Evaluation

During the Pre-production stage, I feel I worked very well. I considered a wide range of ideas and settled on one I am passionate about. I feel this was a good idea as when I enjoy the project I’m working on I do more work for it and indulge myself further into each stage, although I understand I should produce an equal and same quality of work no matter what the project, however due to the subject I do feel the project has benefited.  

When proposing my idea, I was told it was very ambitious project. While this is true, I have been told this twice in the past in film projects and have excelled the expectations of my tutors and made very high quality films. So though I kept it in consideration, I continued with my desired idea.

I enjoyed researching, and finding out as much about the characters as possible in different stories and media so when creating my film I remain true to the source material. I think this stage was strong if not perhaps a little too much time was spent upon it. Not however, as much time as I spent on storyboards. My time management lacked here, as this was arguably my favourite part of the project and the area I would like to become professional in, I wanted to ensure here I gained as much marks as possible and could provide a good amount of work for my portfolio. Looking back, although I believe my work is of good quality I could have spent longer on other elements, such as the overly lengthy costume making part.

I did not quite accurately guess how long this would take, and I spent much time sewing through multiple layers of leather with the wrong tools. When I finished this, I remade it in a day using the correct tools and more suitable material. This I think shows a poor time management and planning and in future I should consider the quality of the materials before starting the making.  This said, I am still very happy with the Thor finished costume. The Scepter I was proud of, but simply whished it was feasible to make multiple ones as it broke twice on set. It wasn’t a flimsy or weak prop, but as it was used to fight with I’m sure it wasn’t quite as strong as it needed to be. Had my budget and time increased I would have made several different ones (one for show, one strong on for fighting, one light for running/ jumping scenes ect) as this would have saved time on location.

Although I produced many storyboards, I felt it necessary as they had to clearly also demonstrate some of the choreography I created. If I had done less I defiantly would have made them better quality, and if time had allowed it I would have loved to make a comic based on my film, and comics are much like storyboards in my opinion: shot based stories without sound relying on visuals to tell the story.

I was proud of my anamatic and made two, as I wanted one for a director’s cut I was going to put together and one for the 1 minute time constraint.  I have as yet not made the director’s cut as I am happy with the film as a minute, I don’t feel the extra dialogue is essential and regret not trying harder for it to fit the 1 minute time constraints better, as it made editing more difficult. I also didn’t plan the sound I was going to use, though I had in mind which I was intending to use.  I think the anamatic would have been more enjoyable and gained a better atmosphere for the film if I had planed the sound a little better. I did overlay some at a later stage when I was filming but I feel this is too late and should have been done on time.

The final part of pre-production was planning the shoots. I spent a lot of time planning offsite filming in the Rosebowl car park with senior Health and Saftey advisor Christopher Domeracki, and one very detailed plan of a one day shoot on two different moor locations. This I feel I did very well in as for example, shoot 1 in the Rosebowl car park was complete in the time agreed and to the risk and method statement written in conjunction with my tutor, me, and Mr. Domeracki. The locations were (in my opinion) perfect to film at and it was because of very well thought out and organised planning. A little too much time was spend on the first shot, and I quickly realised I had to explain in detail what I needed from my actor as even the smallest piece of choreography proved difficult.  Other than quickly learning the speed the tracking dolly could move at (as our camera man at one point fell off, but was caught by a runner standing close by) filming went smoothly and I was very proud of the responsibility I had taken on by the shoot and learned from it, and was ready for the next one.

Shoot 2 was fairly simple. I had planned to use the green screen but as the frame was not available, (even though it had been booked) I had to compromise and attach it to a wall, which meant not being able to light through it like intended. Choreographing had already been rehearsed before shooting so both actors new what to do, but unfortunately a prop broke on set. I had the equipment to fix it but as I had roughly the footage I wanted and was running out of time I decided to take it home. I fixed the prop with spray paint and super glue.

Shoot 3 was on a moor, and after having a superb team help me drag the equipment up it I soon realised the forecast was wrong and it was much windier than anticipated. The crane was immediately ruled out to be used as it was unsafe. Because of this, the shot I needed it for I quickly found a way around it. I filmed the actor from a low angle shot from the floor so that on film it gave the illusion the other character was looking up at him, rather than using the crane to film him half way up a monument. This I think shows good creative problem solving skills under pressure as on film I don’t think it comes across at all noticeable the way it was actually filmed.

The last shoot was by far the most difficult. Before filming even started the sceptre prop broke. It was far wetter and foggier than the forecast had predicted, but as I had had the same problem I knew how to fix it. I had brought all necessary components to fix it but despite having an umbrella, the wet weather simply meant it couldn’t be fixed. Thinking quickly, I took off one of my socks, tore it in half and wrapped it around the broken piece. I had brought 6 tubes of glue and used half of them to ensure it would hold, and then sprayed over the sock. Thought the prop was now fixed its details in appearance had now changed, and was not strong enough to last another fight sequence. I very quickly re-choreographed the sequence, and had a very handy camera man who knew exactly what I was describing and filmed the shots I asked for. I am indescribably thankful to my team and the help and hard work they all provided that very stressful day.  Good planning, quick thinking, and creative problem solving made this day a success.

As I tested many of my effects, they were not difficult to generate a second time. My hardest elements were cutting down the film down to 1 minute (as I filmed for a director’s cut and then re-arranged the last shoot) which I think I have done a good job at, and if I had more time I would add backplates (which I have) to the end/beginning of each teleport just to make the effect look better.

One piece of advice from the interm crit was to up the production value of the first scene as in comparison to others it looked weaker. To improve this I looked into a new piece of software: trapcode particular, which I used to create snow. I regret not having more time to use this software as although I am happy with the effect I made my only criticism was that  the snow dosen’t quite move with the wind as the characters cape dose, although its a small detail I would have liked to play with the velocity to make the wind more realistic.

Over all I have learnt an awful lot during the process of making this film, including green screen compositing, lightening, lens flare and bulge effects, how to create snow in trapcode particular, but most crucially the importance of planning and having a reliable, hard working team and people around you.