Brief 2 - Emote - Evaluation

    During this module we had to work on two different briefs, which should be treated as a separated parts. For the second brief – ‘Emote’ - we had to work in groups of three to create a short film sequence concentrating on one of the six themes. Our final video should last up to two minutes long.

We approached our task by starting with mind mapping the ideas. For this we have used an online tool called Mind Meister. We have established interest in Stanley Kubricks’ style and George Orwells’ 1984 idea of oppressed society. After discussing various ideas for each of the themes we have decided to work on the ‘fight’ theme.

     We wanted to present a ‘victim’ character being oppressed by the ‘Big Brother’, controlling and supervising. Moreover our aim was to dehumanise the ‘Big Brother’ character by showing only his mouth shouting through the screen. Also we have desaturated footage to make it look more eerie and clinical. In a sense we wanted to do something along the lines of  ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” which is hopefully conveyed in our final short film.

     My main role during this group brief was to come up with storyboards and any additional drawings to present the story. I have also research range of sources for set inspiration.  I sketched few pages of ideas of shots and angles we could use, also created a detailed storyboard to help us with filming.

     We had some problems with founding and booking a space for shoot but managed to overcome this difficulty.

     During the shoot I have helped with lighting and shot directing.

     Moving onto the post production – I was involved in footage editing and sound design. I found it challenging but also really rewarding.

    Sound researching was probably the hardest part of this brief, as I don’t have experience in it and had to start from scratch. We couldn’t use any of sounds recorded on the set due to the nature of our film. Also, because we wanted to dehumanise ‘Big Brother’ character, we couldn’t use actors’ voice. In order to better convey our message to the viewer we used a range of dictator speeches overlapping and distorted. As I was heavily involved in sound research as I found many ambient noises, distorted sounds.

      Final task on this brief was to come up with title and design end credits. We decided on ‘do not obey’ title with the flicker effect added in Final Cut Pro by changing opacity of the text. For the final credits we used a mixture of small and capital letters, trying to avoid making it too cluster, bold or difficult to read.

     As a group task this brief was really challenging but I believe we managed to fulfill all the criteria. I have also learned a lot during this process, however I still prefer to work on my own. Our final short film was meant to shock and surprise and hopefully we achieved that effect.