Film Critique: Two of a Kind

A. Rationale: For our film I worked with Plenny and Jennifer and we went with Jen's idea of a girl who’s lonely and is searching for Mr. Right; when a new guy moves in next door she thinks she has found "the one". She soon finds the guy is not entirely who he comes off to be. She messes up in front of the guy which makes her seem less confident. We chose Jen's idea because we felt it connected to Amelie the most. It has a mysterious character who adds to the tone of the film. Our goal was to have a romantic comedy film and was intended for our class to see how it relates to Amelie.

Genre Connections/ Director Influences/ Influences and Narrative/Story: Are intended genre was to have a romantic comedy, though not very many scenes portray that. The dream sequence was some what comedic and I think the actors did a clear job of showing that the bizarre dream was a connection her inexperienced love life. The actress is somewhat of a nerd and does things that make her seem clumsy and uncoordinated. This is suppose to be the comedic part of our movie to see that love is not just appearance. The actor finds something deeper then her dorky attire. 

Directing/Acting/Character: I feel mine and Jens position within the group was thinking of the ideas of our film; location, actors, and the outline of the story. Plenny did an outstanding job as our cinematographer and getting the right shots and if not then placing the actors where it most worked, though I helped Plenny put a lot towards our film, she led the footage. Our actors did the best they could in the time we had them. Some problems were with the guys voice some ares he didn't speak clear nor loud enough.the actress did a good job of capturing most of what we wanted. Though they both did an amazing job in helping us I think we should have found actors that were more flexible with their time and that had a better sense of what my group wanting them to portray. The first day, as well as many others, the actors did not arrive on time and that was valuable time that could have been used towards our film. The weather had a huge impact on our footage, because the first day we shot we got a lot of footage but then we were unable to use it due to the weather. We had to reschedule those shots which took time away from our overall time for filming. In the end most of the shots worked out, but I feel it could have been better if we fixed those certain areas of acting, weather, and overall timing of our film.

Edit/FX, Techniques and Concepts: Though I had a lot of editing time, more than most, I don't think my film came out the way I intended it to be.  The editing part of the project is always harder then filming for me because I cant incorporate the image in my head to an actual video. I felt some shots didn't mix well with others because it left the audience puzzled and left wondering "how did they get there?" We could have fixed those if we took a little more time while filming to look over our outline and think while editing will this go smoothly.

Sound FX/Score: Our main concept was to bring reality to our actors emotions and actions. To connect the audience with our actors and the way they feel. I feel the boom mic helped a lot because we captured sounds to help tell our story better. In some areas, like the fish store, we couldn't hear due to the machine in the background. In that situation I feel it was up to the actors to help savage our film and speak clear and loud enough even though the machine was in the background. My background music didn't fit the story as well as I would have like. The deadline for the project was coming up, and I was already behind most people,  I tried to get the best music in the time I had.

Cinematography: My group tried to get a variety of shots to make our movie seem more dynamic. We would go from long shot to extreme close up. I think we did a pretty good job of getting the shots in a good position so the audience can feel the actors emotions. I feel that in the end that the cinematography was the best of our overall feature in our film. I feel half our shots were good and the other half could have been fixed, but overall i think they worked out. Our shots at the parked worked good. Plenny and myself filmed that scene and though the sun was covering the actors faces we made it worked by blocking the sun with a jacket which gave the actors a nice tone instead of having harsh shadows. 

Production Design/ Mis En Scene: The locations we used were, my house, a local park, and Jen's family fish store. I felt the park worked perfectly with the day dream sequence because that day was a sunny day and the timing of it was perfectly lighting. Though we couldn't control the people there, we worked our way around the people. I think the use of props was appropriate, we used food,wine glasses, a flower and a blanket to add to the romantic picnic at the park feeling. The locations fit the film because it it a realistic setting, the store could have been a more teen friendly store like, Starbucks or Jamba Juice but then we would need permission. With the fish store it is owned by Jen's family so it worked out. We did a pretty good job with staying consistent, if we needed to shoot another day we would use the same area of that same location. Our lighting of those areas were consistent as well. 

My "objective" analysis of the film as a whole: Overall I was content with our project, though I would go back and change a lot within our filming, editing and as well as actors, I think it worked out. our idea was a good straight forward concept. Each film we do we learn more and put of mistakes towards the next to make that one better, so in all I think my next film will be better. I will try and get actors that have more time on their hands, get better footage so I am not stuck when it comes to editing, and I will make sure my story flows.

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