Project Evaluation
The Script to Screen unit has been very different to how I expected it to be. It has challenged me in many ways and I have found new interests in topics I thought I would dislike. I will outline each area of the production process and what I have learned from it.
COMING UP WITH THE IDEA
As soon as we were told the brief for the unit I was always thinking about what my story could be, You will be able to see from my earlier blogs from this unit I initially wrote down all the ideas that first came to mind when thinking about 'The Meeting'. I then started to loosely try and attach them together but one of the issues I was having was that I had too much story and plot but not really any characters. Simon had told us that when creating a story come up with the characters first and work the story around them. So I decided to create my two characters and then I could fit the story outline around them and their lives, and I will do this again in future rather than getting overloaded with all my different ideas that I cannot link together.
However a big decision I had to make with characters was whether or not I wanted to use a child. During a workshop on how to create a story Simon gave us some advice, he suggested that we 'use our own experiences and start with them and then alter them slightly to create new stories'. So this is what I did, I took an experience from when I was younger but then altered it slightly to create my basic story idea, at this point my story was about a child who was touched, but I did not know whether or not I wanted to have a child act in it or not. This was more for practical reasons with filming with children and having a sensitive subject etc. but then I decided that having a child feature in my work was crucial so I had created my characters and my story idea.
I found the process of coming up with the idea a little frustrating at times, mainly for the reason stated above as I was worried about making the wrong decision that would impact my work, but I also found it really exciting having free reign on creating a story and taking the time to come up with a plot that I was really happy with. I know for the future that I need to not worry about making mistakes with the storyline because if something does not make sense I can just alter it in the early stages of writing the script; I then created a basic storyboard to help with the scriptwriting process.
SCRIPTWRITING
Scriptwriting was something that shocked me; initially I thought that I would dislike it however it actually turned out to be one of my favourite parts of this unit. I initially struggled with sitting down to write out the script as I had never wrote a proper one before so I found it a little overwhelming, however I had my basic storyboard which really helped so once I started I found it hard to stop. I was quite worried about handing in my first draft in case I had made any major mistakes but after I had the screenwriting feedback session with Steve I felt very happy about my work.
The screenwriting feedback session was very useful, first of all he went through my script as a whole and gave general feedback such as 'I need to show more and tell less' and 'I don't need to write past my ending'. Then we went through my script page by page and analysed what I was doing wrong and how to make my script better. The main thing that we found was that I was over explaining what actors needed to do such as "May sits appearing lonely looking towards the ground" when really I needed to be explaining what the camera is seeing and how the shot will be taken. So when re drafting my script I will make sure that I cut all of the irrelevant action and explain what the camera is actually seeing as that is all that is important in the script. I was also adding too much irrelevant dialogue that was not really adding anything to the story so I cut a lot of it out and some advice that Steve gave me was that if each line is not structured like a joke then it is irrelevant so cut it. Steve did praise me for clearly using all five of his golden rules which I was happy about and I will definitely use them every single time I write a script in future.
PRE PRODUCTION
Creating my cast list was definitely a struggle as I needed two actors; a female adult to play Tracy and a nine year old girl to play May. For Tracy I was going to use someone in the group however they were ill on the day of shoot so I had to find a friend to act as Tracy. In future I would make sure I have a back up to fall back on to save extra stress on the day of shoot to find actors. Another struggle that I had was finding a nine year old girl. I was going to use a family friend however she had to pull out of the project a few days before so I then had to find a new child. I contacted a local child talent agency and explained that I needed a 9-12 year old girl to play a role in a two minute extract for a film for my UCA screenplay. I also explained how it is quite a sensitive piece so the parents and child would have to be okay with the child saying the line "Someone touched me". Luckily someone from the agency got back to me and gave me a few options, so I was put in contact with their parents and that's how I found Imogen, the actress that played May. This was definitely a long process but I'm happy that she played the role as I'm really pleased with her performance. Another big decision that I had to make during pre production was that in the first draft for the script for my extract Tracy (the mum) was distracted by her thoughts however when I spoke to Steve he said that I should have her distracted by a baby. When choosing to create this extract I did consider using a baby in my film but I was already using a child so I thought that using a baby might be too much due to the laws surrounding working with babies. I then considered using a doll and adding on some baby sounds in post production however I did not want to risk it not looking professional so I decided to cut the bay out of my extract. This was a big decision to make but I'm glad that I decided not to use one as it was my first production and it would have made it a lot harder.
