Evaluation

When we read the brief, as a group we agreed that our idea needed to be driven more by actions and cinematic aspects as opposed to dialogue as an attempt to keep the sequence smooth and enigmatic by not giving too much away.
Most of the ideas the group had originated from George and evolved from there. I was very particular and picky about what we should be doing to fully exercise and take advantage of the equipment we had and so rejected many of the initial ideas as I didn't believe they fit the project brief well enough.
We wanted to do an indoor shoot, as opposed to outdoors, so we could work on controlling the equipment in a smaller environment and using the area to help design the way the camera moved.
The first idea we had come from George, about a man who is in his kitchen, sits down to have breakfast and reveals a gun. I liked the fact that this idea that it left some unanswered questions, but didn't think it would be engaging and enigmatic enough for an audience.
Another idea we had was also going to be set in a small room and be about a robbing that occurred with the property owners walking in, just as the thief exits out of the window. We did like this idea but, again, it didn't seem right for this project.
We still liked the idea of keeping the scene inside and, more particularly, in the kitchen. We sat down and discussed different storylines and eventually developed the idea of the date with a twist.
George booked out he steadicam a couple of days before the shoot to give him some time to become familiar with the kit and practice using it.
George and I sat down to discuss shot ideas and to draw up a storyboard and talk about what equipment we would use for each shot. We decided not to use the crane, due to the small space we were working in, so we just used the steadicam and dolly.

I think we worked as a group better on the initial shoot than we did on the re-shoot. Although we had already done it once before, me and George tended to butt heads about what shots would work and each had different ideas. I think these issues came as a result of us feeling more comfortable in stating our opinions and having a more solid idea of what we want because we had already shot it and had a taste of what was possible and what worked well and what didn't. Although it was good that we were more open about what we wanted, it started to become counter productive. Some of the major shots we did we'd have to negotiate and shoot two different versions of it because we had different ideas about what we wanted.
One of the major issues we had on the re-shoot was with the lighting. We wanted to create a rather dingy atmosphere and so decided to close off all natural light and use dedos to light our set. On the first shoot we did, apart from the footage being slightly darker than what we wanted, we didn't have issues with shadows. This, however, was not the case when it came to the re-shoot. Every shot we did we found ourselves trying to find a way to work around having the cameras shadow in shot.
Another small issue we had was that the house we were shooting in was right next to a main road, and so we had some noise interference from that. It wasn't too much of an issue until a motorbike or larger vehicle passed, in which case we would have to cut and wait for it to pass.
We kept the mise-en-scene quite simple in the production. Personally, I pictured the flat in which the main character we see preparing the meal lived to be quite simple. I didn't think it should be over complicated because I thought it was important not to give too much away about the character.
The shoot was rather efficient, despite the disputes we had between ourselves. We swapped over from steadicam to dolly quite smoothly and tried to bulk together the shots that we wanted to get with each piece of kit and get them shot in one go so we wouldn't have to keep swapping back and forth between the equipment.
We all were pretty confident with what we were supposed to be doing, especially on the re-shoot, because we had all done it before and knew what we were meant to be doing. I had to decide on what shots we were going to do in what order for the most part, and helped decide on what shots to actually do. The first shoot I directed Dave on what to do, and how I wanted him to move and to where. On the re-shoot he didn't take so much direction as he knew what he needed to be doing. I did need to advise him on the more intricate actions, such as the preparation of food.
Another key decision I had to make on the first shoot was whether to continue the shoot with the faulty camera and hope for the best, or to just call it quits and pack up and hope that we could rebook the equipment another time to re-shoot. We all agreed that we should persevere and just hope that our footage would come out unscathed, but unfortunately that wasn't the case.

When we watched the rushes of the first shoot, obviously we were very disappointed. Because the camera had a fault, our footage was damaged and the majority of our footage wouldn't even play. Although it wasn't  surprising (because of the error message that was popping up during filming) it was disappointing, because I think we did work hard and well as a crew on the shoot, and to quit e a professional quality. The group didn't complain, they just got on and did what they needed to, even though it was a hot day, and we were all trapped in a small room with five other people and two dedo lights. It wasn't an ideal atmosphere to be working in for the 3-4 hours it took us to shoot. So to watch our rushes and see that our hard work was all for nothing was quite a blow to the group and we were all, understandably, disappointed by the outcome.
The rushes of the second shoot were much better, although the issues of the lighting meant that the shadow of the camera was apparent in the shot and deemed some of them unusable.
Due to the complications we had during production, we only had a small window for post production and so it was quite a rush to get it done. Dave took home the footage and managed to edit together a cut for us and brought it in and played it for us for feedback. Considering the time frame he had to do it, I think Dave did a good job with the edit. I think we were all relieved to see that the footage we had got was actually all right and that we had enough to meet the five minute limit.
The sound was the real hard part when it came to editing. Assigning the different foley tracks and syncing them to the footage was extremely tie consuming and took Jemma a long while to do. She then had to make a soundtrack using the sounds provided by logic, as it was the quickest and more efficient option we had due to the lack of time we had. I think Jemma did a good job with the sound in this film. She spent about three days in the sound suites trying to put the soundtrack together, which proved to be a particularly important as I think our film is quite driven by the audio.
The film didn't really evolve throughout the post production stages. I think, overall, it remained what we had imagined it to be like from the production stages right through the post production stages. We knew it wasn't going to be perfect, which is isn't by any means, but I think it still worked as a piece designed to build up an atmosphere until the reveal, which is supposed to be relatively unexpected.

Overall, I am relatively pleased with how the film has come out, given the amount of time we had to work with. Personally, I think the piece does what it was meant to do, which is keep the audience question what's going on until the reveal of the woman who has been supposedly kidnapped and being forced to dine with the main character. I think the camera work does this quite effectively as well as the lighting, as it doesn't allow the audience to see the entire room, and so they can't know exactly what is going on. I think the music in the film acts as an anchor, helping to communicate what was actually going on in the scene to the audience.
I think, as a group, we nee to spend more time thinking about how to arrange the lighting in a more practical way, as it was one of our biggest issues. Obviously the fact that the camera ruined our tapes wasn't really something that we could have done anything about, it was just one of those things. But I think maybe purchasing a cleaning cassette wouldn't be such a bad idea, just to avoid any issues like the ones we had on the first shoot. Also, I think we need to work on acting more professionally as a crew and respecting each others opinions and views, to help save time and exercise working more efficiently as a team.