Short Film Critique

A. Rationale
My group members and I set out to create a drama film called "Bridge." My working plan consisted of creating a film that was extraordinary, that had meaning behind each and every shot. I wanted locations that drew in the audience, so during the edit I have many different shots to cut to, creating more suspense. The audience varied for anyone who can experience the same circumstances as our main character and those who have overcome adversity. I knew this film had potential because the idea was original, our skills have developed, and each time our effort increased.

Word Count 98

B.Commentary
For this film I was the lead actor-editor during post production.

Some problems that arose for this film was the very beginning of the film with our original script. The script that our director originally produced, had a suicide in it, which our teacher and I disapproved of. After our teacher tore up our script we went to the drawing board and the director shared the script idea and I started adding some input in what I saw we should change. After much collaboration our director implemented some of my ideas, but constantly edited the script until a final copy was agreed on.

Another problem was the location of the bridge even though we had our hearts set on this location we were not supposed to film here because the officer that approached us said it was for non-commercial purposes. I started talking to the officer and made him understand it was a student based project that we were already almost done with and he consented. If we had been kicked off the bridge our story line would not have made sense and our main location for the film would have been scrapped.

Yet another problem I encountered was acting, I have acted in films before, but I still do not have the experience to portray emotions on the spot. My acting abilities at times I was even frusturated about because I did not want to let my group members down and wanted this film to be the best yet. The scene I was especially frustrated about was after Sasha, the female actress, was coughing it was hard to show genuine concern for her. That particular scene I had to do over constantly until I and the director were satisfied with my reaction to her coughing fit.

Another acting struggle was down below the bridge when Sasha said I should join her on the run and I agree. After she runs away I was trying to look genuinely intrigued and satisfied at this unexpected acquaintance, but instead stared creepily at her. I realized after this first day of shooting and acting I needed to step my acting up tremendously, because although I was not originally planning on acting my group members trusted me to step in their and fill in the role.

The next days of filming and acting I was a lot more proud of because I read the script and my lines over and over again until I could internalize my role and evoke the right emotions through the words given to me. I also did not follow exactly what the script said, so it would seem more natural, which I thought served the film better. For example the scene when I am looking really down I was remembering my grandma's death to portray the emotion a lot better than the first day. Also in the scene where I was visiting Sasha at her house my emotions were a lot more concerned than the first day of filming and my director applauded my performance and ability to bounce back from the first day of acting.

Besides acting problems I had a difficult task editing because many times what I portrayed or saw as a good edit my director would want me to do a little more and ask me to re-cut and re-edit things constantly. Editing in this case took many hours because I and the director wanted a perfect cut and we had, so many takes of the same shot it was difficult to find the best one. I had to play through about four hours of footage and cut and rename folders, so my editing would be a lot easier. Even though editing took, so long and the color corrector I thought was a bit too drastic in some shots I still thought the meaning of the film was maintained.

Another overall problem we had as a group was time managing everything. We all had to skip some practices to make our production work and we still were rushed with our production, so everything did not turn out the way we wanted it to. Since we did not have too much time for our production every day we had to shoot and our shooting times took about five hours per day.

Initially in our script we had a hospital sequence, but had to compromise this since our production was taking already too much time. We called three different hospitals and visited two hospitals and two elderly homes, but did not meet success. We tried sweet talking our way and a couple time got close to a hospital location, but the process of them agreeing took too much time, so we finally decided to use a junior girl's house instead. I thought the room we used fit the scene well, but did not completely win us over because we had our hearts set on a hospital. The exact day we wanted to film we called the girl and she allowed us to use her house even though it was really last minute. In this case we were able to compromise many locations because we had a lot of acquaintances.

In scene two I think a last problem that arose was the time that we chose to film. This scene we were supposed to film in the day, but did not have any time early on because of our rivaling schedules, so had to settle for a night time shoot. This one shot took three hours because it was a sweeping shot, that we wanted in one take, so had to be as flawless as possible. After many takes we finally got the shot we wanted and after staying until midnight at another friend's house. Luckily she was really intrigued about our film and wanted to see our filming in action, so allowed us to stay really late instead of kick us out. With the night issue we set up the lighting kit, which created an illusion of the morning fairly well. The lights were really powerful, so we made the night seem fairly close to the day and no one questioned it.

Overall I thought this film was a great success the way the director, cinematographer, and I came together in times of worry was a feat in itself. I thought the cinematographer handled his role extremely well. His camera movements and angle changes added a heightened sense of drama to the film. Also I recall an instant where I was just taking to Sasha the lead actress and enjoying a laugh on the bench and our cinematographer immediately jumped on the opportunity and started filming. This shot was my favorite because it was completely natural and unexpected and varied from the constant running in this movie. I thought the running was getting a bit over-used, so a nice bench shot allowed a vary that made the audience more intrigued in the next events of the film. Overall the cinematography was applauded for and I thought it was a huge aspect in the success of our film.

The directing and acting of this film was equally as challenging and successful as the cinematography. The director in this film was everywhere; in pre-production, production, and post-production. He wanted everything perfect, so when one thing looked a bit awkward he immediately recognized it. I recall editing and him constantly checking over to make sure the edit made sense and the shots I chose to use were the best possible ones. Even during filming when there was a shot he was not satisfied with he would take over and do it himself to get it perfect, for example the shot of Sasha's point of view when she collapses. This shot was another of my favorites because it was an unorthodox shot that you rarely see and is never really used in films. In terms of acting I thought it went a lot more smoother because my acting experience had grown and we had auditions for the girls role. We did not want to choose people randomly like our last film because knew there would be the same acting struggles. Also this time each actor and actress had a script to read over, so we could know our lines and make it seem as natural as possible. The director in scenes where the acting was a bit tougher, would show an example of what he wanted, which was good because then we had a visual representation of what was being asked of us. Without the direction of our director the acting and film as a whole would have fell apart, but each aspect of our film complemented each other well.

The last parts of our film was during post-production, which was my own main role as editor. The director also was critical in this area because he helped design the sound track and decided on where to place each track. Our approach to this film was a classical film because we had constant cutting and did not want to hold one shot for too long. Also we incorporated deep focus and had a lot of shot variety, that supplements classical films. We incorporated many angles like over the shoulder, low angles and higher ones, so the same shots would not be used over and over again. We felt that if the same shots were to be used the running would bore the audience to death, so hoped the variety kept each person on the edge of their seats. I believe the sound track we used tied all aspects of the film together and gave the film the overall mood we were looking for. The music was not copyrighted also which we were especially proud of, since usually good films use high end tracks. Our tracks even though were pretty basic set the stage well and gave the shots more meaning overall to them.

I am proud of this film and am proud of my production team; with out constant encouragement and trust in one another's abilities I believe our production would not have been executed as well as it turned out.

Word Count: 1690