Camera

As the cameraman for the shoot I faced great difficulty as I was required to film whilst walking backwards. This was difficult as I had to make sure that the character was in frame and the camera was steady enough to not be distracting to the audience. At the same time we did not want the camera to be perfectively steady as we wanted to create the feeling that, 'you', the audience were the camera and were walking alongside the character being talked too. This took a few takes to get perfect for every character but I feel I achieved this well enough. I believe the tracking shots make the film much more visually interesting than filming a static character, sitting down for example. I also feel that the movement in the dramatic monologues, in contrast to the static nature of the camera during the interview, helped reinforce the divide between reality and drama within the film, for the audience.

Despite being static I feel that the interviews are still visually interesting and the locations are generally vibrant in both. We used interesting angles for the interviews, generally using low angles for both to create our own visual style and make the interviews more interesting to look at, and when the angle is more interesting it is easier to engage with the interviewee.

Sound/ Music

We had some problems with sound within our short film. The main problem occurred during the shoot with the wind, which was being picked up heavily in the boom mic that we needed to use because of the nature of our filming. In hindsight, I cannot really see how we would have avoided this problem as we had a very tight schedule, and, since we only had permission to film on certain days, were at the mercy of the weather. If, in the future, I was making a film with more time on my hands I would allow extra time for filming just in case the wind was a problem, or have equipment that can reduce the sound of the wind. Apart from this though I think we handled the sound during the shoot well. I had headphones in during the shoot to make sure that the Actors could be heard clearly. I also feel that we filmed successfully in a busy urban environment by shooting in the less busy streets, but still picking up the ambience of the main hustle and bustle of Brick Lane, which I planned in advance from when doing the location scouting.

I also feel we chose good music for the introduction titles of the film as the music was engaging. I also edited the music so that it was in time with the text which made the titles more visually interesting. The music used at the end of the film is also effective in my opinion as it provokes emotion and brings in the seriousness of the film.

The Completed Short Film - 'Baba Yangu' (My Father)

Baba Yangu DV-Vimeo Settings HD from BDC on Vimeo.

Distribution

The best way to get a short film distributed at the moment is on the internet. Baba Yangu is already available on popular video websites Vimeo and Youtube, which makes the film easily available to anyone with an internet connection. We have also posted our film on Facebook, which is a uber popular social networking site, which allows for video sharing within a vast online community. Our short film has also been distributed on DVD within the Brit School Media department, which whilst being a much more expensive way of getting our film out to an audience, is still a form of distribution.

We can also enter our film into online competitions. For example we are currently thinking about entering Baba Yangu into the 'Future Shorts' competitions which is currently taking entries.

We have entered our film into the BBC Film network which is a portal for films where filmakers such as myself can get feedback and possibly recognition for the films we have made.

Evaluation - Completed Short Film

Other Ideas from "Inspiration Week"

Another idea that i came up with for a short film was inspired but the photograph of the butterfly and the concept of a 'fly on the wall'. The story would follow a family argument from the point of a butterfly trapped in the house, flying from room to room developing the narrative. The butterfly is eventually caught by the little girl in the house who never speaks, and lets the butterfly out into the garden.

We also had an idea inspired from a piece of artwork showing an empty table. I came up with the idea of he camera being static throughout the short film. The narrative would happen around the table but never at the table, representing the family being disconnected.

Idea Generation

I was put into group with Maureen, Alana and Callum to create ideas for short films with inspiration from poetry, photographs, newspaper articles, song lyrics and art.

The first idea that we came up with was inspired by the poem "infidelities". The poem was about a women collecting penny's from her husbands pockets and places them on the windowsill. When one day he comes in, takes the penny's and then uses them in a phone-box to make a call "he could not make from the house".

Our short film based on this was going to follow the poem closely. We would start by having shots portraying the them as a happy couple, eating together and her folding his trousers and taking the change out of his pockets and placing them on the windowsill. The film would then have shots of the coins with voiceover from their perspective feeling guilty about how they will be spent. The coins gather dust, which reflects their guilt.

Eventually some of the coins are taken up by the husband and the camera cuts to a phone-box in the street at twilight. The camera takes up voyeuristic positions of the phone-box as the husband turns up, looks around and enters the phone-box, before the camera fades to black.

Our second idea was inspired by the lyrics of the song "Mr Tambourine Man" by Bob Dylan and an ABBA song. The idea was based around an ex-drug seller who has died but cannot enter heaven until he does enough good to pay for his sins. He finds a depressed businessman who he begins to follow around playing the Tambourine as a kind of guardian angel. The businessman then meets a girl who he wants a relationship with and rejects Mr Tambourine. The relationship fails and he looks for his guardian angel Mr Tambourine but only finds another guardian angel who cannot play the same songs.

I have realised that the Mr Tambourine idea is not realistic for a short film, as there are too many aspects to the narrative to get across in the 4 minutes that we have. The idea is also very abstract and I am not sure how we would get any kind of message across to the audience.

Our first idea, based on "Infidelities", is a more realistic idea for a short as it has a very simple concept that can be portrayed easily to the audience. Our final idea will need to share a similarly simple concept, but at the same time be more creative.