Evaluation

The original idea for our film was to have our character sat down with a blindfold on and elements of a perfect and idealistic world playing on it. Then when the mask is removed, footage of environmental, health and mundane issues would play behind him on a projector, causing the character to become more and more distressed as the videos continue. He then, completely distrot by these images, takes the blindfold and sews it onto his face to block out the reality with the idealistic.
Our film managed to follow this plan very well as we stuck to the general outline. However, we did run into a few problems while editing. The first issue was with the green screen on the mask as this took some time and effort. In the end, we had to settle for parts of the mask not being keyed out, as it did not work due to the lighting being uneven. 

Another issue with lighting was that we wanted to have each shot lit with different colours to match an idealistic video with a realistic video. We filmed most of these with different light filters to link the two contrasts. However, with some of the shots we were unable to light them due to being outside or they were stock footage. This lead to us using grading to colour the image, which in some cases did not match the practically lit footage. Although this did not totally ruin the footage as it still worked well.
When in the planning stage we had many ideas that we wanted to put into this piece. However, when we talked about this with our tutor we soon realised that the ideas we wanted to put into this piece were disjointed and would not fit together. We then had to discuss how to connect everything and make it more coherent. Eventually, as a team we came to the creative decision to have the idealistic shots work as a blindfold from the realistic shots.
During the shooting of this film we decided to use different lighting filters for different shots. We managed to achieve this with some Dedo lights and their filter kits. This was the first time I had used different coloured lighting gels to film with. A similar eaxpmle of this is from The Shining Kubrick, S. (Director). (1980). When Jack is in the bathroom with Grady, we can see around them the whole scene is dominated by the colour red. We wanted to recreate this effect. However, we decided to use light to colour the whole shot rather than just the background set. While lighting the shots we did run into some issues. The main problems arose when colouring a shot red as the red light made it very difficult to focus the shot properly. There was nothing we could do about this so I had to improve it during post-production.
During the editing phase of this project I was tasked with using colour key to take out the green screen mask and replace it with the idealistic videos. This was another first for me and to do this I had to first use Linear Colour Key to remove the green and then use Advanced Spill Suppressor and Matte Choker to make the green screen look better and make the green that was not keyed out look a grey colour making the mask look like a silk material.
My job during this project was editor, as a part of my role I had to edit the clips together, grade the whole film and edit all of the green screen shots.
When it came to editing the clips together I did not find this too difficult, as I have done this many times before. Myself and Meg, our Producer, where present for the edit to make sure the correct clips where used and to make sure nothing was left out. During this process I realised there where a few cuts that felt jarring when watching them and so I had to apply some transitions to make the clips merge into one and other a little bit better.
Another pat of my role was to green screen the footage. While doing this I ran into many problems and had to spend a lot of time in this part. Once the green screen was keyed out and the other unevenly lit parts where turned to a silk grey colour. The next huge issue was to have the video track to the mask to have it follow it. This took some time to figure out. However, I managed to do it by using a null object, which tracked to the green screen shot and then linked the idealistic footage to this null object.
In editing I also had to use the sharpen tool to sharpen the red images as they where slightly soft in focus. This helped the images look a lot better, however, it would have been better if we had realised while on set that the focus was soft.
I believe that we all worked well as a group. However, I believe that not everyone pulled their weight on these projects and myself, Meg and India where left to pick up the slack. The main issue was with our sound editor Lewis, as he would not show up to editing sessions when he was needed to and this prolonged the editing stage of our film.
I believe during this shoot I have learnt a great many things that could be applied to the working world in film. Firstly while filming we tried our best to be as professional as possible and use technical jargon that would be used on a film set. This would give use knowledge and experience working on set.
I also learnt to work well as a team and overcome issues when working in a team. This was due to Lewis and Emma not putting in as much work as Myself, India and Meg and thus we had to pick up there slack to make this film possible. I also managed to overcome issues while editing, as I had to learn green screen properly, which was a big learning curve for me.
Another skill I learnt was organisation and time keeping. This came when we were planning all the documentation and setting up meetings to talk about the film and how we would film it. Time management came in when we arranged times and days to film which we each had to stick to very strictly to make sure that all the footage we needed to film would be filmed during these timed shoots.


Bibliagraphy:

DVD, video, or film

KUBRICK, S.

The Shining

In-text: (Kubrick, 1980)
Your Bibliography: Kubrick, S. (1980). The Shining. Hollywood: The Producer Circle Company.
Scene URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc0_SYZJfzU 

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