AS Final Project Critical Commentary

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AS Final Project

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Written, edited, and directed by Tyler Levinson and Alex Israel
Contains a sample of Hustler by Kevin Macleod courtesy of his royalty free music collection at incompetech.com

A long journey comes to an end

After a week plus of editing, we have both finished our movie opening to "For the Record." There were many challenges along the way, many of which including balancing the audio, but we have tried to the best of our ability to fix those. We didn't need to re-film in the parking lot, as we found the time that was too dark the perfect opportunity to put title cards. Dubbing over the low audio proved to be successful, as what is said seems to match up with the visuals 95% of the time. Using some background music, we can mask over any unwanted background noise that we have with a simple audio track. I have learned a lot about video editing because of this project.

That being said, I still need to create the directors commentary for the project to be completed. I probably will narrate my voice over a slideshow/movie, but I will write a script first.

Week 4 Part 2: Editing

I have started to edit the footage and most of it looks promising. As I had stated previously, the audio gain on the footage was very low, so it was definitely a good idea to record the audio separately. I will dub over the original footage to my ability so it will sound good.

Another obstacle I have run into is some of the scenes filmed outside were way to dark, especially to show faces like I originally planned to. At the time of filming, it showed up fine on the cameras monitor, but apparently what is shown and what is filmed are two very separate things. If time permits, we may have to go to that parking lot again and film again. 

Week 4 Part 1: Filming

On Tuesday, we finally got to filming our movie. During the afternoon, Tyler and I met up together to review the story board I had made as well as gather supplies and come up with a name. We thought of some names, but the one that we both liked a lot was "for the record." Since neither of us have any objections, it will be our unofficial name.

At around 7:15, Tyler and I made our way towards the record shop. There, we also caught up with our female lead. As it turns out, Paul, our male lead, could not make it at the last minute. We had no one else who could fill for us at the last second, so Tyler volunteered to play the part and I got sole directing lead for the film.

My goal while filming was to show how, early in the morning, the store as well as the area around them, was very empty and desolate. Yet, these two friends who own and maintain a record store find solace in each other. I tried to make their emotions and motions the center piece through close up shots and kinetic shots. This was tough, as the store wasn't empty at the time. Therefore, I needed to employ certain angles as to not show anyone else in the store.

Another problem for us was the low audio gain on the camera and the background noise. What I'll end up doing is muting or lowering the audio on the footage, and then dubbing it over with stings and dialogue made during a different time.

Week 2 Part 2: Location, Location, Location

Our next step in our master plan is to secure the location for our filming. We searched for a couple of music venues in the area and we had certain criteria. For one, the place had to be windowless, so the passage of time on multiple takes wouldn't be too obvious. The second was that the place had to be roomy enough to accommodate the space well need to do a single long take. We had three in mind so far; Only one has contacted us back so far, yet they are still on the fence about letting us use their venue. We may have to travel further down south to make sure we are able to film.

This weekend, we are going to the abandoned Broward Penitentiary in order to help other people film their movie. We don't know our roles yet, but well probably be extras in their movie. We might take this opportunity to create our stings and non-diagetic sounds for our film. Since the prison is big, spacious, and empty, it would be a prime location to do this. Glass clinking, footsteps, background conversations, and other "busy" sounds will probably be included.

Week 2 Part 1: The actors

After carefully reviewing the audio for the female lead auditions, its safe to say that Tyler and I have reached a conclusion on who we are going to cast. There were pretty competent choices, and then there were some who either looked too young for the part or didn't put any feeling into their performance. It also helps that the person who did the best also fits the image that we want to create for the main character. We will still employ Tyler's friend Paul as our male lead.

Our next obstacle will be to employ the help of extras. Because of the nature of extras, we don't necessarily need to use Drama students. Classmates might be willing to help with that. We might continue working with the Drama students, however, because they are so eager to help out. Only time will tell whether we can match our schedules with theirs.