Evaluation - Hannah

EVALUATION BY CHILAPI

EVALUATION Throughout the whole experience of managing and organising a film production I learnt that keeping up to date with time and maintaining a good relationship within trust with all crew member is the key to achieving our goals set for the production. Without being organised, consistent and reliable things could go wrong in many different stages; from pre-production, production and these things may affect your post production leaving you with bad results. We had many strengths and weaknesses between me and Hannah and this was due to many different issues. For example, when it came to the day of shooting we experienced some technical difficulties with the camera which then lead on to us shooting on a different day leaving us way behind our schedule. However, this was then solved as we just got another camera from our college and then checked to make sure it worked before taking it to our shooting location. From this we learnt to check ALL equipment before taking them to film, preventing time being wasted. Another weakness would be the lack of communication between me and Hannah, this affected us as we ended up being two days behind schedule and this was due to the fact that I ended up in a meeting at the time were meant to shoot and I didn’t contact Hannah to confirm rescheduling the time of shooting. To prevent this from happening I could have easily just contacted her explain the situation instead of wasting hers and the whole production crews time that were at the shooting location already. 1. I strongly believe that our shooting schedule was very detailed, I say this because we had many shots to cover and the shooting schedule made things much easier for the group to follow. Because we had many shots in our film the shooting schedule had to be very specific in terms of who was being shot, what angle the shot should be taken in and what order to shoot them in. I was in charge of creating the shooting schedule and I do believe I did my best to make it as clear as possible for the whole crew including the cameraman to understand what happens in each shoot. The shooting schedule helps the whole crew know where and when they would be shooting, I made sure it was very specific with the locations in order to keep our crew organised. I do believe it was effective as we had enough shots (40 plus), it was realistic and simplified for everyone in our crew to understand what was going on. The shooting schedule, however, I strongly believe that if I created the shooting schedule, the whole production process would have been much more successful. Due to this being said, next time I have to produce a film and have to create the shooting schedule I or anyone else taking on this role would have to make sure that they up to date with making the shooting schedule on time as this prevents the crew from wasting time; it would also make the shooting process more realistic. Because the shooting schedule was well detailed we ended up having a positive outcome as the cameraman knew exactly what to shoot with what angle and this prevented confusion for the whole production crew. 2. I was in charge of developing our storyboard for our film. This meant that I was in control of the graphic organisation, I basically I had to illustrate our storyline using images that would translate to the cameraman and the rest of the production crew what was going to happen in each scene, I illustrated what shot would have been taken and I made clear what angle was meant to be used with the images used. I generally believe that I created a detailed storyboard as it contain 40+ shots which was efficient for our five minute film, I knew that if I made minimum shot on our storyboard it would’ve been a disadvantage to our group as no one (especially the cameraman) would’ve known what to shoot or what angle they should take in consideration. However, I do believe that I made the storyboard quite late and this was a disadvantage to our group as we wasn’t too sure on when to start the production stage of our film so next time I would have to take that into consideration and be more organised with it by creating the storyboard much more sooner to create more editing time or to even figure out if we needed any pick up shots much more sooner that to do it in a rush. 3. In our group I was in control of creating the shooting list, the shooting list is a list that contains all the shots needed in our film in the order that they would’ve been shot in. I purposely chose to order them out in terms of location, this decision was made to prevent our crew from wasting time by travelling to each location so the way I did it ensured that all the scenes that needed to be shot at Slade Green station were done all at once and the shots that were done in my house were done all on the same day at once. However, my team didn’t follow the shooting list when filming I strongly feel that if we did follow it we would have been much more organised and we would have used our time much more efficiently and we wouldn’t have ended up with pointless random shots that were taken and not used during post production. 