1. Short film self assessment
How to make it better
We had to create a short film which depicts a conversation
between two people so Kanak and I paired up to create one. I
decided to get Nick DeCruz and Rhian Mitten to act in our short
film as they both do drama A-Level. Kanak worked on the risk
assessment while I did the script and the floor plan.
I’d written a script for what was a police interrogation, but when
I tried to film it with Rhian and Nick during half term, we found
that it was too long to try and film in the time we had, so I wrote
another script which was “You’re cheating on me?!”.
On the day of filming Eli was around so she helped us with it.
We got two tripods, two DSLR cameras, and a high aperture
lens that Eli recommended. We went to the recital room and had
a bit of trouble when it came to time management; we had all
day but I’d only given the actors the new script a few days
beforehand so it was a case of doing a shot then looking at the
script and storyboard for what to say on the next one. Eli
suggested that for parts where it’s just back and forth dialogue
that we use two cameras to obey the 180-degree rule and not
film lines of dialogue one at a time with me changing positions.
When it came to the teacher entering the room, we asked Mr
McClane to help us with it, and it didn’t take long to get done.
This is where the high aperture lens came in handy so I could do
a wide shot.
After we’d shot all of the footage, I gave it to Kanak and we
edited separate versions of the film. I used Adobe Premiere to
edit my footage, only to find that I’d accidentally deleted the
first shot from the camera because there was such little memory
left towards the end. I overcame this by putting a title at the
beginning and using the sound effects of the door opening and
closing. I’d also created a blooper reel out of the outtakes to

2. keep myself busy for longer. I’d found some sounds of censor
bleeps to cancel out swearing. It was a small challenge to mute
the parts where there is swearing.
I could’ve done better with actual filming if I’d taken more time
to perfect certain shots; sometimes you can hear me in the
background if you listen carefully enough. Kanak and I also
could have finished this quicker had I included her in the
creative process more. I had simply had an idea in my head and
pushed forward with it, without telling her much about it.