Reflection

During this unit, I found it really hard to come up with a story that I liked. I kept changing my items, and sometimes they were not a genre film. Because I couldn’t think of a film, I couldn’t have started my treatment or storyboards. Although, when I had my idea, my character profile helped me to create my main character, Valarie, in greater depth. Creating the character profile helped me to make sure that Valarie’s actions and the way that she acted was constant in the treatment and storyboards. I didn’t complete much plot development or research, but I did research how to create storyboards, and the right use of language for present tense and the storyboard notes and illustrations. I do not think that the activities that we did in class about the ship blowing up, and the extract from ‘Interview with a Vampire’ helped. When we wrote the practice treatment, we were not told that we had to use present tense. It did not help me because the actual exercises were really different to what we actually had to do in the assignment. But, it was helpful to know what a ‘real’ treatment and storyboard looked like, so we had something to aspire to. I think that I could have used more appropriate genre conventions in my film, but I think that if I use the correct lighting in the scenes, it will enhance the movie. I tried to use a zooming drawing technique in one of my storyboards, but I’m not sure how successful I was. I used some film language, although a lot of it was repetitive. When drawing my storyboards, I found it really hard to draw the perspective that I wanted. For example, I can see the shot in my head that I want to be filmed is shot over the girls shoulder so that you can see the diary in her lap, and her bed and ice-cream, with her hair messy in her face, but I couldn’t capture the right angle of my drawing. It was also really hard for me to get a perspective of how big things were in my storyboards, that would be totally different sizes in the real world. I could imagine all of the shots in my head, but sketching them, and writing about them was a lot different to actually seeing them.

During this project, I learned a lot of new formal language such as the shot types, and the names of all the Microsoft word tools that I knew how to use, but didn’t know the name of. At the very start of the term, I learnt how to use a new camera, and how to arrange pictures to make a story. I think that my project is clearly a supernatural film, as the main character experiences supernatural powers. At the end, you also see that the book tells you everything about her powers. Sometimes in supernatural films, the people with the powers are usually the heroes, but I changed mine around, and made it so that she has to preserver to be the hero. I think that with the use of dark and bright lighting throughout the movie will make my supernatural film more realistic and un-natural. I am happy with my final treatment and storyboards. I think that both my treatment and storyboards have enough detail to picture a rough idea of a film in your head that is similar to mine. If I could change and redo my assignment again, I would have spent more times on my storyboards to try and arrange my illustrations to more of what I am thinking, and to try and get the perspectives right. I think that if I were able to draw with more detail, shading and angles, it would have improved my storyboards. I think that I could have managed my time better, but I am still proud of my work, and even if I had more time, I probably wouldn’t have changed much. Next time, I should take less time to think of an idea, and think of one, and stick to it. If I did this, I would have saved a lot of time, and could have started both my treatment and storyboards earlier. If I could start again, I would change my story to a different genre, such a comedy because I think that a comedy would be more fun to shoot, and it could be more entertaining to plan the film in the pre-production.