Transitions: Critical Reflection

I can't believe it's came to an end so quickly! To think 9 months ago i was just beginning second year, and now finishing it. This unit hadn't came at the most practical time, starting right before we were about to hand in & complete our 'As Live' production unit, but it's probably fair that we were given enough time to get something done, possibly not what we set out to achieve, but something of decent quality. 

Pre-Production
I felt in our planning/pre-production stage, we were very much on top of things in regards to casting, booking out equipment, camera preparation etc. I was particularly happy with how we all worked as a team, it made things generally smoother, efficient and allowed us more room to manoeuvre if certain things were to go wrong, we'd have possibly more time on our hands due to being very prepared, i.e having our initial first shoot day being scrapped and turned into a test-shoot day. Possibly me and Oliver could of mapped out a complete storyboard for the entirety of the sequence, however it wasn't necessary as the final sequence was less structured camera wise than the rest of the narrative.  

(The Cast)

Production
On the shoot day, everyone was prepared and ready. We got to our shoot location (my basement) for 9:30am, and shooting began roughly at around 10am. We flew through the first half of the script, allowing us to have a quicker lunch. It was a very efficient day, with everyone having such a high level of concentration & commitment as with actors who you've never met before, it's a instinctive reaction to want to impress and show your professionalism. All in all i was impressed with myself and everyone's professional behaviour on shoot, however obviously looking back on some of the footage now, knowing that i was in charge of it, there's definitely room for improvement. I need to be more concise with my shots, more thoughtful, provocative & if i'm going to use handheld i need to fully jump into that aesthetic and not sit on the fence & shy away. Also the white balance in a lot of the footage is way off and i'm frankly quite pissed at myself. The lights within the basement were yellow but the tones were off on the faces, it's not until you get through towards the middle/end of the sequence that the yellow-iness begins to wear off due to the sun creeping in & balancing it all out. Me and Oliver worked very well together, we both had very similar visions in terms of how we wanted it shot, and the coverage we acquired was down to us both wanting to get as much as we possibly could, because we knew when it would come back to the edit, we'd have a vast amount of footage for Aimee to play with. 

(Good Time)

Post-Production
As the filming had only just finished on the 8th, Aimee our editor had a lot on her hands, as deadline was round the corner coming to hit us all on the 16th May. She was very prepared though as on the day of shooting she was already taking the SD Card out of the camera & editing footage immediately. Still, we knew it was going to be a tough edit, so we'd planned to meet up every day we possibly could to get through the edit together and help Aimee out where we could. On the edit viewing, i was tasked with helping her with colour correcting. I've never really delved into colour editing as i know it's a job in itself and there is a vast amount of information you should really know before doing it, but it's all about learning and developing your knowledge on new & existing elements. I'm happy with how the edit has turned out, it's unfortunate we didn't have certain shots to make the edit that bit more eclectic but that's due to me and i hold my hands up for that. Sound is also a key thing with this sequence, and it needs to have the right tone and match the aesthetic which i feel it does on many levels. 


What worked
What i felt definitely did go well through the project was the harmonious team spirit and energy that every individual brought with them. Having never previously worked with any of the members i am currently with, it was a fresh change, and i rather enjoyed it. As well as this, technically, certain camera angles did pay off in the end, like the continuous shot that had some serious doubters. I'm pretty stoked with the amount of coverage that we acquired, i feel Aimee had a fair bit to play with and for an editor i know that's a dream come true. Overall though i'm happy with how well we represented ourselves on set with the cast, it was very professional, diligent and competent.  


What could be improved
With every unit comes looking back at your work and critiquing where appropriate to learn from your mistakes. With being the camera operator there were definitely many aspects that can be improved, one being to have awareness of all the camera presets & settings, to have it on settings that suit you and the tone you're trying to capture. Another issue is making sure you're happy with what you see in the view finder, if you're not sure, get it onto a laptop and see how the footage looks there. With this unit in particular i found it hard to gauge the footage on the view finder as it appeared to be okay. It's beginning to seem that i'm working my way slowly to the more technical aspects of the camera, like the white balance, picture profiling, playing with colour manipulation & all of the other discrete functions within the Panasonic DVX200s, so it's just becoming more observant and aware of the functionalities of them, to become more instinctive with them & for them to feel natural in your hands.

What have I learnt
There are many things over the course of this unit that i've picked up along the way, one being to how to change the presets on the Panasonic's to your preference. This came in handy when i was trying to get Peaking up on the view finder just so i could tell what was in focus or not. I really just began to get very familiar with the Panasonic, figuring out more and exploring with certain settings that i wouldn't of dared to do before. My confidence with camera operating as a whole has definitely  increased and that's down to just using the camera's more and having more awareness visually of what looks aesthetically pleasing. 



Conclusion
Overall, i'm pretty satisfied with how this whole unit has went in terms of all the technical aspects and production planning. It could of only been done with the team around me as each individual brought a special something to the group that no one else could of. I did worry about this unit if i'm being honest, as my feelings now are still pretty conflicted, as in many respects i feel it came at such an awkward time it's tough for us to get out of this unit what we should of realistically got out of it, and that will be evident in our work. However saying that, i think it is a great eye opener for next year, and if we're already focusing and honing in on our individual roles now, then we've got the whole summer to plan and prepare meticulously for when 3rd year comes along. I can see the benefits to the unit massively, but it was also a burden.