YOUR
EVALUATION MUST BE 2000 WORDS IN LENGTH AND MUST ADDRESS THE POINTS BELOW - PLEASE
NOTE THIS IS AN INDIVIDUAL PIECE OF WORK.
1.
CRITICALLY REFLECT ON YOUR FINISHED FILM AND IT'S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES -
ANALYSE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT YOU INTENDED TO DO AND WHAT YOU HAVE
ACTUALLY ACHIEVED. (APPROX 600 WORDS)
We created a
2-minute character study about a main character called Ryan, a 24 year old
business manager who lives at home with his parents and younger brother Harry
(16 years of age) Harry suddenly passed away before the narrative of the
2-minute character study starts. Ryan’s emotional need is ‘regret’. He regrets
not spending more time with Harry, he regrets not taking him to football games
as he always promised, he regrets not supporting Harry by watching him play
guitar and sing in his band, and he regrets not cherishing the time when Harry
was alive rather than prioritising his career and rushing off to work in the
morning and staying there late at night. The 2-minute film is about Ryan trying
to reconnect his relationship with Harry through dream sequences, flashbacks,
memories and hallucinations. He dreams that Harry is still alive eating
breakfast in the kitchen; Ryan playfully ruffles Harry’s hair before leaving
for work. But then Ryan wakes up from his dream rushes downstairs to find Harry
not at the table. The spectator is then shown Ryan’s life trying to reconnect
with his dead brother. We set out knowing that we would use the same character’s
and the emotion ‘regret’ to create our 5-10 minute film.
A strength is
that we successfully captured the emotion ‘regret’ through Ryan’s character. We
did this from his mood, flashbacks, hallucinations of his younger brother and
when he was screaming in his brother’s room. However, we would improve this in
our final film. However, in post-production we realised that it is hard for the
spectator to make the link that Harry is dead, and the only vision of Harry is
in Ryan’s head. This was because the scenes are very ambiguous and could be interpreted
differently. To resolve this in the 5-10 minute film we would first show
examples of how Ryan has let Harry down, for example Ryan promised and then
forgot to pick Harry up from a late night band practise. Harry’s walk home
through the city lead to his death; which the spectator could see.
We decided as
a group to incorporate the emotion ‘regret’ in our 2-minute character study and
the 5-10 minute film. As soon as we begun writing the scripts we knew this
would be an extremely hard process because regret is such a buried emotion
which in our case couldn’t be achieved without suggesting other subsidiary emotions,
the main one being guilt.
We decided to
create an extended cut of this idea for the 5-10 minute film. We start the 5-10
minute film before the beginning of the narrative of the 2-minute character
study. This is to make Harry’s death and how Ryan neglects Harry more obvious
for the spectator. We show the events which lead up to Harry’s death then how
Ryan finally reconnects with Harry in the end at the football stadium, which
exceeds the end of the narrative in the 2-minute character study.
A main strength
is how we developed the concept of regret and the relationship between the character’s
from the 2-minute character study to the 5-10 minute film. We successfully
showed Ryan neglecting Harry and prioritising work, which is when Ryan was
working late at night and forgot he promised to pick Harry up from the
recording studio. We successfully created a 3-way conversation between Harry
and the two thugs in the underpass, which lead to Harry’s death. Our biggest strength
comes at the end of the film in the football stadium, where Harry touches Ryan’s
shoulder, when Ryan turns around and looks at Harry, Harry dissolves and is not
there. This blatantly shows the spectator that Harry is dead and the visual
image of Harry which we have been seeing is in Ryan’s mind.
A weakness is
showing Harry’s death too ambiguously. We show Harry getting dragged over by
the two thugs and hitting his head on the floor. In hindsight we should have
spent more time on this scene and made Harry’s death more obvious, more closely
showing Harry’s head hitting the floor and suddenly dying.
2. REVIEW THE PROCESS OF MAKING THE
WORK AND WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNT FROM IT. (APPROX 400 WORDS)
We
first agreed on the emotion ‘regret’. Our reason for this was because we studied
Martin McDonagh’s film ‘Six Shooter’ (2004). His film deals greatly with loss
and how it feels to lose someone close to you. We took inspiration from the
emotion used in ‘Six Shooter’ (2004) and decided to use the emotion of regret
in our 2-minute character study and transfer the same emotion to our 5-10
minute film. In pre-production we thought that regret would be a great emotion
to use, however, we soon realised that by conveying regret through the
character’s emotions, other emotions were activated, such as guilt. In our
2-minute character study the emotion regret was perhaps less identifiable to
the spectator. This was because it was unclear that Ryan’s brother Harry had
died, and that Ryan regretted not spending enough time with harry. This was
because we didn’t show the events prior to Harry’s death and Harry’s actual
death. We emended this problem in our 5-10 minute film. We showed an event
where Ryan breaks a promise and lets Harry down. This then leads on to Harry’s
death, as he has to walk home alone through the city at night, when Ryan should
have took him home in the car. For the rest of the film after Harry’s death,
the spectator can easily see that Ryan fully regrets breaking his promises and
how he realises that he didn’t appreciate Harry when he was alive.
The
whole of production for the 2-minute character study felt rushed. We could have
spent more time working on certain aspects of the Pre-production. For example,
we spent more time arranging schedules, actors and locations, rather than
focusing on storyboards, shot-lists and audio-lists. No scenes were
storyboarded and this really affected our production. We forgot to shoot
important scenes on the first days of shoot. The location was then unavailable
to re-shoot so we had to resolve these mistakes in the editing. This then confused
the pace and meaning of each scene, which then confused the spectator. For
example, the beginning scene is Ryan’s dream of Harry playing his guitar at the
table. We intended for the next shot when Ryan comes down the stairs to be a
close-up of Ryan’s face gazing towards the table, which we forgot to shoot. In
the 5-10 minute film we made it a key factor to create storyboards so that each
shot we planned would be filmed. We also took account any creative shots which
we decide to shoot on the day of shoot, so that we could have more option in
editing.
