FedericaCerniglia
Level 3 Creative Media Production- year 1
FINAL MAJOR PROJECT
Hello hello, welcome on my FMP!
Just finished unit 7 and I'm ready to begin the end of this year. The FMP was presented to us really simple with the following words "you need to produce a short movie about whatever you like". Cool, easy peas...NO. This is going to be one of the most difficult things I have ever done. But, thinking about this, that's what I've been saying since the course started. Let's go back to the first day of course:
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Emma, my tutor, welcomed my new classmates and me in our new course. She was nice, trying to not scare us, or maybe me, she was explaining all about the course. The projects, what we would learn, practice, writing and all that stuff. All of that to me looked HARD. Till the point when she said "by the end of the year you need to be able to produce a short movie" and showed us some movies of the previous year. I seriously thought to give up, there, on my first day. I thought all the stuff she said and what she was showing was impossible for me.
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Now, today that I have got the brief of my final project, I can say "I can do it". I learned so many things in the past months. I knew how to hold a camera but I had completely no idea about how to use it in manual mode, what ISO would mean and how to get a blurry background. I learned how to record a basic movie: the equipment such as camera and lights, angles and positions, what a shot means, recording proper sound and foley, etc... I learned how to use different Adobe programs like Premiere, which was really new for me, Photoshop and After Effects.
I know now how to watch a movie with the eyes of a learner producer. Looking at details and realising things I know now thanks to this course.
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When I started the course I thought I could not arrive by the end of the year with a pass, but looking back I'm pretty sure of what grade I want to get. Now I can say that I CAN.
My aims are to produce a short movie by the end of the final term, created by my own plot and characters ideas, and realize a related poster for it. I will look up to some first short movies of famous directors, to see from where they started and compare it to what they are now. My short movie will be produced by using a proper video camera and also a microphone to record all the Foley and dialogues. I will try to keep my short movie simple but effective by using different angle shots, background music and good image quality. I aim to produce something that can give me an excellent final grade so that I can progress into my 2nd year of Level 3. By achieving this it will help me to get one of all the required grades to access into University.
Week by week I will post a vlog updating all the pre/ production/ post. It's a media I haven't used yet and also it is quick to use. I will also create an Instagram page for my short movie.
On the evaluations I will try to compare what I'm doing with something I did on the past to show the progress I have done so far.
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Dates/Weeks
1. What I'm going to do. 2. How I will do it. 3. When I will do it by.
Week 1.
19/04/17
I writing down my first ideas and researches about my FMP. Also initial outlines of my ideas. This is to have general thoughts about what I'm going to do and how I will do it.
Week 2.
24/04/17
During this week I will write down all my primary researches. I will make interviews with selected people to hear about their experiences and this will help me to get more ideas for my final short. I will also create some surveys regarding how the movie will be shot and edited.
Week 3.
1/05/17
Week 3 will be concentrated on secondary researches. During all this week I will be watching films related to my final idea to get more hints about shooting and plot. I will also write down the pre production plans so that for the 4th week everything will be ready to be shot.
Week 4.
8/05/17
This will be the start of the production: filming video and recording sound.
Week 5.
15/05/17
Finishing filming the short movie + uploading the production on Instagram( created an account dedicated to the movie.
Week 6.
22/05/17
The most important week of the project. This will be the editing week and recording audio (if needed).
Week 7.
29/05/17
I will research ideas for my movie poster and I will produce different ones. I will have them peer assessed then and I'm going to choose one.
Week 8.
5/06/17
On the final week I will present my short movie to the showcase and I will evaluate and review it.
I will research for famous directors' short movies, films to look at and ideas. This will be the main resource for my secondary researches. For my movie, I will look at ones like Love Actually(2003, Richard Curtis) and shorts like Paperman(2012, John Kahrs). ​I watched these movies while ago and I really liked their plots. I hope that re-watching them once more can give me some hints and ideas about what my story could look like as I chose the rom-com genre.
loveactually
Christmassy rom-com. The movie shows the romantic life of 8 different relationships during the awaited Christmas time in London.
paperman
What happens when this guy awaits the train and he meets the love of his life? The new guide to how to get attention of someone by using paper airplanes!
