Throughout the process of this creation, my group and I had been very indecisive. We juggled several different ideas on the genre we wanted to use, the location of where we wanted to film, the outfit choice, and the audio we wanted to add. We started with the thought of making the film a drama. We planned to film in a bright, public setting to portray that there was a specific contrast to the idea which we were to show two friends who were conversing about a new crush, but on the other end of the phone was one of the friends pretending to be the boy they liked. We looked it over and did not like it one bit. A couple days later, we re-evaluated and decided to clear our story board completely. The genre was then changed to a thriller/mystery, which meant everything else needed to be changed as well. A private park was selected so the actors can be in a more quiet setting with natural lighting. My role in this short film was to film, edit and direct my teammates in what to do to complete and perfect the view I had in my mind. The wardrobe was to be dark to contrast the theme and mood of what a thriller should be like. The surrounding would be of nature, like green from the trees and the grass, blue for the ocean in the distance, and the other neutral colors from leaves on the ground which would help the black colors in the clothing pop out more from the rest around. From there, we decided what we wanted to do that would make it a thriller. So for the figure of the person who was supposed to be in danger, she was supposed to seem unaware of her surroundings as she went out for a jog. The one playing as the kidnapper was supposed to be showing the least amount of skin by covering it with dark clothing so the runner would have no idea who it was or what was happening. When it came to the shots, there were several different ones which each served its own purpose. The close up of the shoes coming into frame was to show how there was something possibly dangerous was coming into play. The point of view shots were, like you would expect, to show that the runner was looking behind her to see what the noise was behind her as she is confused if something was behind her. The choice of audio which was added, the birds chirping for example, was to give it the audience more of a sense that it was a peaceful day and setting. The addition of the thriller type of audio was to show the shift in tone the dangerous character was bringing to the table. From there, we chose not to include dialogue other than the ending when she is kidnapped and confused of where she is and the scream when she saw the kidnapper for the first time. Other than that, there was no sense of dialogue because we wanted to make it more suspenseful as it’s quiet. All in all, there was a great success in the delivery of the production and acting that was in the video and it can only get better from there.
On the other hand, there were some things I would have changed. For one, there was how there was lots of black in the clothing. I did not realize it until editing, but both the characters and even the car features were all in black. There was also lots of messing up in the creation of our story board. There were complications in the genre we wanted to work on in the beginning, as we each wanted to do a different genre. We did not plan out the first draft we filmed very well, which would explain as to why it never became the project we wanted to present to our class. So as we continued to plan more and clearly state our ideas of shots and actions in our script and storyboard, it became more clear in which we managed to make a good film for it being the first time we do something like this. There were several times where we had to reshoot multiple shots since they did not turn out the way that wanted them to. Either the angle had been off, the audio was too low, or we broke out in laughter. Other than that, there were lots of good times in the making of the project and there were a lot of ideas we thought about and never used. I believe that when we will end up using our great compatibility skills and creative minds, we will be able to come up with more projects that will continue improving in both content and even editing!
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