Final Major Project
Jacob Gorman
Evaluations
Pre Production
I believe that our pre production stage was a success. We completed all the mandatory paperwork, along with a storyboard and a 5 page script. One of the obstacles we came across was balancing our our projects. We decided to finish the script before moving on to the storyboard, however this created scheduling problems, and we had to halt our pre production in order to finish our script. We finished everything before our deadline, with a generous amount of time dedicated to the essential parts of our work. Another area we could've potentially improved was the overall structure of our pre planning. We distributed the tasks between our group members evenly, but we did not take difficulty or time consumption into account. This caused conflicts due to some having a lack of work to do, while others were kept busy by a large sum of work. We eventually sorted this discrepancy out, but we should've taken more consideration to begin with.
Another problem that occurred during our pre production was the way we prioritized different aspects over others. I put considerably less effort into the storyboard than i did the script, as I believed that it was much less important than the script. I later learnt that the storyboard is an incredibly useful tool to have, and I later went back and rectified my mistake. The storyboard helped me describe and visualize my ideas to my group, and I believe that we were able to work more efficiently because of this.Our pre production also suffered due to a lack of leadership on my behalf, and my overall lack of organisation. I took too long creating the script for my short film, which hindered our progress on other projects, such as the storyboard and shot list.
Production
In my personal opinion, our production phase was overall successful, mostly due to our meticulous pre planning and effectiveness as a team. One major aspect we overlooked was the use of a tripod. We decided to avoid using a tripod and shoot entirely handheld, however the footage was much shakier than we anticipated. In future we will take more careful consideration in making these decisions, as we now have a greater understanding of its importance. Another area of production we could've potentially improved upon was our time management. We never struggled with he amount of time was were given to film, but a greater amount of time would've allowed us to take our time with certain shots, and could've allowed for a more focused overall product.
One are of production that I am incredibly proud of is our use of lighting thought. We were all relatively inexperienced with the lighting equipment, but in the end we managed to effectively incorporate them into our short film. The lighting of our short was a crucial area for me, as it was essential to creating our desired atmosphere in the short. I believe our use of lighting greatly improved our short, due to our multiple setups and variety of different coloured gels, to further enhance our final product. Our production day an overall success, as we worked quickly and efficiently as a group, despite a few overarching problems with the finished product
Post - Production
The production phase of our short film was successful overall, despite a few setbacks. The general editing portion of our post production was relatively hassle-free, with no major problems or production issues. We completed the final cut within our allotted deadline, with our remaining days dedicated to evaluations and fixing up loose ends in our paperwork. The major detractor to our post production phase was a short reshoot we had to clear up. The shot was easy to film, and the problem was cleared up quickly, but I would've preferred a cleaner production schedule. This problem was a victim of our short production day, and the problem carried over into our post production.The editing process was incredibly thorough, and we were able to fix a few minor problems with our footage through post production. I believe that our editing phase has greatly improved the potential for our short film, due to our meticulous colour correction and on-set lighting working symbiotically, along with our smooth cuts and audio ques.
One problem that occurred during editing was some jarring cuts or glaring shots that broke the overall flow of the short, and became distracting. Through editing we were able to rectify these issues, and improve the overall product. We fixed these issues by fining appropriate cutaways, which in turn not only fixed the overall pacing and flow issues, but also broke the monotony of certain scenes, making certain stretches of the short film more dynamic.