OUR MOVIE
THEME WE WERE GOING FOR
AGATA
Filming his movie was our first opportunity time we could film somewhere else than the campus. It gave us a lot of options, but honestly, it was a horrible day to film outside. The weather was awful, we were all freezing, especially Tom who was an actor and had to wear a tank top. We all wanted to go back inside as quickly as possible but at the same time, we knew that we had to take our time to make the film look good and we had to sacrifice.
A theme for this week's movie was Soundscape.
Coming up with the story was not easy. The only idea I could think of had to be filmed on the beach, but I knew we had to reject it because it was way too windy to do it, so we went with Tom's idea. We decided to make a movie inspired by Rambo.
For this week, I was a cinematographer. After a few weeks of filming movies for this module, I feel like I got much better in taking care of the cinematography and imagining a final production in my head before it's done.
Our movie was inspired by 80s so we used the most popular font in those days for the credits. We also added a song Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, which is from 2020 but has the vibes of that era.
The most important aspect of this film was the sound. We spent a lot of time to find and create good sound effects. We recorded some of them, like the sound of the water or steps when we were filming in the woods and found some of them online. I wish we recorded more of the sounds by ourselves because, for example, a perfect sound of punching someone was really hard to find and took us literally an hour. We tried to record it on our phones when we were editing, but the quality of the sound was not good enough to use it in our movie.
HARRISON
I would say, this
next film was a lot more ambitious. It was to blend modern pop culture with an
80s type of vibe, and at the very least we did manage to capture that. One of
the few obvious flaws is the plot. The plot didn’t make sense in correlation with
the title. Yes, it is about the infamous fictional protagonist known as Rambo about
his life after retirement. However, the film failed to show that. It needed
more writing in the script. This film question audiences, such as what is he
doing in the jungle, or who or what is the “terrorist” doing in the middle of
nowhere. It was also obvious that the film lacked storyboarding. A lot of shots
were all out of place and irrelevant. I think in terms of shots of what the
film did great though is the inclusion of its handheld shakiness. This did give
off a more action movie vibe, however, it was not enough to save the film.
However, I did feel like the film succeed on its sound. It wasn’t great but it
got the job done. Everything from the trees to the birds chirping to the water
streams were all non-diegetic sounds from that were downloaded and created
separately. The film manages to create a jungle atmosphere from it, and that is
important in films, especially for fictional ones. Moreover, the costume was
well done, on Rambo that is. The “terrorist’s” costume was slightly ahead of
its time in my opinion. Overall, the film was not that great.
THOMAS
This week I was directing, and we weren’t allowed any sound that was recorded on location,
my idea for this film was to create a parody of the classic action films of the 1970s and 80s such as
Predator, Commando and Rambo (Hence the title). I feel like more could have possibly been done
to achieve this such as costuming, we needed a higher contrast between the environment and the
costumes. I also would have liked to film in a more wooded, jungle like environment. However, due to
the weather on the day of filming, the storm that was still lingering from last week we had to settle for
the location we did which didn’t have as much vegetation that I would have liked.
my idea for this film was to create a parody of the classic action films of the 1970s and 80s such as
Predator, Commando and Rambo (Hence the title). I feel like more could have possibly been done
to achieve this such as costuming, we needed a higher contrast between the environment and the
costumes. I also would have liked to film in a more wooded, jungle like environment. However, due to
the weather on the day of filming, the storm that was still lingering from last week we had to settle for
the location we did which didn’t have as much vegetation that I would have liked.
During pre-production I created a short script along with a shot list, this week however we did not have
a story board and from the end result it is noticeable that we didn’t storyboard this. It lacked a
significant effort in this regard and would have been improved had it had this. The costuming we
decided on was a red bandana and a white t shirt for the main character, but during the lead up to the film we couldn’t find such a bandana anywhere so we had to settle for the red tie but I do think this
helped add to the parody style of the film.
a story board and from the end result it is noticeable that we didn’t storyboard this. It lacked a
significant effort in this regard and would have been improved had it had this. The costuming we
decided on was a red bandana and a white t shirt for the main character, but during the lead up to the film we couldn’t find such a bandana anywhere so we had to settle for the red tie but I do think this
helped add to the parody style of the film.
I found this week difficult, directing this film whilst acting in it caused several issues and the weather
on the day caused a few more yet I do think we overcame these fairly well. Editing this week was
incredibly important due to all the sound in this film being added in afterwards to create the
soundscape. We did pull this off very well I thought, although we did have a few issues in getting
the right sounds. Yet I am still quite happy with how this film came out.
on the day caused a few more yet I do think we overcame these fairly well. Editing this week was
incredibly important due to all the sound in this film being added in afterwards to create the
soundscape. We did pull this off very well I thought, although we did have a few issues in getting
the right sounds. Yet I am still quite happy with how this film came out.
DAN
In this week’s film, we had to use foley sounds/sound effects
to create a film, using to actual noise from the video, so no dialogue once
again. Originally, I had the concept of having a man with PTSD trying to live
his daily life with every mundane sound feeling like he is reliving his
traumatic memories. We decided however on Toms concept for this film, which was
a parody of all the old 80s action movies, such predator, commando and Rambo.
We all liked this concept as it allowed us to play around with a variety of
sounds, such as bullets, necks snapping and running through a forest whilst
being chased. Tom once again decided to be the main actor, portraying a Rambo
knock off. I decided to play a grunt who Toms character takes down with a choke
hold. During pre-production, we settled on a woods in the forest near the
university as the location, as this particular forest had a nice wooded area, a
slope and a flowing stream which can add some natural sounds to the film,
almost a rule of opposites with such a violent concept being surrounded by
natural beauty. During filming, we decided the hardest parts to shoot will be
the action scenes with our two characters
fighting, which took us a few
attempts to fully complete and perfect. We added a few ideas as we went along,
such as the shot where Tom punches me in the face to fully knock we out, and
the action stances for the credits, being a replication of the old detective
shows with the freeze frame credits. The post-production added a few more
sounds to the film, such as more realistic sound effects for the guns and a
proper punch sound. The feedback on this film was overall alright, however
people thought it was too cheesy, which I could understand. Overall this was my
personal favourite film due to the fun we had filming and the concept was a
great idea which produced a decent short film.
