Final Evaluation

BA Film and Media Production

Production, Realisation and Reflection 

Module Evaluation 

Drama- Crane

The idea for our drama film has been an on-going development process, firstly because we all came to the initial planning sessions with very different ideas, secondly because we had to make changes to fit around certain circumstances.  The idea to base our story around the cranes was one of my very early ideas, although it started out very differently; it began as a love story, about a girl wishing for the one she loved to return home to her. I quickly moved away from this idea, because I felt it could far too easily become a very cliché story, and I don’t tend to enjoy romance films myself so I didn’t feel very inspired. I did like the idea of the cranes though, this was inspired by  Japanese folklore, particularly the story of 1000 cranes, whereby the crane is seen as a lucky symbol, and that they love for 1000 years, therefore being a symbol of wisdom and luck. It is said that if one is to fold 1000 origami cranes, then one wish of theres will be granted. From here, I began to think of what people may wish for (trying to think beyond material goods), for example; love, acceptance, power, strength, health ect. I was inspired by the film Three Colours: Blue (KRZYSZTOF KIEŚLOWSKI, 1993), to develop a character, who is trying to overcome her grief after the loss of her husband and child. I saw this as something someone would be desperate for, to wish for peace and closure after the loss of a loved one.  This is where the idea for our characters motives came from, what she wants to achieve in the duration of the film.  We also wanted to add in a kind of shock factor, inspired by the short film About a girl (Brian Percival, 2001). We got the idea of the main character being the cause of the death of her loved one, the result of a seemingly standard argument between a mother and daughter, with a disastrous ending that the viewer may not have anticipated. The cranes were her way of seeking forgiveness and closure, with context given to the origami cranes through the recitation of a descriptive poem. 

The character development really helped with the development of the film’s narrative; the relationship between Mother and Daughter (Alice) was a loving, yet incredibly fraught one; a fiercely over-protective mother and an increasingly frustrated daughter, hoping to fulfil her wish of going away to university despite her mother’s objections. This type of relationship was inspired by that of Sarah and Anna in My sister’s keeper (Nick Cassavetes, 2009), conflict as a result of fiercely over-protective love. 

As a result of problems related to casting, we eventually made the decision to change the character of a mother, to that of an older sister. We had much difficulty finding an actress old enough to portray a mother of a 17/18 year-old. And we decided it added something important to the story, by having an older sister, who has taken on the role of a mother in absence of their real one. 

The process of making this film did not come without some major casting and and location issues. In terms of my contribution to this project, I think I went far beyond what my roles (camera and editing) required of me, mainly because others in my group failed to fulfil their roles, and also because we were such a small group to begin with. We set ourselves a challenge to begin with, which was finding an actor who was able to play the role of a mother; our producer initially took this role seriously, and managed to get some responses for both her character and the role of Alice; however only two people finally came to audition, and they both ended up letting us down very close to our first chosen filming date. I can’t help feeling that this may be down to our producers poor and unprofessional communication. The same happened with our location; she made contact with two people and both were uncertain, eventually neither of them were able to help us. The director and I both had to take it on ourselves to find both actors and a location, we had missed our first film date, and we were on an incredibly tight schedule as it was two weeks before the deadline, and we had absolutely nothing done. We both posted ads for actresses online, and I began to look at out options for filming locations, eventually coming to the idea of paying for a B&B room or apartment. The problem here was finding somewhere cheap enough, who would allow us to film as well. I made contact with many places, without success, before finally finding somewhere in Sheffield (at the price of £56 divided by 3 of us), just over a week before the deadline. Meanwhile, we weren’t having much luck with actresses either, having made contact with numerous actresses, but then finding they were unable to suit our schedule. Eventually, we did manage to find an actress to play Alice (3 days before filming) and one to play Sarah, her older sister (2 days before). 

Thankfully, the planning and production of the script and various other aspects of the shoot were all planned and prepared without any problems. I had written 3 re-writes of the script, and prepared a shot-list and floor-plan, so once all of the actor/location problems were resolved, we were fully prepared to shoot. 

The actual shooting of the film took place over two days, mainly because we only had the apartment for a limited amount of time. Luckily, all of mine and the directors prior planning paid off, and the shoot went off without any major problems, aside from some space and lighting issues. 

I didn’t mean for it to look like I was taking over our producers role, but I feel her lack of interest and motivation would have been the end of our film, and if the director and I hadn’t of stepped in, their wouldn’t even be a film to speak of.  

I feel as though there are some clear strengths and weaknesses with my final film, which are partly due to the problems previously mentioned;the whole process was very flawed and rushed. Despite this, I think we did well in producing a film of the quality it is, and how well we managed to pull everything together. I think we did well to get everything filmed and edited in the time we had, and produced a final film that we were pleased with. I am happy that we stayed with our initial idea, developing it as we went a long. I also think we definitely made the right decision to change the dynamics of the sibling relationship; I think you can sense the loving family bond between the two, whereas before it was a very bitter and hateful relationship, I think the theme of letting go and the films resolution is intensified by this, because the audience knew that they really cared for each other. I also think one of the strongest points of our film is the actress who portrayed Alice; her performance was very intense and seemed genuine, she was really invested in the role and expressed emotion beautifully, I think the only thing that hindered this was her counterparts rather stiff performance. 

