After planning for weeks, filming took place on 20th February. The actual filming itself went surprisingly well, I expected there to be trouble with technology however we found the cameras easy to use, it helped that we used the cameras in our preliminary task so we were experienced with them. Nevertheless, we did encounter problems concerning actors, composition and mis-en-scene. To some extent we did deviate from the original storyboard, during the filming process we found there wasn’t enough detail from the shots which caused us to improvise from scene-to-scene. I think we should have written all the dialogue on the sheets and drawn what was happening in the background of the shot, specifically for mis-en-scene purposes. On the other hand, in terms of shot types and context of the shots we crucially referred to the storyboard. This was important to gain a variety of shot types and help convey the plot line. Therefore although we extended some content in the shots, we did not deviate much from the storyboard. However, during editing I realised we didn’t focus on the timings written on the storyboard so this will be an area I will have to focus on to ensure the title sequence doesn’t exceed 2 minutes.
We encountered numerous problems throughout the day. For example a member of the groups was late (even though we troubleshot for this) and this member was responsible for props, make up and bringing an actor needed for the beginning and end of the sequence. We faced this problem by scheduling the filming for an hour later. Furthering this, they were another hour late so we filmed the scenes where their presence was not essential, which altered our shooting schedule. In addition, it affected the input we could have used when filming because it was one less opinion that could have been used to improve the shots. Another problem we faced was composition. We had to constantly re-film shots because they did not correspond to the storyboard and the top of the actors head were being cut off. Previously, this was a big problem in my preliminary task so I found it important to focus on that area as I didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes.
Based on the filming content, the shots are a major improvement from the ones of the preliminary task. It helped that we received audience feedback on the first task because I focused strongly on that aspect. I think the best shot we have is the tracking, point of view shot of the father walking to the house. It suggested the character was an alcoholic as it was day time, we could see a can of beer in his hand whilst stumbling towards his home, whilst establishing setting also because we can see a home environment. The whole title sequence institutes a back story as it is what the main character experiences as a child and explains why he has become mentally unstable. Although I haven’t planned what non-diagetic music I will use, I know is will be solemn and sombre to portray a tense, serious atmosphere and that the film’s genre is a thriller.
The editing software “Final Cut Pro” was easy to use and I didn’t have any serious problems using it, what I did struggle with however was working to a deadline. As it was extremely close to the deadline I had to use simple fonts, I could have experimented with different style font and placement of them. I tried to make the piece flow as much as I could to avoid jump cuts as this was an issue concerning my preliminary task. Another obstacle was the timing of music, as “Garage Band” worked using beats of ¼ and “Final Cut Pro” used seconds, it took a while to get both in sync
