MAJOR PRODUCTION; CRITICAL EVALUATION

Final Unspoken Poster

Working on Unspoken, has been one of the longest projects we as students have ever worked on. Myself and my group originally came up with the basic outline for a story back in August 2018, so to be here 9 months later having written and produced the film is very surreal. As we are at the end of the project now, I will reflect on the positives that I achieved throughout working on the film, as well as outline the improvements that could have been made, before exploring what I think I have learn't from the film.

For the entirety of this project, I took on the role of both Producer and Writer. I have known since 2nd year that I would have liked to go down the producer route, and whilst this can still be a role with a creative element, I felt as though I wanted more of a creative input. When myself, Katie and Laura were discussing the project I suggested that I wrote the script, I was interested in expanding my knowledge on the scripting process and I thought this would give me more of a creative input into the project. It was daunting at first to take on two roles, as I was already focussing on trying to make my research more in depth and intricate, so to have to do this for two different roles was something I knew would be challenging. As we went on and advanced to the production stage, I knew I would need to find the balance between still considering and elaborating upon my role as the writer. The producer role would take up a lot of time and control in these stages, but I knew that I needed to still be thinking about my role as the writer. My research into what a screenwriter does during the 'a director might want a screenwriter nearby because she loves her work and wants to make sure she interprets the material accurately' (Set Etiquette for Screenwriters), I was on hand to answer any questions regarding the scripting in terms of the way in which words were meant to be contextualised, this was very effective in terms of making sure the film was created completely authentically. In order to make sure I was more balanced between my two roles on Unspoken, I decided to keep a series of blogs entitles 'Writers Perspective'. I believe that this was a very successful aspect of my own personal work on the project, because it allowed me to continue my work and reflect upon what it was like to see something I had written come to fruition. It also allowed me to document the script changes we had, whilst filming we had a few scenes that we began to improvise as well as the addition of two new scenes. These posts helped me keep organised and made sure I was making the necessary script changes alongside all of my producer work.
production period of a film informed me that it can depend entirely upon the productions needs and the directors wishes. I believe it was successful for me to set myself two goals that would enable me to think and extend my work as the writer. My research informed me that

I learnt in this project how the budget and the schedule of a film, go extremely hand in hand.

'A film budget is how much it is going to cost. If you get the budget wrong, your film will stall half-finished without cash. Get the schedule wrong and your film will suffer – either from loss of quality or remain unfinished because you have run out of time (and budget)' - (Raindance London)

As the producer, I had to make all of the schedules for the filming, and with this role I believe came both a successful and perhaps not as successful part of the project. First of, I was really passionate about filming as early as we could, whilst I did not want to impact upon our prep time, I knew I wanted us to film as early as possible to allow us plenty of time for both the post production and any reshoots. In lieu of my research I understood how the post production stage can be one of the longest periods of the entire production, so I wanted to give us the appropriate amount of time. It worked out well that to film in a school (one of our four locations) we had to film in the February school half term, I was really happy with this because it meant that I could adequately schedule us to be completed filming by February 19th. I had to consider the budget within the scheduling, as the more shoot days we had, the more of the budget we were using. As we were on quite a limited budget, I wanted to get the filming completed in the most effective and efficient way, whilst not making anything a rush. I decided on 4 shoot days because it made sense with the amount of scenes we had to do in each location, it was pretty much one shoot day per location. In terms of the days schedule, I timed each scene and confirmed the timings with Laura to make sure she was happy with them. Whilst the timings were tight, it was successful because our shoot days because we managed to complete everything that we needed to in the allotted time. My research informed me that 'Filming in chronological order will ensure a more refined and rounded performance by your actors' (Film Scheduling), so when planning the shoot days, I tried my best to plan us to film as chronological as possible. This was not possible in the entirety of the film due to logistics of cast availability and location allowances, but as much as I could this was the case.  On day one of filming, we got off to a slow start due to everyone getting used to the equipment etc, this was the only day that we could have run out of time. Due to this, I moved the filming of Scene 23 (Nova's death scene) to the 3rd day of filming. This was a successful decision because it elevated the pressure on the crew, this gained us an extra 2 hours to perfect what at the start of the day was going wrong. A lot of my producer research turned towards having a back up plan and making quick snap decisions, I believe that this was a successful extension of my research because it made our first day quicker.

