FILM NOIR EVALUATION

The three major flaws of our film are the blurriness of the shots in the outdoor scene, the inconsistency of lighting, and an overcomplicated plot that was delivered poorly due to lack of time and poor acting. These three issues are all caused by our team's lack of communication and poor planning. 

• Inconsistency of Lighting due to my lack of communication with the director

In my second edit, which you can view here (note that the music and voiceovers are missing), the colour tone of the opening scene was blue and it was consistent. What happened was that I sent the second edit to our director for him to complete the final edit by adding the missing voiceovers (which he and another actor had to do) and music, and it turned out that he changed the coloured scenes as well because he seemed to disagree with my artistic choices. The final scene of the film was also changed - in my second edit, the scene of Justice talking on the phone wasn't shown again (only the voiceover was played) and instead there were longer cuts of Justice dying. I also rotated the shot of Justice on the ground in an attempt to create a dutch angle effect. I was not aware of these changes until the screening, but this is my fault because I did not communicate with the director clearly about my artistic choices and review the final edit before the screening. 

• Blurriness of the shots due to poor schedule management

The blurriness of the shots in the outdoor scene was caused by our lack of planning. First of all, our cinematographer was not there to film with us as she was busy, and the actor Hadrien was in a hurry to leave and we only had around 10 minutes to finish filming that scene. We wasted some time finding another location since filming is banned in our original location. The scene was newly added to the script, so we could not refer to the storyboard for the shots and we had to come up with them on the spot. I remember that the situation was out of control and we started to panic as we had a limited amount of time to finish filming that scene, especially because we would not be able to film during mid-term break since our director, who is our male lead, is away. We were unaware of how out of focus the camera was. If we had the chance to return to the production stage, I think that we should not have crammed all the shooting into two days when we had two weeks to film. We should have made sure that the location is available to use, chosen a date when everyone is sure that they are available, and found another actor who had more time to spare. 

• Plot cannot be conveyed well due to my lack of communication with the team

It is evident that I wasn't very pleased to act as the femme fatale in our film, but I never told my team that I feel uncomfortable with acting because previously, when I suggested to find someone who is actually enthusiastic about acting, they thought that it would be very inconvenient and difficult to match the actress's schedule. I don't think I was able to portray the femme fatale well at all since I lack a lot of emotion and the typical "seductive vibe". Therefore, our climax did not seem like a climax because I failed to deliver my lines well as the femme fatale. 

Overall, I think that all four of us seemed to lack the enthusiasm to communicate with each other - the boys and the girls were often working separately. For example, we originally planned to film after school so I filled in the equipment form and handed it in, but then it turns out that they never knew about the shooting and had decided that we would film the scenes in order. The shooting was therefore cancelled and I had to return the equipment right after we borrowed it. We could've made use of our time more effectively if we spent more effort communicating with each other. 

Another issue is that a lot of the times, even though I am a good listener and am open-minded to my group mates' ideas, I listen too much and did not take initiative to voice my ideas and opinions. I did not communicate with the director much when I was editing, so in the final edit, he made a lot of changes and I was not informed about them either because I did not take the initiative to review the final edit and justify my artistic choices to him. It is unfortunate that my ideas weren't fully showcased to the audience because I didn't take the initiative to discuss my ideas with the director. A positive point is that I was able to apply the knowledge I learnt in class about editing and I took inspiration (i.e. ideas for color correction - applying a blue color tone to the film even though in the end this was not showcased during the screening) from the two Hong Kong film noirs that I watched for the film noir critical analysis.

In our next film project, I will make sure that my ideas are heard and fight for them instead of being easily convinced to use another idea. I would also take the initiative to make a clearer schedule that all my group mates can access to avoid having any crew members missing during shootings. This unit served as a great start to Year 11 and I hope that throughout this year I can improve on my communication skills and increase my confidence in my artistic ability.