Final Major Project Evaluation & Reflection

Over all, I’m not very satisfy with the whole project, but it will be remembered definitely, in which the first time I used such a long period to making a project. This blog I will reflect what I did though preproduction, production to postproduction, whether is good or not.

Preproduction

The worst thing I made during the whole production is I made it became longer due to inefficient creation. From mid January to the end of the march, I used two and half month to create a story that we shoot in final, although there still had some changes later, like cancelled lighting installation and changed dialogue and I realised that change always exists. FMP has a clear deadline for us to arranging schedule well but I failed on arrangement of time apparently. This mistake leaded us were pressed for time. If we shoot on film it won’t be such a big matter like right now. However, we chose the format of super 8mm film, which needs more time to develop and to scan. Unlike digital camera, we can not edit it immediately. We waited for 3 weeks and I will talk about it in postproduction.

On the other hand, Huang and I hadn’t do test shooting that influenced the whole project as well. After we decided shooting on super 8mm film, he brought one old super 8mm camera, Nikon R10, at the beginning of February. Then I went to Berlin for one week and when I back he said he just sent his camera to check and repair. It’s good to make sure second hand camera before we started shooting. But it took nearly more than two weeks. So the second time we got the camera was already in March. I told Huang to do the test shooting and to grasp the temperament of camera. But he felt confused on account of what to shooting. Huang and I had a reflection meeting yesterday. When we talked about this, he told me I should tell him what to shoot as test. It would be more helps if I already decided the story and location in that time. Due to the uncontrollability of film, we did had poor situation later.

One more problem we met is we don’t have any crew for helping us. Huang and I took every job in the project. When we were playing the role of cinematography and director, we also moved a lot of equipment and did connection for everything need to be contacted. Huang complained it serval times. I didn’t think it is a big deal, which we were only producing a 6-7 mins short. But when we approaching the production process, I felt we need more crews as well. For example, we suppose to shooting on both of film camera and digital camera. But as director, I had a plenty of things to do when we were shooting. I couldn’t help Huang look at another digital camera. So we gave up this backup. Members of crew is necessity.

Of course, I benefited a lot from this big challenge. I was keeping learning from everywhere, book, film, people I met, problem I met. Although I managed the project not very well, but through Huang and I did everything a short film project need to do, now I know every details in a short film project, like I even designed the film poster. I’ll do better in pre-production next time defiantly.

Production

Compare to pre-production and post-production, production is the easiest part we did. Oh, only compare to other part. We met some problem that people won’t have in digital format.

First of all, everything went well when we shooting at phenix, but our super 8 camera against us – film roll stuck. Then Huang changed a roll but this problem still happened. Time approached, so that we left the last several shots that need to be continued. I arranged times for shooting those miss shot on another day. However after we set up all the thing and camera worked well. I called actress to stand by. Guess what happened next? I know you already know, our camera stuck again! It’s middle of April, we don’t have time to do develop those left miss shot if we didn’t shoot on that day. There is no way to choose. Thus Huang and I rearranged a day for fixing shot and we shoot on both of digital and film. In this situation, we have to mix the format of digital and film to making a complete story for submission. As the date of we sent left rolls, we may approach the film version for degree show!

Though this production, I found I still need to learn more about how to direct. The actress Alex we hired from the first year of performance department. Although she does’t have much experience on acting, but she responsible for our project and willing to learn. There is one scene that actress need eat uneatable thing like key and lipstick. She did a really good job. Conversely I would let actress acting freely after I told her about the emotion. But it didn’t work well. I should write more about lines or movement on the script. Sometimes I don’t the situation of character’s as well.

Post production

Challenge is everywhere. Huang and I played game in home and counter how many days left of delivering the developed film rolls left. I feel embarrassed when I wrote down about this communication case. The thing is Huang is the man always connect with develop and scan company. The first time I heard was that film would be delivered before 27 April. So we still have time to edit. Then it hadn’t come so Huang told me it would be here within this week. I was worried that not much time left and we still need to edit and I want to try composing music. On that Friday, Huang told me they would sent it today, Friday. Unluckily, next Monday is bank holiday. I decided if film haven’t arrive at Tuesday let Huang call them. The worst thing happened, due to the payment mistake scanning stuff still haven’t sent it to delivery. But the date is already 3rd May. We can’t wait so I took the train to London and took films back. Due to the limited time, Huang who deal with editing had some technique problems, in which wasted a number of times.

For submission, maybe the version is not the best we did. But we won’t give it up. We also hope the left rolls we sent to develop will back on time, in that case, we’ll edit it again! Please keep eyes on us, we’ll update on time on Twitter @untitledlady.