Pre-production
The first step of this assignment was to research the setup of Crimewatch as well as movie scripts. I spent 2 hours watching and re-watching the same 15 minutes of Crimewatch to analyze the set up, transitions, music, cameras and lighting. The next step was to research movie scripts and to see how they are written. With these two bits of information I wrote a small script for our production.
Now it was time to upload our footage to the computer and to start editing! This was when we encountered our first major problem. As we attempted to upload our footage, we found one the tapes to be completely blank. The small bit of footage we did get was unusable (see picture). I later found out that this was due to dust on or damage to the tape heads. This was a real problem as most of our footage was filmed using two cameras. In the end we decided to got through the footage and re-film parts that were vital to the completion of the project. Once we had everything re-filmed, we started editing. The editing went fairly straight forward with minor disagreements on how we should fit different bits of footage in. We were running out of time and granted an extra week to complete this assignment. We managed to complete it just in time. (although we didn't hand in all that the brief asked for, we handed in our completed product fit or web use.
Next came storyboards. This was fun as it was like reading comics! With the research of storyboards behind me, I was able to draw up a storyboard for our small movie.
Talent. This was a tough part.We had to include everyone on our team in our production and assign everyone a part in the acting. This didn't prove too easy and we ended up changing the names of characters to suite the actors playing them. But, eventually we had everything sorted. I ended up with the role of narrator.
The final step before production could begin was to make a health & safety list. I did a small amount of research into health & safety in movie production and applied that to our project.
Production
Now we were ready to start. Most of the filming went fairly smoothly with the hardest part being to make sure the actors acted their parts correctly. We also had a slight hiccup when one of our 'hired' actors failed to show up. In this case we had to recruit another person to fill in at the last moment. She was fantastic at acting her part.
Post-Production
Now it was time to upload our footage to the computer and to start editing! This was when we encountered our first major problem. As we attempted to upload our footage, we found one the tapes to be completely blank. The small bit of footage we did get was unusable (see picture). I later found out that this was due to dust on or damage to the tape heads. This was a real problem as most of our footage was filmed using two cameras. In the end we decided to got through the footage and re-film parts that were vital to the completion of the project. Once we had everything re-filmed, we started editing. The editing went fairly straight forward with minor disagreements on how we should fit different bits of footage in. We were running out of time and granted an extra week to complete this assignment. We managed to complete it just in time. (although we didn't hand in all that the brief asked for, we handed in our completed product fit or web use.How I could have improved this assignment
Well the first thing I would have done is to appoint a project manager. Their job would have been to ensure that everyone had a task to complete and make sure they are completed for the sake of completing the assignment. This would have eliminated the face that most of the research and directing was left to one person to complete.
Next, I would have checked the footage that we filmed to make sure it is actually on the camera! I would have also made a filming schedule so everyone who was involved in the filming of particular scene would be there, and if they couldn't make it, the would have let us know giving us enough time to find a replacement.
During the editing, I would have exported the footage to Color to correct the color balances correctly. I would have also exported the sound to Sound to enhance and modify the sound correctly.
Final Thoughts
Overall I really enjoyed this assignment even though we had some minor and major catastrophes. I felt I acquired a lot of knowledge and experiance about the movie industry and movie production in particular. One last point, I felt the extra week extension was strongly due to the fact that we weren't told the hand-in date until 2 weeks before. I realized right then that the date of hand-in I wasn't able to come into college, and thus the need for the week extension. If we would have been told the hand-in date when we given the assignment, I could have drawn up a gantt chart and allowed time to compensate for my absence.
Final Thoughts
Overall I really enjoyed this assignment even though we had some minor and major catastrophes. I felt I acquired a lot of knowledge and experiance about the movie industry and movie production in particular. One last point, I felt the extra week extension was strongly due to the fact that we weren't told the hand-in date until 2 weeks before. I realized right then that the date of hand-in I wasn't able to come into college, and thus the need for the week extension. If we would have been told the hand-in date when we given the assignment, I could have drawn up a gantt chart and allowed time to compensate for my absence.
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