Single Camera & Script to Screen Evaluation.
For Script to Screen and Single Camera we had to work with a group of actors from the drama department at college. The drama students arranged themselves in to groups and we were given a group each to work with. We had a group of 3 people, one boy and two girls.
On our first meeting with the group, we all introduced ourselves, as did they and then we all sat and let them explain their idea of the film they wanted to us and discuss character profiles. We took a camera with us so that we could look back on it in case there was something we missed.
We asked for a copy of the actors timetables so that we could sit down and figure out when we were all available to film for a sufficient amount of time. After looking at both our timetables we showed that Wednesdays and Fridays are best for them. After we had done this we spoke to them about our first shoot.
When Wednesday came around for us to film with our actors, one let us down and another never had her costume so we couldn’t film using one character. So we rescheduled for the next week. But that was also cancelled due to lack of commitment. We rescheduled 5 times in total and each time there was a reason for two cast members not to turn up.
At this point we were considering re-casting because we only had one reliable cast member and she was more than happy to do it. But without the other members we had no chance. By this point we were half way through Feburary so we approached our teacher and spoke about re-casting but all the actors were busy with their project and were unable to film for us. Between myself and the group we decided we would act in it ourselves just so we could get it done, this way we knew it would get done and we wouldn’t be let down anymore.
We then went back to our pre-production folder, amended the scripts to suit us all and the crew. We arranged to borrow someones car for the door so we could film the car scene. We then had to get permission to use the baby bump again and picked that up the next morning.
March 25th was our first official filming session, the Friday before we made sure everyone had a call sheet so they were clear on times for everything. We collected and tested our equipment before we left to shoot, went and collected the baby bump and headed for the car park.
To film all the scenes in the car park, which we chose instead of puriton hill because of the noisy road the H1 would of picked it up. To complete all the inside filming of the car it took just over an hour and a half to sure we had plenty of shots and different takes.
We then wenr and captured the footage, had a look at the visual elements and then listened to the audio, which was all great apart from the occasionally interferences with the H1 zoom off the wind.
The day was successful and we had some great footage but never got it all so we re-scheduled for 31st March to film outside the house scene and the scene outside the hospital as well as any cutaways.
Again the Friday before we made sure all the cast and crew knew what times to be available from and what they were doing that day.
After another successful shoot of nearly two hours we were confident that we had more than enough footage to chose from. We captured the footage off the 600D and the sound off the zoom. We looked at both the sound and video and decided some of the sound might need re-dubbing because of the wind the zoom didn’t pick any of the hospital speech up. So we decided over easter we would come in and do the voice over when it is quieter in the edit suite.
We also recorder some foley of the car door and the birds outside and added them in to the edit. We downloaded some noises of traffic off the internet and the same with the noises of the emergency horns because we couldn’t get any when we went out filming.
When we got to the editing stage we went through each clip about 3 times so we pick up on anything and so that we could use the best clips that we had.
After we had chose all the best shots to use we dragged them on to the timeline and started to make an edit. Emily started the edit with Myself and Lucy giving her ideas and pointers through the process. On one of the early scenes where the car comes round the corner we made the sound non-diegetic but then turns in to diegetic sound. We did this because when Lucy turns the engine off the music would normally stop, so we aimed for it to be as realistic as possible. It then took us two days to record Lucy’s voice over and add that it until we were happy that it matched completely.
After doing that it then took another day to do Rob’s and Emily voice over as the radio host. We then added the foley off the birds and the door in to it as well as the downloaded sound of the sirens and the car horns. After we were happy that we had the edit to the standard that we wanted, we went through it over and over again just to be more than sure. Each time we focused on something different e.g. Video, foley, voice over and other sounds.
We looked at different names to capture the attention of the audience instead of traffic jam. We went on google and looked at other words for traffic and it came up with a few but ‘Gridlock’ stood out more than the others. After we had finished editing we looked at effects for the title and the credits.
Overall I think we did well and was committed to completing the task regardless of if we had actors or not. Those of us who had acting in the film only had a few hours to learn the script, and had one with us in the car to help us if we got stuck. I also think we did really well with the sound especially when we changed it from non-diegetic to deiegtic and the foley.
During the feedback from the group they said they would of likes to of seen us use a widescreen shot from outside the car. Then someone said the script had been bought in to the shot and that the wind could be heard occasionally.
To improve this we would of worked with more reliable actors, we would of considered better locations to begin with so we didn’t have to change, which would also of allowed us to get better shots to use.