5 picture story

We were told to create a story in just 5 pictures.

This is what I came up with. It's a tale of adventure, romance and revenge. Starring me, and socially awkward Alan. Enjoy!

One Shot Film - The Good the Bad and the Really Ugly

It's a bit rubbish that this is the first post of my Journal; I don't even have one of those "Uni is awesome! We made can camera's and whiteboard cartoons!!" Oh well. Well, now that I finally have access to the internet at home, this thing will be updated regularly.

Anyway, my group and I were given the task to make a short film clip, which you cannot cut and must be filmed entirely in one shot. Doesn't sound too difficult. But we were also told we could only have ONE camera movement, this makes it a little more difficult.

Because the rules were very restrictive, it was hard for us to come up with ideas for a film, without breaking the rules. Our group's final decision was to make a short clip from a poker game. The idea was inspired from films such as 'Casino Royale'. The poker scene in that movie was very tense and keeps you on edge. I thought, if we could get the lighting right, and a strong script with good actors, we could be on to something great. Unfortunately, planning and organisation didn't go down too well. It was hard for our group to all meet up, as members had other commitments, and we were never free at the same time. This resulted in us mostly improvising during filming. We also failed to find actors who were really passionate about acting. This is why I had to step in to act; which is the perfect recipe for failure. Lighting wasn't on our side either. When we were getting the equipment ready, we soon found out one of our lights didn't work. After looking for a screw driver to replace the faulty bulb with no avail, we just gave up and tried lighting the set with only two lights. We did eventually acquire a screw driver, courtesy of Deborah. But all this running around took a very long time, and we only had a bit of time left in the studio. This resulted in quite a rushed performance.

This project has taught me a few very important lessons. Planning and organisation is vitally important. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Just coming up with a basic idea and not taking the time to fully put ideas on paper will mean the finished outcome will not come out as you imagined.

Well, enough of me talking (typing?), here is my edit of the film. This is the first draft; I hope to change things around a lot.



And this is the original, raw footage.