Assigment 4 Re-edited

My tutor recommended me to re-edit the final assignment. His critique was mainly about the narrative and wrong English: I did have some trouble following your narrative and your English subtitles though. Robert also proposed me his structure which I could follow and make the story more clear.
Here is the result:

Robert's comment: It's 100% better.  Quite professional, flows well and you've put the pieces together coherently.  Only a few English errors (during) but these are minor. Well done.

Assignment 4 Constructing a narrative

PDF files: 
Report with preparation notes and critique: Assignment_4_Notes.pdf
Tutor report: Tutor_Report_Assignment4.pdf

some photographs

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Re-edited Assignment 3

The main Robert's (tutor) critique was about narrative - the story structure. Robert encouraged me to re-edit the story and I agreed after a great phone discussion. I realized that I did not conveyed some issues about the story in original edit. Here is the re-edited version but I was not able to make it within 90 second:

Assignment 3: Notes, storyboard, critical evaluation and tutor report.

I forgot to put here the files with my preparation, story board and critical evaluation of Assignment 3:

PDF Files:
note_evaluation_assignment3.pdf
original storyboard.pdf
changed storyboard after first shooting day.pdf

Tutor report: Tutor_Report_Assignment_3.pdf

Assigment 3 Creating meaning

Assignment2: notes, tutor report and some photographs

PDF files:
Here are my preproduction notes, storyboard and critical evaluation: Assigment2.pdf
Tutor report: Tutor_Report_Assignment_2.pdf

Photographs from location:

Assignment 2: Creating atmosphere

Assignment 1

PDF Files
Tutor File: Tutor_Report_Assignment_1.pdf

Story:

My story is about a person who waits for a call. When he answers the phone he gets bad news.

Storyboard:

Frame 1: somebody is laying on a bed, looking above.  I wanted here to evoke in viewer question what is happen so I used the medium close-up shot.

Frame 2: A telephone shot: close-up of telephone. The shot of telephone shows that maybe the someone is waiting for a call.

Frame 3: Someone receiving a call. An extreme close-up frame should give a clear picture what the call is about. The ECU reveals the feelings of the character.

Frame 4: Medium close-up or Mid-shot to see result of the call - character's expression.

Frame 5: Medium close-up: we can see how the character face with information from the call. There can be a drop of tear.

25.08.12

Critically assess your finished product:

Where is the tipping point which I mentioned in exercise about how to learn?
As usual I am not satisfied with it :-). I have to admit that when I have draw the storyboard I thought it will be a good small dramatic sequence. We will see somebody receive a bad call. We do know what exactly it was about but we see the expression of the character. I think there is a lack of creativity. Maybe I did try to express more sadness, I do not know. Maybe I do not like it because I am the actor and a shyness is enhancing my critical mind, I do not know. I like the receiving the call (frame3) shot. It tells us nearly without words that the message is bad just because we see expressions. The film is strong medium to tell the story without words and I think it will be my intention to try to tell the stories in this way. I like illustrations which do the same thing. I remember now that a film Eraserhead by David Lynch has minimum dialogs and the meaning is build by shots and each audience has their own meaning.

What I have learned:

1. To be carefully what the actor is wearing because in the shots you can see that on the T-shirt is a name of company.

2. Frame 4: when I filmed myself I did not realize that behind me is an open door. The figure is connected to the darkness of the space in door. I do not like it but I let it be. There would be better contrast if the door would be closed.  Using a shallow depth of field could help here also. I like the depth of field which use Stuart. It helps to concentrate on focused object/subject. 

3. Even I filmed every frame few times (3-4) there were problems to chose suitable moments, e.g. I finish the scene too early, or I was too much blinking or my head was badly placed in frame.

4. The sensitivity about my new Rode microphone: when I was cutting the shots I could not believed that the microphone is so sensitive to record my hungry belly :-))).

5. Stay close to the story board: I wanted to add some action into the frames, I mean action like going up, laying down on bed etc. After I loaded the shots into PC I tried to connect the shots together. It were those actions in shots which encouraged me to change order of frames against storyboard. I wanted to have those actions there such as the character go up to pick up the phone but I have problem to connect it with the phone shot, so I move the shot of phone before the shot of somebody is lying on bed to avoid a problem with connection. You can see it in second video on my blog. When I have read the assignment again and saw the notion try and stay true to your storyboards I made the sequence again accurate to the storyboard. I deleted the mentioned actions and connected the shots in order in the storyboard and it worked. The sequence conveys the same meaning without redundant actions. It means that the preparation stage is the most important.

6. Frame 5 and a drop of tear: I wanted to show the sadness by  a drop of tear but I was not able to do it. When the camera was on I did my best but no one tear reveals. I tried to listen to sad song but nothing helped.

7. Frame 4: I do not like the composition here. I wanted to have my head on the right side but when I turned camera on I did not see that I moved a little bit to the left side :-).

Skills:

I need to more explore the framing and angles of camera by studding them in other films. I still do not know how to use them properly to support different meaning / feeling. As I discovered I need to strengthen the preparation stage I need to do more things like notions about angles of camera and actions within every frame in storyboard. 

Here is the sequence which was cutted as a first: