Overall, I think it is an extremely tight and slick video. The editing in particular was the key to its success, with its slick continuity of the stalker shots and jokey music playing in unison this really enhanced the comical theme. Its slow paced, 'lazy' feel really enhances the post-student lifestyle of the character. The use of the actor himself worked really well aswell, as it did not just look as though we picked one of our friends; we picked a person who looked the part of the post-student, early twenty something. This really made the piece look authentic and not just getting one of our friends in to do the job.
The lighting worked well overall except for a few shots could have been improved a little with a better light source, but having said this we wanted the effect that the household wass dark and mundain, hinting that he is a poor 'bum' (after student life). We could have used better light sources to iluminate the character slightly better, but still have kept the cool and lonely look by using a blue 'lighting gel' to make it seem colder, having said this, at the time of filming it did not seem as dark as it did when we recorded out onto the Macs, which is a shame as it would have looked a lot more professional.
It was hard getting the continuity just right, cutting from the appearing and disappearing shots of the television, especially with the outside one, as the timing and movement of his body turning back to go outside took so long to line up. We managed to get it near about dead on, which worked out to look like a professionally cut sequence. The fades between these shots worked well too as jump cuts did NOT look professional enough so we therefore had to in order for it to look appealing. Having said this, we did not realise at the time but one of the fades were longer than we thought, loosing interest from our audience a little (what we recieved as feedback from the Questionaires). Having shots of him doing day-to-day things in between the funny shots would have dragged out the film, although the soundtrack became repetititve, and started to grate on some the audience members.
One of the main problems in our film A few other comments we gained from the Questionaires from the year 12 students were mainly to do with the ending and how it could have been a lot more engaging, as it dragged out a lot more than needed. Perhaps shortening it, and adding another low opacity shot could have improved on the look, but having said this i think that if we were to do this, it would have become repetitive and amateur looking too.
We used a lot of medium and long shots as we wanted to capture the lonlieness of him sitting watching television all day, doing nothing else. We had problems with the camera and the boom kept getting in shot, so in one scene the camera jumps awkwardly as we had to stretch out the shot to make it cut out, but I think this raw effect, makes it appear grittier and imperfect like his mundain life. They all worked really effectively, capturing the action and that feeling of solitude that the character felt as his life was sucked in by consumerism and boredom. We took influences from the animation “Killing Time at Home”, which showed how the modern day man cna get sucked into the new technology and how it can almost become an adiction.
It tied in with the basic codes and conventions of a short film, due to the simple fact that it is under 50 minutes long and that it is slightly less conventional like a classic mainstream story (beginning middle and an ending. Problem in the middle which gets resolved at the end).The majority of the short films we wtached had a underlying message, whether it be subtle or obvious, this is what sets aside short films to mainstream blockbusters. I believe our production captured quite a few moral messages:
- Technology is taking over our lives, and its grip on society today is getting slightly ridiculous (playing on the comedy theme - rather like the work of )
- Technology is everywhere, we can not get away from it.
- We live in an adictive and compulsive time
- Lazy people are haunted by their idleness.
As you can see, many key points are arisen from our short film, and can be interpretted in many differnet ways...depending on who watches, and how intently they look into it.
I think I could have had more of a role in the editting side to the project, having said this I did contribute as much as I could have given the lessons i was away for due to illness, which is a shame. I did come in and have a little editting session in my own time to tweak the overall film - without changing too much. It almost shows a piece of us as people too as we are all quite laid back etc, so its a little piece of us in the film which is a great way to end the year...it has broadened my mind to a hwole new world of films, whilst also inspiring me to be more open minded and creative with future university products which i love.
