Yesterday we finished editing our group project. Im glad that weve got it finished but i wasnt too pleased with the end result. The main thing that let our film down was the planning, along with a lot of things that were out of our control, and to be honest alot of bad luck.
For example: Actors reliability / availability. On many occasions we were let down by actors, the best example of this being the actor that we had cast as adrian pulled out 2 days before filming, after being confirmed for over 3 weeks. This meant we had to use Carlinas boyfriend instead, so we could only film when he was down which limited us to a day or 2 a week at the most, and as he was the main character he was in ever scene. So whenever we were filming we were rushed to try and get each scene done asap so we could move to the next, which resulted in us missing shots, and some dialogue, which was a nightmare in the edit.
Another factor that made editing harder was the fact that most of our cast wernt actually actors, so when shooting they did things dramatically different in different shots, body positions being the main one. Examples of this were in the first scene, Matt(Aidrian) changes body position several times between shots, so the continuity wasn't always good, and often poor. Another example was in the pub scene, Carlina(Cheryl) was sat upright for the whole of her over the shoulder shot, then when we filmed Matts(Aidrians) she had her head rested on her hand. so it made cutting between the 2 imposible. Although these are all things im sure i would have noticed during filming had it not been for the rush we were in to get the scenes filmed.
Timing was another big issue, because on the first day of filming we started late morning filming the first scene, and then moved on to film the third and fourth afterwards, so they were all filmed in the same sort of light (sunny, day time) We got cut short of filming scene 4 because we filmed at chloes house, and one of her house mates wasnt happy with it, so we were asked to leave before we had a chance to shoot some crutial shots at the end of the scene. Which posed another problem in the edit. The next chance we then had to film with Matt and Chris both available was the following week at 8 in the evening, and as this was the last oppurtunity to film with Matt we had no other option. So myself and tom came up with a way of writing Aidrian out of the script so we wouldnt need to use him/film with him again. Our idea was to have Jonny and Aidrian split up while being chased, and to then carry on filming Jonny until he gets away, and then have him recieve a phone call from Aidrian sounding paniced, where we hear him through Jonnys phone say 'ive got away but the police saw me running and chased me' and ofcourse he still has the drugs on him. So we then hear him get arrested through the phone, and we end on a shot of Jonny looking distraught.
The were a lot lessons learnt over the process of making this film, and ones that i will defiantly keep in mid for future productions. The first is not to be too ambitious, and too keep to as few locations, and as little actors as possible. Our Film had a lot of both of these so by the time we got to filming everything was a bit manic and rushed, which hurt the overall outcome of the film. The second is timing. To plan and shoot way before the deadline, this way you have time to keep re-editing and asses the possibilities, and different ways around potential errors. this is something we prayed for during editing, and if wed had time to re shoot certain sequences/shots the continuity of our film could have been greatly improved. The third is to never rely on anyone that isn't in the production team, always have back up equipment/locations/actors because normally people aren't to inclined to do something for nothing (especially actors).
The main positive i took from this film was the idea of getting on with what you've got. Even though we didn't have anywhere near all the shots we needed for the originally planned edit, we still managed to put together a film that flows (mostly) and has a gripping story line. At first the task of editing this film seemed too much to do in the time we had, but once Tom and i got on with it and just thought, this is the only footage we have got so were going to have to make do with it, it went well. Im not happy with the final edit, but i am happy we managed to finish it, as it took a lot of work and was a real group effort. The main thing i would change about this production is the planning. We proved in the later part of the production we could do it, and if we had worked that hard all the way through the film would look a lot more like our original idea.
Here is the finished Film:
And the Bloopers:
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