Evaluation of Drama Film

During the process of producing the film our group came under great stress regarding the script and how we worked together as a team. During our edit tutorial a week before the deadline it was highlighted that after re-planning our script we lost the inciting incident aspect of it which left it very bland with no drama. This improved the narrative and gave us more confident in working on it. 

After 3 sets of actresses cancelling on us last minute I managed to source us two females who were studying Performance for Stage and Screen in their first year at our university. They were keen, however with us only giving them the script the night before the first shoot they didn't know their lines on set. This pushed us for time as we didn't have long as it was. This was then where our co-operation and teamwork fell apart, as certain members of the team started clashing opinions and wasting time, this left the actors confused as to what they were doing. As well as this our specific roles became hazed as everyone was doing a bit of everything and there was no structure to the filming. I did create planning documents of shots for the whole script, which I didn't enforce on set because the director had a different vision to the rest of the crew. However for the final shoot I created more documents, this time for the structure of the shoot and what would be shot and the time frame I gave the team to execute this. 

As a cinematographer I do believe I did all that I could to ensure the quality of shots was to the best of my ability. To prevent wasting time I did decide that it was important to have two cameras set up to ensure we had a range of angles and shots in the time we had to shoot. I also booked out a slider and dolly to get some movement in the camera work, however with the set space not being big enough this meant I couldn't set it up. I was dissapointed that I couldn't because this would have created a really nice aesthetic to the cinematography. 

Skills such as organisation lacked with in our team, and this showed on set. This caused problems regarding getting enough footage which wasn't boring and unusable. With having the two cameras set up we couldnt match white balance which meant that the colour grading is different slightly. This meant that Harry needed to colour correct in post production to keep the aesthetic of the film to its highest possible. 

Our group would have benefited from meeting up in person more rather than communicating over social media, because this is what caused a lot of problems just to miscommunication. As well as this, we should have all conducted research prior to filming about our specific roles to ensure what our job title entailed for the project, and meant we would have guidelines to stick to, and we wouldn't clash and cause arguments over whose responsible for what. 

As far as the film goes, I am happy with what we have produced with reference to the amount of problems we had to solve. We have all learnt something from the project even though it could have been better given more time and our team work was more efficient.