My idea is to create a short movie about multiculturalism. I like this topic because London is a city who welcomes people from all over the world and I love the idea of "not create barriers". Myself I come from a different country and as many people may feel, it was hard at the beginning to get use to this kind of life. Talking personally, I came here in the UK with my family and the first months it was really hard for me to speak English, first because I didn't really have a big knowledge of the language and second because I'm too shy to express myself. What I think is that when people go abroad, every single human being has a different reaction. Knowing people who have different backgrounds from yours can make you grow personally as you can see the things in more than a way.
Talking about my idea then, is to create a story where one of my character has a poor knowledge of English and as he isn't in his hometown, he needs to try to understand the others and make the others understand his thoughts. The genre will be a rom-com, as I don't want to do anything sad or depressing.
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My initial ideas are:
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Rom-com, a guy needs to go to his fist day of work and get lost. Help comes from a girl.
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Comedy, 3 girls/3 different languages
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Rom-com, scene at a restaurant, related to first idea.
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first shorts of famous directors!
Before starting with my researches I was curious to see how famous directors started. Looking around internet, I selected some that I liked and I found interesting:
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Ambling by Steven Spielberg
Short movie released in 1968 by the Hollywood's best known director Steven Spielberg. This is one of his first movies and its plot sees a young traveller who encounters a free-rebel hippie and together they hitchhiking the Southern California Desert.
Key word: simple. Because everyone, even the best directors(Spielberg himself) of the moment, started by making something really simple. From that, Spielberg could get a 7 years contract with the Universal Television and for his age, that was really extraordinary. He directed some tv series and a few movies he co directed and wrote. His next success would be then with the directed "Jaws" movie which gained more than $100 million. From the 1986, he is the chairman of his own production company called exactly like his first short "Amblin Entertainment". Using the name of his own production he directed, wrote the screenplays and produced many many movies that signed lots of generations. See movies like the ones above: Indiana Jones Series, E.T The Extraterrestrial, Jurassic Park and the timeless Saving Private Ryan whom won the Academy Award for Best Director. In his career he has been winning a total of 3 Academy Awards and he has got more than 150 nominations.
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Doodlebug by Christopher Nolan
Nolan's first short movie was released in 1997 and it's made with a budget of about $1000. Again simple but effective. Psychological thriller, Doodlebug is the story of a man who follows and kills a "bug" to discover at the end of the short that it was himself as miniature.
Everyone who watches his movies knows his style so I think that since the real beginning he was already focused on what genre he wanted to film.
Christopher Nolan always wanted to become a filmmaker since the age of 11. He graduated at University College of London where he was president of UCL Film Society and thanks to that, early in his career, he used to use the society's equipment to film other two short movies "Larceny" and "Tarantella".
He debuted then with a long movie called "Following"(1998) which he personally paid the budget.
From low budget movies, he started to make lots of Blockbusters like The Dark Knight trilogy.
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Although he hasn't won any award yet, Christopher Nolan is considered one of the best directors of the 21th century.
(and my favorite director)
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Synopsis
First day of work at a new job place. Not only that, a new country. Luca is a 25 years old office worker from Italy and his boss gave him a work experience in England, London, which he can't refuse.
It's Monday morning and that is usually the worst day of the week. Luca is supposed to be at the first meeting at 10 o'clock but he doesn't really know where to go, as it is his 3rd day in London. He starts to panic as it's already 9:20 and he still doesn't know the directions, just the address of the office. A lovely girl tries to help him out but there is just one problem with him: he doesn't speak English.
He manages to get to work late but at the end he can thank the girl. He invites her to dinner.
The twos will try to understand each other somehow.
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The genre of my short movie is rom-com and it has a D social grade and multicultural environment for audience. It is specific for an audience of 20-30 years old and it's mainly for a female audience. Secondary, it can be both for male and female aged 20-30 years old and couples. My idea is to target it in English but also to translate it in italian so that even italian people can understand it. Also it can be posted around cinemas, restaurants to be seen by couples and social medias as they are really popular by now.
Primary Research
As start of my researches, I chose to use different medias like interviews, surveys and social media.
For my first research, I used a survey to gain some information about how people talk to others, if the listener understands the speaker's body language while having a conversation and how it feels while talking.
