After finishing making our two-minute sequence from a film I am quite pleased with our results however there are some things that I wish had gone a bit more smoothly in the production stage. Most of these however were just organisation within the group and all being able to film at the same time which proved to be a bit of a problem.
When we first started out our initial idea was to do a sort of American Pie type film. It was mainly Ben's idea but once we looked into it we realised that it could actually work quite well. We decided to do a Social Realist Comedy however as we thought it would be more interesting and a bit different from everyone else. We looked into a number of films but the main ones were "A Room For Romeo Brass" (Shane Meadows 1999) and "This Is England" (Shane Meadows 2006). We liked Shane Meadows style as he played on very simple aspects but made them interesting and clever. He also used a lot of humorous situations, which had a dark side to them.
Our two-minute clip involved two teenage boys arguing over one of them having a knife. At first we wanted our sequence to be quite dark and mysterious to go with our Social Realism genre but after filming a first few scenes we realised that it was actually quite a funny situation. A boy trying to hide something from his younger brother is amusing in its self but it being a knife makes it that much more amusing. So we changed our genre to Social Realism Comedy instead of just Social Realism. We did this by having over dramatic clips and very cheesy acting from the two boys but at the same time quite serious subjects were discussed to keep that Social Realism aspect.
The role I had in this project was the director and the editor. I wanted to direct because I had never done it before so it was a nice challenge I set myself. I also wanted to edit because I find that part very interesting when it all comes together and a final sequence is produced. Being director I got to choose how each clip followed the next. At the start of our clip there is a lot of Bobby (Played by Will Banister) walking around different parts of Cambridge. I wanted this to happen because I think it makes a good re- establishing shot and set the scene as well as introduces the first character. I think the audience can learn a lot from the first few scenes as well as a bit about the character Bobby. The scene is set in different parts of Cambridge but we were trying to set the scene of rough parts of Bristol. We did this mainly by filming some flats near Addenbrookes hospital, as they look quite dirty from all the pollution in the city. We also added sound effects of cars and police sirens over the top of Will walking. This helped to build up some idea of where the two boys were living. We decided we didn't want to add any non-diagetic music to our sequence, as it wouldn't fit properly with the storyline. We also thought it might ruin the mysterious effect that Will was giving off in the first few scenes. The first time we see Frank (Played by Ben Watson) is just a close up of his hands holding a knife. We chose to put this shot in as it doesn't give very much away and when it was originally a long shot the whole suspense was lost so we filmed just a close up instead. You can't see Ben's face and there is no sound at all. The audience is oblivious as to who this second character is which helps with the dark mysterious side to our sequence.
When Will walks into the flat we wanted some realisation from Ben that his kid brother was home. We decided to have Ben hear the front door slam shut which is when he jumps up swearing to himself. I wanted this to happen because it gives off the comedy effect as Ben struggles to hide the knife but the audience is also on edge wondering if the younger brother will find it or not which is the more serious side to our sequence. This helped to create suspense for the audience as they wonder why he is acting shifty. We also wanted to make the audience clear of the relationship between Frank and Bobby so we wrote in the script "Hey bro...you all right?" as the first line said to signify who they were in relation to each other. The scene then played on as the younger brother Bobby rambled on to tell his cooler older brother about his day. We decided to end the sequence when Bobby found the knife as this created a dramatic realisation and added emphasis to this ending moment.
As a group I think we worked quite well together. No one really disagreed with each other about anything and we all played our roles without any problems. When it came to the editing stage I think we all worked together to get the best possible outcome we could as we all found the editing part quite hard. Fortunately I already had some basic skills in Final Cut Express and Garage Band that helped me edit and finalise our two-minute sequence.
To conclude I am really happy with our final outcome. I think a few things could of gone better like our organisation as a group but other than that I think we have produced a good two minute sequence that underlines the values of a Social Realisation Comedy and could ultimately lead onto a full film.
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