Looking back

Upon having decided to shoot our narrative at Saumarez park with plenty of space, greenery and apparatus to work with, we needed to figure out how we would set it up like two random individuals on their lunch hour would cross paths.

We saw the plain fields and masses of space as a blank canvas in a sense, where we could plant our actors and tell a story of to unsuspecting individuals finding themselves in the park.

Evaluating

Six areas that went well

• The broad and spacious location I feel we used as a canvas plopping our eccentric characters into.
• Our costume was successful and especially the transition between the first, to the bolder, more intense second.
• The use of different magazine’s and having the performers read them adds that layer of believability. I say this because we sort of come to understand they both love reading, and share this in common with one another.
• The shots where they framed each other dancing are by far my favourite two.  The frame is created with their head and arms covering either side of the screen and I love how it turned out.
• I pre shoot activity we did that helped things run so smooth was develop a shot lost. This meant that all we had to do when we got there was set up our mise-en-scene and tripod and start rolling. I don’t think our shoot would have gone nearly as well without having completed a shot list.
• I really liked that both performers has predominantly dark features, this choice of casting helped us relate far more to the indie synth grunge genre because dressing them in dark tones of bold statement clothing looked far more natural.

Six areas that need work

• I think the magazine lifting shots, which is probably the most technical sequence in the whole sequence needed a much larger break down. I feel like we knew going in which shots we needed but continuity and pacing was not considered nearly enough and this will just create more of a pain for us in the edit.
• The use of props was very under utilised.  What would have been fun to involve would be a blow up guitar or an actual keyboard she could be playing in the middle of a field with the wire trailing out of shot so the audience believe that it’s plugged in.
• What needed some work was the the storyline, and how their relationship actually grew more intimate. I had the idea of having a shot of a magazine with basic illustrations of characters based on the two performers and having their speech bubbles contain narrative information.
• The reveal of the two new characters is hardly noticeable. A lot more work either in a reshoot or in the edit needs to be done to alter this issue.
• Too long. We came to realise the narrative sequence drags on longer than it should. The solution is to cut things like someone walking over to a table right down so both the edit flows better and the fast pacing is upheld throughout.
• Looking at the camera. In multiple cases my star performers give a glance or a flick of their eye-line to the camera as usually, I was stood behind it. These instances of course cannot appear in the final cut.