Field of Snakes (draft 1)

Here is my first draft of filming which I filmed and edited on the evening before I had to present to the class. By presenting this to the class I was able to record feedback from my peers and make improvements on this draft. This draft features only one scene from my film which I will later rewrite and extend to last two minutes.

Filming went smoother than I expected as we got a lot of shots within a short time. My main concern with this filming were the flaws in my script that need adjustment. I feel that more dialogue would enable me to hold shots longer, build tension, and present the characters in a more realistic scenario. Furthering this, hearing the way various actors delivered lines has benefitted me with a greater insight into which lines to give to which characters in order to portray them in the ways I want.

This was also my first experience with using a DSLR camera for filming, and I have noticed that some early footage is out of focus at the start. This was hard to notice when previewing the shots on the small camera screen. To change this next time I will ensure each shot is in focus before filming, then take multiple shots so that I can choose between them in editing.

Editing itself was another task which I was new to. By using various tools in iMovie I was able to remove background sound and adjust volumes of dialogue to the levels I wanted. Inserting music and applying filters to make is sound diabetic was also a task made easy by the various tools. The hardest part by far was colour correcting the piece as I was unsure of what look I wanted to go for. This is a problem that could have been avoided by planning more thoroughly before editing. Instead I chose to warm up each shot and give it a red tint to connote the evil and dangerous atmosphere Jimmy is in. However, due to various shots being unclear I will lower the volume of this tone and possible desaturate each shot. Another huge problem was lighting, as we filmed from afternoon to evening, the sun went down throughout filming. This meant that half of my shots were in daylight, and the other half were purely in artificial light- breaking the match-on-action. I plan to avoid this problem by beginning filming in the late morning on my next shoot.

The opening title's font is also something I want to change, I will do this after exploring typography.