In terms of budgeting, we stayed within budget for the entire production and had £75 left by the end of the project. In my opinion, I think this is a really successful part of a project. Starting with a budget of £705 in the beginning, we knew our budget was small and I immediately looked at ways of cutting our costs in other areas to benefit the film further. Looking at our props, I tried to source these from low cost places, such as charity shops and supermarkets. This helped us massively because we didn't spend as much on the props. Similarly, on 2 out of our 4 shoot days I bought lunch to make myself for the cast and crew rather than buying pre-made meal deals. This cut our lunch spending by nearly 50% on those days so again elevated some of the pressure. My main concern was that we would not be able to afford a reshoot day or two when filming completed, however due to some of the cuts that I made we were easily able to afford a reshoot day that we needed. (Click photo to enlarge for better viewing)

I made sure to ask the cast and crew that they understood the information that I was trying to communicate to them through the call sheets and schedules. I had made these sheets myself, adapted through the points of my research into what I considered to be important information relevant to our production. I wanted to make sure these were suited for purpose, and the feedback that I got from the cast was great. Out of all 5 shoot days there was only one instant where a cast member turned up slightly earlier than they needed too, but this was just due to a last minute change in the days schedule and it ended up to work in our favour as Laura managed to complete some last minute unplanned shots with that character that were a bonus to the reshoot day.

As a group, we have worked well together over the last few years, so I was confident that we would successfully complete this project with little to no conflict. I believe our project came out the way we wanted too because we all understood each others and our own roles and we kept up good communication throughout which was very important. As the producer, I wanted to make sure that we had a clear and open communication line and that we all felt we were as involved with the project as possible. This is why I tried to make sure that myself and the group all met and watched through the different edits every couple of weeks. This meant we were all up to speed and we all knew what was going on in terms of the post production stage and we were all able to give feedback to each other together. Laura was a great director because she knew her vision straight away. It was especially helpful on the shoot days for Laura to know exactly the type of shots that she needed, this meant there was not any hanging around on the shoot days which really helped. In terms of editing, Katie was always really quick with turning around different rough and fine cuts based upon feedback that myself, Laura or Simon. In terms of the feedback that I was giving upon these rough cuts, I tried to look at it from an objective view of suggesting what made sense. Instead of saying I preferred something in  certain way, I would point out the logical reasons why something would make more sense in a different way. For example, I thought the music would sound better beginning at the start fo the film rather than 30 seconds in, as it is indicative of his mood in the powerful opening shot. This was a successful part of the project because it meant I was not interfering in Laura's directorial vision, but I was still having a creative input.

When I looked into casting, I decided to follow advice from my lecturers and research which was to keep your cast as involved and updated as much as possible - 'Getting cast doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of consistent preparation, patience, and persistence' (Top Hollywood Acting Coach). I felt as though we needed to be extra vigilant with keeping the cast updated as they first came onto the project back in November - December, this was a long time before I could even give them more information in terms of scripting and scheduling. I decided to keep the cast updated by sending them a draft of the script, the purpose of this was so that they could get a feel for what the project is about and could begin to craft the characters for themselves. Furthermore, we organised a script read through day for the 3 main cast members to come too. This was a great opportunity for myself, Laura and Katie to meet the cast and begin to build up a good rapport with them. Also, I wanted to ask the cast their thoughts on the script and to see if they had any suggestions, I thought that fresh pairs of eyes upon the script may bring new life and also make the cast members feel much more included. Moreover, I created a preliminary filming pack for each cast member. I wanted this to include and answer every question they may have around the project, including shoot days, contact numbers and scene descriptions. It was really good to meet the cast in a casual and comfortable setting before we started filming, it definitely made the process of actually filming much more relaxing, Laura was able to focus on directing the cast rather than worrying about meeting them for the first time and this was really effective in getting the most perfect performance from the cast that we could.

