Project Evaluation

We were given 11 different sonnets to choose from for the fiction adaptation unit, and we had to choose the one that spoke to us the most. We had 4 weeks total production time with the sonnet of our choice to create an experimental film that was no longer than 5 minutes.

We had a variety of workshops at the start of the unit, covering topics such as camera movements, composition, montage, and haiku adaptation. The workshops were extremely beneficial because I learned a variety of things that helped me during the four-week production period. The montage workshop and the haiku adaptation were the ones that helped me the most. We were shown various types of montages during the montage workshop, including metric montages, rhythmic montages, tonal montages, intellectual montages, and over-tonal montages. During the montage workshop, we were shown La Jetée, a 1962 film made entirely of 35 mm film still images. The film's idea and process have inspired me and my thought process throughout this unit because I never thought something like that could be done, which has made me want to be more experimental during my own film. 

When it came to selecting a sonnet, I was drawn to a sonnet by William Wordsworth titled "Composed on Westminster Bridge." The sonnet drew my attention because of Wordsworth's use of visual language, and as soon as I saw it, I realised that it could be interpreted in a variety of ways. As I read the sonnet, I was immediately drawn to two lines: "Beauty of the morning silent bare, the very houses seem asleep." My idea became clear as soon as I read those lines, and I decided to stick with it and develop it. I've decided to take the line - Beaty of the morning silent bare - very literally. My original plan was to shoot the sunrise from several different locations and merge the locations, which were the beach and the forest, but as I spoke to Kat during my pitch, I've decided to focus on a single location for the first line and get more coverage. For the second line - the very houses seem asleep - I decided to make a horror twist out of it because the idea of the houses being asleep reminds me of them being abandoned, and because abandoned houses are notorious for being haunted, I decided to try and incorporate a little bit of horror into my film. As I looked into abandoned buildings, I realised that finding a good location and obtaining permission to film would be difficult, so I decided to sell with the idea of just shooting in the forest and trying to make horror out of it using both music and colour grading. My original idea for combining the two genres was to use the sun and the moon and have the sun flicker and shut off as if it were a light bulb, with the sun shining on and the moon off, and as the bulb completely dies, the entire mood of the film changes. However, the weather was not ideal during the shoot, and I was unable to capture what I wished, which was a clear image of the moon, and I did not want to use any stock footage within my edit, so I decided to record the heavy clouds and use that footage instead of the moon, which worked well in my opinion. My entire concept was risky because my entire piece was weather dependent, and because there was only a week's worth of shooting, I needed to constantly pay attention to the weather forecast and plan my shoot days well, because if I didn't, my entire idea would have gone out the window.

I've decided to shoot on a Thursday and a Friday of the shoot week because those are the only days that are expected to be sunny and rain-free. I had to get up very early for my shoot because I needed to capture the sunrise. I decided to shoot my entire piece with very little equipment to see what I could come up with. I only used my phone and a gimbal that I bought for my shoots. For the shoot to go smoothly, I had to do a lot of research into shooting on iPhone and what settings work best for what occasions. I also had to research the gimbal to figure out what limitations it had so that I would be aware of what I could and could not do during the shoot. I also did a lot of research into the types of shots I wanted to use for the film because it would save me a lot of time during the actual shoot. The majority of my research was done by watching several different YouTube creators and their opinions on different types of shots and for what works well when trying to achieve different things. I have recorded allot of establishing shots during filming and I also captured interesting close ups.

The editing process was one of the most crucial because it was what tied everything together and made the whole thing work. I struggled a lot during the editing process because it's not something I'm used to or even good at, so I had to constantly research different editing techniques for certain things I was trying to achieve. I had to do a lot of research on colour grading because it was one of the key differences between the two genres I had in mind for my piece. The amount of coverage I had took the longest and was the most difficult for me to manage. Because I had over 500 clips, it was difficult to pick out a few that I liked, so I spent a lot of time going over the clips again and again. however, at the same time, it was good as I had more than enough coverage to achieve what I wanted to of the final piece. Because the majority of the clips I've shot are in 4k 60fps, it's given me a lot of leeway when editing because it allows me to slow clips down without making the video choppy, among other things. When editing the video, I decided to first put together the sequence using only the footage and then insert the music files and beat transitions, which saved me a lot of time if I had done it the other way around.

In conclusion, the final edit turned out better than I expected, but there are a few things I would do differently if I were to do it again. The first step is to select a different sonnet. I believe that by selecting the sonnet, I put myself in my comfort zone and made a very simple edit; if I had chosen a more difficult one, I would have had to put a lot more thought into the film, which I believe would have been much better. If I had the chance to film again, instead of recording everything interesting that I saw, I would have concentrated on a few different locations and simply gotten a lot of coverage, including a lot more close-up shots. instead of shooting everything in the sunlight, I should have shot footage without it as it would have allowed for better colour grading for the spooky part of the edit.