4. Hannah was in control of creating the recce for the locations used, this was to prevent us from barriers like not being able to film in certain location for legal reasons, the weather not being up to our preferred standards (.e.g. rain) which could lead us on to not having enough shelter for our shooting equipment or affect our lighting or checking if the noise level was decent enough to shoot in. I personally believe she did this to her best ability because she went to all the locations, took pictures there and fully detailed out all possible hazards that would occur during the shooting process. This lead us on to having a positive outcome as there were all aware of all possible hazards that would occur and this resulted to us having no issues with shooting. However, she didn’t get permission from the southern eastern line service to shoot in Slade Green station, in result to this we got kicked out of it during shooting and missed out on shooting certain shots for the beginning of our film. In order to prevent this from occurring again she would have to consider getting permission from anyone responsible for each location so that this issue doesn’t happen again and we don’t miss out on shots that would need to be taken for out short film. 5. Unfortunately our actors were not well rehearsed or well organised. Our original actors that were set out to be are only characters were Esther and Lalluh. However Esther ended up being too busy to take part and this was tragic for out whole production as we couldn’t find a replacement actress, which led on to us wasting more time on finding one. In order to prevent this from happening again we would need to ensure that we have back up actors for each role and this would have made things run smoothly. In the end I ended up taking the character role of Alex, this was an advantage for us as I was very familiar with every scene and I have had experience of acting in the past so this role was quite easy for me. However, it was a little time consuming as I was the director and an actor which made it harder for me to take on my role as director as I was too focused on my acting skills. To prevent this from happen we would have to have back up actors and made sure they had enough time to rehearse each scene so they were confident with hat they were meant to do. 6. Everyone in our crew knew their roles, however I strongly believe that we could’ve taken more responsibly for them. For example, Hannah was the cameraman, she was responsible to taking the shots, turning up with all camera equipment and making sure they all worked; half of her role was done successfully as she took many great shots but at one point she made the mistake of turning up with a camera that was faulty, this again wasted time for our crew as we had to postpone dates of shooting until Hannah had a camera that was working and everyone in the production team was available to shoot. This could have been prevented if she made sure that all the equipment that she collected for our production was working before she took them and brought them with her to the production location. With that being said I do believe she did a great job of making all the right shots with all the right angle being used. The outcome of this was positive as we all had good shots for our post production to juxtapose how each character was feeling. I was the producer of the film so I had to make sure that everything was organised within the whole production. I believe that I could have done better with this role as there were many issues like working towards deadlines and making sure that everyone was working positively. On the other hand I made sure that everyone knew where to go for each location and made sure everyone was properly fed before shooting, and everyone was taking on their roles and the actor were wearing the right costumes. The call sheets were produced by me and I believe that they worked very effectively as it had everyone’s contact details on it so communication was not a problem and everyone turned up to all location without any difficulties. Next time I could improve on making it on time to all events, for example – I had a meeting on one of the days that we were meant to shoot and all the production crew members were all at the film location – due to this we had to postpone one of our shooting days to another, wasting our production time and limiting our post production time. To prevent this from happening next time I would need to ensure that I take my good communication skill to my most advantage so that our outcome of the film could be much better and so there’s no arguments within out crew. I sorted out this issue with planning another day to shoot, and treating our crew members for a nice meal out for pizza before shooting as an apology and to erase any tension. The outcome of this meant that all member got along more and we had positive vibes throughout the whole shooting process. 7. The call sheets were produced by me, I strongly do believe that it was made efficiently as everyone knew everyone’s contact details, people were confident with directions to all locations. Without this being done there would have been a lot of complications with how to get to the destinations; I tried to make sure that all equipment were working properly, the weather was good enough to shoot in, I made sure that all props were purchased and ready for us to use within all shots needed. In conclusion, our management of the production process was decent enough to produce a five minute film but we would have improve on our communication skills and improve on how organised we are as a team. With all of this taken into consideration we could have had an outcome of having more than enough editing time and nothing would have been rushed. Next time we would have to just ensure that we have back up actors so the case of one of our actors being too busy to shoot doesn't happen again; check on our equipment before taking it for shooting and just maintaining our time; always working before the deadline reaches and also maintaining positive vibes in the whole crew as we've learnt that this is key as everything would be done with a happy spirit and there wouldn't be as much stress.

