Assignment:
Create a Short Film: A short film is designed to reach a specific audience with a strong beginning, middle and end storyline. It will tell a complete story (Act I, II, III) and entertain an audience. Your short film should be a minimum of 5 minutes to a maximum of 10 minutes long. It should contain your title and have ending credits.The script:
The short film you see above was originally a different script based on Christopher Robin's childhood story. The script was re-wrote and was produced as the following:
Two girls living in a broken family. The father is not present and the mother is an abusive alcoholic. The girls are unable to continue living in their house because the older sister does not feel it is safe for them so she attempts to leave but runs into different problems.
Production Process:
Pre-Production -
In Pre-Production, we picked groups and production roles based on who in the class wanted to do each script. I had a wonderful production crew that consisted of Armin Dikic [Cinematographer], Erin Johnson [Editor], Makenna Snowbarger [Art Director], Jordyn Whitfield [Storyboard, Documentarian], Katie MacDonald [Actress]. Our cast list included Eva Johnson, Katie MacDonald, as well as Polly Whitfiled. They were all wonderful to work with, it was a very easy going process getting everyone on board for our film day (October 7, 2017 8am-1pm).
Production -
Production was almost like a team-bonding experience for our team. The day started out with breakfast and a cast reading, as well as a walk through of shots and directional notes to be made so the overall vision of the film was kept consistent. We ran into few complications even though we had a couple of complicated scenes. The house was extremely hot, so we would find ourselves stopping to stand outside and cool off. Eight people in one room that is filled with sunlight is not the most comfortable in all honesty. We also dropped the plate off the counter causing a small dent in the floor that we are now hiding form my parents...fun times filming, every shoot is an adventure. Our final problem that seemed to effect us the most was that we had multiple cameras and by the end, all the batteries were dead or dying so we were racing against the camera battery. We were able to get all the shots we needed before it died, but not all of them saved to the SD card.
Post-Production -
Post-Production was very short for our group. Monday when the editing began, we found that our very ending scenes did not record onto the SD card, so about two minutes of footage concluding our Act III had disappeared resulting in an abrupt ending at the end of Act II. Erin worked very hard on the editing for three days and produced "EVA".
My Role -
For this project I was the director and script writer. During production, I also did a small amount of filming but that was not my main role. After this project was completed, I learned that being director is not my favorite role due to the fact that the script would only be produced the way I wanted it to. If I were to give my script off to another person in the classroom, I guarantee you that we would've had a completely different film submitted, and I like to take other people's ideas into consideration which is why the script was changed the day before we filmed.
Technically/ Professionally -
For this project, Adobe Premiere Pro was used, as well as YouTube for our background music. As this was not treated as an extremely professional project, it should have because our Five Guarantees were used in this assignment.
Technical Skills -
Cinematography, Editing on Adobe Premiere Pro, Script writing on Celtx
Communication -
Contact with crew members and actresses, coordination between location owners, members jobs and supplies needed
Leadership -
Everyone on the team was a leader in their own way. I led the vision, Armin led the camera, Jordyn led the process of shoot day, MaKenna led continuity and getting the actresses costuming/makeup, Katie led the actresses and Erin too lead on editing. We all had the opportunity to be a leader during this project.
Collaboration -
Sharing of ideas and script changes, brainstorming the overall vision or outcome of the film, working on fixing on the spot problems brought on during shoot day.
Project Management -
This is where I personally believe we lacked the most because we did not have time to go back and re-shoot the shots that we ended up not having the weekend after we filmed. We had a limited number of hours to edit, and it really effected out short film. We spent so much time in pre-production but didn't acknowledge how equally important production and post-production was in this process.
Conclusion:
Changes I would make -
We really did have a good experience filming, but I would make sure I was more tedious about filming when getting the chance to re-do this project. I would like to have all of our shots, and there are a few shots I would re-do because they are a bit shaky or dark and I effects the continuity of it. I would also probably change the location to somewhere with a larger kitchen just because we spent a lot of time there and it was SO hot by the time we finished. I also think the short film would have benefited from a little bit of script touch ups, and having another person make changes to "slower: parts in the film. Next time I will also make sure that everyone has formatted their camera cards so we do not have missing shots when starting editing. I would also make sure the profanity in the one kitchen scene was removed.
Things I would keep the same -
Almost everything I would keep the same regarding what is left. I had a wonderful team, our production crew's family that helped us were some of the sweetest and funniest people I have had the opportunity to work with. I am overly thankful for everyone that help with this project because while I am fully aware our short film could be much stronger and more detailed, I felt like for our first short film of the year it is sitting in a very good place. We were given very good feedback from the class consisting of people really liking the editing style, the variety of shots and music chose. Many spoke on behalf of the fact that broken families are a very real situation and it was portrayed very well in this film and it was easily understandable.Final thought:
From here on out I would like my projects to continue to improve because I know I do not push myself hard enough. I would also like to take the time to branch out and try other jobs as I do love being behind the camera as well as editing but it is not always my first choice.
