Film Critique: "Retrospect"

Considering that this was the first ever film project we as a group have ever executed, I have to say that I am proud of what we accomplished. Of course, naturally, this was in no way a masterpiece. We really did not expect too much from this film, but instead utilized it to begin our film careers; this film, in my opinion was an experience that allowed us to see our individual skills. "Retrospect" was the first of the many films that we plan to piece together.

We first began our journey at the stages of development and pre-production. After completing this film, I understand now that, without a doubt, the most important aspect of film making is the pre-production process. Within this, we began with the conceptualization of a script. Being first year films and not knowing what to expect, we tossed together various ideas for a possible film to construct, but fortunately, one of our scripts seemed to be the most tangible so we stuck to that one. The problem was that because of the rushing and pressure to "pitch" our script to our film teacher, we lacked much story and character development. We originally pictured this project as an emotional journey following a friend who lost a friend and looks back at his friendship hence the name "Retrospect". But by the end our film process, we realized that the story was WAY underdeveloped.

Our script--the forced together words on paper which we tried to make look professional with our "ECU's" and "VO's" and all the other tedious abbreviations within our film. We did not even know what a real script looked like so we went online to look for example and in the end, despite the content not being to par and totaling to a measly 2 pages, our script looked like a script. Then there's our column scripts. We never really used it in our production because the shots needed were in the mind and conceptualized in our heads. The paper did help though to help synthesize our different views and come up with a compromise shot or just take multiple takes and use what looked best. The main protagonist needed to convey the needed emotions and after reviewing the footage, it did not and I do not blame our actor. As the director, I take the blame in communicating with the actor the importance of the scenes and the emotions. Also, the actor lacked the required skill because of his first role in acting for our film. We chose the actors pretty last minute, which leads to our next topic, time management.

We first had a different main actor in mind, but he had an injury that made him useless for our film and because we decided he would be unreliable. This created problems but we managed to overcome this obstacle and found our two actors that would star in our film. Our next big problem was the conflicting schedule between our group. We all had after school activities so basically the only times we could film was during the weekend and even so, sometimes we had to postpone our filming. This may have contributed to our film not reaching its full potential in terms of shots, visual appeal, and production value.

I feel that our film could have been much improved if we focused more on the characterization of the protagonist because we never really get to know him. We understand that he lost a friend but what we wanted to do was make our character feel guilty about his friends death: almost as if it was his fault. This is what was needed to propel story forward, and without it, the story seemed dull and fails to draw the emotion from the audience. All in all, we walk away from this project knowing the importance of the development of a story and the time needed to be allocated into pre-production.

As the director of the film, I was in charge of the group of the project in terms of how to execute our filming process. I took on this job because the main structure of the film was conceptualized by me. I had a clear vision of how I wanted the film to play out, and with the help of my production crew and actors, I think we actually did exceptionally well for our first film. On the first day of production we organized it for our main actor to knock out most of the scenes he was in. Little did we know the difficulties of filming. We were unorganized and did not know what we were doing. It took about an hour to start getting into a steady pace and this is when the complications began to dissipate. We were going to do all the main lead's scenes on that one day, but we began shooting too late and and about an hour into shooting, we had discovered the drastic change of lighting. The shot was supposed to be during the day and we were shooting it at sunset. We tried using lamps and other maneuvering tactics, but these came to an abrupt stop because the effect of daytime was artificial so we decided to postpone this.

Our problems became more apparent as we went through that week. While the rest of the film class had time to edit their film, we had no usable footage, therefore wasting valuable time. We needed to get some raw footage so we set up a time in which we could get the actors together briefly for and hour or two to shoot. So we continued, and our next few days of filming were much more smoother thanks to the previous attempt. We were able to work as a group well and effectively. We shot the dialogue scenes on the Day 2 of filming and this was probably the highlight of our filming process. Shaheed, the cinematographer and I collaborated on the shots that were needed. The blocking and framing within the individuals shots, I thought, were excellent.
 

When we tried to organize another time, things got chaotic and last minute. On what was supposed to be our last day of filming, we took about a week just to organize because of constant postponements. The excuses ranged from "not wanting to do it" to "I have a family dinner". This raised frustration within the group and when we finally got together, we promptly got working. The final filming day took much time to organize due to lack of time, was less productive. Since the group was still lively, being in the morning, our group digressed because there were many distractions such as TV, music, and the computer. Because of this, we decided to move group members into certain rooms and only work with those needed for the shot. Consequently, things got smoother. Once again, Shaheed and I decided on how to frame shots in order to communicate the most to the audience. What resulted were much more complex shots than the previous day. We did over the shoulder shots, moving and linking shots, and began considering depth of feel. While we worked on the filming, our other group members briefed the rest of the group on what was needed for the next scenes. One way we got our actors to seem less artificial was filming them without them knowing. While they thought we were setting up the shot, they continued to mess around as normal friends would. I saw this as a opportune moment and told Shaheed to record their interactions. They had no clue.

As a whole, I think we did a good job with our first project, although there is much to fix for our next project. What Tyrin the editor and I discussed was that we lacked shot variety in some of our shots such as the phone scene. Next time, I will try to envision and implement less static shots and incorporate more visually appealing visuals. We can implement this through more planning with the "Mise en Scene". I think this time, in our project, we did a decent job in framing the shots and putting production value into the movie. We made two props for the film: a picture frame and a funeral program. Without these two props, the relationship between the characters would be a lot less compelling so that association with the picture and the main character's emotional burden helps build character. Also, we needed to communicate that our character was going to a funeral so we thought of what is associated with funerals. We decided that we could communicate this through a wearing a suit. In the end, the funeral prop was not used, but the class was able to figure it our from the emotions portrayed and the costume design. I feel that our lack of planning made it hard to incorporate aspects of Mise en scene, and I plan on planning out more during the pre-production process.

One last aspect that I realized was crucial to filming is the sound because complications arose in the editing due to this. During some shots, our crew was making noise and, at times, talking so during the editing process, we either had to lower the sound substantially or completely omit it. We even had to find external sound effects to replace our insufficient sound. Sound and music heavily influences the emotions that needs to be communicated. For my individual edit, I think my music was not fully fitting for the film, but it was decent.

In conclusion, I have much to learn about film and how to effectively depict actions in a way that is able to reveal character to the audience without being too direct and communicating through subtle details. I think this would make a much more compelling story and a tighter bond with the character. Character development, being a factor that was lacking in "Retrospect", must be improved during pre-production and planned out. Maybe to help this, we can think of progressing the story that would be most appealing to an audience and not as filmmakers. Next, we much also consider the use of sound and maybe even break away from conventional sounds and use it to highlight importance or contrast with realities. Finally, I plan on experimenting more with cinematography; I want to use more techniques in the next film such as rack focuses, depth, dollies, tracking, and linking shots. All in all, I think this film can be used as a learning process and as an introduction into the vast industry of film.

Link to Film Site
Link to YouTube video of "Retrospect"