UNIT 9/10 Evaluation

Overall, I believe this assignment wasn’t carried out to the best of my ability. It feels disjointed there was no clear pace to my progression. However, in this evaluation, I can establish why this was and improve on these areas in the coming assignments and FMP. For this assignment, we were tasked with adapting a piece of classic literature into a short film scene, testing our camera work and script writing skills along the way. From the offset, I chose to draw from William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ due to my familiarity with the play and existing idea associated that I wanted to film on my own accord anyways. The scene I ended up filming and editing was one of three I’d orchestrated in the script as I originally planned on putting together a longer narrative. However, only focused on getting this one right with camera work rather than spreading myself thin in the limited time frame. In future, I’d like to revisit this script and carry out these scenes, along with scripting more, as the story I wanted to tell in my overall adaptation interested me greatly. For this evaluation, I have referred to the gibbs reflective cycle.

RESEARCH

To begin, my assignment was flawed right from the research stage. The reason being for this was the fact that there wasn’t dedicated time to fully research and prepare for this assignment. The idea behind this first term was to work with the acting classes during our lesson time but this subtracted from valuable periods of research. Although the joint classes were useful in teaching the actors how to act to camera, I didn’t find any progression in terms of my assignment’s benefit. In the last year of studies, the lessons separate from time to work on assignments still benefitted the assignment content in terms of the theory covered (ie for documentary we studied other documentaries) which all improves on research. However, in this case, I found it difficult to support the assignment with other unnecessary content in the background. In future, on assignments, I would like to have a more clearly layed out schedule in terms of coursework and additional work times so I can fully structure my time wisely.

In terms of research in personal time, I conducted a research paper into the work of William Shakespeare to identify his inspirations and the elements I should prioritise in bringing to my adaptation. Although I identified these, I don’t believe I fully explored and expressed them by the time it came to creating my adaptation. I launched myself into writing the script too quickly and didn’t consider the wider implications of Shakespeare’s work. If I were to do this again, I would take an extra week to consolidate my research so that when it came to writing the screenplay, the original text would have more influence. Although my final video does reflect the same story outline as the original, this isn’t clear to a random viewer. An overarching aspect of the assignments that I must make sure is prioritized is having a schedule mapping out the number of weeks in the assignment and which stage of production I should be on at a given week. My research papers in future must go into more depth that helps me understand the person in questions style rathet than just stating facts. As well as this, the research paper should constantly note why that element is important and relevant to my studies.

SCREENPLAY

Moving forward, the next stage of the process was the screenplay itself. As mentioned before, I believe it suffers as a direct adaptation but my script is believable and lays clearly the stages of the story. To get to my final screenplay, I believe my process of whittling down the original text to an easier story with only the four lovers was a logically move that benefitted my progression as I could remove any distractions from the scenes to make them focused on one central narrative rather than multiple like the original play. I could think outside of the box in twisting fantasy elements into real world modern ones and had an overall story that this scene could tie into to give the piece context. I ended up writing three scenes that would reflect different filming styles and show variety in my work. This was a great decision even for the script as I had to think about the framing as a priority for each scene, influencing my camera choices as this stage in the process. 

The screenplay to me was the best aspect of my assignment as I really focused on character’s emotions and thoughts in a realistic manner. This section was the centre of the assignment so spending the most time nailing the script was the right choice in this instance. However, I believe that my script writing skill still need work as to truly develop my style of directing on the page. Anyone should be able to pickup the screenplay and interpret it but I believe there are elements that I’d need to explain more thoroughly on the page to get across. Long term, script writing is not my priority as this isn’t a field I which to explore in my career so I shant be focusing on it in the future. This assignment was designed with this element at its core so moving on I will aim to specialise in the production planning and logistics stages as this is the most likely direction for me after college.