A big worry for me during pre production was the weather. I kept checking the reports from a week before because I was using an outside location so I wanted to make sure I was fully equipped for every weather outcome. The day before there was a 90 percent chance of rain which meant that I knew to pack waterproof covers to protect cast, crew and equipment.
Another issue during pre production was arranging the shoot time. This was because it needed to work around nine year old Imogens school times, she finished school at 3:15pm and it started getting dark outside around 4:15pm as I had been tracking it. So I had to arrange to film all of the scenes that Daisy (acting as Tracy the mum) in the morning and afternoon and then arranged that when Imogen turned up on set we would have an hour to film her sections. This was a lot of pressure as I knew that everything would have to be set up ready so that we could film everything with Imogen before loosing any light. In future I would make sure that I plan for issues like this in more advance so that maybe I could spend a weekend day filming to give more time with good outside lighting during winter.
Another struggle that I had during pre production was getting permission to film in the area. The park itself was quite closed off but I still wanted to know that it was okay ad that there would be no issues. I emailed Maidstone Borough Council beforehand explaining what I wanted to shoot with the exact location but did not get a response, so I did send a follow up email to them but looking back on it I should have phoned as emails are not always reliable with response times.
Because I was filming a child age nine something that I had to research was laws with working with children. I found out that the maximum time they could work for if they had been in school that day was two hours, which is why I initially planned to film over two days. But then when I was checking the weather it said rain showers on the day I filmed and then heavy rain and possible chance of thunder and lightning on the second day, so I decided to cancel it and film everything on the first I just had to make sure it was all done within two hours. This did add more pressure to the shoot but it was definitely worth it being able to use a real child.
PRODUCTION
Looking back on it production was not as stressful as I thought it would be, we got to the location early to set up all the kit but we quickly realised that the play equipment was all wet from where it had been raining, so I had to go back to my house so get some towels so that we could dry the climbing frame that we would be using. This was frustrating however it has taught me for the future to always taking drying materials if it's an outside location and it has been/ could be raining. Another issue was that every hour or so there was a rain shower which meant that we had to keep covering the kit under lots of waterproof materials or put it in my car and then get it set up again. This was time consuming however there was not anything else that I could have done.
As mentioned above I had a very tight schedule for production with scenes that Imogen was in due to her getting out of school and then it getting dark quickly outside, so when directing I had to be certain on decisions of shots but at the same time I did not want to rush it. luckily we managed to shoot everything, a couple of the last shots that were filmed round 4pm were darker compared to the ones that we filmed earlier in the day of just Daisy, but again at the time there was nothing I could do about this. However in future if I was in a similar scenario I would use two days to shoot like I had initially planned to.
Something that worked really well during production was how efficiently we managed to set up the kit and utilise it. One of my crew members dropped out the day before due to work commitments which meant that it was just me and one other crew member. We managed to set up the kit even with the rain and cold weather as well as taking care of the cast by having some snacks and drinks on set. Imogens grandmother ( her chaperone) even commented on how they "felt taken care of and enjoyed the refreshments between the rain showers". This made me very pleased as I did want to make sure that my cast felt looked after as I really appreciated them helping me.
