Single Camera Production Evaluation

For our 10 minute short we decided to choose Jacks screenplay as it would be the easiest and best to shoot. Jacks script called 'Once Upon A Dream' allowed us to give a great story line that look place within a college so we didn't need to worry about finding locations etc and the locations that were used outside of college were a 5 minute walk down the street. We had to change a few parts within the script as we couldn't shoot certain parts i.e the 'junk shop' scene had to be changed to the British Heart Foundation as no junk shops were near enough for us to film and some scenes would have been far to hard for us to even attempt so they had to be taken out.

Shooting on the DSLR (Canon 550D) was a good experience for me, as I wasn't in the production much I was mostly behind the camera with Kirk. Shooting manually also allowed us to get low
depth of field and manipulate shots to suit our production or so we could make our production look that bit better, for example the shot to the left shows Hannah in focus and Jack slightly out of focus.
Changing the ISO Aperture and shutter speed were critical when shooting in manual and again allowed us to create low depth of field etc that would have been very hard if shooting in auto. Changing the settings was simple and after a while it was like second nature to check if the ISO was right etc. I feel as a group we done this well and were able to get some really good shots because of this.

Obtaining adequate coverage did become a problem for our group, especially when we shot the last scene. Throughout the production when we shot a scene and then uploaded it we then realized we needed more footage however this was easy enough as we were able to walk there or just shoot within the college. However the last scene which was shot we had to take transport to get there and we only had one chance to shoot this. After shooting the scene and uploading it we realized that we didn't have enough footage and there was a large jump cut that wouldn't fit. Fortunately we managed to cover it up however we did have problems with not getting enough footage and obtaining adequate coverage.

My scene in the production was the very first scene and it ends when the tree lights disappear. I feel that my scene went rather well and although there was about 4 people within the classroom I managed to make it look like a full and busy classroom but

then being able to catch the audio well so you could understand what the characters were saying. I feel this was one of the only scenes where we actually managed to get enough coverage and then if we needed more shots we could just shoot them there and then as they were in the classroom. I feel that I also made the story line clear and the emotions and feelings of Sophie clear just by using certain shots like close ups to see the emotion within the character. Within the editing sequence I was able to edit it easily and the shots fitted together easily, and we were able to get the scene shot and edited quickly and professionally and within our feedback people said that they liked that scene especially.

Mise-En-Scene was also very good, although it was late January and early February we were able to make it look like Christmas with certain props that were used, such as the Christmas tree with the presents and wrapping paper. We obviously wanted to make it look like C
hristmas as the screenplay was written for it to be made around Christmas with the secret Santa etc. We made it a high priority to make it look and feel like Christmas. We did struggle to make it look like
Christmas within some scenes like the final scenes were it was very sunny and we were unable to make it look like a cold Christmas evening. Feedback does say that it did feel like Christmas and that they were able to see where it was and why the character was there which is what we wanted to achieve.

Our camera work was good I feel apart from a few scenes like the picnic bench scene and the tracking through the British Heart Foundation shot. Although a few were shaky and some out of focus I feel that our production still looked professional, our framing was good and we were able to get some great shots. Feedback does say that we could have used more closeups and extreme close ups to show more emotion, which I do agree with however I am very happy with the finished product that we have made.

Again with our editing I feel was overall very good, we made some good transitions and I especially like the cross fades to the sparkling lights. Most of the editing was just cuts, fades and cross fades however I feel that they give a professional feel to the production. Some people do disagree with me and say that some of the transitions don't look right or are slightly too long, however we can easily change this to suit the audience better and make our production better.

With our sound we had many problems, some scenes the background noise was far too loud and some scenes were far too quite. It was hard trying to find a in between. We made the best of a bad situation and were able to make our audio good however I feel that this is the main part of our production that needs improvement. Our feedback also backs up my point with people saying that the audio was up and down and didn't always match up, all things that we already knew and this should be our main focus point when changing small parts in our production.

I feel that everything went well, when shooting we were able to come together as a group even if it was someones certain scene and give opinions on what was good about the scene and what was bad and within the editing sequence everyone had an input and we worked really well as a group, even from the start when we were doing pre production work. Some things that didn't go so well were when we didn't have enough footage for a scene, and trying to make our audio work as we used different microphones for different scenes, apart from this not many things went wrong. I have learnt many things from this unit and making this short film, mostly about the DSLR. I learnt about ISO, shutter speed and aperture which I had no clue about before this unit, and also getting low depth of field in the shots

and making some things blurry and out of focus and certain things within the scene in focus. I also learnt that when doing a single camera production, even if you think you have all shoots you need for the scene, shoot more as 9 time out of 10 you will not have enough footage and you will have to go and re shoot or get extra footage. Next time I will check the ISO and shutter speed etc for every shot as sometimes we didn't check for every shot and every shot requires a different setting. Also making sure we have enough footage for the scene I would make sure that we had a serious amount of footage for each scene and make sure we had enough coverage for each scene as this was a problem within our production. Overall I feel that our 10 minute short was very good and the class also voted that it was their favorite and this feels me with confidence that we made a professional short film and I am very happy with the finished product.