher quality.
I feel if I had not made the decision to re film the emotion of film would have suffered. Luckily I had a really willing and helpful group of people working on the project for me. This included Ruth Cooper who helped the first two shoots run smoothly and also helped with the lighting, and Tom Leatherbarrow who gave editing help and advice and also acted in the film. My actress was also very keen to help and was happy to do several shoots to get it right. The film doesn’t look how I originally expected it to look but it gives the emotion I always wanted it to have. The poster compliments the film well and is very in keeping with the atmosphere and emotion the film presents. It is cinematic without being excessively dramatic and I feel it promotes the film well and attracts the target audience well. Feedback for the film has been positive. I find that girls relate much more to the film and find it emotional and even tear provoking, which is what I wanted the film to be seen as, and seeing as my target audience is most women I feel this shows the success of my film within my target audience. There are a few things that I would have liked to change and add, possibly more panoramic shots for the opening, maybe a new and better quality voice over and I would have liked to improve the flashback scenes. However this would mostly be out of meticulousness rather than necessity.
I have learnt a lot by doing this task, not only how to edit and go beyond basic skills on Final Cut but also how to use other programmes such as Color and I am also more familiar with sound recording softwares such as GarageBand. This task has also taught me that in order to get the best shots first time you must think about things that could hinder a perfect shot, for example the lighting or not feeling connected to the character. I find that the best shoots are the most laid back ones, this is because the actors are more relaxed and people feel more able to suggest shots, I achieved these shoots you just need to allow plenty of time to do them, which I normally don’t have when going on shoots. This has given me more of an incentive to start productions as soon as possible.
For my main task I know what I need to do in terms of editing and other technical aspects. I am also able to see now what is and what isn’t possible on a no budget film and what I can and can’t expect non- actors to do, this is why I have decided to find professional actors for my main task, because although Bernadette did an amazing job on my preliminary it wouldn’t be possible to achieve this with the amount of lines I have in mind for my main. I have also decided that flashbacks work really well when you only have a small amount of time to explain not only the current situation of a character but how they got there in the first place, so I’m going to use flashbacks in my main task, but in a slightly different way.
Overall I’m really happy with how my film looks, although I would change some things I feel it is enough to convey the feelings I wanted to. It was a really valuable experience and I have taken a lot from the project I wish to incorporate into my main task. The film is the first I have made that I originally wrote as a short story, so translating this to a script and hoping it will turn out just as I had imagined it was not only hard but also really important for me. I feel the task was vital for me to have the opportunity to test and improve my technical skills. I am also more cautious when writing scripts as to whether it is feasible to expect so much from it, to avoid this I make them easier to film, allowing me to add really unique and interesting shots.
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