Our film The Retreat where a boy, Benjamin loses his father in a car accident, learns to cope with his loss through the help of a friend. The plan consisted of a straight-forward script that would make shooting what we envisioned run smoothly. We felt this film was set up for great detail on sounds and had various angles to it that would interest its viewers. We avoided styles that were over played and created a plot that was dramatic, but intriguing. This film pertains to people who have faced struggles but has had people, there for them to aid during tragedies that seem impossible to bounce back from.
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Commentary:
My main role in this film would be editor, the one who cut the film and put it into the narrative that we envisioned originally. Throughout this film I had an active role in its production though also because I also was the lead actor, so was needed for almost every shot and day of shooting. In the the pre-production we used an original idea from one of our production partners but adapted it and changed it significantly, so it had various angles instead of one dimension. We didn't want one type of genre, but tried to fuse some together to create a movie that stands out and is different from what you'd normally expect. The script we came up with ultimately incorporated many angles that fit what we wanted and we collaboratively approved of it. Acting was time consuming and took time from editing the film at intervals and I ended up editing everything in one long night. 
Problems that arose in my area first of in acting was having all of us on the set at the same time that fit everyone's schedules. We each had our own responsibilities and commitments, so had some time issues, but for me whenever I was needed since it was my production as well as my groups, I tried to free up whenever I was needed. It was also frustrating because we had to do certain scenes over and over again because we had audio mishaps due mainly to using unfamilar equipment that we had no previous experience with. A specific scene that we had to retake was the car shots outside of my house because of audio issues. Also pre-production set backs put our group already behind in scedule because we couldn't create a treatment that fit what everyone envisioned. After many failed treatments we decided to collaborate on one and incorporate various angles that interested our own views and put it together to make a script that seemed more than suitable.
The other main problem I encountered was editing because we were using mainly all HD footage the comuter I originally planned on editing on had an insufficient amount of memory and was too slow to edit properly on. So we had to borrow a seniors computer but throughout class, her computer was constantly needed and evidently I had limited time to edit the movie in class. Also we were unable to export the EDL for the project, so instead of editing where I had left off I basically had to start from scratch. We also didn't have all the footage until late spring break, so my editing time also took a cut due to all the focus on shooting. 
The pre-production mishaps proved to be enlightening and allowed our idea to further develop, which was the result of a well-written, in depth script that incorporated angles that everyone on our production team approved of.
Editing was a hassle but I ended up using one of my production team mates computer to edit all of the film since we couldn't download the files I already had edited. Time wise I spent most of one night to edit since our script was straight forward and we had a ingenious plot the narrative flowed well together. The color correction I felt we added in the film enhanced our editing of the film and created a more cinematic look. 
A critical problem overall for our film was sound design because we each had our own distinct role we didn't have a key component of our production a sound designer. Also we didn't have access to the music files at class or the programs to make our own sounds so needed to find scratch files throughout the internet. We knew sound was a key component of making our movie as flawless as possible, but sound throughout the film was a problem because twice we didn't have audio in the shots we thought we did. Also some shots were a bit shaky but that was merely due to shots being taking by hand. Lastly another problem overall was understanding what emotion the director wanted at the specific time and if the emotion wasn't understandable how to create what he wanted. 
These problems were fixed almost completely throughout the production of our final product. First off our director took the role of the sound designer since he was familiar with music and had the computer where our project was on, he played a major role in incorporating the sounds we wanted and setting the overall mood of the film. With the shots we didn't have audio we scratched them and took many retakes and ensured their was audio so we wouldn't have to continue to do retakes. One shot we particularly liked we dubbed, which sounded pretty realistic and almost surprisingly perfect. The shaky shots our cinematographer realizes that they look a bit unprofessional but, its also still early stages of learning what shots work and how to make each shot as stead and professional as possible. Understanding what the director was asking was fixed by him actually showing what he wanted or describing what he wanted, so we could portray what was being asked as well as possible. 
I felt our final product came out as well as I pictured it to be but still some shots we used like the night shots turned out to be extremely grainy making the film have a less professional feel to it. Instead of any night shots we should and will plan on shooting in daylight because the grain look took away from the message of the shots in the end and trying to mingle with the color correction did little to help those shots. Also the dubbing near the beginning is almost spot on, but dubbing things takes away from the film because it doesn't have the actual professional feel. Acting has to be key for our next film since some emotions couldn't be understood or portrayed as effectively as desired. Also each shot needs to have a purpose to it and the car driving shots seemed to drag a bit and didn't seem like it was progressing the plot very much. Lastly to make our film as professional I think adding color and different color correctors to each scene slightly would enhance the overall meaning of our final product to make it as realistic and cinematic as possible.Word Count:1128
