Comment by CVHS Media Studies
I think your film was excellent. Lots of great camera angles used and they really added to the suspense of the piece. Your editing in particular was skilful and reading your reflection, I can see how much thought you've put into it!
Your critique was very detailed and systematic. This is excellent, because it will help you to do even better next time.
Watch some writing/grammar isues - they're is 'they are' and there is 'over there'. Written expression is marked along with everything else in Media!
Well done, Sam.
A-
Friday 14 November 2008
Practice project: FLUSH
Evaluation of Practice Media Studies Project: FLUSH (A game of Texas Hold'em)
The making of FLUSH
The Idea
When my group set out to make a short film, it was surprising how easy it was to come to a decision. We all agreed on the first idea, a game of Texas Hold'em. We liked the idea because we had so many different ways of presenting it. By this I mean we can use so many different shots at different angles and lots of different types of shots. For example we knew we needed to incorporate a 180 degree rotation, so with people sitting around a table we could rotate round them during the game. This production was based around camera work and not story.
Script and Storyboard
We quickly moved on to Script and storyboarding. We did both at the same time by splitting into two groups. At first Myself, Luke Collins and David Hyde worked on the script while James Mclintock was absant but when he returned he joined David in creating the storyboard whilst Myself and Luke Collins finished the script. At the first half of the script we had some small disagreement on the sequence but we overlooked our ideas and worked well to please everyone and came to an agreement with no issues, everyone was pleased.
The storyboard was created as the script was being written but I had no input in the making of the storyboard. From what I saw it was a rushed job, scruffy and poorly drawn but we were not bothered about its appearance as we all could understand it. We actually never used the storyboard just the script. Also the numbering of the scenes was a little confusing but wants we were told how it worked it was fine.
Filming (Setting)
The first part of the filming was to find a setting for our game of poker. As soon as we walked out the classroom, my group found a perfect setting. Not far from our classroom there is an office that has a back room. The room looked a lot like a basement, which is often a setting for games of poker in other films, TV shows. So we immediately decided it would be our set and began filming that next lesson.
The filming
The first day of filming was when we finished was just to immerse ourselves in the project, this is because it didn’t go very well as after watching the footage we were unhappy with the filming. It was shaky and looked to much like a home video. I wanted the filming to be done using a tripod and so next lesson we tried using a tripod and as expected the quality was a lot better. But some of the work from that first lesson was used and is in the finished film. Such as scene one when Luke enters the room and when the camera pans up to James and he says 'shuffle up and deal.'
The only other problem was I felt that we used to many cuts, during the montage the use of cuts was brilliant but when the film needed to be at a slower pace, cuts made it to fast, also I think it made the film look chopped up and not smooth, I wanted the film to look like there was more than one camera, with to many cuts it was obvious we had moved the camera. I fixed this by using a number of fades which slowed down the pace and reduced the number of cuts. These fades actually improved the film and cuts in certain places worked really well. Such as the end cut of the montage when James throws his cards at camera lens, as the cards hit the lens there is a cut to black, which I think is one of the best shots we did.
Because I wanted less cuts when I filmed the parts after the montage I tried to make the scenes much longer before cutting. The only problem with this was that we had to get the whole scene right otherwise sometimes we had to set up the chips and cards again. It was often hard to remember the whole sequence, both lines and camera movement but with some practice it came easy. Some of the script also needed to be re-written because of these longer scenes but it was good that we did because the outcome was great.
Overall the filming went really well, we worked around obstacles by working together and listening to each others ideas. I enjoyed filming and was pleased with the work of the actors. I should mention Curtis Coe who was one of our actors who stepped in during his free periods. Thanks Curt!
Editing
The software was easy to use and we all learnt how to use it without even having to use the computer. We all took part in the editing, even Curtis. There were a few issues, sometimes we did have problems using the software but this was fixed when we were told how. We often couldn’t find the film we wanted, some was deleted in the process by accident. But we captured the footage again and found what we wanted and re-filmed some parts.
I mostly did the editing, in my free periods and in lessons James McLintock and Luke Collins assisted me. There was some impute from Curtis and David. For our music, we started off with a song we wanted called money by Pink Floyd, but we learned that we could not use songs but bands that did not have 'creative commons.' Also we wanted to use the saw theme music for a spoof ending but without 'creative commons' we could not. So we asked friends to make songs for us but it was not easy for them to make songs at such short notice. If we had more time we would have made our own music and probably changed the saw music so it was recognisable but not the original. But we found some music on the internet with 'creative commons' and it fit perfectly in the film. We chose a Jazz song with piano, bass guitar and organ. It was lucky we found it as we only had one day to go until the premiere.
Overall editing was fairly easy to do and I was happy with the finished result.
Conclusion
Overall the filming and editing of FLUSH was successful with minimal issues. Where there were problems, they were small and easy to fix but we all worked together to overcome them. The group is pleased with the finished product and I think that this experience has inspired us to make other films outside of class. I am now wiser about the film producing process and will know what to expect when we start marked projects. The only issue I have with the film is that I would like to change the end of the film; this ending was for fun and would have been better if we had been able to use the saw theme music so it would have been easily recognised as a spoof. Without it though, I would have liked to create a more believable ending.
We have had little criticism, only the fact that the qualiy of tape changes in the film for a few scenes but this was something that we were able to change. Apart from this the class seem to think that FLUSH was a good film.
Quotes from various group members
James McClintock- 'Communication during filming was off but was improved. The filming was a good standard. If we had planned ahead music could have been improved. ‘A good first try!'
