It was difficult. I had many ideas but all were far too ambitious. I narrowed down on one and went to town on the idea, but it was still too ambitious. By then the script was 2 weeks late. After scrapping that, I was burned out of ideas for another 2 weeks. When I decided to deviate from the brief, I managed to come up with an idea. I wrote the script, and began to organise my crew. We scouted, and began to shoot.
Production
It was not perfect. It took far too long to set up and get going, and when we did it began to rain. We used two cameras, but one ran out of battery and we used that for almost everything. We managed to get half of my script done. We would meet the following week as my crew could only meet on Saturdays. We grouped up and got shooting. I accidentally messed up the mic and we lost hours of light, and ended up shooting as the sun began to set, not great for quality. And once I fixed the mic, and we began to shoot, it turned out our mic was not turned on fully. All of the footage was useless as the majority of shots were dialogue. I had to make do with what I had and moved onto editing.
PostProduction
This was a long and messy process. I had not been taught much at all, and adobe support sucks for those who do not already know their interface inside and out. First I gathered all of the footage and sorted it into useful and not useful folders. After that I started up premier pro cc 2015 and got to work. It was messy but I did it. After the second shoot, I added what I could from our mostly useless footage. After that I added Foley, music and audio. After that I added titles and made it sync up with the music. I then attempted to export and ended up with a cut up screen. Why? It had come to light that one of the cameras was severely low quality and so to make up for it, all of the footage was put down it's size. After changing premier documents I was shown how to blow it all up to the hd cameras size. This now meant I had to redo much of the editing because of the previously unseen mistakes. After that I had to change the titles to this larger screen. It went alright in the end, but there were many bumps along the way. I learned quite a bit from the process. Mostly not to trust my equipment.
I think that the project was successful. I got a cringe worthy spy spoof and that was what I was aiming for, even if it is a mile wide target. All the camera shots where deliberate exaggerations, as well as the sound effects. The background character was also intentional and became a surreal element in comparison to the spy "drama"All of my sound effects and music were from royalty free sites and archives. I added generic bird sounds to add to the scene, because ducks are not very dramatic. The music was used to set the tone. The first one was good for the titles, it engaged and was rhythmic. The second was more dramatic and electronic, adding to the modern spy feel. The 3rd track was good for making the tensions rise, and the final track was a good calm ending with the jazz. Using the music I followed at 3 stage story arc, from rising tension to climax to settle and end. I hope it has the desired effect.
Next time I would make sure the audio was good on our second day, which would of saved the film. However because of the low quality film of the first day, it made a unique intro to the film, and it worked moderately well. I also would of had it so I had the script done on time, not weeks late. In the end the filming dictated the script, and the direction of the editing. My favourite part of the film, is the titles at the beginning and the end.
I will see if there are any comments on the video to take feedback from, but I doubt it. I will have to write down any feedback I receive.
My team did okay for their first time. It was lucky we had someone with knowledge of the cameras, it saved us quite a bit of work. My team actors however were difficult to deal with. Especially the background character. They turned up late, and liked to disrupt the group, however he proved good for morale, and in the long run made the team act better and more focused when it counted. My actors were amateur to say it politely. But by the end of the day, they were neatly in their role. It is just as shame that the second day of footage was ruined, as their acting was much better.
Overall I enjoyed this project. And it seems like my team did too.
Learning from my mistakes, I think my next project will be better then this one tenfold. But then again, that isn't much to ask.
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