As second research I used my instagram account where I posted some questions shown on the picture above about multicultural relationships. Kindly, a guy answered to them and he was really helpful for my work because he gave me some ideas. For example how my characters have to not be shy or scared to talk to each other because it is really helpful as you can learn from the mistakes. Also he suggested a movie I used earlier in another project (Eat, Pray, Love) referencing probably Julia Roberts and her holiday in Rome while learning Italian.
Here's an audio interview I made with a girl who didn't want to be filmed but was nice and kind enough to help me out with her voice!
This is a video interview I made with two of my friends to hear their opinions on this topic.
Secondary Research
For my secondary research I looked mainly at movies like Spanglish and Love Actually as they have bilingual dialogues.
Spanglish
Director: James L. Brook
Release date: December 2004(USA)
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Cast: Adam Sendler, Tea Leoni, Paz Vega
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Plot: Flor and her daughter move to America from Mexico and there they need to start a new life. Flor gets employed by an hysterical and insecure wife and her successful husband. During the movie the three of them will have complications.
(Watch the trailer below)
Flor doesn't speak English at all when she moves to LA. From the beginning of the movie till almost the end, she is forced to have a translator, her daughter.
The fact that she needs to depend by someone else to express herself is a bit frustrating, showed by the character in the movie, but that doesn't stop her from being who she is and wether or not they understand she says what she thinks. Other than having a translator, the only help she can get is from a dictionary, as shown on the video below. (0:18)
Another example is shown when she would fetch the ball to the dog. Deborah(Tea Leoni) shouts simply "no" and it's by this that she can understand what she cannot do. Although Deborah is explaining her why she can't, Flor is a bit concerned by what Deborah says but she keeps saying yes as if she is understanding her.
What Flor does is understandable, whatever people would say to her, she is there smiling and waiting to be told what is going on. For experience, that is the most common thing that happens.
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loveactually
Director: Richard Curtis
Release date: November 2003 (UK)
Genre: Comedy, drama, romance
Cast: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson,
Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Rowan Atkinson
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Plot: located in London, the movie follows the love stories of 8 characters just before the Christmas day.
(watch the trailer below)
Before Adam Sendler and all the crew, here Colin Firth is the one who needs to deal with a non-english person. If before there was Flor's daughter who could translate for them, here Firth is by himself and needs to find a way to talk to the Portuguese Lucia Moniz.
After being cheated, Jamie( Colin Firth) goes to his habitation in France to write a book. There, he will have Aurelia( Lucia Moniz), a portuguese girl who will housekeep the house. Though they are unable to use words, they will find out they are attracted by each other.
Jamie is back to England and he can't forget Aurelia who stayed in France. To win then her heart, Jamie is forced to take Portuguese lessons. He will later on propose her in his broke Portuguese and Aurelia will answer him in her broke English.
In a scene, Aurelia asks what genre of book he is writing in her own language but still he doesn't understand. So she starts miming words like drama(crying), comedy(laughing) and romance (embracing herself) and Jamie follows by acting to kill someone so crime genre.
This is one of my favorite short movie from Disney. The story is really simple and goes smoothly.
George, the office worker, is waiting his train when one of his papers just flies on a girl's face just next to him, leaving on the paper her lipstick. Automatically he falls in love and can't get over it.
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paperman
Director: John Kahrs
Release date: November 2012
Genre: Animation, comedy, romance
Cast: John Kahrs(voice), Kari Wahlgren(voice)
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Plot: After meeting at the train station, the office worker sees the girl of his life back again opposite to his office. He tries then to make her notice him using airplane papers...
I really liked this idea for my characters. Their meeting is just occasional and not planned, which is exactly what my idea is.
Poster research
Background
The two main character are sitting on a beautiful beach. This type of location is shown during all the movie as they are in one of the Hawaii islands.
Scenery
The scenery is set up as a date and as the movie is called '50 first dates', it is probably one of the 50 dates the two characters go on. The way the twos are dressing just reflex the place they are in. Adam Sandler is also using a typical prop, the small guitar, that is usually seen in Hawaiian movies.
