Deconstruction and Refection of ‘Carpark Scene Final’
Overall, the final scene that I shot had a positive outcome. Everything worked out well, and it all went to plan with the help of my three classmates and two actors from ‘StarNow’. I filmed some shots that weren’t in my initial planning, however some of these were the ones that worked the best for scene coverage. To reflect upon this process I have broken this experience down into three sections, these being pre-production, production, and post-production stages.
PRE-PRODUCTION: This was the stage that I thought was the most important as it was the time to organise and plan everything that was going to happen throughout the shoot. I wanted everything to run smoothly and go according to plan, so when I got to the post-production stage there were no mistakes that could be fixed with better planning. For this stage I sourced three actors from StarNow, two made it on the day of filming; and I got three of my classmates to act, be sound operator and be camera operator. I was worried coming into this project that I would have no one to help me, but it all worked out in the end. It was the first time for me, organising my own shoot, but overall it was a great experience.
PRODUCTION: The production stage within this process was challenging in ways, but it worked in my favour. Arriving at the location I went to where I planned to shoot and there was no light, so I walked one more level up the carpark and found that it had more natural light that worked with the solid objects within the carpark, creating strong shadows and lines. I wanted this as the filming location, because my previous shoots have been dull. Maree was camera operator, so she filmed the entire scene; Mia was sound operator; and Simone, Rebecca and Jean-Beau were actors. Throughout the filming process there were multiple takes on each shot, as someone would move to the wrong position or say the wrong lines. Once all of these elements were right, there was a successful shot that came from it. The production stage went for just over two hours from the time we set up, to the time we packed up. This gave me enough time to film the scene that I planned, while adding a couple more that were spontaneous. Within this time I also recored wild lines for the audio when the actors say their lines in case it was unclear. In this stage everything went smoothly but we had to alter a few shots because of the sun; this made the frames over exposed. This was one of the problems of the day, working with natural sunlight. You film one shot and its sunny, and the next shot would be dark as the sun goes behind the clouds. Everything was shot in chronological order, so I knew what the shots were and how it would look in post-production.
POST-PRODUCTION: Due to the in depth pre-production and production stages, going into the editing stages proved to be easier than all of the rest. Maybe it is because I feel more passionate about this shoot, or that it is because everything was checked twice in production that there was little to no continuity issues and no other outstanding problems that I had to deal with. The only minor ones that I came across was that the boom pole was visible at the very bottom or the very top of some shots, which meant I had to crop the frame. This meant that I lost some of the framing that I wanted to include, however an audience would not be able to notice this. I started with an assemblage of all my shots to get the correct order, and followed this with a rough cut. This was were I started cutting the shots down to were I wanted them to start and finish. Because I filmed more scenes that I planned for, I had the luxury of choosing the best ones that worked for a successful scene coverage. After I had all of the cut shots in place I worked on the finer details of editing, this being colouring, sound and continuity; allowing the scene to flow on from shot to shot.