Something that I found challenging was telling the actors how to perform. Because my film is very serious I did not want the acting to be comedic whatsoever and I also did not want it to lack energy, I struggled with how to portray this to someone though that has no experience of acting and looking back on it now Tracys character played by Daisy seems very over the top and I do feel that this lets it down. Simon spoke to me about this after he watched it through and gave me some advice for the future, he told me to always tell my actors to appear blank, this is because we learned from the single frame workshop that a shot alone can portray feelings and emotions without performance. Therefore if I had a similar situation in the future I would tell the actor to appear blank.
I was happy with how my shots came out though as I had taken the time to make sure that the camera and frame was all set up correctly. I was very happy with the focus in majority of the frames as this was something that I struggled with in the camera workshops but I now can confidently say that I am happy with focussing a shot. There were a few that are a little soft but this was due to not getting two or three shots for certain scenes due to being worried about loosing light so in future I will always make sure I have at least two takes of every shot.
POST PRODUCTION
When first reviewing all of my footage in post production I was very happy with how it had turned out bearing in mind it was raining on and off all day and we had been outside all day. One of he most frustrating things though definitely was the lighting issue with scenes that had been shot earlier in the day they were very bright and the exposure was very high compared to the shots filmed late afternoon. I think this was the thing that bothered me most about my production so in future I would make sure to not film when the light will change.
Another issue that arose in post production was that for the shots I had filmed there was not much background noise such as rain or wind etc, this was important for my extract as I had a few moments where we just hear the sound of the weather. Luckily though I had recorded a three minute buzz track which I placed in the timeline for the whole extract and this instantly helped fill any dialogue pauses where we just follow action. In future I will always record a buzz track just like i did in this unit as it is always better to have one than not.
Before showing my rough cut to Simon when my clips had just been assembled together I watched it in the screening room on the big screen so that I could decide if I liked the order of the clips but also what needed to be done with the colour grading as the shots filmed earlier in the day were very highly exposed and those filmed in the afternoon were quite dark. Seeing it on the bigger screen helped me to identify exactly what I needed to do to be happy with my rough cut; for example I had recorded a lot of takes for the first section as we had more time, there were a lot of pans with Daisy sitting on the bench and I had included all of them in the rough cut so when seeing it on the big screen I realised I needed to cut out majority of them to just leave one or two good shots.
Before this project I had never worked with colour grading or corrections before, but for my film I had to due to the lighting issues. It was so much tougher than I expected it to be because for the over exposed shots when bringing down the exposure and taking out the whites as well as adding a tint of blue it did make the shots darker however it also added a pastel effect which I was not that happy with. For the darker shots I had to bring up the exposure and add highlights to the shots but this then made them appear very pixilated which I also was not happy with. It took a lot of playing around with the different correcting options and I got to a point where I was happy with the grading, however it is still probably my least favourite part of my film.
ROUGH CUT
When showing my rough cut to Simon for the extract we went through my film and listed each thing that I could change or develop. The first thing that he commented on was that my buzz track was too quiet, this was easy to change as I just turned up the audio gain. He also suggested that I should use some dark drone sounding music and from my short film reviews this was something that I had in mind already so this was also a quick change to my rough cut.
When filming my extract there was an extra scene that I included in case my extract did not reach the time of two minutes. This was shots of character tracy phoning the police after her daughter tells her she has been touched. Simon suggested that I include these, I was hesitant as I did not want to as Steve says "go past my ending" however once I had included them it added a little more depth to the story and still left the audience on edge, but with just a bit more information on what happens next so I'm really glad that I took Simons advice here. If I have the same scenario with future projects I will add the clips into the rough cut and then edit them out if need be.
The final thing that Simon told me to consider was that if this were a real scenario to think about the parents panic. Initially I had shots of Tracy walking over to the bush for around 10 seconds then calling out for her daughter, but if this were real then she would be calling for her daughter straight after the scene. I took the audio of her calling for May and dubbed it over shots of Tracy from behind as she approaches the bush. I was really happy with how this turned out as it added more panic to the film.