Titles
The title is written in capital letters and bold and it is the main subject of the poster along with the characters. Have been used three different colours to differentiate each word and the word 'date' is written by using a different font. The actors' surname is the only one written in bold and red while both surname and name are written in capitals.
Tagline
The tagline is written in simple black and it's just in the middle of the poster. It explains partially what the movie is about.
Background
The background of the poster is a scenery of the movie. It takes all the image and it shows on the bottom right corner of it the two main characters.
Title
The title takes up all the image and it;s written in different ways: The spectacular is written smaller than Now but both of them are written in capital.
Review
Instead of a tagline, it is being used a comment review by a magazine.
Main characters
It is a scene from the movie. The main characters are really small and at the bottom of the image, giving the title more importance.
Background
The background shows different landscapes of Hawaii. It's divided in three sections and it shows the three characters giving a clue of the relationships they will have throughout the movie.
Tagline & Title
Aloha is the name of the movie, it means "hi/bye" for Hawaiian people. In the middle of the poster, which is divided in two parts, there is this really simple title written in capital letters. On top of the title, there is the tagline which is related to the title for its meaning.
In addition to my secondary research, I made a survey and then I sent it to some people. I found the tagline quite helpful because I have no idea what sentence or even a title to use for my short movie. (double click on image to zoom in)
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Location ideas
The movie will be based in London.
I want to avoid parks as I have been filming there since the beginning of the course so I want to have something that looks different.
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The story will start by being in his apartment, where he is getting ready and realizing he is late for the meeting.
2. The scene then will move to the streets, where he goes to the nearest bus stop and there he panics as he doesn't know where to go. On the same location, the second character will go in scene too now. She is waiting her bus to get to uni when she sees him trying to figure out where to go.
I thought that a tube station would be too much crowded at any time of the day. I will use then a quiet bus stop and at a time where possibly no one will be around, or anyway just a few people to make it a bit more realistic, so I can have just my two characters on scene.
3. The third location will be a bar or restaurant because my main character has invited the girl for a drink and eat something as she was helpful for him.
I like the idea of filming inside a restaurant/bar as I can play with lights/shadows and create some effects. Finding a restaurant where I can film won't be hard as I have a friend who owns one.
Characters & props
My main characters are going to be a boy and a girl and possibly there are going to be secondary characters.
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Male character:
Luca is Italian, he is 25 years old and he just got in London because of his boss,even though he doesn't speak English. He is really insecure and clumsy and the fact that he doesn't speak English makes everything even harder. He likes watching series and computing. He usually goes around with his shoulder bag and doesn't matter where he goes, he will always have his bag. He will have map inside his bag which occasionally he will pull it out and try to read it.
As inspiration for my male character, I thought about Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 500 days of Summer.
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Female character:
My female character is called Mollie, 22, and she is British, from Leeds. She moved to London when she was little and now she is studying at the University of Art of London, aspiring as art teacher. In the contrary, Mollie is more opened to people and she is really friendly. She is really simple outside and inside. On the meeting, she has some books the is bringing to University. She will be the one that will help Luca.
I took inspiration from The Amazing Spider-man Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy.
Italian - English similarities and differences.
The Italian language is completely different from English as it was created from Latin, on the contrary English has a germanic base. Although they are pretty different, there are some similarities called cognates like:
mature - maturo
problem - problema
poet - poeta
concert - concerto
error - errore
and many more....
Of course then there are lots of 'false friends' and so many Italians mistake them if they aren't really familiar with English.
I will create different dialogues where my italian character will have to face some embarrassing moments in which he says something completely different from what he wants to say.
Sounds and lighting
There are going to be some scenes where it won't be possible to hear some sound details like the fork that hit the plate, footsteps, mouth eating etc... so I will record some Foley to add during the editing. Also, I will try to create some moods using the lights. For the scene at the restaurant I'm planning to have a soft light to create a romantic mood.
I liked this scene from Whiplash. It isn't a romantic dinner, but I liked how the lampshade made this kind of 'light/shadow effect' on their faces. This is a technique that I will use for my short.
Poster Sketches
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Based on the survey I created about how and what to put in a poster, I made up 3 sketches about a possible one. They are all really similar. All the three of them have the flags, italian and union jack, and then I added some features about the two countries for example the pasta for Italy and the tea cup for Uk, some respective monuments of each country and then the two characters on their own flag.