To make a film physically come together, it is the result of many different creators and workers coming together to contribute. Without one person in the crew, even down to lighting or a runner for refreshments, the film could fail and it was important for us to understand how important sourcing a crew was. The crew that we had for our film is one more big positive. We had decided to source our DOP because it wasn't a role that one of the three of us was going to take, as much as I as the producer was the one who needed to choose this, I wanted to make sure Laura was happy with who we picked because she was the one, as the director, who would be working with this role the most. We had our main DOP Aurelija, as well as Drey who came in to help when Aurelija had prior commitments. Both were extremely comfortable with the camera and very on board with the film. Laura could focus on directing the actors and the scene, rather than having to worry about every single camera movement.

As with any project, not everything went to plan. However, reflectively I have to look at what was important about aspects not going to plan, which is how we reacted. On our first shoot day, we found the sound wasn't going entirely how Laura would have liked. We were using a boom pole through the tascam and we also had one clip mic. However with these, we found that the cast member who was not wearing the clip mic was not being picked up enough by the boom pole. After speaking with Laura it was decided that we needed another clip mic, myself and Aimee who was helping us on the day needed to go and retrieve the lunches, so as we did this we also went to collect another clip mic. This worked well and meant we could record with a much high quality of sound. This was a good, snap decision that we made, allowing us not to massively impact upon our filming schedule as well as have a permanent fix for the rest of our filming. Furthermore, we had issues with loosing light whilst filming certain scenes. We would be filming the scene and have to stop because it became too dark in through the lenses. In my opinion, this was an unavoidable issues due to the nature of the scene. Most of our film is based upon a strict timeline of one day, I created a chart for me to understand exactly what time of day each scene takes place, in order for me to schedule the timings appropriately. Scene 20, which is the scene we had most issue with due to loss of light, takes place at round 4-5pm, before leading in to the next scenes that take place in the dark of night. We needed to film scene 20, in the dusk type lighting, it needed to look as thought it was going to soon be the nighttime so we had to film it around the similar time. I think a lot of the issues we had, could have been solved but more prep or test shooting. Due to the type of locations we were using (public places and a school), we had to get appropriate permissions and licences in order to film there. This is something that takes a lot of time too receive because there is paperwork to film with and people (in this instance the Kent Film Office) to liaise with regarding. Due to this, we perhaps did not have enough time to prep and actually plan at the location, foreseeing and planning back ups for these reasons.

Example of one of our dark shots 

On a personal note, in hindsight I would change the way in which we filmed scenes 22/24 (the scenes involving Marlo and Julie by the memorial side). In the end, even after a reshoot, these scenes came out very dark. I think that visually they are our worst scenes. Even after a reshoot with extra lighting that we had prepared, and after extensive grading by Katie, it is still very dark. Perhaps the location we filmed at was just too dark in the night, due to the surrounding tress and lack of street lights, to perhaps we needed to have even more lights than what we had used.

Aside from the above two main areas of improvement, there was also some minor errors that we noticed throughout. When we were reviewing the footage after our first two shoot days, we noticed that Liam's (Marlo) clip mic was visible during scene 14. This was an outside scenes that we had trouble with filming, mainly because the area of which we were filming in (a side alley of a house) was quite a tight space, perhaps we were all distracted by trying to get the scene right in this space, therefore we did not notice this error. Furthermore, we noticed how Marlo leaves his house without a coat on, but when he arrives at the park with Nova he is wearing a coat. Again, this is a minor continuity error that is most likely the result of filming in different locations in different days. Whilst I made sure we were filming chronologically to avoid these mistakes, it was something that we just did not notice on the day. Lastly, we also found that on a close up shot of messages to Nova on Marlo's phone, it reads 'last active today'. Nova, at the time of the film, has been dead for a few months so this shouldn't have been the case either. This errors are minor continuity errors, they do not ruin the cinematography of the film, nor disturb the flow of the narrative, so after advice from Simon, we decided we did not need to worry about these aspects.