Curtis Coe- 'It was fun to do but you had to have patience as we wanted to get everything completed perfect. Good group to work with and I am pleased with the result.'
David Hyde-'I think that it went well but could be improved, if we had planned it a lot better. But it's only a practice, we will learn from our mistakes. Overall I'm happy with the result.'
The making of FLUSH
The Idea
When my group set out to make a short film, it was surprising how easy it was to come to a decision. We all agreed on the first idea, a game of Texas Hold'em. We liked the idea because we had so many different ways of presenting it. By this I mean we can use so many different shots at different angles and lots of different types of shots. For example we knew we needed to incorporate a 180 degree rotation, so with people sitting around a table we could rotate round them during the game. This production was based around camera work and not story.
Script and Storyboard
We quickly moved on to Script and storyboarding. We did both at the same time by splitting into two groups. At first Myself, Luke Collins and David Hyde worked on the script while James Mclintock was absant but when he returned he joined David in creating the storyboard whilst Myself and Luke Collins finished the script. At the first half of the script we had some small disagreement on the sequence but we overlooked our ideas and worked well to please everyone and came to an agreement with no issues, everyone was pleased.
The storyboard was created as the script was being written but I had no input in the making of the storyboard. From what I saw it was a rushed job, scruffy and poorly drawn but we were not bothered about its appearance as we all could understand it. We actually never used the storyboard just the script. Also the numbering of the scenes was a little confusing but wants we were told how it worked it was fine.
Filming (Setting)
The first part of the filming was to find a setting for our game of poker. As soon as we walked out the classroom, my group found a perfect setting. Not far from our classroom there is an office that has a back room. The room looked a lot like a basement, which is often a setting for games of poker in other films, TV shows. So we immediately decided it would be our set and began filming that next lesson.
The filming
The first day of filming was when we finished was just to immerse ourselves in the project, this is because it didn’t go very well as after watching the footage we were unhappy with the filming. It was shaky and looked to much like a home video. I wanted the filming to be done using a tripod and so next lesson we tried using a tripod and as expected the quality was a lot better. But some of the work from that first lesson was used and is in the finished film. Such as scene one when Luke enters the room and when the camera pans up to James and he says 'shuffle up and deal.'
The only other problem was I felt that we used to many cuts, during the montage the use of cuts was brilliant but when the film needed to be at a slower pace, cuts made it to fast, also I think it made the film look chopped up and not smooth, I wanted the film to look like there was more than one camera, with to many cuts it was obvious we had moved the camera. I fixed this by using a number of fades which slowed down the pace and reduced the number of cuts. These fades actually improved the film and cuts in certain places worked really well. Such as the end cut of the montage when James throws his cards at camera lens, as the cards hit the lens there is a cut to black, which I think is one of the best shots we did.
Because I wanted less cuts when I filmed the parts after the montage I tried to make the scenes much longer before cutting. The only problem with this was that we had to get the whole scene right otherwise sometimes we had to set up the chips and cards again. It was often hard to remember the whole sequence, both lines and camera movement but with some practice it came easy. Some of the script also needed to be re-written because of these longer scenes but it was good that we did because the outcome was great.
Overall the filming went really well, we worked around obstacles by working together and listening to each others ideas. I enjoyed filming and was pleased with the work of the actors. I should mention Curtis Coe who was one of our actors who stepped in during his free periods. Thanks Curt!
Editing
The software was easy to use and we all learnt how to use it without even having to use the computer. We all took part in the editing, even Curtis. There were a few issues, sometimes we did have problems using the software but this was fixed when we were told how. We often couldn’t find the film we wanted, some was deleted in the process by accident. But we captured the footage again and found what we wanted and re-filmed some parts.
I mostly did the editing, in my free periods and in lessons James McLintock and Luke Collins assisted me. There was some impute from Curtis and David. For our music, we started off with a song we wanted called money by Pink Floyd, but we learned that we could not use songs but bands that did not have 'creative commons.' Also we wanted to use the saw theme music for a spoof ending but without 'creative commons' we could not. So we asked friends to make songs for us but it was not easy for them to make songs at such short notice. If we had more time we would have made our own music and probably changed the saw music so it was recognisable but not the original. But we found some music on the internet with 'creative commons' and it fit perfectly in the film. We chose a Jazz song with piano, bass guitar and organ. It was lucky we found it as we only had one day to go until the premiere.
Overall editing was fairly easy to do and I was happy with the finished result.
Conclusion
Overall the filming and editing of FLUSH was successful with minimal issues. Where there were problems, they were small and easy to fix but we all worked together to overcome them. The group is pleased with the finished product and I think that this experience has inspired us to make other films outside of class. I am now wiser about the film producing process and will know what to expect when we start marked projects. The only issue I have with the film is that I would like to change the end of the film; this ending was for fun and would have been better if we had been able to use the saw theme music so it would have been easily recognised as a spoof. Without it though, I would have liked to create a more believable ending.
We have had little criticism, only the fact that the qualiy of tape changes in the film for a few scenes but this was something that we were able to change. Apart from this the class seem to think that FLUSH was a good film.
Quotes from various group members
James McClintock- 'Communication during filming was off but was improved. The filming was a good standard. If we had planned ahead music could have been improved. ‘A good first try!'
Curtis Coe- 'It was fun to do but you had to have patience as we wanted to get everything completed perfect. Good group to work with and I am pleased with the result.'
David Hyde-'I think that it went well but could be improved, if we had planned it a lot better. But it's only a practice, we will learn from our mistakes. Overall I'm happy with the result.'
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