Film 2 - Suspense/Chase

Give your overall response (2-3 paragraphs): 

Write about your overall response to your film in 2-3 paragraphs: Were you successful at achieving what you set out to do? What are you proud of? What did not work as you expected? Why? What did you learn? 

 I really liked working with the cast and crew, they were all wonderful. I learned so much about shooting in cold environments/scheduling around the slowness that comes with cold fingers. 

Briefly discuss the following:

What, specifically, did you want to communicate? Were you successful? Why? Why not?     

With this film, I wanted to show, from a female's perspective, how simple things are not things we can always take from granted--like walking to our cars late at night. I feel like I kind of communicated that, but it was also lost in the crappy audio. 

How, specifically, did you try to communicate this?

I tried to communicate it right off the bat with the dialogue that was hard to hear.        

What did you learn about storytelling:    

Sound is important-if I can't hear what the character is saying, information is lost.

Every shot should be purposeful. 

What did you learn about working with actors and getting performance:What did you learn about blocking the camera and actors? 

Sometimes you need to be very specific with blocking and go over it a few times until it looks right. 

    

What did you learn about visual elements such as lighting, composition, framing, etc.?       

The URSA sucks in low light, but we could have compensated by lighting more or using a different camera. 

What did you learn about design and art direction?     

 Location makes a big different in story tone!

What did you learn about the Production Process such as pre-production, collaborating with crew, securing equipment, etc.?    

 I'm really glad I had my location locked right off the bat, it made the biggest difference in preproduction and in being able to visualize my shots beforehand. It also made communicating with Clara easier, because I already knew what I wanted. Also, working with Clara was great!!!

What was it like to watch your film with an audience? Did they understand it? Miss the point? Why did they respond the way they did?  

It was a really hard experience. I was not very confident in the piece going in. I knew the audio sucked, but I couldn't fix it, and I knew it was the grainiest video I have ever made, so it was hard going in not really loving the video myself. 

For the most part, I feel like they understood the story and reacted how I wanted them to. 

If you could remake this piece knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

I would 100% use the Sony instead. It would've made a world of difference with video quality. Also, I would've pushed harder for getting access to a different monitor because we would've been able to have the 1st AC actually pull focus.