FINE CUT
Once I had made all of the rough cut changes I shown Simon my film again. We went through the sae process again but this time there were less changes to make. They were mainly to do with the lighting as for the phone shots at the end I had recorded some in the morning of that day that were bright and some in the late afternoon that were vey dark. Simon suggested that I should switch around some of the shots and add a little colour grading and see what worked best. I did this and made the darker shots brighter and the brighter shots darker and the ones that were recorded earlier in the day actually turned out better than the ones from the late afternoon they were a lot less grainy and it created less of a dramatic light change, therefore this made me a lot happier with the lighting levels in the piece.
The other piece of feedback that I received was to change the order of the shots of May walking out of the park. This was because I had used a lot of coverage which made it feel a little jumpy, therefore I removed a lot of the shots and instead added a reverse of Tracy, this took away the jumpy effect and again taught me that even though I had lots of coverage it does not mean it had to be used.
Once I had made these changes I again watched it on the big screen in the screening room with some peers. This again makes any small mistakes stand out a lot more than on a mac but I was actually very happy with how it was looking and they all gave me positive feedback on it. Then I shown it to Simon one last time and he said that everything looked good now except for one piece of audio ( a dark piece of music that comes in at the end) came in a few frames early so I moved it along and then felt happy with it
CONCLUSION
In conclusion this unit went very differently to how I thought it would; in a good way of course. I anticipated that I would enjoy the editing the most and the scriptwriting the least, however the scriptwriting and actually coming up with the idea and the plot were probably my favourite parts and the editing was one of my least favourite parts due to the colour grading being a very long process that took me a long time to feel satisfied with.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this unit and it has really opened up my eyes on the amount of planning that goes into a production from sending multiple emails to get location permission to having to contact a child talent agency to get an actor. I have written my first real script and filled in my first Risk Assessment and these are something I consider to be big milestones.
The Script to Screen unit has definitely again made me realise that I want to work in the television industry because even though some moments of the unit have been frustrating such as the lighting and rain on the shoot day I have really enjoyed the process and I am very happy with how both my script and two minute extract have turned out.
COMING UP WITH THE IDEA
As soon as we were told the brief for the unit I was always thinking about what my story could be, You will be able to see from my earlier blogs from this unit I initially wrote down all the ideas that first came to mind when thinking about 'The Meeting'. I then started to loosely try and attach them together but one of the issues I was having was that I had too much story and plot but not really any characters. Simon had told us that when creating a story come up with the characters first and work the story around them. So I decided to create my two characters and then I could fit the story outline around them and their lives, and I will do this again in future rather than getting overloaded with all my different ideas that I cannot link together.
However a big decision I had to make with characters was whether or not I wanted to use a child. During a workshop on how to create a story Simon gave us some advice, he suggested that we 'use our own experiences and start with them and then alter them slightly to create new stories'. So this is what I did, I took an experience from when I was younger but then altered it slightly to create my basic story idea, at this point my story was about a child who was touched, but I did not know whether or not I wanted to have a child act in it or not. This was more for practical reasons with filming with children and having a sensitive subject etc. but then I decided that having a child feature in my work was crucial so I had created my characters and my story idea.
I found the process of coming up with the idea a little frustrating at times, mainly for the reason stated above as I was worried about making the wrong decision that would impact my work, but I also found it really exciting having free reign on creating a story and taking the time to come up with a plot that I was really happy with. I know for the future that I need to not worry about making mistakes with the storyline because if something does not make sense I can just alter it in the early stages of writing the script; I then created a basic storyboard to help with the scriptwriting process.
SCRIPTWRITING
Scriptwriting was something that shocked me; initially I thought that I would dislike it however it actually turned out to be one of my favourite parts of this unit. I initially struggled with sitting down to write out the script as I had never wrote a proper one before so I found it a little overwhelming, however I had my basic storyboard which really helped so once I started I found it hard to stop. I was quite worried about handing in my first draft in case I had made any major mistakes but after I had the screenwriting feedback session with Steve I felt very happy about my work.
