Review

Olly's Review 

I was given a task to create a short film in a group of 4 people, about a genre of our choice. Throughout the task we had to brainstorm many ideas for a film that was up to student potential and something we would all enjoy. 

Before we decided to do any filming we all sat down and chose our roles that we would like to play in the film. when we all sorted out our roles we created a story board so we had an idea of what our film was going to be about, the story board was about 11 pages long. Once we sorted out the story board and got an idea of what our films would be about we sat down and wrote a script for each person that was acting.

We had our good and bad parts during filming. The good things were whenever we went to film outside, the weather was always good, so we never had weather problems when going to our chosen locations. It never took us long to learn what we had to do. The group had focus when coming to film our project. But we did have our downfalls, even though it sounds quite; smooth sailing. The places we chose to film weren't always the best choice because we changed a lot of the script while filming, so it never panned out how we intended to. It still worked and looks good but the location reconnaissance weren't always exact. Also, because were not top actors, we probably didn't, shine, as well as we imagined us to, but were only students.

nother thing I liked while recording is that we used different techniques while we filming such as different angles. The different angles we used varied on each scene. For example in one scene it shows Jamie reading so we changed the angle into an over the shoulder angle which helped the audience have a 'closer' view on what Jamie is looking at. We didn't really use effects or sounds during, because there was nothing really dramatic or standing out that we needed to make people realize, the whole film was pretty smooth so the only effects and music we had was at the title sequence and the credits. If I had to redo 'beauty is a curse' I would personally make it a lot more organised and stick to the story board a lot more. Also I would like to make it more interesting for example bringing more props in or going to a different area to make it a bit more different but overall I am satisfied with how our short film ended up.

Jamie's Review:

I was given a task to create a short film in a group of 4 people, about a genre of our choice. Throughout the task we had to brainstorm many ideas for a film that was up to student potential and something we would all enjoy. 

At the start of the planning to create our short film, we decided to choose group roles. So we all sat down and we had to talk about what each one of us are good at when it comes to editing a video, filming the footage, acting or directing. We all chipped in and decided that Cameron was director and editor, Rehana was an actor, I was actor and writer, and Olly was part-director. 

To help with our planning, so we could get a more clear image into our heads of what we had to produce, we had to create storyboards, for most of the camera angles that were going to be made. So me and Rehana sat down, and we wrote the whole story in shorter terms onto 11 Storyboard pages. Rehana drew all the images into the image boxes and we started to understand more what camera angles to use when we go out to film.

We had our good and bad parts during filming. The good things were whenever we went to film outside, the weather was always good, so we never had weather problems when going to our chosen locations. It never took us long to learn what we had to do. The group had focus when coming to film our project. But we did have our downfalls, even though it sounds quite; smooth sailing. The places we chose to film weren't always the best choice because we changed a lot of the script while filming, so it never panned out how we intended to. It still worked and looks good but the location reconnaissance weren't always exact. Also, because were not top actors, we probably didn't, shine, as well as we imagined us to, but were only students.

In our short film, we didnt use many advertising techniques, but the ones we did use were needed. We used independence/individuality, towards the end of the film on Cameron's main scene, when he chose to be the person to look into the mirror with no hesitation and no backing down. In a small way, we used Intelligence, with how we played Cameron into the story, of him being the one who's thinking he cant be taken as a fool for refusing to look into something that apparently gives him a false curse. We used some film techniques that made the shots of the film look better than it could have. The shots we used consisted of close ups, long shots, wide shots etc.. Just the typical shots that make a movie look good.

By the time that the whole short film was recorded and put onto our computers, we didn't really have time to do our own version completely edited. So while Cameron was editing the main version, me and Rehana had a little mess around with premier, and created a little title sequence. Not what we were going to use in our main film, but so we can get used to the software for the next time we need to use it for creating something. Cameron also created the title sequence and the credits, because he knew how he wanted it to fit in with the suspense of the film. I didn't really have any techniques when editing the footage we just messed around with tools until it looked like we wanted it to. With Cameron being the main editor, he did use some special techniques for the film, so he turned the whole film black and white, and added quite loud and suspense music, so people know what our aim of the film is, by creating a horror.

After we started all of our planning for the film, started story boarding and messing with the editing software, we began to look more into the script, and actually putting our ideas into words for when we film. So Rehana sat down and typed out a script of what we would imagine to be said in the scenarios. It took a while to think up ideas for what people would say, what extras to use, character bios and everything but we managed to make a pretty good script about our story that sounded right. While filming quite a lot of what we did end up writing down did get changed because it didnt seem that good of an idea when it came to filming.

In the film, we didnt really use effects or sounds during, because there was nothing really dramatic or standing out that we needed to make people realize, the whole film was pretty smooth so the only effects and music we had was at the title sequence and the credits. On them parts of the film, it was just loud music to make people jump into attention and watch the film. That was our main intentions, to reel people in with the music and effect over the film.

I learnt quite a lot throughout the whole process of making our short film. I learnt how to add effects to a movie and add sound over footage, i learnt how to use mixing software for the music, i learnt what you need to actually do to plan on making a short film step by step and managed to do it all. It was a thrilling topic to do for our last and the things i learnt are key to know whenever i come to doing any of this again.

