Kitchen Play (Bella)

Written by Marizelle Steyn and directed by Yuexin Ren.

The film I made is based around two best friends and a cup of coffee, and the whole story has a light-hearted and fun atmosphere. I also invited my boyfriend and my best friend to shoot the script.

As the film had to be done independently, I did a lot of pre-production work such as storyboarding, markup scripts and birds-eye views to help me get the best out of the shoot. I also used warm lights in the kitchen and living room to create a relaxed and warm atmosphere. This proved to be an important part of the shoot and gave me a good idea of what I was going to shoot.

During the editing process, I learnt from my previous experience and created a sound animatic to show the details of the sound in the film, so I recorded it on my phone before shooting. I didn’t add any background music to the whole film in order to show the sound more clearly.

I learnt a lot about filmmaking, such as the use of lighting, the preparation for the official shoot, etc. I also learnt a lot of useful editing and filming techniques.