PRODUCTION DOCUMENTS

Following the script’s completion, It was time to work on production documents. Strangely, like the research, this stage seemed to be rushed within college time as it felt under pressure to get things filmed with the actors. I decided not to use the in college actors for my final video as I wanted an external location that I already had friends studying drama elsewhere lined up to do. However, a this stage of the assignment, it was also unclear the type of video we were required to hand in, causing production planning to be delayed. Due to this, I thought it best to focus on one of my three scenes and get it right. Had I planned more thoroughly with a schedule and confirmed another pair of actors I may have been able to achieve the third scene as well. For this term, essentially, we only needed to hand in test footage so I completed this on the college grounds with classmates. 

TEST SHOOT

For this test shoot, I was thorough with getting the precise shots from my shot list, taking two lens with me to test, which kept me on point and the filming moving. I tried to align the frame outside with my story board in terms of directions and general field location so I could reflect and make changes after if anything didn’t work. I believe my shots all worked out but my main issue to focus on was the lighting. I had a similar issue to a lesser degree with my FMP in year 1 due to an exterior venue. My mistake was facing the actors towards the sun, blinding them and giving myself shaodw lighting for front facing shots. I made note of this to change in the real shoot. This was a good time to hear out the script and get feedback on it and my classmates got the messaging of the words and understood their characters, confirming a successful script.

Filming day

The following half term may have been for another assignment but we were also tasked with filming a final video that was then colour graded. I quickly organized a date with two friends and changed the location from a field to a wood, removing the lighting issue and becoming more faithful to the original in terms of location. The day was manic, with me forgetting props at home and needing to drive back to get them as well as a tight time schedule due to autumn sunset and coming rain. Beginning with the positives of the shoot, since I’d given the script to them a couple of weeks in advance, the actors knew the script well and were able to go without scripts present. The blocking stage was straight forward due to my blocking script and story board that they had also seen so my work in pre production paid off. 

However, on the other hand, I didn’t feel that the messaging of the script came across to the fullest during the shoot. The scene felt too intimate for a couple who weren’t supposed to be yet. This came from my pair of actors being together and being more natural and close. I didn’t have time in the day to keep refilming this so as a result the video is slightly uncomfortable. The intimacy also affected the sound quality as they spent periods whispering which was more difficult to identify through my mics, both clip on and on camera. This was especially difficult due to the general atmos sounds. Overall, I was able to get the scene done but not to the quality I wanted due to my lack of verbal direction and misjudging of the message. In future, these can be fixed by a more defined script and forthright direction from me, which I find difficult as they were my friends and had volunteered to help the production.

EDITING

Finally was the editing stage. Following the shoot, thinking there could be an audio issue, I recorded ADR from the cast to try and fit into the scene. However, due to a tight schedule, the footage hadn’t loaded in yet so they were essentially recording blind of their original performances. Although this aligned somewhat well, My sound mixing skills need improvement to justify ADR with my atmos recording on location. Overall, the sound mixing in the final video is sloppy and obvious which it shouldn’t be. A sound mix should be seemless and not distract from the scene. I need to spend more time on getting audio better recorded on set to make the edit easier with my limited mixing skills. Additionally, my colour grading skills have vastly improved since the FMP as I’ve spent time creating promos for various places and tested stylisation. For this piece, due the the autumnal setting, I was able to create a selection of autumnal filters that bought out a burnt orange colour palette. I was contempt with the finish result as it flows and is adjusted for the exposures of each shot. This proves that in order to get better at something like sound mixing I must involve myself in many projects externally to gain experience.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, I have learnt a lot from this assignment as to the importance of scheduling. I found the term generally confused due to mixed messaging and focus between working with the actors and completing our own work and I believe this could’ve been made more clear by the tutors. However, I also know for future I must focus more time into my research to establish clear links and context that prove influence over my work and understanding. Scheduling is even more important when it comes to filming so in future I must make sure to give myself a longer period to get my shots right. Thanks to this assignment, I know the directions I must take in order to get a distinction in my FMP.