Maltese Falcon Task

Film Studies: Maltese Falcon Task

Schedule

Wednesday 3^rd October

Period Three: Filming – Georgia, Riley, Josh, Nicola

Thursday 4^th October

Period One: Filming – Georgia, Riley, Josh, Nicola

Friday 5^th October

Period Three: Filming – Georgia, Riley, Josh, Nicola
 

Monday 8^th October

Period One: Editing – Georgia and Josh

Period Two: Editing - Georgia

Period Six: Editing – Georgia, Josh, Nicola
 

Wednesday 10^th October

Period Three: Editing – Riley, Josh, Georgia, Nicola

Thursday 11^th October

Period One: Completion of Task
 

Tasks

Storyboarding: Georgia and Riley

Costumes: All

Lighting: Josh

Props: All

Booking Equipment and Filming Space: Georgia

Actors: All

Camera man: All

Director: All – So that we all have an equal input


3rd October 2012

Today we filmed a few shots with lighting and costume and will continute tomorrow in period one

The Finished Product

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGTfzuD70EA

Gag Reel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjFXNOoV9PI&feature=relmfu

Evaluation

Evaluation of “The Maltese Falcon” Opening Scene Reconstruction

When producing the film we came across many problems even though the end film was an overall success. The main obstacle was the fact that we had limited time to film but also the fact that we had to film in a classroom. However, we compromised by changing the angle of a few shots to avoid losing total believability in the diegesis.

The continuity of the sequence was somewhat tainted because, scarf was hanging off in some shots whereas in others it was tied. We only realised this fault when we came to editing and by this time it was too late to do anything about it. The problem here was the fact that we had limited time to produce the sequence and no time to re-film if we wanted to reach the deadline. Also we only had an hour at a time to film so we tried to film as much as we could in the time space.  [Image of the scarf on and off]

Out acting abilities were restricted as Riley, Josh and Nicky had never had much experience meaning we had to reshoot footage various amounts of time due to corpsing which was primarily, my fault. Similarly, we didn’t have a significant amount of time to learn lines which meant the majority of the time we either forgot lines or were reading off a page. When I film my film however, I don’t have any dialogue so it will be one less obstacle to encounter. Despite this, we managed to adapt well and the acting was fairly satisfactory!

We used an artificial light to enhance the performance in our film which was an overall success. However occasionally when we used a long shot the lighting didn’t match the lighting in the close-up shots. However when we de saturated the film in editing the problem more or less dissolved. In my film I am filming outside so will use natural light, therefore I shouldn’t encounter any issues with lighting. I am going to start early in the day so that the natural light doesn’t get darker as the sun sets. 

Most of the cinematography and camera work was great however some shots didn’t match the film directly because of limited space. However, when it comes to filming my film I will be outside so I will have sufficient space to film my film.

Limited time was a huge issue so we didn’t have time to download music to match the original Maltese Falcon clip. However, the camera picked up the sound perfectly without the use of a microphone. In my film, I have no dialogue so will use music over the sequence. I will have more time to download music so this will not be an issue.

Trying to replicate the film was difficult due to the space we had and the restrictions to the space. We had a low budget, not the right space or location. Also the quality of our acting wasn’t as good as the original, obviously. However, the lighting in some of the shots was perfect and the quality of the footage turned out well.

The majority of the filming was a rush, but towards the end, when we had more time we took more care with the camera work and did more than one shot to improve the quality of the footage. When I film my work I will have more time because I can dedicate whole days to filming whereas at college we had to improvise and film when we had frees at an hour at a time and also when the classroom we used was free.

When we came to editing the film, overall it was good. We got to practice on the software meaning that when it came to editing my real film then I already had experience on the software. A lot of our footage we couldn’t use due to corpsing however we had enough in the end.

Because of the amount of bad footage we were able to make a gag reel which demonstrated a comedy aspect to the whole production and demonstrates visually some of the problems we had.

In conclusion the whole experience was very useful as we gained experience and realised, in advance, some of the problems that may arise when we came to film our coursework. We also gained experience with the camera and the editing software.