From the other interview I made, it turned out that the nicest is the second one. It would be nice as the short is a comedy, so by adding the pasta and the tea cup it would have a funny meaning. And also, it is one of my favorite because as I said before, it would be really funny.
As font I found some ideas on Dafont.com, which is a website with loads of free fonts. This also gave me the chance to think about some titles for the movie. Previously on the first survey, I asked for some ideas about what it could be a tagline but instead they gave me some ideas about the title. I thought then about
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Commonly called miss-communication, I thought that instead of using miscommunication I could change it in 'miss' so to refer to the girl.
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Lost in communication, this is because he doesn't speak proper English so the dialogues are a bit lost in misunderstanding.
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Not so different, this is probably my favorite and it's related to what one of my interviewed said: at the end of the day we are all humans and all the same, even if we don't speak the same language and we have different backgrounds. Also I thought about the 2016 London Campaign which states "London is opened, everyone welcome" and I really loved it as I think there are no barriers.
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Not so different, this one is similar as the previous one by meaning. I tried to make an example with the last font and I put 'so' in small so that it could turn out as "Not Different".
Here are some people's opinions in which one would look better as poster for my short.
Pre-production
Location Reports
These are my location reports. I will be filming at my home, as intro of the short, the next scene is at a bus stop near my house. This is so I can be sure there won't be extra people that aren't supposed to be on the movie. The final scene will be at the restaurant.
Location information and filming at location: this is the "apartment" of the main character. Here I'll be filming the intro: he wakes up, washing his face and have breakfast and realises he's late for the meeting.
He lives in a shared house and so lives with other people.
Location report and filming at location: the bus stop is located on my road, so for privacy I'm not writing the address. This is a quiet area and there's only a bus running through this road and it's really unusual to see people at the stop. I'm going to film here the meeting of the two characters, when the Italian guy is lost and the girl helps him out. As I said before, this is the perfect place for me to film as I won't have extra people that I don't need on the scene.
Location report and filming at location: This will be the scene which my movie will end with. The restaurant is called Wandle Pirates and it is located in16 Watermill Way, Unit 4 The Long Shop, Merton SW19 2RD
The restaurant/pub is owned by a friend of mine and its his courtesy if I'll film part of my movie at his place. Here I'm going to film during the week as I'm sure there won't be lots of people. I'll need to use lights to shot at the place as it's quite dark inside, however I'll keep the lights a bit down to give it a romantic mood. This pirates theme restaurant as a nice mood inside as shown on a picture below, so I thought it would be perfect for my scene.
The conclusion of my short movie will take place here, when the two characters will end their dinner and leave the place.
Risk Assessment
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Risk
Level
Possibility
Safety measures
In case of
Tripping over something
Medium
Low
Be aware where you step on to avoid the damage of anything you're using.
Check if it is still possible to use it, in case replace it.
Rain
Medium
High
Always bring case for cameras and tripods and a jacket/umbrella for yourself
Put everything back on their respective cases and look for a cover. Wait till it stops.
Crowded place
Low
Low
Check before filming if the place you're in is too crowded.
Stop filming and wait for it to be quiet again.
Falling off stairs
High
Low
Be careful where you step
In case of fall, let someone call the ambulance if serious.
Shotlist
I've created this shotlist so that I have an idea about what shots I need to do and what type. (double-click on the image to zoom)
I will use lots of different shots such as close ups as I like the details of an image, but also long shots and medium.
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Filming budget sheet
This is approximately what I will spend for my production. Luckily, all the costumes where easy to find at home, the locations nearby and the only expenses I had was the dinner scene I had to pay.
Storyboard
A quick sketch of my story.
Script
I wrote this script to use it as guideline for my actors and for me as well as my shotlist.
Progression changes
I had to make some changes in my story because of some issues... First of all, I've been dumped two times by two girls who said would acted for me and then they said no just a day before filming. Also, I had to use just two locations and change completely the story because I couldn't film at the restaurant for some reasons.
