Shooting Journal

At the begging of the Journal...

We where given a Task 'The title and opening of a new fiction film...' meaning creating and opening scene from an original book. We were recommended to search in the school library or on the internet. However,the books in the library were not so interesting and that sometimes one of my team member did not accept a participial book another team member picks, which left us with no book. The the director of my team recommended to research more into the book 'Running On The Cracks', which then we wee all satisfied and interested in the story.

Then...

To start filming we need to make the first step which is to create a Pre-production pack done in a time period and there was not enough to finish it in a week, only if we did it as a team for each page. Me and my team decided to split the work between each other and do a page each (do the page that can be done individually).

Shooting day

After going through the research and completing the Pre-production pack, we booked the two days shooting for two different places, before by a week and we have all the materials and tools and actors for the shoot. However, before the shooting day the plan was cancelled as something came up and that the main actor was not able to make it on the day, which made us rearrange the plan to another day.

Editing day

Before editing we need to export the videos in order to edit it them on the final pro cut. Using the storyboard and shot list to help us arrange the clips together. At this stage we were stuck as when we were putting the clips the way it was suppose to be arranged, it was not match on action nor fluid. After facing this challenge other problems kept coming up in tell we faced them all and completed the film.

What went wrong during editing and how we over come each challenge?

• When putting the shots the way it was suppose to be arranged, it was not match on action nor fluid, that was because the pace was the other way round. Meaning the pace for the long shots were too long and the pace of the short shots were too short. We decided to crop the long shots (especially on the flash back) as it was too long and slow the pace at on shot where she cries as the pace was too short. Also another way to fix the pace we froze a scene from short shots to extend it and decided to use a monologue for the freeze frames. Even though we have done all this, the pace and match on action was still not right, which left us with one solution that to rearrange the shot list and that will make the narrative clear. It was like a miracle how everything worked well when rearranging some of the shots as if it was meant to be. Lastly, we thought putting titles in between shots that were not match on action will make it more fluid, which was very successful idea.  
• Re-writing the script at the last minute; the original script was too long so we believe making it simple and short to make it less to concentrate (to much dialogue/monologue can cause confusion as too many things is happening), this will drive the narrative.
•  Afterwards, another problem we faced. That when we recorded the monologue and adding it to the shots it did not fit/suited the whole film, hence the noise of the background was to noisy for another sound track to dissolve in. The monologue is very important part of the film as it conveys the narrative and makes it clearer to the audience of what is happening in the opening scene. We decided to re-record the monologue, which did not work again. Then we decided to avoid using monologue and use a script writing like subtitles by using the hand writing font and soundtrack of screeching noise, as if someone is writing on a paper. While the character is writing on the diary the scene convey the surrounding rather that the diary to give a clearer visual to the audience and convey the feelings of character. Making the audience feel sympathy for the character.
• When making the tiles, we had to think very carefully of the type of fonts we use and some titles had to be different. On the final pro-cut it did not have all types of fonts we needed (the way we visualized it, especially the hand writing font), which left us with one solution, which was to research the type of font on the internet and download it onto the mac to be able to use it.