Session 2 Production Project

The Text Production

Phone

Creative Commons image phone by Jacqui Brown at Flickr

Summary

Our goal was to build and release tension in a comedic way. We had three weeks to create a one minute film, which required intentional focus and intentional lighting from the cinematographer, which was my role.

21st Century Skills

Our film required a lot of communication and collaboration as we needed to stay on schedule, even when our sound designer was gone for a day. This also required problem solving. Our solution to this problem was to have our director hold the microphone for that day.

The Film

Reactions to Final Version

The cinematographer that reviewed our film said “the camera angles were done well to show the emotion of the lead character”. Another cinematographer in the class, Dylan, also enjoyed the camera angles and lighting.

Evaluation of Final Version

Our film had most of the success acronym. It had a simple plot of a guy being warned of his own death, the ending was unexpected as just before he dies it is revealed that it was just a joke, and the film was concrete because being warned of your death is an easy idea to grasp. The film also had emotions, shown through camera angles (close ups, medium shots etc.).

What I Learned and Problems I Solved

I learned that camera angles, focus, and lighting really help to show emotion and tell the story. A problem I had to solve was filming outside and making sure the film didn’t look extremely bright. I solved this by having the director use a light block to create a natural shadow which helped darken the scene.