Film Project: Part 2 of 2

Conversation from LBC radio recorded via the Voice Recorder app on my Iphone.

News excerpt also recorded from LBC news - a relevant headline to the story of our chase sequence was identified and subsequently recorded.

After trimming and editing files, I placed them onto a CD so all the sounds could play in order, enabling me to record the sound in time with the actors' reaction and to include the atmosphere of the car scene completely.

Canon 550D, used to film our chase sequence entirely.

13mm Fish Eye Lens used for the majority of the chase scene.

Steadycam (disassembled) used throughout the filming process for our chase sequence.

Song I found appropriate for the escape scene - imported into logic and trimmed to preference. The aim was to avoid saturating our sequence with non-diegetic sound.

Previous song after trimming.

News bulletin and segment of talk subject on LBC trimmed and merged together, retaining only information relevant to the plot of our chase sequence.

     

LBC radio excerpt trimmed before merging with other audio clips.

Project Evaluation:

Since last Friday's interim crit with Seb and Tom and after developing our story further mainly between myself, Valter and Moses we then decided when we would be able to start filming. By this point I was still the in the reluctant role of the actor for our sequence, and was still on the search for a decent camera to film on, as filming on iphones (as suggested) would fit the brief but would remove a massive amount of motivation and pride that I would otherwise have in my work. Able to get hold of a Cannon 550D with a 50mm lens and a 13mm fish eye lens which I borrowed from friends, along with a Steadycam to use for filming also. After much delay, we finally were able to start filming on the following Tuesday. Due to starting too late we were unable to get all of our shots and as it got dark, Moses and I decided to call it a day and continue on Wednesday. On Wednesday my friend Miles volunteered to act in our sequence instead after seeing my reluctance to do so. As a result of this the plan was changed and we started filming early from scratch once again at around midday. During the course of the day we changed our final location to a funfair rather than the park. I decided to make such a decision as our aim with this shot was to create a contrast of a sad person in a happy place, and with the Blackheath funfair only being around for a limited period of time I thought it'd make sense to seize the opportunity. As well as filming with the Steadycam and the Fish Eye lens I recorded all of the sound on my phone seperately. After filming I then needed to give the files to Hetal and with them being 4GB, it was not an easy feat. With this being Wednesday evening I uploaded the files to a site called Sharefile for Hetal to retrieve them. This process took all night and in the morning I notified Hetal of the upload being complete and forwarding a download link to him. I was then phoned later being told that the files were corrupt. Being Thursday this was a nightmare situation in terms of timing, I rushed to meet Hetal and Harry at Ravensbourne and gave them the SD card with the video and the audio files on them. Due to the timing of the situation I was not there throughout the editing process and was ensured to leave it to them by Harry. I then met Harry on Friday morning and he gave me the SD card back but told me the files were edited in wrong order and without sound. This news angered me as I labelled all files adequately (in my opinion) and as far as I knew everybody should be aware of the story by such a late stage in the project. With it being the day of the crit I was dreading showing my own work, and to make matters worse there was nobody from our group in attendance apart from myself and Harry. Feeling a lack of care and commitment, I decided to leave early, out of anger and thinking that I shouldn't be the only person committed to a group effort. I am aware this was the wrong thing to do, I just did not believe in the project enough to defend it at this point. Overall this project was not an enjoyable experience for me. I enjoyed developing the story for our sequence, but did not enjoy filming, as it is extremely difficult to film well while in a car amongst other things. I also did not enjoy the group dynamic, and feel that some individuals were non-factors throughout this whole process. I felt consistently disappointed in terms of peoples' lack of willingness to actually make this project come to fruition and feel that I took the weight of the whole thing on my shoulders, and am subsequently at peace in a sense that I really tried hard.  Many of these problems could have easily been avoided if people took tasks on and actually delivered on what they were supposed to. I will never work with this group of individuals again. When we first gave each other roles within the group I was only meant to cover the sound aspect of the project, I ended up developing the story, recording the sound and also filming (on the Wednesday) as well as establishing a new environment to shoot. Ironically, the film still ended up with no sound.