The screenwriting feedback session was very useful, first of all he went through my script as a whole and gave general feedback such as 'I need to show more and tell less' and 'I don't need to write past my ending'. Then we went through my script page by page and analysed what I was doing wrong and how to make my script better. The main thing that we found was that I was over explaining what actors needed to do such as "May sits appearing lonely looking towards the ground" when really I needed to be explaining what the camera is seeing and how the shot will be taken. So when re drafting my script I will make sure that I cut all of the irrelevant action and explain what the camera is actually seeing as that is all that is important in the script. I was also adding too much irrelevant dialogue that was not really adding anything to the story so I cut a lot of it out and some advice that Steve gave me was that if each line is not structured like a joke then it is irrelevant so cut it. Steve did praise me for clearly using all five of his golden rules which I was happy about and I will definitely use them every single time I write a script in future.
Creating my cast list was definitely a struggle as I needed two actors; a female adult to play Tracy and a nine year old girl to play May. For Tracy I was going to use someone in the group however they were ill on the day of shoot so I had to find a friend to act as Tracy. In future I would make sure I have a back up to fall back on to save extra stress on the day of shoot to find actors. Another struggle that I had was finding a nine year old girl. I was going to use a family friend however she had to pull out of the project a few days before so I then had to find a new child. I contacted a local child talent agency and explained that I needed a 9-12 year old girl to play a role in a two minute extract for a film for my UCA screenplay. I also explained how it is quite a sensitive piece so the parents and child would have to be okay with the child saying the line "Someone touched me". Luckily someone from the agency got back to me and gave me a few options, so I was put in contact with their parents and that's how I found Imogen, the actress that played May. This was definitely a long process but I'm happy that she played the role as I'm really pleased with her performance. Another big decision that I had to make during pre production was that in the first draft for the script for my extract Tracy (the mum) was distracted by her thoughts however when I spoke to Steve he said that I should have her distracted by a baby. When choosing to create this extract I did consider using a baby in my film but I was already using a child so I thought that using a baby might be too much due to the laws surrounding working with babies. I then considered using a doll and adding on some baby sounds in post production however I did not want to risk it not looking professional so I decided to cut the bay out of my extract. This was a big decision to make but I'm glad that I decided not to use one as it was my first production and it would have made it a lot harder.
A big worry for me during pre production was the weather. I kept checking the reports from a week before because I was using an outside location so I wanted to make sure I was fully equipped for every weather outcome. The day before there was a 90 percent chance of rain which meant that I knew to pack waterproof covers to protect cast, crew and equipment.
Another issue during pre production was arranging the shoot time. This was because it needed to work around nine year old Imogens school times, she finished school at 3:15pm and it started getting dark outside around 4:15pm as I had been tracking it. So I had to arrange to film all of the scenes that Daisy (acting as Tracy the mum) in the morning and afternoon and then arranged that when Imogen turned up on set we would have an hour to film her sections. This was a lot of pressure as I knew that everything would have to be set up ready so that we could film everything with Imogen before loosing any light. In future I would make sure that I plan for issues like this in more advance so that maybe I could spend a weekend day filming to give more time with good outside lighting during winter.
Another struggle that I had during pre production was getting permission to film in the area. The park itself was quite closed off but I still wanted to know that it was okay ad that there would be no issues. I emailed Maidstone Borough Council beforehand explaining what I wanted to shoot with the exact location but did not get a response, so I did send a follow up email to them but looking back on it I should have phoned as emails are not always reliable with response times.
Because I was filming a child age nine something that I had to research was laws with working with children. I found out that the maximum time they could work for if they had been in school that day was two hours, which is why I initially planned to film over two days. But then when I was checking the weather it said rain showers on the day I filmed and then heavy rain and possible chance of thunder and lightning on the second day, so I decided to cancel it and film everything on the first I just had to make sure it was all done within two hours. This did add more pressure to the shoot but it was definitely worth it being able to use a real child.
