Overall response
(2-3 paragraphs):
In 2-3
paragraphs, write an overall response to your film: Were you successful? What
are you proud of? What would you do differently if you could remake this piece?
What did you learn?
My Evoking Childhood film definitely seems to
be made with heart and purpose with every shot. Each pair of shots tries hard
to convey a certain emotion, argument, or just an event, but not all were well-pieced-together
or clear. Each shot was nicely framed and well-lit, even including the CGI
Spaceship shot. What I am most proud of though is the simple straight-on
inserts of the different objects, which are so still, precisely placed, and
totally meaningful.
This film seems more concerned with telling the
audience exactly who this central person is, rather than portraying abstract
emotions. The thing about conveying an emotion is that all the things you see
must string together into a recognizable whole, but this film, while honestly
showing objects from my childhood, don’t all add up evenly. If I were to do
this film again, I would rethink what shots I show to mainly convey a singular
idea, though still with several side meanings that don’t get in the way so
much.
Briefly answer the following:
What, specifically, did you want to
communicate? Were you successful? Why? Why not?
I wanted to show that I was an often secluded
person and that I didn’t have courage a lot to expand beyond my comfort zone. I
also believe plenty of people sadly grow up this way, without having the
support and council that I did to grow out of it. It’s this behavior that leads
to addictions of all kinds, especially kinds that one never needs to leave the
home to find. I think I got this idea across very well, and tied all the
collective shots together with the implication of an attachment to imagination
and multimedia.
How, specifically, did you try to say this? What visual elements, techniques, etc. did you
use?
I used a lot of flat space shots, compressing
the foreground with the background, to emphasize isolation. In the scene where
my inner “adult” is trying to break free from the addiction to his computer, I used
a Dutch angle and rack focus in the same shot to communicate extreme tension
between him and it.
What did you learn about Storytelling:
It’s easy to think about what I want to see in
a film, but I must also think about how my audience will see it ahead of time. Without
that foresight, my images will only be confusing. I need to know the
through-line of my film, even if its intentionally non-linear and
unconventional.
Working with actors and getting performance: My main
lesson in working with actors is to not direct them with too much force; by
that I mean instructing their actions with by-the-book moves and noticeable
changes. I need to try giving them all my ideas before the shot, and trust them
to carry it out on their own as the scene progresses.
Blocking — camera and actors: There were one or two shots which were very difficult to frame because
the camera had to be held at a specific height at a certain angle, or tilted at
specific times. While blocking for the adult actor was easy and felt
professional, the children were different; sure they weren’t expected to do
much impressive work, but they occasionally seemed absent from the purpose of
the scene, so their actions became watered-down.
Visuals — composition, framing, visual elements: All the great frames I got were good experience, but there were still a
few which were more improvised and noticeably less fine-tuned, such as the
first shot of the adult actor in front of the laptop. I should consider these
kinds of extreme measures ahead of time as well – mainly, a storyboard of the
film should be suitable for this purpose.
Design & Art Direction:
I provided all the props in the film,
and even animated the CG spaceship shot. I found the art area of the film, it
being about my childhood, very easy, because all I had to do was basically
rummage through my parents’ house for old memorabilia.
The Production Process — collaboration with crew, the logistics of
making this: I think the hardest part of
pre-production was getting the locations settled. Scheduling a church room
turned out to be difficult and not entirely reliable, though reserving a
library study room was a piece of cake. My DP was very good and a naturally
good learner, though I now wish I gave him some room to come up with his own
ideas.
What was it
like to watch your film with an audience? Did they understand it? Miss the
point? Why did they respond the way they did? My
audience mostly understood the emotions I tried to convey, but what was mainly
confusing for them was how the different subjects clashed against each other
and didn’t share an easy connection. The final scene was also heavily split
between the correct intention to convey a metaphorical stage of my life where
on the inside, I was addicted to wasting time on the computer; and the
incorrect intention that the man just watched the previous scenes on the laptop
itself. I portrayed that scene in a very direct yet ambiguous way that wasn’t
easy to grasp.
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