CALL SHEET FROM CHILAPI

Production Roles - Hannah

production log - Hannah

PRODUCTION LOG BY CHILAPI

PRODUCTION LOG JANUARY- Around January me and Hannah had to decide on the genre and storyline of our film, we knew that we wanted our film to be horror and drama based but we couldn’t decide on what the film should content. This leaded us on to coming up with films that we believed could help us come up with a storyline. We ended up coming across a film by Tyler Perry called ‘For Coloured Girls’. We found this film very meaningful to us as it contained five colored girls that all had a specific issue that many females of today come across. From this we decided to have the main character as a female due to the vulnerability that females have stereotypically. The film Co loured Girls contained rape scenes that we thought we could add on to our film but we then had to decide on exactly how we would portray this film but in order to do this we had to ensure that we had a specific age rating that we were going for in order to uplift the idea of how we were going to portray a rape scene if we were to have one. FEBRUARY throughout this whole month we came up with a storyline of the main character getting raped by someone she thought she could trust.we were very confident that this could work but we just had troubles finding actors to take on the role of getting raped or rapping another as its a sensitive thing to do not many people would feel comfortable with these roles, especially as how they wouldn't be getting any profit from it. 14/4/15 – On this day we had a new teacher and he came up with a list of things for us to do; the list consisted of creating a storyboard, release forms, shot lists, shooting schedule, scripts, location release forms, recces, production roles and call sheets. After receiving a list of things to do in our groups we then had to make a decision on who was doing what. In order to do this we had to ensure that we knew who was capable of doing what so that things were done fairly and to our whole group’s best. This also had to be done so that things could run smoothly within the group as this would cause less commotion and we would all work professionally as a group. On this day I decided to take on the roles of getting on with the storyboard, shooting schedule, shot list and Hannah took the roles of creating the recce, location release forms and production roles and call sheets. This day lead on to a lot of confusion as our new teacher gave us some positive feedback that then made us have to change the structure of the film idea we came up with in order to get the marks that we wanted an to make our film much more easier to produce. So in order to start off with the list that was given to us by our new teacher we had to change the structure of our film as well as the whole storyline that we had come up with. 15/4.15 – on this day me and Hannah had a discussion on what we would've wanted to occur in our film and storyline. We came up with two of our own ideas individually and tried to get some assistance from our teacher on which idea to use as a story line of our film. This was done to expand out on the creativity of the group seeing how two ideas are better than one; another reason to why we did this was so that I and Hannah were both satisfied with the story line which would make a smooth running of team work. Our teacher stated that my idea had a better chance of being made within the space of time being given, however Hannah’s idea also consisted of ideas that we could add on. Based on our teacher’s feedback we decided to eliminate the idea of the main character being rape, the thought that if wouldn’t fit in with our target audience and it would impossible of our crew to shoot a rape film as members of the public in our location (Slade Green) could end up feeling uncomfortable with it and we could end up with a complaint from the local council. We also changed the location from Shooters Hill to Slade Green as we were initially meant to film in shooters hill that Hannah’s friend said that we could shoot in but that all changed as the house that she provided was unavailable due to family issues that had occurred during this time. 20/4/15 - Me and Hannah decided to not have any dialogue in our film and to just use ambiance sounds and music or sound effects in the background to make our film more effective. we suggested this via a phone call meeting we had during the week. 21/4/15 - on this day we limited our characters to two by just having the protagonist and the antagonist as the only characters in our film. the story line had completely changed as the main character Alex no longer gets raped; we decided that she should just get followed by an anonymous person while shes on a journey home. we made the hook of the film start as soon as the main character came out of the train station and feels as if shes being followed. due to this being said we made sure that our story line had some sort of tension and suspense so we ended up coming up with a twist that meant that the whole time she was being followed by some stranger, it was actually her boyfriend that was trying to convince her that shes too paranoid. however, she gets home safely, finds flowers at her doorstep and ends up getting too paranoid when she hears the doorbell ring- due to this she she ends up getting a weapon before opening the door; she finds out its her partner and that would be the twist of the film. 21/4/15 - We had to continue with our production logs and identify which actors we were going to use in our film. by the end of this meeting we already knew to was going to act in out film - Hannah then started the actors release form 23/4/15 – Hannah had completed the script of the film which looked like it contain over 40 shots. And I had completed the storyboard that consisted of 40 plus shots which were of all the scenes that were going to be in our film. We had updated them onto our blogs by then. Hannah then went onto creating the casting decisions which was basically a list of the actors that were needed in our film that stated why she chose them. The reason for this being made was so that we knew who exactly was going to be appearing in our film. Another reason to this was due to the fact that our actors needed had to fit correctly into their roles, without the actors’ description sheet we wouldn't know who would play the roles of Alex and her boyfriend and we wouldn't needed to ensure that they were capable of taking on these roles and fitted into them perfectly. 