Preliminary film.

Analysis 

We set out to create a short film, this was to include a variety of camera angles, shots, editing techniques and sound techniques, collectively we decided to stage a story where a student at a school is having problems and is confronted by a teacher which inevitably doesn't go so well. To showcase the power struggle between the two characters we introduced high angle and low angle shots. the low angle shot was predominately on the teacher, this shows her power of the student. As well as this we used long shots to establish the setting, over the shoulder shot to again establish more of the setting. We attempted to make a tracking shot however our access to the right equipment made this shot dip in quality, however we were resourceful and managed to get a tracking shot. We also used an extreme close up to show the entrance to the room. Furthermore we stuck to the 180 degree rule and used shot reverse to show effective dialogue between the two characters, thus not confusing the audience.

To ensure we had the correct shots and to help us plan we drew a 14 shot storyboard this provided us with the basis of what shots to use, as well as timings and camera angles. Our two actors were Frankie Connor and Alejo Monsalvo, this was quite successful due to their willingness to help in the short notice we provided them with, this could be shown slightly throughout our work, for future work we will ensure that we give more notice to our actors as well as briefing them more on positions, timings and dialogue which were key in the filming of our short film. 

During some of our shots the camera appears shaky, this will be resolved in future projects as we will have access to better equipment. Another problem we encountered was during the editing stage, which we used final cut express. at 0:28 the cut is not a fluent as we had intended it to be. This can be prevented in future projects by doing the same shot several times as well as filming longer than the initial action. 

We also discovered some problems when handling the sound, we used the intro to "Open your eyes" by Snow Patrol, this is long intro and doesn't contain any lyrics, we thought this would not interfere with the dialogue, also the tone of the song suits Alejo's characters situation and allows the audience to become sympathetic towards him. The difficulty we faced with the non diegetic soundtrack is lowering the volume towards the dialogue then raising it again to not bore then audience, this worked quite well, however did not work as fluently as we had hoped. To prevent this from happening in future projects we will gain a better knowledge of how to use the sound software. 

The aim of our film was to keep it short and simple, this is reflected in the credits, they are white with a black background, they are at the appropriate times however due to time restrictions we did not manage to perfect them in a way we would have hoped, in future we will work on time management. 

In my project I worked with Emily Roberts, fortuitously we worked very well together with Emily using her skills with shot types and direction with the actors, I was able to work the camera and eventually edit the shots, titles and sound together, working in a pair helped as we managed to combine our areas of strengths and did not disagree on anything.

Overall we are pleased with our first project, we managed to show that we capable of storyboarding, filming, editing and finalising a film from scratch, as well as gathering resources and people that were needed within such a time constraint and with limited equipment.