Practical Production: One Minute Film

Pre-Production

During the process of pre-production, Anna, Megan, Teejay and myself thought of our original concept. We considered all the different genres that we could explore and eventually, we settled with thriller. We picked the characters within our short film and then assigned a role for each of us: Megan being the murder victim, Teejay being the suspected murderer, Anna being the actual murderer and myself as a police officer. We all wrote the script together. We aimed to use as little dialogue as possible to ensure we met our one minute target. The drawing up of our story board was also going on at the same time as the script writing which saved time and gave our film a sense of structure. We then began to discuss what locations we were to film in and we decided to film in the drama room as it has good lighting and there were also props in there that we went on to use during production. 

Production

During the process of production, we filmed in two different locations; predominately in the drama room and partially back stage in the main hall. We decided not to film the scenes in the order they were to be in the final product. We did this because we did not want to keep moving the camera around as our film features flash backs, which required the same camera angle. At the very beginning of our film, we used a close-up on the prime suspect's face which showed his eyes flickering to convey nervousness. We decided to completely black out the room and use torches as spotlights. This was especially effective during the interrogation scenes as it added verisimilitude. However, this did cause the camera to become unfocused which prompted us to use manual focus. We used hand-held camera work right at the very end of our film, when the murderer is seen fleeing from the scene, which gives a sense of urgency.  During production, we used props such as a table, chairs, a bracelet and a photo card which was used to portray to the viewer who the real culprit was. 

Post-Production

During the process of post production, we used the iMacs to edit our film. Using Final Cut Pro, we were able to cut certain parts of filming out and also put the scenes in order. Using the same software, we were able to add sound effects like a door creaking and several different backing tracks to add to the eerie atmosphere. We also added filters; for the flash backs, we used a black and white filter to infer those scenes were in the past and for the present interrogation scenes, we used blue tones to create a nervy atmosphere.

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We had a clear genre and the storyboard led to a clear structure also. We also picked a location with good lighting which helped whilst filming. I also feel the black and white filter was very effective as it showed that the scene was in the past.

EBI:

We could have made the plot clearer to the audience by perhaps adding more dialogue. Also if we had more time, we could have added a company name and credits at the end to make it look more professional.