Monthly Archives: April 2018

Practical Filmmaking Final Project – Home

CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE TONIGHT

 

Home – reminds me of a space confined within four walls.

I wanted to show the idea of a suspense of time over a long period within an enclosed space. The happy and sad memories captured and contained, resulting different emotions and decisions made by the owners living in it.

 

The introduction of the video shows a single long take. Here, I want to establish the struggle in his mind, between the love-hate emotions that he had for his wife. He wants a divorce with his wife, but he feels slightly reluctant. The V.O here helps to establish the background story.

The 2nd photo above shows the ending scene when the wife is at the door step, when the camera starts to pan away. I wanted the introduction and ending of the video to correspond to each other. This conveys unity from the start to the end.

 

The picture below shows how I divide a particular space into 3 parts to portray 3 different scenes. I instructed my actors to try and stay in their space during the shoot. Here, I create different scenarios for my actors.

Different fast cuts were used to show a period of time being compressed. The cloning of 3 scenes into one is also another way to show a period of time in a few seconds. The couple were seen at different parts of the house, with different interactions.

 

I questioned myself how I could transit from the past memories to the present (as seen below). Here I decided to play with 2 separate scenes that looked somewhat similar, but different.

When the female actress (wife) is taken away from the picture, and when the man is shot from a far distance, a sense of “lost” and “loneliness” occurs.

 

Reflection

This is my first short film, and I felt that there there are many rooms for improvements. There are many limiting factors before, in the process, and after filming. The Airbnb place that I booked was a small room in a 4 story building owned by the owner. There are other guests living in her building too, including herself. I had to sneak my actors and friends in to help me with the filming, and had to keep our volumes down. I also had to keep track of the time because I only had the place for 1 day. And because its an Airbnb place, I couldn’t check the location and finalise the shots before hand. Therefore slight changes were make between the initial script and the actual shoot itself. But I am really grateful and thankful for the people who help me make it possible. P.S, I have forgotten to take behind the scenes photos. The editing of cloning effect was torturing. Editing multiple shots in a single still frame is alright. However, the panning camera, makes it harder. The different movements and lighting changes in every sec the frame moves. I had to use the pen tool to mark out every single frame and it took ages. Even though I still couldn’t get it right at the end. 🙁 It might be the way I shot it, maybe i didn’t do it the right way, maybe there might be an easier way to execute it.

All in all, it was a really new and eye opening experience for me. Despite having hiccups here and there, I am determine to produce a better film after being inspired by my classmates work.

“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” Elbert Hubbard