Title: HER
Genre: Romance/Thriller
Cast: Penelopei Perello, Appolonia Meier, and Ravi Lima
In the beginning, I had an idea of making a thriller because I had never attempted to make one before. Two of my group members had previously planned together that we should attempt to make a romance film opening, which was how we figured out that we wanted to combine the two of them. From there, I needed to think about casting. My group members wanted to take part in acting, making it easier to find one other person instead of three. Once I managed to get a friend willing to help portray our idea, we each began planning for the editing, the shots, the wardrobe, the location, and the time of day. This meant that we sketched out the scenes and how we wanted it to go. I used a storyboard and shot list to give us a better idea of what we wanted to create and make it easier on ourselves in terms of organization.
Prior to piecing all these ideas together, I had to research many trailers that would help me develop the style of which I needed to create a good opening to a movie that could possibly exist. For example, I analyzed trailers like “The Handmaiden”, “The Next Three Days”, “The Boy Next Door”, and many others. This was so I had a better understanding of how and what made those films suspenseful or what the editors had done to make it fit into those categories. I was fascinated and yet disappointed as I kept finding more films to seek a peek of because there were some that were good and then there were those that didn’t do a good job showing the main idea or they weren’t even thrilling.
To have a basic understanding of what we wanted to make, we had three people to show a love triangle but not a typical one. Two characters were already together, but they are together. They are planning on who their next “victim” would be. The suspicious couple was purposefully in dark colors, making them seem as if what they were planning to do was ‘dark’. The “victim” is wearing colors just to show a contrast and difference since she is unaware anything suspicious is even occurring. We chose the time of day to be dark, considering we wanted the scenery to seem as if something bad was going to happen. From there, I considered how the lighting might show up on the camera and how I still wanted the audience to know it was a dark evening. Then, I remembered there was a restaurant with outdoor seating. Conveniently, there was good enough lighting at the seating area to where you could see what was occurring but you could also tell it was night time. This is where the shot list came in handy. I was able to go-off the ideas we had placed for shots that would capture the hidden meanings, the point of view of the character who is being mischievous, and angles that showed all the important features that were put in place with a purpose. When it comes to the audios that we had, there was some difficulties. The microphone I had used to attempt to catch all the conversation, was not the best for some reason. It had a certain sound I was hearing when I was editing, that I could not hear when we were recording. As I continued to edit, it didn’t seem to be so present as I seemed to have edited it out. In terms of non-diegetic sounds, I did add some in the beginning and end to give it more of a suspenseful feel to it. Other than that, the dialogue was the center of attention in this film opening. When it came to naming the film, I thought that “Her” would be perfect since that was the main idea. Considering there was no studio production and lighting or Hollywood acting, I believe we did a decent job portraying the idea we wanted to get across.
QUESTIONS:
1) Rate on a scale of 1-10 how did your group work as a team. Support your rating.
– In my opinion, I think we did at least a range from 8 to 9 considering our plot was good and the team was not only good at playing the role they were supposed to play but they were also very entertaining and cooperative to work with. The shots and their angles were shot well, the script was well written for the time we had, and their acting was all I could have asked for. I know they did their best, I truly believe they did a good job. The editing was also done as well as I could have done it, exactly how we planned to have to turn out as the end product.
2) Explain how you organized and prepared for the project. What went well and what could have been improved?
– It was very well organized and prepared by us as a team considering we did all the planning on storyboards, shot lists, and even a script which we were always following as we filmed.
3) What difficulties did you encounter when FILMING? How did you overcome them?
– During filming there were many people around us, considering we were in a public area so it was sort of expected but the amount of noise was not. There was not much we could have done but wait until a majority of them left or if we continued to film anyway. There were also some moments where I did not film it from a good enough angle or I happened to trip in the middle of a shot, which was only frustrating because the shots had to constantly be reshot.
4)What difficulties did you face when EDITING?
– There were times where I didn’t know what transitions to use or how to edit the text message bubbles into frame like I have seen in movies before. I didn’t know which non-diegetic noises to insert either, because I didn’t want it to sound like a horror movie but I didn’t want to put something like a happy jingle either.
5) Discuss how you prepared for the AUDIO of your film?
– I use my personal professional camera and I used my microphone with it so that you could hear the actual intended dialogue more clear and raised/lowered it as much as it needed to be for a full effect.
6) If you were to REPEAT THE PROJECT AGAIN, what would you do differently?
– If it was repeated, I would have considered making it a bit longer. We were told to keep it at one minute but there were other projects that had continued on for three. I incorporated the right amount of action, information, and a good clif hanger to leave the audience on, but maybe a background to their characters and their stories or what they have done in the past would have been nice to put in since it would be the opening that gets people hooked into watching the film as a whole
7) ANALYZING THE FINAL PRODUCTION, what aspects are you happy with? What could have been improved?
– I think we did the best that a beginner film group could have done. I chose to pick my friend Ravi Lima to play the male role as a suspicious character because I know he could pull it off so I was pleased in that decision. I was also pleased that I was able to figure out how to finally edit certain things and certain ways that I can now incorporate in my future projects. Other than the length and the obvious studio conditions, I don’t think there is any improvements I could have done to make it better. I think we did a good job considering we haven’t done many projects where we film, act and edit and how we have never done a filming project where we did a romantic thriller.
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