For our AS film production coursework, my group decided to create
a short film under the drama genre. We intended the film to be targeted at
young adults, around 18-30 years old. In order to conform to the generic
conventions, we decided to that we would employ a range of micro features in
order to the relationship between the characters, and to create a sense of
empathy towards the main character. I took specific responsibility of the use
of cinematography, sound (soundtrack) and both me and Kaesiegh did editing, in
the production of the film. What we want the focuses to be on in the film is
the performance and editing.
The narrative of the film is another reminiscing
about the happy memories with her daughter, and in a way, mourning after her
death. However, it has been brought about there are some allegories to the film
as well. One allegory for the film is of teenage abortion, due to the mother
looks very young; and looks back to what she could have had if she kept it. Another
allegory of the film is miscarriage, as the toy rabbit could represent what she
got for the child and the memories are what they could have done together.
In order to establish the tone of the
film, I decided to introduced a non- diegtic, meloncholic soundtrack at the
start of the sequence which follows all the way through. I selected an unknown
piece of piano music so it doesn't bring the audience attention of the performance. Also a piano soundtrack is simplistic and brings a sense of nostalgia
to the film, as it’s telling a journey a mother and daughter. The soundtrack
was mainly used to underlay the poem during the memory phase. We needed
something simplistic so the sound is not 'too busy' so the audience can
understand the momentum of the poem. Kaesiegh choose the poem and recorded the
girl say it, we both helped edit it in sound it sound runs smoothly throughout
the sequence. Initially we were going to use 'chasing cars for the soundtrack
without the poem as the song is easily recognisable to the target audience and relate
to the main character. However, when showing the rough-cut of film to our
target audience, they thought it took away the atmosphere of the film and had
mix feeling about it. Once showing them the new soundtrack, they thought it was
much better and created more meaning to the film. I decided not to us any diegetic
sound to make the memory more lifelike, as most people only remember images not
words. We decided to add the poem in to enhance the strong relationship between
the mother and daughter, as in the film you only see the mums reaction to the
death of her child, not how the daughter felt as well. This should make the
audience have a connection with both the mother and daughter in the film.
The next micro-feature I looked at is
cinematography. Cinematography is key to establish the characters and to show
how they are feeling. This is done through arrange of shots. In the rough-cut,
our target audience felt there was not enough close ups in the film to show the
relationship between the mother and child. In response to that, we filmed
another two times to get the shots we needed for the film. Close-ups are key in
any drama film to show expression of the character faces and how they feel
(convention of a drama). This is shown in reality, when the mother is seen as
sad, and in the memory, where the mother and daughter are happy. Shots are key
to establish the roles in character, along with the mise-en-scene. For example,
at the end of the film, you can tell the man is the husband to the woman due to
their age and performance; which help from the array of mid, long and two shots
of the together.
The last micro-feature I looked at is
editing, which both me and keasiegh worked on. This was used to create the sense
of past and present and to combine all the micro-feature together, to make the
film run smoothly. for the film, we did two sequence, the first I did the
editing and there were shots of the flask back and reality cross-cutting
between each other, however, colour and sound was wrong so we started afresh
using some of the footage I edited previously. the first cut, the audience
thought the women found a child instead on losing one, so we cut out all of the
footage of the mother on her own and just has reality, flashback, reality. We
then looked at the colour and brightness of the footage. We though the audience
would understand there are a flashback if we changed the colour of the footage,
so it contrasts the reality. We decided to us black and white as those colours
are usually associated with the past. For the footage in present time, we kept
the colours the same but pulled down the brightness to create a darker
atmosphere and tone to the film. The final thing we did to the footage was to
add transitions. For the transition to reality to flashback, we overlapped the
footage and used cross-dissolves, to show the change in time (memory) which is target
audience understood a liked. Through the memory, we added fade in for every
change of play equipment is used to show how time progresses on. They are fades
at the start and send of the film with the footage and sound to introduce and
end the film.
The editing for the sound was much more
simplistic. We added fades at the start and end of the film like I said previously,
but the poem was much more difficult. As the girl could not read, she had to
repeat the line from kaesiegh one by one. Each line had to edit with fade-in
and outs of each clip, so the camera buzz is less noticeable. However we managed
to do it in the end and it sound much better. We also lowered the soundtrack so
you can hear the poem better, as in the feedback from the audience; the sound
was too loud to understand the poem. With these editing techniques combined,
this helped create a slow pace to the film which helps create a melancholic
atmosphere and a sense of empathy for the mother. Overall I think the film was
a huge success and thoroughly enjoyed make it.
