After having our fair share of successes and failures, we managed to complete the film and hand it in before the deadline and managed to hit all the other deadlines that were set before. I think we managed to hand all the problems we faced well and find ways to correct them, especially with the location difficulties. One of things we could of done to improve would to have been more efficient in finding actors. Overall I enjoyed myself on the project and feel that we produced a good piece of work.
Specific details
Idea
Was a unique take on a romantic short film
The title "Shells" had a good link to the film without revealing much about the plot. Draws people into the film
The theme of shells was something that the film manages to show throughout
Having the death of the wife not become apparent until the end has a large impact on the audience.
Camera
Good variation of shot types throughout the film
Most of the shots are steady (a few camera shakes due to wind and the nature of some of the shots)
Everything is in focus
All the shots are framed correctly
The variation of shots and angles helped to engage the audience and create sympathy towards older Jon.
Editing
Very good continuity throughout the edit
Managed to cut down long scenes
Filter on the flashbacks adds a nice effect to the film
Sound
The sound helps the audience become engrossed in the main characters storyline
The cut of the soundtrack when the kettle goes off adds a nice effect
Today was our final day for editing. I managed to matching all the sound back to each clip which was a long process that took up a lot of time. Me and Ilarna also added the sound effects and the soundtrack to the film and Ilarna also managed to colour correct the film as well. Overall I think the edit came together very well! Tomorrow the other members of the group will meet to review the overall edit and then hand it in to be marked.
Today me and Ilarna spent around 8 hours refining the edit that we had and making sure that everything sequenced together properly while also keeping up a good pace. I also added the effects to the flashbacks using keying and camera blur. The effects look really good but now we have discovered a new problem. As we were editing, the sound had disconnected with each clip meaning that all the sound was out of sync. We are planning to fix this in one more day of editing where we will fix the sound, add the sound effects and colour correct.
All the sound effects used on the film were sourced from freesound.org. We downloaded them all into one folder which made importing them into the film easier. All the sound effects are of good quality and fit in well with the film.
While Me, Ellie an Kat were filming, Ilarna had started to edit together some of the footage we already had. After then giving her the new footage, she had sequenced together all the scenes. She then showed us what she had done so far in the following seminar. One of the main problems that we faced was that the actor had done the scenes for far longer than we hoped and that some of the shots we had were far too long. It is unfortunate but me and Ilarna are planning to go back and refine the edit.
For the flashback I light the idea of having a filter over them to make it clear to the audience that they are in the past. I have therefore been busy looking at editing tutorials so that we can implement them into our editing process.
I have also been looking at just the basic tools on the editng software so that I can get familar with it as it is a software I haven't used before.
During the flashbacks we want to have a romantic soundtrack in the background. I also suggested that we play the sound effect of the sea as the opening credits start with the credits fading in out with the sound of the waves crashing. Ellie also got a nice shot of some seagulls that we are thinking we are going to put the title over. We therefore also need a sound effect of some seagulls. Lastly we also need some sound effects of a door slamming and a kettle going off. I have been looking at some royalty free sound effects that we could use.
