Independence
We was asked to produce in groups an idea for a two minute story and to present our idea, we had to produce the narrative and this would be shown in-front of an audience and our work would be individually evaluated.
Our group began our research by holding a group meeting at my accommodation, we sat thinking up possible Ideas for our narrative (see appendix page 2). We decided upon a thriller/surreal genre as we decided this would be more suitable to all our experience, as we had all had some practise with this in our A levels. We chose the idea of ‘Student Life’ as we thought this would be a topic we would all know something about, we chose to use it as a point of view perspective as this would give the illusion of what the student was seeing. We began research into many different areas of media, which show student life, such as Hollyoaks (see appendix page 4) and music Videos. We came across the music video ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ by Prodigy (See appendix page 5) this was also shown in Point of view, which was our inspiration to how we would present our narrative.
We created roles for each member of our group Toby was sound editor, with Alex alongside him as co-sound editor, Sherri was the locations manager, Tom was producer and editor and I was Director and makeup artist although we didn’t use any makeup. We all chose our roles very carefully and chose them based on the experience we have had through our A levels. We all kept to these roles although Sherri and myself did do some of the editing, as we had to check through what Tom had edited we only made minor changes that Tom had missed. Toby had warned the group that he wouldn’t be with us for a few days but he still managed to fulfil his role by making the music and posting this to Tom on time. We all attended each group meeting and the filming sessions.
We gave the narrative the title Independence as we believed this is what students are given when they go to university whether they use it correctly or not, we found it maybe similar to the prodigy video but not the same as we were creating a story and not a Music video. We wanted to have an impact on the audience and hoped that they could relate to the student in our narrative. We chose to use mini dv’s and not to use tripods or any other equipment as this would ruin the effect of Point of view this worked well because you could recognise that it was point of view but some of the shots was a lot worse when we began editing than when we had filmed, we chose simple locations around Nottingham and the Student union as we needed to show a night out, this worked well as we then had a lot more time and we could shoot final scenes and shots when needed even if it was just one member of the group. At first we did have a actor who was going to be revealed at the end as a gay male but we chose not to use this idea as it just complicated the story and made it a lot harder for the audience to recognise. We used I movie HD to edit the sound and film footage, we decided to make the ending different to what we had first decided to show but we chose to show what had happened through stills and show this at the end so there would be a dramatic twist as we had said we would do earlier in our presentation, and we showed how the student had come to get into the drunken state which she was in. We decided to create our own music as we had decided not to use any dialogue in the story and to use just music, Toby created the music for this which had a dance theme with a constant beat to It, which worked well with the film and kept the same theme as the story.
We began filming firstly at one of our accommodation rooms so we had the student style room, but the accommodation was not able to be recognised from this, this was with the actor we had assigned who after seeing the film we decided to drop as the camera was not at the right angle and to hard to understand and see what was happening. We decided to use ourselves as our characters, which were not what we wanted, but as we then had little time we had to improvise I handheld the camera for the point of view and Alex was the other actor who spikes the drink. We chose to show the spiking of the drink through stills as we didn’t want to use any dialogue and this would be the easier way of showing it without having mime. Through the film there is odd appearances from people with distorted faces this is to show how drunk and disorderly the student is, and to show how she is tripping from what she has been given or taken herself. We wanted our piece of work to also to be a warning to all students of how easily this can be done, this is our reason for not showing what had happened until the end of the film so you can see how easily it can be done and you not know, as at the end we are hoping for a “oh I didn’t realise that, that’s what happened to her.”
I think our constant worry was not to make it to like the ‘Smack My Bitch Up” music video as this was a story and I hope we have shown that through our film even without any dialogue. I think we made a massive mistake by not managing our time better as we didn’t realise how little time we had, for my next module I intend to make myself a timeline of deadlines for myself of when and I want things to be done by which I may discus with my tutor. We found the Point of View a lot harder than we thought it would be as we ended up having to re-shoot a lot of the footage, as it was too shaky or too dark but we didn’t realise most of this until we came to editing and some of it became too late but we managed to lighten it and make some of it work to our advantage, as some looked like it was because she couldn’t walk properly. One of the biggest worries was the music and whether Toby would get it to us on time and whether it would fit the genre of the film fortunately it worked perfectly and made a huge difference to our project and made the footage seem to come alive. We worked excellent as a group and each kept to our set roles and even learnt new things such as I learnt how to put the narrative on to DVD through USB from my computer to a hard drive that wasn’t on my computer. I have also learnt how important group work can be and how I had an excellent set of people to work with that made as much effort as I myself did. I have proved to myself also how I can take in other peoples opinions and ideas and use them well within the work, I have learnt that being a director is not all about being bossy or ordering people about its about taking the time to listen and to make sure everyone is happy with what they are doing and confident enough in doing it. I think the discussion page was an excellent way for us to get in contact even though some of the group chose not to, also I found emailing through the VLP or on msn extremely helpful as we began communicating quite early on and was able to find whom each other was fairly easily. I found the journal helpful also as at one point I put on how hard it was finding it and my tutor had seen this and she helped me out by going and asking the question I wondering and then I was back on track. I have learnt how to work better in a group and produce work together rather than on my own I have got better at editing and filming and I had the experience of becoming a director, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I enjoyed this project and even though I found it challenging I feel like I have overcome the challenge and as a group made a piece of work that I can say I am proud of. If I could change anything I would have given our group more time and that would be all I would change. I now look forward to seeing our Narrative on the cinema.