PRODUCTION
Looking back on it production was not as stressful as I thought it would be, we got to the location early to set up all the kit but we quickly realised that the play equipment was all wet from where it had been raining, so I had to go back to my house so get some towels so that we could dry the climbing frame that we would be using. This was frustrating however it has taught me for the future to always taking drying materials if it's an outside location and it has been/ could be raining. Another issue was that every hour or so there was a rain shower which meant that we had to keep covering the kit under lots of waterproof materials or put it in my car and then get it set up again. This was time consuming however there was not anything else that I could have done.
As mentioned above I had a very tight schedule for production with scenes that Imogen was in due to her getting out of school and then it getting dark quickly outside, so when directing I had to be certain on decisions of shots but at the same time I did not want to rush it. luckily we managed to shoot everything, a couple of the last shots that were filmed round 4pm were darker compared to the ones that we filmed earlier in the day of just Daisy, but again at the time there was nothing I could do about this. However in future if I was in a similar scenario I would use two days to shoot like I had initially planned to.
Something that worked really well during production was how efficiently we managed to set up the kit and utilise it. One of my crew members dropped out the day before due to work commitments which meant that it was just me and one other crew member. We managed to set up the kit even with the rain and cold weather as well as taking care of the cast by having some snacks and drinks on set. Imogens grandmother ( her chaperone) even commented on how they "felt taken care of and enjoyed the refreshments between the rain showers". This made me very pleased as I did want to make sure that my cast felt looked after as I really appreciated them helping me.
Something that I found challenging was telling the actors how to perform. Because my film is very serious I did not want the acting to be comedic whatsoever and I also did not want it to lack energy, I struggled with how to portray this to someone though that has no experience of acting and looking back on it now Tracys character played by Daisy seems very over the top and I do feel that this lets it down. Simon spoke to me about this after he watched it through and gave me some advice for the future, he told me to always tell my actors to appear blank, this is because we learned from the single frame workshop that a shot alone can portray feelings and emotions without performance. Therefore if I had a similar situation in the future I would tell the actor to appear blank.
I was happy with how my shots came out though as I had taken the time to make sure that the camera and frame was all set up correctly. I was very happy with the focus in majority of the frames as this was something that I struggled with in the camera workshops but I now can confidently say that I am happy with focussing a shot. There were a few that are a little soft but this was due to not getting two or three shots for certain scenes due to being worried about loosing light so in future I will always make sure I have at least two takes of every shot.
POST PRODUCTION
When first reviewing all of my footage in post production I was very happy with how it had turned out bearing in mind it was raining on and off all day and we had been outside all day. One of he most frustrating things though definitely was the lighting issue with scenes that had been shot earlier in the day they were very bright and the exposure was very high compared to the shots filmed late afternoon. I think this was the thing that bothered me most about my production so in future I would make sure to not film when the light will change.
Another issue that arose in post production was that for the shots I had filmed there was not much background noise such as rain or wind etc, this was important for my extract as I had a few moments where we just hear the sound of the weather. Luckily though I had recorded a three minute buzz track which I placed in the timeline for the whole extract and this instantly helped fill any dialogue pauses where we just follow action. In future I will always record a buzz track just like i did in this unit as it is always better to have one than not.
Before showing my rough cut to Simon when my clips had just been assembled together I watched it in the screening room on the big screen so that I could decide if I liked the order of the clips but also what needed to be done with the colour grading as the shots filmed earlier in the day were very highly exposed and those filmed in the afternoon were quite dark. Seeing it on the bigger screen helped me to identify exactly what I needed to do to be happy with my rough cut; for example I had recorded a lot of takes for the first section as we had more time, there were a lot of pans with Daisy sitting on the bench and I had included all of them in the rough cut so when seeing it on the big screen I realised I needed to cut out majority of them to just leave one or two good shots.
