Film one: The beginning

Evaluation

My one location film is called The Beginning, it is about my relationship with my boyfriend over the years. It’s a girl sat on a bench reliving the memories of her relationship.
I was very invested in my film and had a great time filming it. I had a problem trying to find actors for my film, as a lot of the performing arts students I knew didn’t have any time to help me, they had their own assessments and were helping on lots of other people’s films. However, I mentioned this to one of my best friends and she said she would help and be in it, this turned out to be the best thing to happen as she was great in the part. A friend of mine in performing arts also helped me find a guy to be in my film, then everything went smoothly from there with the actors.
There are a few things about the filming I would change. I would like to learn more about audio so that if the person doing the audio is two hours late, I can still get some instead of being clueless until he gets there. I now know, I shouldn’t solely rely on people and should be abit more diverse in what I can do. Having more audio would have helped my film look a little less like a music video, in some of my feedback, I was told that I had an over reliance on music. With more audio, I could have played around more with ambient sound, I could have also tried to create my own sound effects. Next time, I will do more research into the sound and how I want it to be. I didn’t really have a plan for it or if there were any films out there that I wanted to be like, this was because my idea came from a song and I was a bit stubborn with that. I will come up with a plan next time to have a clear outline of what I want the sound to be like.
When coming up with the idea for my film, it all started with some music that I listen to and it always makes me think of my relationship. I think that my film went so well because of how invested I was into it, this film has probably been the most enjoyable to make, I didn’t feel rushed or to stressed about it because I had planned it a lot. I normally have a bad habit of rushing into it with little planning but with this film, I tried not to do that as much and I think it showed with the fact this is one of the better films I have made.
I story boarded all the shots I wanted which helped my camera operator know which shots to get. I had feedback saying lots of the shots were framed nice, and that the camera work was really good. This was down to a great camera operator and the fact my story boards showed her exactly what she needed to do and get. Next time however, I need to story board a wider variety of shots and possibly a few cutaways to just add a bit more depth to the film, I feel like it was a little short and that it would benefit from just a little more. I do think that if I researched other films and how they were colour graded, then I could have edited the shot to look a little nicer and more consistent.
Editing is something I really enjoy but I do struggle with it. I decided to get help to create a ghost effect to show the memories, I also watched a premiere pro tutorial on it, and it turned out really well. The two main things I need to work on is; how to edit audio, as at a certain point, I wanted it to fade so that u can hear the car crash sound and then fade back up, but I wasn’t sure how to do this, so it didn’t turn out that well. I did watch a tutorial video; it took me to audio effects and that’s what I used but it wasn’t quite the right thing. In the future, I will get help so that I can get my audio to a better standard and learn more about the editing of it. From my feedback, I found out people didn’t really like the titles I used. I had to get a friend to message me about how to add titles and text, it was my first time doing so, and since then I have learnt how to change the font. However, I’m still wanting to learn how to download fonts from the internet and use them, I still not know how to do that, so I only know how to use the fonts that are already on premiere.
Having class feedback has really helped me see what I need to do to make an even better film next time; for example, sorting out audio, having some shots that are too long or the font of the text. When I was editing it, I couldn’t see some of the things that needed improvement so having fresh eyes on it has really helped. I can now go and change a few things and tweak it. I would really like to get help on creating a title that suites it a lot better, whether that’s working with classmates that know how to do it or working with a graphics design student. The same goes for the audio, I will find more tutorials and ask around for people who know how I can improve it.  I also will look into getting some royalty free music, as due to copy right, I cannot submit my film into any competitions because the music isn’t royalty free. Alternatively, I could contact the creator to see if they are happy for me to use it. I need to start doing this anyway to get into the habit of doing it. It would be nice to start using or creating music, so that my films can be used for competitions or film festivals.
I’m very proud of this film, it looked so much better than I expected, especially the ghost effect that I used throughout. When I was planning it, I did not think that it would work as well as it did. There are things that I can work on to clean it up, it will take some time learning it all, but from the feedback I have had, they are not too difficult to do and I look forward to seeing where I can get my film to in the future.