Throughout
this project, I have realised how key a great plan and pre-production is to the
success of the film. One thing that kept this project together was the detailed
scripts which guided us through the whole production. In the 5-10 minute film I
spent a lot of time with the actors as there were some scenes with heavy
dialogue. The script run-throughs benefited the time efficiency at each shoot.
3. DISCUSS YOUR INDIVIDUAL
CONTRIBUTION TO MAKING THE WORK, YOUR APPROACH TO GROUP WORK AND ANY PROBLEMS
OR CHALLENGES YOU ENCOUNTERED WORKING AS PART OF A TEAM. (APPROX 400 WORDS)
My
role throughout the whole process was the director. I constantly met with each
member of the crew at every stage of production to discuss their influence
which their role would have on the film. I consistently met with actors to go
over each part of the script to discuss the key emotion ‘regret’ and how they
would perform in each scene. I wrote the scripts for both the 2-minute
character study and the 5-10 minute film as they were my original ideas, so
naturally I feel into the role of Director, as I felt that I could effectively
transfer the script I wrote onto the screen. With the lack of time, the small
team and the very low budget, I believe that I did this successfully.
Throughout the whole process, I worked closely with our cinematographer Victor
Mihaylov. In the 2-minute character study we overlooked storyboarding and only
used the script to film each scene. Because of this we missed key shots which
should have been filmed. So for the 5-10 minute film each scene was
storyboarded and included on a shot-list so that each shot could be filmed.
Because of this, in the 5-10 minute film we filmed all the key shots and also planned
to include a lot of cut-away shots, for example in the band practise scene. This
made the footage more entertaining for the spectator and more cinematic.
A
big problem was that my role was made difficult because I also took the role as
the producer; because our main producer Callum Petitt struggled to complete the
producing work. I arranged schedules for pre-production meetings so that we
could discuss as a crew the progression of the film and assign tasks. I set our
crew tasks to complete before each shoot, I arranged locations and our main
actors who played Ryan and Harry. I also created the production schedules of
each day of filming. I created the actor release form, the location release
forms and the risk assessment paperwork which had to be created before the
shoot. In post-production I worked heavily with our visual editor Chelsie Reed
and our audio editor Tom Slater and helped them create several rough cuts to
finally create a final cut which the whole team was proud of. I consistently
gave them feedback and ways how they could improve the edit. Before
post-production I instructed them to follow the basis of the script, because we
filmed everything accurately to storyboards and shot lists, the film follows
the script perfectly which made the editing easier than the 2-minute character
study, where we had to change the order of scenes and edit them in a way that
would make more sense to the spectator.
4.
WITH REFERENCE TO THE TEXTS GIVEN IN SESSIONS AND THE MATERIALS ON THE
READING LIST; REVIEW YOUR APPROACH TO MAKING THE WORK AND LOCATE YOUR PRACTICE
WITHIN A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK. (APPROX 600 WORDS)
The 5-10
Minute film ‘Regret’ uses a paradigm that was first thought by Syd Field,
author of ‘Screenplay’ and ‘The Screenwriter’s Playbook’. Field’s paradigm is a
conceptual scheme and is the structure that holds screenplays together.
According to Field, the basic screenplay setup follows a 3-part structure which
‘regret’ follows. The 3-parts are 1) Setup, 2) Confrontation and 3) Resolution.The Setup in ‘Regret’
is the beginning of the film where the spectator realises Ryan and Harry’s
distant relationship. Ryan prioritises work over spending time with Harry, and
Harry makes it clear that Ryan consistently breaks promises and lets Harry
down.The
Confrontation is Harry’s walk home from the recording studio and his Murder in
the underpass by two thugs. This confrontation completely changes Ryan’s
emotions and makes him regret not spending time with his brother, because now
it is too late.The Resolution
is after Harry’s death how Ryan tries to reconnect his relationship with Harry.
Ryan is clearly mourning Harry’s death, until he gets to the football stadium
wearing the football scarf which he found in Harry’s room. Ryan imagines Harry
touching his shoulder, which signifies Ryan coming to peace with Harry’s death
after Harry has reached out to him forgiving Ryan for letting him down over the
years. Ryan leaves Harry’s scarf in the football stand, as he finally kept his
promise and metaphorically took Harry to the football stadium.The Inciting Incident
is Harry’s death, because this event impacts on the normal world of Ryan (Protagonist)
and changes his life from normal routine to something much more dramatic and
serves the story.The 2-Minute
Character Study doesn’t follow a paradigm structure because of the nature of
the film. The film is very ambiguous; especially Harry’s death. The only clue
to Harry’s death is that after the dream sequence at the beginning when Harry
is playing his guitar at the kitchen table, Ryan wakes up and sits by the table
in the same spot where Harry was sat and eats his breakfast. This could possibly
be the Inciting Incident. Harry’s death wasn’t so soon to the start of the
narrative, but days or weeks before. Ryan is in the middle of mourning and he
is only just accepting the death of Harry. Ryan’s realisation when he comes
down for breakfast and Harry is not there can be interpreted as the Inciting
Incident. The 2-minute film is non-linear. It begins with Ryan’s dream sequence.
The film also contains flashbacks, for example when Ryan is in Harry’s bedroom,
there are flashbacks shown of a Ryan’s POV shot walking through the underpass
where Harry died, whilst the audio plays heavy breathing.
