The Gunfighter (Eric Kissack, 2014)

The Gunfighter (Eric Kissack, 2014) is an 8 minute long short film that follows a group of characters in a western tavern that are tormented and taunted by a mysterious, hidden narrator who knows a surprising amount about them. The film is predominantly a comedy, as the various truths revealed lead to a comedic scenario and an unlikely situation that mimics classic spaghetti westerns in a format that is slapstick in nature.

I liked the fast pace of the film, which sets up its simple but interesting plot within around 30 seconds, from where events quickly unfold and escalate. The camera movements are sharp and fast, bringing the audiences attention to who and what is important quickly, and the use of the narrator, while a comedic and reflexive device that mocks the cliche here, also conveys information to the audience, but progresses the plot as-well, which is something a narrator does not typically do. This interesting technique and the effective pace of the film sticks with me after watching it a few times. This is created through sharp, snappy dialogue and fast shot-reverse-shots between increasingly aggravated characters, and this can be seen in action when all the characters draw their weapons towards the climax of the film.

The characters are one dimensional, and are also quickly established through the narrator’s information. The time and place is immediately established through mise-en-scene and cliche soundtrack, that establishes to the audience the fact that the film is self aware and mocks the cliches of the westerns it mimicked here. The plot escalates to a climax, rising and falling in intensity throughout as more characters, relationships and truths are revealed, and the plot is resolved through the climax, in which everyone dies. All important information, the crisis, context, humour, characters, conflict and set up are all established through the narrator, who is also an important character and plot point in the film. This shows the usefulness of a narrator for giving information directly to the audience in a short amount of time without having to imply or create meaning through key elements of film form or representation, aesthetics, etc. The film also demonstrates how cinematography can be used to convey information quickly and keep the audience constantly focused on what is most important in a particular moment, creating a pace that fits into a short time frame and how to effectively build up to a climax in 8 minutes with pacing, cinematography and the rapid revealing of information that progresses the plot through narration.

Day 1: Research begins!

This was the first day of our A level film studies coursework project. We were introduced to the project that we will be undertaking, specifically the first of 6 elements of the production process, research. The others are pre-production, production, post-production, evaluative analysis, and submission.

As part of this stage, we will watch 18 short films chosen by the exam board and write a blog post for each one to analyse it. This will contribute to choosing a group of films that add up to at leat 80 minutes, which we will be using certain elements from to inform the production of our own film. We are encouraged to keep notes on narrative, characters, visuals and other key elects of film form and screenplay techniques. This will also help us practise evaluating our film, which will gain us marks in the alongside the actual end product we will have made by the end of the production process. We will analyse the narrative structure, cinematic influences(key elements of film form, genre, contexts of film), and the creation of meaning and effect through aesthetics and representation in short film.

We were also introduced to the production deadlines and the production brief, which outline what options of techniques our film must include one of, a narrative with a distinctive genre, a narrative with parallel stories, a non-linear narrative or a narrator, and by what dates certain tasks must be completed by. The actual production process, element 3 begins in mid-September. Until then we are researching for the pre-prodiction process, element 2, which begins in early July. I will blog the films that we watch in class and outline elements that I may consider taking inspiration from for my own film, and I will be coming up with initial ideas for my film and what option the exam board has provided to include in it also. Research for the coursework is essentially preparing for how to approach the production process and introducing us to some important concepts that will need to be included in our film and ideas to keep in mind when we come to evaluate them. As the coursework requires specific reference to films where we have taken ideas, we will need to take notes of things that stand out and keep them in mind approaching the production process. “Learners will also be exploring examples of key elements of film form and screenplay techniques during their course of study, which they can apply to their production.” We will be prepared to actually start filing our short films by the beginning of the summer holidays, and up to that point we will be exploring the short film form and what elements they may contain, which ones we may wish to include in our own work, and how to plan, prepare, produce and polish the focus of the coursework.

Kitchen Sink Drink: Mop-Up

After filming the movie, I picked out the final clips that I thought were best to use, since we had to re-shoot many shots to experiment with better angles, lines, and to avoid including bloopers. I then inserted them all into LumaFusion. Here, I put them all together in a project and made sure to cut out all the times I could be heard saying “cut”, and also to make sure that all the shots matched up seamlessly, and then spent some time making sure that the audio was decent. This took longer than expected, since I had to edit each individual clip to reduce the sound of each clip, making the overall film quieter but also making sure there were no surprisingly or unnecessarily loud clips left in the final film.

I think that some shots in the film sync up very well, the audio is of a good quality, and I experimented with some interesting shots. The actors did very well, and there were no un-foreseen problems whilst filming. I worked around the small space we had and developed a finished final product.

We did encounter a few issues. At one point an actor looks at the camera, one person’s phone begins ringing the second they enter shot, and the ending may feel slightly drawn-out for too long, and I got some of the clips mixed up due to when I mixed up the order of them on set since I didn’t read the screenplay more closely then. But I am ultimately happy with my finished kitchen sink drink production/project.

