Short Film Critique: Reminiscience

A. Rationale
With this film, I wanted to craft a story around a woman who remembers a distant memory about a specific period during her high school experience by looking through an old yearbook. During this period she is constantly being bullied by a boy(Justin), but instead of revealing that another boy(Tim) is helping her, only the bullying scenes are initially revealed. Only when she finds an old picture of her and Tim does she remember how he would help her out after she was bullied.

Maria, Justin and I wanted to pursue this story because it seemed like it would be relatively simple to shoot, yet very effective because of the twist at the end with Tim being a romantic partner with the female protagonist. We liked the idea of a story that was about bullying, but also at the core was a romance.
Since this film needed to connect with Amelie, we incorporated a male protagonist that isn't immediately revealed to be a protagonist, but instead remained a mysterious onlooker that would later help the female protagonist.

B. Commentary
For this film, I was the director/cinematographer and I was the editor for my particular edit. Because I was the director and the cinematographer, my main responsibility was to make sure that we approach the script in a way that most effectively conveyed the story through filming all of the scenes that were necessary in order to have a coherent plot. As cinematographer, I made sure that all of the scenes were shot from multiple angles in order to achieve a more dynamic feel to the scenes. Because I felt that shots that lasted long only made the movie seem boring, I utilized various angles and shorter cuts to help make the film a little more interesting.

One of the main problems we faced was trying to schedule an adult version of the male protagonist to show up in a final scene that showed that the two of them ended up getting married. Because we were unable to shoot this scene, I had to end the film in a flashback that essentially would give the same feeling of closure that the original intended scene would have brought to the film. This scene was the last scene that showed the origin of the picture that the older version of the female protagonist finds in the old yearbook.
I thought that our choice of actors and actresses contributed beneficially rather than take away from the film. The female protagonist, Maria, did a great job in expressing confusion in the scene after she was kicked, annoyance after her books were dropped, and awkwardness during the final scene. Justin, the bully, executed his actions better than expected and Tim, the male protagonist, was able to convince me that he was the "knight in shining armor". Overall the acting was well done and was able to add to the story rather than be a burden that film must carry.

As for mis-en-scene, we arranged boxes in the first scene of the film to show that the adult female protagonist was looking through old boxes so that it would be very likely that she would find an old yearbook packed inside a box. We wanted the boxes to convey that she accidentally finds the old yearbook, rather than is intentionally looking for it. This gives a slight sense of wonder because the series of flashbacks would be coincidental.

For my choice of music, I made sure that the music would add to the mood during the scenes. For example, when the bully knocks over the female protagonist's books, I made the undertone of the sinister music faintly playing under the main soundtrack overpower the main soundtrack and crescendo right at that moment. Another example of attention to detail with music was during the beginning of the formal night scene. When we are shown the male protagonist knocking at the door and we see that the female protagonist opens the door, the score was mysterious and uncertain, and again, crescendos right when we see the male protagonist's face.

One particular field that I was proud of was the match action cuts I was very careful able during the editing process. I made sure that every shot flowed into the next so not only did I made sure that our shots during the production process were lengthy enough to match action, I cut the film so that there were no disruptions with continuity. For example, when the male protagonist turns around to help the female protagonist, I cut the film so that the male protagonist's action in the first shot matched the second.

In order to achieve the sense that the adult female protagonist is actually looking back in time, I used a black and white filter to give a sense of flashback and a dip-to-color: white transition after the scenes where she is looking through the yearbook. Because we had a scene depicting a flashback within a flashback, we had to make sure that the scene wouldn't be confusing. The use of transitions and color tinting helped me to not confuse the audience.
When I was watching my edit of the film in class, I noticed a slight hiccup that perhaps no one else noticed. Because transitions take a little bit of film from the ends of both clips, the beginning of one clip was not trimmed properly and I was unable to catch it during editing.

Overall, I am very proud of my first film because I paid a great a lot of attention to detail not only during the production process, but also during the post-production process. Although we were unable to shoot a scene and I left in a rogue frame that shouldn't have been present, I can say that this is easily my best film to date, not just because its my only film.