I think there are various strong points in terms of the filming and editing of this piece. Inspired by Blue Valentine (2010), I planned for the majority of this shots to be hand-held, I thought this would be a good way to capture both the intensity of the argument scenes, as well as the obsession and desperation that is supposed to be put across during Alice’s origami scenes. Unfortunately this was unsuccessful; I did attempt one scene in hand-held, but varying factors, including space and my general ability, proved that this would be detrimental to the final look of the film, and we opted to use static shots instead. The lighting also could have been much improved, as it provided quite a challenge during the editing process, I feel this could have been avoided if we had done more prior planning, but due to our tight schedule, this was just not possible. 

In terms of editing, I think the main problems with this again was because of the fact that it was all such a rush, as well as the difficulties we had syncing up the audio with the image. I did worry about the pace of the overall film, as the way the actresses spoke didn’t leave much time in between each cut. I do feel this is something we managed to crack though, and was actually successful in the final film. The colour correction we finally managed to work quite well too, which was something I was rather concerned with. We wanted to give the film two different colour tones; one for the crane scene and one for the argument (flashback) scene. I think this was a good save, it gave the clear distinction between the two different states. 

Given the circumstances, I am very please over all with the outcome of our film. If I could do it again however, I would leave out the accident scene, the reason being that I don’t feel it was necessary. The film turned out to be about closure, letting go and forgiveness. I think the scene just added unnecessary drama, and it the film would have been good enough with out it.  

I think one of the main things I have learnt in this module, is the necessity to be organised and resourceful (even though producer wasn’t even my role). I also learned the importance of prior planning, in terms of having a solid script and a detailed floor-plan and shot-list. The helped to make a very rushed shoot to remain on-track and organised, which was vital in out situation. I am also glad that I took the time to refine and re-draft our script, including creating a character development, I think if I had stuck with my first and original idea, our film would be nowhere near as strong as it turned out to be. My editing skills, including colour-correction and pacing, have also definitely improved, which is something I aimed for at the start of this module. I think my overall attitude towards the production of a film has greatly improved, and will defiantly benefit me in future projects.

I think the dynamics of our group were flawed from the very start; for one thing we were down 3 people in our group, and another, the remaining  2 other people had a terrible working relationship. I think my working relationship with the director was very good, as we shared a lot of good ideas and had a common goal in mind. But there was a lot of tension in our group when our producer seemed to lose interest, and was failing in her role. We were left in a very tense and difficult position, which led to some members of the group unwilling to even speak to each other. I do think the workload was very unevenly divided, with myself taking on  a lot of the producers duties because she was unable fulfil her role.  I am pleased to say that everyone did pull together on the day of the shoot, the consequences of letting personal differences get in the way of this would probably have had disastrous consequences for our film. 

Documentary- Liverpool stories: Overhead 

The documentary, as far as I can say, went much smoother in terms if planning an group contribution. From the beginning, we had three ideas which we initially pitched; Chinese new year, the Williams tunnel, and the Liverpool overhead railway. Although we like the idea of the Chinese new year, we soon realised that in order for it to be successful, we would have needed a very good angle on it, preferably with someone inside the Chinese community. This, we predicted, would not be a very easy feat, and may have resulted in our film having a week subject. We finally decided on the Liverpool overhead railway. A member of our group, whose family is originally from Liverpool, had a relative who had experienced the railway first-hand, and we decided to make a historical documentary, exploring the stories and past of people who the railway had effected. As part of research for this idea, I watched the documentary Harry Patch: The last Tommy (2009), which inspired a personal/story-like interview style. We didn’t just want it to be about the actual railway, but about the people whose lives revolved around the railway, making a more personal and nostalgic piece. Because the railway no longer exists in Liverpool, our editor and producer had the idea to superimpose a drawn image, on top of a shot of where the tracks used to stand. 

I think the final piece definitely has room for improvement, although I do feel as though we fulfilled our aim in terms of the look and content of the documentary itself. I think the questions and responses we got from George were exactly what we wanted; it made the film a very personal piece, not just about the railway, but about his experiences throughout his younger life. This paired with the still images gave it a very historical feel, which I know we were all very pleased to have achieved, although we were unable to make use of any moving images or footage, for the reason that we were unable to obtain permission for it. I do think it would have benefited the piece to have included it, but the images definitely have the same effect. Even though the piece relied heavily on mainly what we being said on screen,  the shots and cut-aways we got were appropriate for helping the audience to visualise what was being described by George, especially with the use of the image that was superimposed on-screen. One of the main things I think could gave been improved was the sound, which was effected by the weather and the location in which it was captured. Also, the composition of some of the shots could have been more improved and consistent through-out the piece. However, I do not believe these things have taken too much away from the piece.

I think my physical contribution could have been slightly improved for this project; but I do think contribution in terms of ideas and planning was even across most of the group, including myself. I think the reason for my lower contribution, was because some people in my group had a more advanced technical ability that myself, although this definitely benefited me in terms of development of my own skills.  I did have some assistance from the editor of our group during the actual shoot, although I did do prior planning in terms of the shots and the over-all ‘feel’ of the film which I wanted to achieve. This was inspired by James Cameron’s Ghosts of the Abyss (2003), in terms of the layering of images to give a sense of the past. It was important to plan the shots we needed to get, in order to be able to superimpose the images of the railway on top. 

I am generally please with how the group worked together, despite the lack of interest from two of our member. I think we worked well as a team in all stages of production, and produced a piece of a very good standard. If I were able to do it again, I wouldn’t changed much about the content or shooting of the film, I would simply make sure that I put much more effort into my role.