Evaluation of 'The Prisoner'

Our task over the past month or so was to create a small piece based on a pre-written script provided to us by Mr Earl. We had to create storyboards, production schedules, film, edit, log and upload in the space of roughly three weeks, a task that we found challenging yet extremely fulfilling and fun to do! 

What went well?

From the word go, I had a great feeling about this. Elleah and I have never exclusively worked together before but when we were planning, we bounced ideas back and forth and got through all of our paperwork quickly, effectively and with time to spare; we both realised that we made a good team and our creative similarities and differences actually meshed together well. We drew up our storyboard and labelled them with all the camera movements and effects we thought would be the most effective; we focused on setting the atmosphere with more basic stationary shots than trying to overload a bunch of moving shots into the mix, however we did include enough to add a bit of variety. 

We picked Sam Bryan and Kieran Gray to act in 'The Prisoner' for us and they were both excellent; both very talented actors and they were efficient and professional when filming. During filming, we got all of the shots done on schedule and actually some shots and input were given by our actors, meaning more creative ideas and lightbulb moments happened between us. One shot that I particularly remember being successful was when we filmed Kieran walking from a low angle with the sky behind him; I felt this shot created the ominous and foreboding atmosphere we wanted and connoted Kieran's character as being evil and malicious without even saying a word. 

Editing was generally a smooth process. Elleah and I logged all of the shots we were going to use and had a bit of a laugh watching the less successful ones! We found some fantastic sound effects on the school desktop that were perfect for Scene 1 (without music, we felt it was bare and a bit boring) and carried on the tension through the scene. We added effects such as ghosting and fade outs to scenes for maximum dramatic effect and we also cut and rearranged certain pieces of footage with ease. 

What went wrong?

Firstly during filming of Scene 2, we were originally lighting the room with a small lamp. However unfortunately the bulb blew halfway through filming, leaving us literally in the dark! This posed some lighting and continuity issues when we came to edit; this also happened when we filmed in two separate locations for scene 1. We couldn't find a small building anywhere near our scene 1 chosen location so we had to use somewhere else and edit the pieces together however, one of the pieces of filming was done on a sunny day, the other was done on a cloudy evening which again posed continuity and lighting issues when editing. Luckily - with a bit of help from Mr Earl - we changed the contrast of certain clips and pieces of footage so the footage was still usable and effective. 

Overall I would say that this was a very successful piece of work and I am very pleased with how it turned out. I'm looking forward to starting the next piece of work :-)