Looking back to the preliminary, what we did was shooting a sequence of shots from a given story board. There were 4 persons in my group, 3 boys and 1 girl. After choosing the right content which was meant to be appropriate to the given script, we then decided that 2 persons took the acting bit, 1 boy and 1 girl. The rest would take the director part and the camera role. My role was to be a director. I think I did pretty well as a director. At first, I did not get used with speaking out “Stand by” or “Rolling”. However, as the shoot went on, I gradually got used with it and be confident in saying that. We decided to shoot the whole story board in 4 ways: wide shot, close up of the first character and the second character, over shoulder of the first and the second character. This means that for the whole story, we had to shoot 4 different times at 4 different shoot angles. Everything went quite well. The communication between the groups was clear. People understood each other. Thanks to that, the production stage went quite well and fast that we had more time to get on with some extra angle shootings such as: eye-line of the first character to the other one and opposite and the low-angle shooting... Even though we did quite well during the production, we were unprofessional in some ways. Sometimes, we had to shoot again because the actors forgot their script. However, this was caused due to the lack of time. Sometimes, the camera man did forget to bubble and I, a director, sometimes did not know what to direct the actors on how they could express themselves more in order to show their professionalism. On the other, I think that as new people in the making film production stage, we did quite well. Taking the advantages from the preliminary task, I had some experiences that helped us to save a lot of time in the day of shooting our project. Thus, we could prevent some mistakes and saved us lots of time.The best thing I could learn is that team working for such a long time. In order to get everything organized in one group is not an easy work to do. This requires strong bonds within the team and every single member should show their respect from one to another and they should put all of their efforts into it.
In terms of constructing the whole piece in a professional way, I have learnt a lot. I learnt how to write a script in a right format (Courier type. Spacing of speeches) and to write a treatment. Also, from the whole process, I understood how important a story board is from helping us to serve our shoots.
Our Business Card ( Created by Thach Ta) By forming a real company with its logo and contact details as well as writing contract helps I to understand more about the process and I feel that I am in a real working conditions, not like studying. Thus, this gives me convenience when I was working, rather than studying thus allowing me to have fun rather than to be being told to do something.
Company's Logo (Created by Jamie Haj)Even though at some point during the whole process, I did feel frustrated under the amount of work and time pressure, I am proudly to say that I have put all of my efforts and energy in this project in order to make it look the best, though it could’ve been better. As a producer, apart from the main tasks, I have always kept up the enthusiasm of the whole group when we were tired of choosing hundreds of thousands of ambient sounds or when we’re stuck not to know which shoots we should choose during the whole process. I also tried to keep everyone on top of everything during the pre-production dates by keep reminding them to finish the storyboard, re-typing the script or constructing a prop list. Working in my work is just the greatest experience I’ve ever had where everyone respected each other. However, at the first dates of getting used with all the members of the group was quite hard for me as I wasn’t able to communicate with them well. Thanks to working in group, my communication skill actually gets better. This really helps me to get the idea of how it will work in the real life, in the real Industry.
If I could go back and do it all again, I would focus on editing sound effect. This is because I believe that if we had more sound effects, the project could’ve been more effective. However, I am proud with my Final Product that I don’t think it needs lots of changes.
Having posted the complete version of our project on YouTube, we have received several feedbacks from the YouTube members. Here is the link of our project on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG5PwFJ6Quw&feature=related
I thought they were all useful that can be used to analyse the successes/weakness of our product. I appreciate for those valuable comments from those who have posted them. Overall, our opening sequence seems to have a positive sign in terms of getting the audience focused on our product when it shows “I thought this opening sequence was very good” by rubymcowan, “Good opening sequence” by katywebb7 or “Very good sequence” by lilliepounds. These comments show that they really like the way how we construct the mise-en-scene in our opening sequence which made it to be realistic and “depth/background history” that it actually “keeps the audience on edge at all times”. For example, “The murder was also realistic and the shots put together nicely - the close up of the sink for example” shows the attitudes of the audiences from this comment. This therefore encourages us a lot and these make I feel of everything is being paid off afterwards. Furthermore, the comments on special effects that we used for lighting, sounds and camera angles reflect the professionalism thus makes those comments more reliable. “I thought the colour palette was very effective with the consistent dark lighting”, or “The constant beep in the background is very effective in building tension” expresses their positive thought about the way we constructed mise-en-scene and the usage of sound to help building up the tension, which therefore helps to succeed the idea of “thriller”. However, there is a clash in opinions of the flashbacks that we used in order to give more history and depth for the product. “I also like the flashbacks as it helps fill in the back-story and gives it a more realistic element to it” shows that this member really likes the flashback that we added in our project. On the other hand, “the flashbacks felt unnecessary and detracted from the tension of the overall piece” from a member named HHMedia2009 shares an opposite attitude towards the flashback. I thought that both the comments are useful because my favourite part in the whole piece is actually the flashback because it firstly gives the audiences more information on the history of the story and also the sound of laughing when chasing in the wood from the guy actually creates the creepiness of him. I thought that the flashback could’ve been improved so that it would portray a scarier and creepier tension which could match the tension of the whole piece by lengthening the duration and adding more components to the shots in the chasing sequence such as more detailed in mise-en-scene with various camera angles so that it would not “detract” the whole piece. Finally, it seems that the sound seems to be successful in terms of creating the “thriller” tension, according from EllaKatherinMelhuish who said “The sound effect of the 'bleep' is very effective adding to the "thriller" genre”. Generally, I am still feeling proud of my project due to the fact that all the feedbacks are positive which express the same idea of a “a very successful sequence”.
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