28/4/15 – We uploaded our post-production work carrying on with our pre-production logs. Hannah uploaded the risk assessments of our location, this was done to ensure that our crew were aware of all hazards that could prevented us from created our film. I also uploaded the shooting schedule onto the blog, we were slightly behind at this stage but we were trying to contribute a lot of concentration with the preproduction log. 5/5/15 - This was the fixed date to start shooting most of out film, however, one of our actors were unavailable due to them having an exam on this day. This stressed out the group as we didn't expect this to happen and we didn't even produce ourselves with back up actors; from this mistake we've learnt to always have a consistency of having back up actors and equipment. Due to this matter we decided to not waste anymore time and just shoot all the scenes that had the actor that was available in it by himself. This was done smoothly, but as the producer of the film I do believe that I should have produced a back up actor to play the role of Alex to prevent time being deducted from our post production time. 6/5/15 - On this day we decided to film every shoot that was left but this time with all the characters. Hannah had to act in another film for about an hour, this was okay because he had enough time in the day to start shooting from then. However, I had an unexpected meeting to attend to. This took about an hour and I had forgotten about us having to shoot today and all crew members were at the location set (my house). This was very awkward for the group as I was too far to be there within 20minutes and it was raining. Because of my inconsistency of communication all the crew members were left out in the rain and decided to just call it a day. Leaving me with an angry crew and wasted production and post production time. We had to shoot another day. 7/5/15 - This was the next day set for shooting after all the commotion I caused for the group. The whole group we're just not bothered and I thought that our chances of even creating a film was just sinking. However, we all came together as a crew and tried to speak things out and find time to shoot today. Once again our main character was a no show due to exams. We all decided that I was going to take on the role of Alex (the main character). This was a decision we made as a group because we had no choice and I was already familiar with the character; I've also had some acting experience in the past so that was an advantage for us. On our way to the location (my house) I could sense a lot of tension coming from everyone throughout the whole journey and this wasn't healthy for our shoot at all. So i took the crew to my house and made them some pizza just to break the ice. It was also my way of apologizing to the group for my lack of communication and wasting their time. This went on well and we took a lot of shots that day and everyone was happy. However, we did get kicked out from one of the locations which was the train station. This was due to the fact that Hannah didn't get permission from the southern eastern line but by then we had already got the shots that we actually needed so it wasn't so bad after all. Me and Hannah decided to set another date for us to come together again to get some pick up shots just in case. So arranged this to happen on the 10th May, around 15:00 after Hannah had attended church. 8/5/15 - This was the next day set for editing. I had a job meeting on this day so i really had to squeeze in time to edit before i left the editing suite. Once i finally found the chance to do so, i found out the the iMac I had to use to edit was faulty - this really stressed me out as i knew that the deadline was so close. There was nothing for me to do and the technicians were not available at this point so my film was at risk of taking a risk by missing out on my first day of editing. There was nothing for me to do but go for my job meeting and find time to edit on the next day. 10/5/15 - On this day Hannah came over my house so we could get some pick up shots for our film. This went on smoothly as she came on time, we got all the shots we needed and we had nothing but positive vibes. 11/5/15 - On this day I was meant to be editing but college work had taken over all my time so the post production of the film had to be postponed again, limiting my editing time was a difficult decision. 12/5/15 - Today was the deadline for my film so i had to make sure that I got as much edited as I could - I had four -five hours to edit and i still felt as if it wasnt enough time due to how much time my group spent on filming itself. I do believe that I rushed my editing and it could have been better if the whole production crew (including myself) had things organised and done in a smooth process. In order to do this i would have to make sure that our plans were realistic and not just set up on random dates because we think its okay to spend time doing nothing then when we get nearer to the deadline we'd start rushing the whole process and making everything stressful for every crew member. But that was the end of the production process and this was all that mattered.

She - Short Film - Hannah Bamgbala

https://youtu.be/FlHrNWC0xOs

CHILAPI - SHORT FILM

Location Recce and Release form - Hannah

shooting schedule by Chilapi Bwalya

All Actors information - Hannah