Before this project I had never worked with colour grading or corrections before, but for my film I had to due to the lighting issues. It was so much tougher than I expected it to be because for the over exposed shots when bringing down the exposure and taking out the whites as well as adding a tint of blue it did make the shots darker however it also added a pastel effect which I was not that happy with. For the darker shots I had to bring up the exposure and add highlights to the shots but this then made them appear very pixilated which I also was not happy with. It took a lot of playing around with the different correcting options and I got to a point where I was happy with the grading, however it is still probably my least favourite part of my film.
ROUGH CUT
When showing my rough cut to Simon for the extract we went through my film and listed each thing that I could change or develop. The first thing that he commented on was that my buzz track was too quiet, this was easy to change as I just turned up the audio gain. He also suggested that I should use some dark drone sounding music and from my short film reviews this was something that I had in mind already so this was also a quick change to my rough cut.
When filming my extract there was an extra scene that I included in case my extract did not reach the time of two minutes. This was shots of character tracy phoning the police after her daughter tells her she has been touched. Simon suggested that I include these, I was hesitant as I did not want to as Steve says "go past my ending" however once I had included them it added a little more depth to the story and still left the audience on edge, but with just a bit more information on what happens next so I'm really glad that I took Simons advice here. If I have the same scenario with future projects I will add the clips into the rough cut and then edit them out if need be.
The final thing that Simon told me to consider was that if this were a real scenario to think about the parents panic. Initially I had shots of Tracy walking over to the bush for around 10 seconds then calling out for her daughter, but if this were real then she would be calling for her daughter straight after the scene. I took the audio of her calling for May and dubbed it over shots of Tracy from behind as she approaches the bush. I was really happy with how this turned out as it added more panic to the film.
FINE CUT
Once I had made all of the rough cut changes I shown Simon my film again. We went through the sae process again but this time there were less changes to make. They were mainly to do with the lighting as for the phone shots at the end I had recorded some in the morning of that day that were bright and some in the late afternoon that were vey dark. Simon suggested that I should switch around some of the shots and add a little colour grading and see what worked best. I did this and made the darker shots brighter and the brighter shots darker and the ones that were recorded earlier in the day actually turned out better than the ones from the late afternoon they were a lot less grainy and it created less of a dramatic light change, therefore this made me a lot happier with the lighting levels in the piece.
The other piece of feedback that I received was to change the order of the shots of May walking out of the park. This was because I had used a lot of coverage which made it feel a little jumpy, therefore I removed a lot of the shots and instead added a reverse of Tracy, this took away the jumpy effect and again taught me that even though I had lots of coverage it does not mean it had to be used.
Once I had made these changes I again watched it on the big screen in the screening room with some peers. This again makes any small mistakes stand out a lot more than on a mac but I was actually very happy with how it was looking and they all gave me positive feedback on it. Then I shown it to Simon one last time and he said that everything looked good now except for one piece of audio ( a dark piece of music that comes in at the end) came in a few frames early so I moved it along and then felt happy with it
CONCLUSION
In conclusion this unit went very differently to how I thought it would; in a good way of course. I anticipated that I would enjoy the editing the most and the scriptwriting the least, however the scriptwriting and actually coming up with the idea and the plot were probably my favourite parts and the editing was one of my least favourite parts due to the colour grading being a very long process that took me a long time to feel satisfied with.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this unit and it has really opened up my eyes on the amount of planning that goes into a production from sending multiple emails to get location permission to having to contact a child talent agency to get an actor. I have written my first real script and filled in my first Risk Assessment and these are something I consider to be big milestones.
The Script to Screen unit has definitely again made me realise that I want to work in the television industry because even though some moments of the unit have been frustrating such as the lighting and rain on the shoot day I have really enjoyed the process and I am very happy with how both my script and two minute extract have turned out.
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