SO:
As she gives him directions, he gets lost and comes back really late at home (as the story I wrote earlier, we won't see any scene at the office). He takes then his shoes off and then he takes the letter he gave to the girl to write the directions. There, he realises she wrote him her telephone number. Will he call her?
Movie editing
I edited my movie in the simplest ways. I haven't got much because I hadn't enough time and all my planning changed at the last minute so I used what I had.
OVERVIEW:
To give it this kind of blue colour, I added a filter to every clip moving up and down blues, reds, and greens.
I added the subtitles where my italian character is speaking in his language by creating a new default still title.
To this scene I added a BW tint to give it a funny effect and the text "What?!" by adding a default still text.
Also, I added a cross zoom transition to his face.
To the video I also added a song called "Far Behind" by Eddie Vedder as I thought it fitted well with the part where my character starts to run. I also made the foley of some parts of the movie like when the door is closing.
Poster editing
I'm really happy about my final poster. After trying and trying different styles, I came to the conclusion with this one. I like it because it's funny just as the movie is( or at least should be). I couldn't add Noelia because after trying couple of times to make her look like a cartoon, it never turned out well.
For sure I feel like I could have done better, but considering I had just two days to make it I think it didn't go as bad as I expected.
Down here is the process. On photoshop, it looked quite bright but when I saved the picture for some reasons it turned a bit darker.
While shooting, I recorded this magic moment in which my brother "mocks" himself and anyway all Italian people. For my poster I took a screenshot of it as I thought it would be the perfect image for an Italian native and I also think it give a clue of what genre the short movie is about. I used it thinking that anyway I had to work a bit on it because the quality of the image is really bad.
So using the pen tool, stroking it and adding some effects, I made it look like a cartoon.
I used then the same technique for the flags. Also I added some effects to it like stroke, emboss and glow.
Here it's easier to see how I created the flags as I had to draw more on the Union Jack. I really loved the kind of effects I got it with this technique.
I added then titles and credits. I used a font called "colleged" which I downloaded from dafont.com.
I wanted to add my characters' names because I think that without them, I couldn't have done my final short.
Down on the left side I added then my logo.
Lost in Communication + Evaluation
Feedback
Here some of my classmates' feedback after my short's screening.
1st Evaluation
A quick evaluation about the project in general and the video editing such as lights & sounds. (sorry for my voice!!)
2nd Evaluation
This second evaluation is a scene by scene, audience and the reasons why I made my video as it is.
In these first scenes, I used close ups and medium shots to set up the scene and to give the audience an idea of what is happening. I wanted to make clear the character's actions before the "big rush".
If before there was just foley, now there's also a song that kicks in in the exact moment my character realises he's late and starts rush.
I really like the effect the music and his run make and I like how it makes the audience feel from relaxed to a sense of urgency and excitement.
In these wide shots, I wanted to show the audience the ambience the character is moving on and it's the first time we can fully see the character. Also, it's the entrance of my secondary character. I thought it would give the audience a hint that she would be the second character and that she would have her part on the movie.
During these scenes the character is showing to the audience panic and nervousness.
When the second character comes to scene, we can see easily her personality: friendly and caring. That's what she is and I wanted to show it to the audience by using a medium shot. At the same time the Italian guy suggests the audience that he can't speak English in fact he starts to talk to her in his language.
Here the two characters starts to have a "conversation". As he doesn't speak English, tt's pretty clear he doesn't understand it too in fact Mollie is forced to miming for him and to write down on a paper the directions he needs to take. To make it clear and even funny, I added a shot of Luca looking intentionally at the camera and so to the audience so to understand that he's not getting her at all.
She gives him the paper with the directions and the audience can see some accomplishment in her face.
Directions that however, he didn't understand. It shows the audience that he is lost and the movements of his hands shows that he doesn't know where to go and where he is. The movement of the hands also should remind the audience about John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, which I made in purpose to laugh.
After the woods, the scene comes back to his house showing the clock just as the beginning of the short. It was just 7 am when he left home and when he came back home it was 10 pm. Everything goes back to normal with the character taking off his shoes.
As last scene, we see the character taking back the paper Mollie used to write the directions. Here I used a close up to show that, other than the directions, she also wrote her telephone number. The end it's quite open so it's up to the audience thinking if he wrote her or if he just let it go.