What do I need to remember next time? Use the manual focus feature in FilmMcPro to use the focus to make the film look how I want. There should usually be a reason for a camera movement, e.g to reveal something. The camera should be at eye-level. Be playful with the shots and movements. Various techniques show effort and ability as a film-maker in your coursework.

The final product!

Kitchen Sink Drink: Filming

I have finally reached the stage where I can film and edit my kitchen sink drink project. We began by setting up the props in the room, then began to prepare the different shots that the film would start with. I recorded the actors who stuck to the script that I gave them, and sometimes I would add input to make small changes. I considered how easy it would be to edit these clips later on during the filming process, so I made sure to keep the cinematography simple and have some clear way of linking the shots together. A few times we had to re-do certain takes, but the inly real issue arose when i accidentally forgot to film a certain scene, and had to do it after I was supposed to, so the clips were only slightly out of order, which caused a little bit of confusion when I edited the clips together. When editing, I did not add any special effects or audio, and the only problem I seemed to have has was that the audio pitch altered between clips, so I had to manually edit them to fit more cleanly together. Altogether tough, I think that the finished product is quite good.

Kitchen Sink Drink:

Kitchen Sink Drink: Storyboards

This is the last task to complete before the filming process of kitchen sink drink. For this I had to create a storyboard for the film.

Kitchen Sink Drink: Location Scout And Floor Plan

For this task we had to create a floor plan for out kitchen, though i did one for my living room as well since around half of my film will take place in there, and take pictures of our kitchen in preparation for the filming of our kitchen sink drink project.

Kitchen Sink Drink: Screenplay

This is the screenplay that I have wrote and prepared for the kitchen sink drink project.

Kitchen Sink Drink: Treatment

The title of the film is ‘split second”. The film begins when a person peeks into a kitchen and asks the person stood at the sink for a coke. The character at the sink looks up and agrees to, to which the other character leaves after saying “thanks”. The person at the sink then walks over to the fridge and pulls out a can of coke, then back to the sink where they pour it into a glass. They then visibly consider their next move, before opening a can of Pepsi and pouring it into the glass also.

They then bring it to the other character, who is sat in the living room on their phone. They take the glass and sip it, but makes no complaint. The person who made and spiked the drink asks if it tastes alright, to which the person drinking it said “yep, its fine”. The person who made the drink then sighs in apparent disappointment and looks out the window. The camera rests on a shot of the front garden from the window in the living room for a few moments, letting the silence and calm there settle in. Then the camera cuts back to a close-up on the drink-spiders eyes, showing that they are in deep thought. The film then ends.

Kitchen Sink Drink: Introduction

We, for our next task, need to plan and prepare to create a short film in which someone’s drink is spiked , taking place in a kitchen sink, of course.

The treatment of a film is a rough outline of the plot, characters and course of a film, made before actual the script. It is told sort of like a narrative and highlights the most important information about the film, such as the title.

Knock Knock Again

For this task, we had to film our knock knock joke again. However, we had to improve on the mistakes that we made in the last one. For starters, we had to follow the 180 degree rule. We had to also include an example of match-on-action, and a shot, reverse shot.

We followed the 18 degree rule by staying on the right side of an imaginary 90 degree axis between the two conversing characters. We did match-on-action by having a character reach out for a door handle, and then in the next shot show them opening the door. And the shot, reverse shot was by showing one person talking in one shot, facing to the right, then the other person talking back to them, facing to the left. This shows that they are talking to one another and maintaining eye contact.

Knock Back

What went Well: We did a few correct things in our movie. We used the face close-up correctly, and also delivered our lines properly. We also removed all shots where the broomstick was visible in frame.

What went wrong: We broke the 180 degree rule, so it looked as if the two characters in the film weren’t talking to each other, or even facing each other. I also left in a moment when an actor laughs in my editing, and the scene when the actor turns around at the end.

What we were told: Mr Randman said that we needed to adhere to the 180 degree rule in the future, and to refrain from editing our movies in iMovie with filters or slow-motion without being told to.

Knock Knock

This is our groups finished production of a normal knock knock joke. After assigning roles and getting our equipment set up, we started filming or scene. It took a while to decide how we should go about filming this scene. At first it was going to be one continuous shot, then it would alternate between people and follow one character. We ended up deciding on just switching between different positions where the camera would be placed.

We also decided to have a close-up of my face, and for the other person in the film to run away and the camera follow them. A few shots we had to retake, due to the broomstick appearing in shot. After filming, the director sent all of the clips to everyone in the group. We then went off and separately edited their clips and placed them into correct order one iMovie. After that, I saved the video to my camera roll, uploaded it to YouTube, and then embedded it into this here blog post. This is my explanation of the filming process, production and editing, and final touch-ups. Done.