Over the weeks of making the film there was quite a few difficulties what stopped us from filming on certain days. Because the time of our filming we had a couple of exams to do, there was a couple of weeks where we couldn't film on our long days because we had to go to full maths revision days. Which kind of messed our schedule up for filming or we would have been finished faster. Other than the few faults with maths filming, there wasn't any other main faults when filming, and we managed to get all the filming done pretty fast. We had the odd occasion of maybe, Rehana or Cameron being off, or me not being able to be in the lesson, but that didn't so much affect our schedule. We didnt need any props or outfits so that wasn't a problem.

If i had to do the whole project again, i think i would thoroughly plan the film, use props and costumes, find better locations and make it seem more horror. Because we didn't really know how to fully create a film as a professional standard, we didn't go all out there on creating something magnificent, and just created a student standard film. I think if we had more time to create a film, we would have done miles better on creating something that is so good, creative and original. With costumes and props it would have looked more real as well instead of using our casual clothes and college equipment. Also adding more effects and making it more dramatic would have probably made it a little scarier like we also wanted to achieve. Maybe if we were to do the whole project over again i would choose a different genre of film to do, because horrors a little difficult to do with college and college equipment. 

Cameron's Review:

First of all we began choosing a genre in our new group and had to brainstorm potential ideas and research what makes a successful film. We then began to type up the script and decide in our group what roles we had. I was the camera man/ Director/ cast member, Rehana was co-director/cast member, Jamie was the main character and Ollie was part camera man. There was one last thing to do when planning the film and that was to draw and write out each scene of the film as this would make more sense when filming. After planning the script it was time to film the scenes using a camera and tripod. It took a couple of times to do each scene correctly without any mistakes, but after managing to film all the scenes it was time to edit the film together. One of the good things about filming was that it gave us the opportunity to gain experience from creating our own film with our own techniques, whereas the large amount of bloopers we had wasn’t so good. Some of the techniques we used when filming were close up shots of some of the scenes that we filmed, as well as different angles during the same scene. The reason we did this was because we wanted to make it more like an actual film by using the same techniques that the big films use. When editing the film I had to put together each of the 16 scenes together whilst scrapping the bloopers, and when doing this I used a different variety of tools such as the razor tool to cut the footage I didn’t want. As well as the scenes, I also added an intro and outro to the film by using the new title option on the toolbar as well as some scary music to make the film that more suspense. After editing the film together I then rendered the film so that it played more smoothly when uploading. I feel that overall we managed to make a good film that was dramatic and suspense in some scenes, and if I were to improve the film I would go over some scenes as they felt rushed and the dialogue was rather quiet. 

Rehana's Review:

We had to create ideas for a film so we decided to brainstorm potential ideas and look at examples of other films to expand ideas on our own film.

Firstly we decided to give people in our group different roles. We started by deciding who was going to be the main camera man/director which was Olly. After that we discussed on how many characters was needed and who would be the ideal one to play each character. We all agreed on Jamie being the main character (Jordan), Me being The second main character (Jade) and finally Cameron being 'Kieth' who heroically took on the curse. We had Joshua and Ramil as our extra characters.

After deciding on the character roles and we had a bit more sense on the film we then decided to expand on our film ideas by then creating a script. We did this by basically thinking about the main story line of the film and based most of the script around the character profiles and main story line.

We made a story board that made this a bit easier and more organised. On each story board it explained each scene. However we didn’t follow the story board as much as we expected too. While filming we had difficulty getting the right places but we adjusted to the scene's we had and I personally think we made it work extremely well specially since we was limited on what/where we could do due group complications for example getting there etc. However while we was filming our group worked together extraordinary well we listened and helped each other when needed and adjusted each scene to their standard making sure they were comfortable when acting.

Another thing I liked while recording is that we used different techniques while we filming such as different angles. The different angles we used varied on each scene. For example in one scene it shows Jamie reading so we changed the angle into an over the shoulder angle which helped the audience have a 'closer' view on what Jamie is looking at. Another example of an angle we did was where we moved the camera to follow someone moving, this angle is called 'panning' We put our camera on the tripod and followed the scene horizontally giving it more of an 'moving' effect as if the audience is moving their head to follow the character in the film.

At the title and at the credits we used the same horror themed song. It creates a sinister feeling of suspense with its chilling music. While filming and editing the film I realised that it is a lot harder than it seems to create a film, there’s a lot more to it than just angles and props. It needs a lot of organizing, skills and quite a bit or practicing and preparing before actually filming.

There were quite a lot of difficulties while recording. For example some days the main character had an exam or another day one of our other characters might have been off college. This made it a bit more time consuming however we ended up filming what we needed. We didn’t really need props or costumes apart from newspaper which I provided for the group however we did do some mistakes while editing for example we accidentally deleted a footage which then we had to record again.

If I had to redo 'beauty is a curse' I would personally make it a lot more organised and stick to the story board a lot more. Also I would like to make it more interesting for example bringing more props in or going to a different area to make it a bit more different but overall I am satisfied with how our short film ended up.