Songbirds don't cry part 3

After a brief period of limbo, we were giving choices to make regarding the production and assessments. 1, do what you can as a group to produce something. 2, produce something yourself. 3, write about the project.

As a group we discuss these options and a few others, including myself were entertaining the idea but then we decided it best to go our own ways as this point, due to the length the group choice had to be. As for the others i can’t say what they are doing at this point but i know what i’m doing, a Sizzle reel.

I did a SWOT analysis of my situation,

strengths

-        Experienced with equipment

-        Efficient in Editing skills

-        Lots of Footage from Previous projects.

Weaknesses

-        Distractions

-        File management

-        Lack of knowledge with sound equipment.

-        Finding a creative Flow     

  Opportunities

-        -Practice editing a trailer

-        -Gaining skills by filming using minimum resources

-        -Developing the skills by using equipment that we are unfamiliar with

-        -It is an opportunity to work on our weaknesses and improve on them to eliminate or make less of a weakness such as using sound and developing post sound experience.

-        Great chance to develop time management skill.

Threats 

-        Working within a tight time parameter

-        Ability for storage devices to crash rendering footage unusable and possibly corrupted.

-        Finding time film, considering I hardly

Leave home and have 2 kids. Challenging time constraints.

this allowed me to visualise areas, i felt i could work on during this time, hopefully coming away with better skills and understanding of equipment and software at my disposal.

For my work flow, i dived into the mindset of making a show-reel, I tried in a few different ways to make it relate to what the film was going to look and feel like it my head. I decided to use mostly my own footage from previous projects, this showcases my own filming skills and what my films look like. I tried to use the same actress as much as i could so it felt like a real film, a few sections had to be a different actress but i added something else which could bring some continuity, the guitar used during the intro is very similar and instantly recognisable as a Les Paul. This kinda helps matching the intro with live sections.

I spent sometime considering what music to use, i figured i could use any music since this was for education purposes and i had no plan to release it commercially. The original music in the mood-reel was a cover of Killers song called Mr Bright-side, then during my first edit of a sizzle reel i used Tiny vessels by death-cab for cutie After i got some feedback from different sources, i make the decision to change the Music again, this time back to the killers but a different track, All these things that i have done. I honestly can’t imagine using any other song now. The song adds so much in terms of structure, emotions, rhythm and just generally a more pleasant feel but will some pain.

I had the idea of making an intro and outer section with shots of guitar, amp, a pick, strings. the anatomy of guitar playing kind of thing. i back-flipped a 50mm prime lens without mounting it to the camera, this allowed me to get real shallow depth dreamy extreme close up shots. I used a 2 point lighting set up during this which allowed me to control my aperture and iso a lot more.

I tried to record some voice over stuff, with help of friends online, the quality wasn’t the best, because they could only record on their phone. i decided to limit my use of it, an idea which might bite me back but i feel the piece is stronger were it is at the now than earlier.

I struggle with stepping away from something when i am working on a project. I pick and work continuously until the time comes to hand them in, with this assessment i made an edit and let it sit, then went back and reviewed it with fresh eyes. I feel this allowed me to grow less attached to sections and shots used.

All in, i feel i have performed not at my best, but rather the best i could, considering the situation in current times, i hope i get a chance to finish the filming of the original and i feel the sizzle reel i have produced is something which would really show i could have done the film in a convincing, professional manner.