To round off my evaluation, I thought I would create a summary of the most important things that I have learnt from the project, different to the shorter term projects we have worked on before.
- The importance of balance and organisation. This project needed immense attention to detail, as someone who took on two roles, this required me to balance between the two, making sure that each and every job still had that same attention to detail.
- Communication is key. This is our first small group project where each person was responsible for singular parts of the project (rather than previously where we would all help on all aspects). Some of the work one person had to do, would depend on another piece of work that someone else in the group would have to do, this is purely a collaborative effort. For example, if I did not complete the schedules in time, this could jeopardise the coordinating of the shots by Laura.
- Prep, prep, prep. If I look at the improvements that we could have made on this project, most of them could have been avoided by some extra prep or planning. This is most likely always the case, and also time and money constraints are sometimes unavoidable too.
- This was the first project (apart from our short transitions unit) where we worked with budding actors. This was a massive weight lifter because they are so professional, the level of creativity they bring over their characters is great to see and massively lifts the project.
- This project showed me how creative the role of a producer can be. Previously, I always thought of the producer as the role which carries out the 'paperwork' and 'organisational' aspects of a production. I aimed to research the role of the producer extensively and I began to understood how much this role has a creative input, in the form of casting, crewing, locations and props.

Overall, I am really happy with how my roles came together to produce a great final film with the rest of the group. I truly believe that everything comes down to how organised every aspect of a production is, and I kept as on top of everything as I possibly could. Through previous projects, I have not used my research aspects to my advantage, I would do the research but not apply it as much as I should. However in this project I am certain that my research has informed most of the decisions I have made and thus aided me in successfully creating the project. The group and I worked really hard and well together on this project and I am really happy with our the final film has come together.

MAJOR PRODUCTION; FINAL EDIT REVIEW

Before we exported the complete and final version of the film, we decided to watch the film as a group in a big room with a projector, this way we can clearly see any issues that may arise and make notes from it.

My notes from the edit:

- Sounds in middle of scene 3
- Muffled Audio Scene 3
- Car wheel is really quick outside house scene
- background noise on ironing scene
- Dialogue on scene 2
- Footstep sounds Scene 20

These are the short notes that I found when watching the final edit. 

Things I specifically really like the edit:
- I really like the way in which Katie had weaved the music in and out. I know that music can be a difficult task sometimes as sometimes it is a case of editing the music so that it fades in and out when the film requires, rather than when the song actually finished. The fades in the music are very seamless and work really well.
- I think that the effect added on to when Marlo is in need of help (a ringing, uncomfortable sound) is a strong part of our piece. It is a nod to when Marlo is feeling anxious and in need of help, this reoccurring imagery throughout the film is something that I think will help the audience understand the film and Marlo's character. 
- I am really happy with how the flashback scene weaves into the memorial scenes. From the start we knew we did not want to use writing on screen to suggest that there would be a flashback scene, so we knew we needed to think of something else to emphasis this. The panning camera shot that Laura decided to do on the day is perfect for showing and emphasising this process of going back in time to the flashback scene.
-Furthermore, I think the grading particularly in the school scenes is really good, the aesthetic and colors are very bright and vivid

Improvements:
- I think as a group, we can all agree that we do not like the lighting of Scenes 22/24, it is very dark and doesn't view very well. This was due to the fact that it was a big struggle to light that particular location in the way that we wanted, we struggled through this on both the shoot day and the reshoot day. Katie has edited the grade of the scene as much as possible, but obviously in some scenes it cannot be perfected. 
- Sound, I think for me our sound levels can be up and down, I think perhaps we should have paid more attention the way the sound was being recorded in each scene as I feel as though the sound (dialogue) varies slightly in scene to scene and this could affect the final quality of our film. 

Overall, I am really happy with how our editing process has developed. It has been a good collaborative effort throughout with everyone suggesting new ideas and points that could be developed upon. 

MAJOR PRODUCTION; FINAL SCRIPT

After making all of the changes necessary, including:

- Dialogue Tweaking
- New Scenes
- Removal of some aspects

This is the final script -

MAJOR PRODUCTION; FINAL BUDGET

As with previous post regarding the budget, I have been updating as and when needed with reshoots and post production costs etc, to culminate in the final spending tracker, leaving a total of £76.86.

I am really happy with how we have managed to stay in budget, I think we did well to stay in budget and cut costs where was necessary.