Evaluation Of Maltese Falcon

The project was to re-create a sequence from Maltese Falcon. To do this we had to form a group of 4 and organise ourselves to prepare for the re-shoot. In my group there was me, Chloe, Jasmin and Hollie. Here are our allocated roles which we all decided on.

Script - Props - Costume - Harriet Harrison
StoryBoarding - Hollie Andrews
Director - Chloe
Producer -Jasmine
Editor - Hollie, Harriet, Jasmine, Chloe.

The planning of the production went very well we were all organised and happy with our roles. I organised the costumes and props whilst Hollie storyboarded the sequence. The first issue we reached was that we needed male actors since as though a lot of the clip was two males. To resolve this we teamed up with a group of boys that needed female actors so we decided that we would work together and help each other out. I was Mrs Wonderly in their film whilst Josh was spade in our film. The group worked really well together and we were all able to get along. It was a good experience for all of us to act as we all got different roles and a chance to understand these roles. Playing different roles all the time meant that we had a greater understanding of directing, using the camera and editing; which is all good practise for when it comes to making our own films.

Something we found very difficult was managing our time. During the planning stage we thought everything was going well until we actually began filming. We allocated different times to different scenes which we thought was going to work really well, however it became difficult because it took longer than we expected. It is important that you get the composition and lighting correct which in reality takes a lot longer than you expect.  Due to our time difficulty it meant that not all our shots got completed. However to us it was a good point it made us realise that our creative project is going to take longer than we expected. It made us realise that we may have to dedicate two days to get maybe the first 5 shots correct. Dealing with time difficulty has really effected my planning of my creative project so I have decided to make a table with dedicated times and hours to the correct places. Planning effectively is one of the main focuses of the project without great planning you can’t make a great film as we experienced.

The continuity editing in our piece isn’t great the costume changes along with the lighting and props. This is because we felt very rushed and it was getting closer to the deadline so we felt the most important part was to understand the camera angles and get the composition and lighting correct, I think we did this well the composition of the shots look correct and the lighting improves the shot.

Matt from the other group had his own camera and we thought it would be a great opportunity to share the camera gets them set up in correct positions so that it could save time; we agreed at the end we would figure out who’s is who’s footage and then transfer it to the correct editing suite. Once we got it to the editing suite we realised it was a mistake as the camera we shot on was widescreen and Matt’s wasn’t. This caused our footage to be different screen sizes and you can tell when you play the footage which camera is which. This was a mistake however it taught us that we shouldn’t use two different cameras if we are not 100% sure how it will affect our footage.

Once it came to the editing stage and we turned the footage into black and white it looked a lot better. We added fades to the beginning and end and shortened all the footage to the correct position and put them together to create the continuity sequence. Everybody had a chance to edit and it helped us understand how to use the machines correctly to achieve the best from our work.

Overall this task has really helped me. It has given me the chance to be able to experience filming. One thing I did want to understand is how to use lighting in the appropriate way and this has really helped me understand that and have a change to explore different techniques before using my own lighting equipment. I would say that if we were to do it again the most important thing is to plan more effectively which I have really focused on for my film. Time management is the real issue I need to focus on.