Jessica Cross

From watching our short film sequence that my group has created, I am pleased with what we have produced as our final result. We decided to create the opening section of a romantic comedy and where inspired by films such as “John Tucker must die”2006 directed by Betty Thomas. Our sequence introduces the three main girl characters as you see them preparing for a night out. We originally where going to show one boy also getting ready and then showing up at one of the girls doors, but eventually this became harder to film than expected, as time was limited, we subsequently decided that only seeing the three girls in fact worked just as well. The idea of the three girls all getting ready for a night out, more than likely with a boy, is very much like the theme through “John Tucker must die” as John the main character continues to date three girls without each of them knowing, but when they find out they plot to hurt him as they themselves have been by him. If we had continued our short film it could have been very similar.

Within my group I was given the main tasks to work on cinematography and sound. Sound within our short film we decided to make relatively simple and play a song By Calvin Harris throughout; and decided we did not need to use dialogue. This non digetic sound we felt worked well as at the beginning of many films you see the characters but you do not hear their thoughts until you are better introduced to them a little further in. The particular song we picked not only created the lively atmosphere and excitement needed to make a mood of teenage girls getting themselves ready to go out, but also the lyrics where in fact quite fitted to the idea of them, all three girls dressing up maybe to meet one guy. Our genre for our short film also influenced the sound and therefore the music we decided to use.

For the Cinematography I tried to use a large range of shots which I think we managed quite successfully as we had a large range of close ups, extreme close ups and medium close ups but also a varity of angle changes. We found capturing the right angle more challenging than expected when trying to film certain areas of our short film. For our sets, or Mise en scene, we had to use three different places to create the idea that the three girls where in three different house. This also created different lighting which was natural to each place. Trying to film the same shots however in three different places was harder than expected as the rooms where different, along with props such as mirrors, which we used for one particular close up shot, were not the same size or shape and subsequently we had to adapt the best we could. But overall I think we managed well and our shot composition, Framing, camera movement and lighting all worked well alongside each other.

Our group worked well as a team I feel and we stepped up to our allocated roles appropriately. I worked well with other group members to change aspects of our film to suit our genre and made decisions alongside them equally. I was able to understand what my other group members wanted to portrait when introducing each character and adapt my area of cinematography to work with this. My technical skills working with the actual camera when filming our shots helped us to be able to obtain the shots we wanted quickly and efficiently. This therefore did not hinder the creative choices we wanted to make. I obtained three particular shots; which I was very pleased with. Firstly our close up shot of our shoes, when the girls are trying them on to make a choice for their outfit was very effective.

By framing just the shoes and the one girls feet we managed to successfully draw attention to the shoes, which were visually interesting as they enable you to learn more about that particular character. Subsequently this created suspense as to which girl she is out of the three and encourages you to want to know more about her personality. You do however learn a little about this characters personality when you see her shoes that she has chosen to wear. This therefore also encourages you to want to guess and know more about the personality of this particular character and finally which out of the three girls she is.

Secondly our close up shot of nail varnish pots lined up was also very successful. We gradually ran the girls finger along as she chose what colour she wanted to wear. This creates suspense as to what colour she herself shall choose to wear, which again tells you about her particular personality.

The third shot we also felt had a great effect was when we shot the girls coming down the stairs in their heals and dresses ready for the night out. We shot the girls coming through the frame of the camera and decided not to pan the shot with them as we felt it was more secure position for the girl to move around the camera and created a more professional shot. By this stage the audience can guess to a extent which girl this is coming down the stairs as she is about to leave the house ready for her night out, but you still do not see a full shot of the girl to fully connect her face to her body which again continues the suspense ensuring the audience wants to continue watching the rest of the film. This is also a good introduction for the character without using dialogue, which you would if the film continued.

Our feedback made clear how the audience felt that our range of shots were key in our particular short film, as it gave it a great variety which subsequently made it interesting. Without these our very similar shots which we had to repeat in order to give the sense of the three girls could have made our short film very repetitive. It also made clear how overall our audience agreed that the basic background music which we chose to work with our film worked with the genre and theme. Overall I feel our short film, although having some adaption’s from our original plan, was very much as we imagined and created the theme and genre we wanted it to have. I feel I worked as a crucial member of our group, as each of us did, and as a result we were able to use each members own personal skills avoiding any problems we may have had and therefore being able to film and use what we wanted and needed for our short film, which I believe was a great success.