Celine C.

08 Occulus Mentis
I first watched this group’s film during the rough cut screening session and I must say that they did a really excellent job placing the final tweaks to it. The film is easy to understand, had really good actors and an amazing sound track to go with it. The male lead was extremely adorable and I respect his dedication for art (having to put on fishnet pantyhose and high heels). Although we had the same script at the start, it’s interesting to see how different people can produce two very different film.

02 Conscience
I was so impressed with this film as it was shot only in one location but was not at all plain as it had different camera angles. The plot was also mind blowing when I found out only at the end of the film that the man in indeed talking to his own conscience in the mirror. Although the film was shot in the dark, the shots weren’t underexposed but came out beautifully. Definitely one of my favorite film that night!

05 Preteintiux Art
The opening of this film looked promising but it became somewhat dull during the middle part of the film. I reckon there was too much conversation going on between the three or was it the lack of action/plot in the film. I asked myself questions like how did the three were willing to become an art statues when the money from their sales did not even go to them? The film however manage to recover itself towards the end of the film where the three were abused by the daughter of the owner, and they were later thrown in the backyard. The make-up was very realistic and of professional standards! Good storyline nonetheless!

18 Donna’s Deed
This film opens up with Donna exiting the train station which goes on for quite awhile, I reckon the opening scene can be cut down to be much shorter. Also, when Donna sees the missing dog, she immediately knows the number to call when she has only walked past the ‘missing dog’ ad once. However, I like her point-of-view shots of the many people, all doing different things, at the missing dog owner’s house where they were celebrating people, like Donna, for being great individuals. I think those shots were done very well.

04 Family Traditions
The man in the story did a very good job acting out his role. The intercutting of the shots of a man, that looks like him but somehow had the impression of being his father, was somewhat confusing but it was all clear at the end of the film. I like the variety of shots of the man when he was loitering around town looking for people to talk to, great voyeuristic camera shots!

10 Blitzkreig Tots
Such a refreshing and exciting story line and excellent sound effects! Simple yet captures the attention of viewers!I spoke to Damian, the director of this film, complimenting how much I liked the film, and expressed my curiosity regarding the syncing of film and sound during the filming process. He said they had to take plenty of footage and then it all goes down to the post-production process. Plenty of footage = Longer shooting time = Tired kid actors. I can imagine such difficulty in filming with kids! But I must say, I loved the camera work too, this film is somewhat like ‘conscience’ where it is only shot in one location.

06 Movie Addict Anonymous
I love the concept of this film! The opening of the film of the man pretending to be physically disabled is humorous and served as a good element to go back to at the end of the film. I love the interview concept of this film, and the characters were each unique and interesting in every sense. The credits of the film even included bloopers! A very professionally done film!!

09 Still Water
The opening title of this film is beautiful! There were fantastic shots in this film, particularly the shot of the female lead walking to open the door. However, the scene of her watering the plants outdoors where she hear the sound of sea waves and her vision is blurred does not come across clearly enough. The focus on the flower could be played a little longer and added with a frustrated look on her face with gestures that suggest that her vision is playing with her. The sound in the film really compliments the film!

12 Screw Youssical
Probably the most exciting film for the evening! Such an interesting concept of incorporating rhymes in the narration of the film. The narrator’s way of speaking is comical, one that you hear in kids film. The characters in the film did a fantastic job too! The continuity in the film was managed well as I did not see anything wrong with lighting, all was well done! Love this film!

13 Head Case
A very emotionally moving film. The lead character in the film really captured my attention. Shots were beautifully captured. Although in the dark, it was not overexposed. I must also say, great filming location! The ending of the film is particularly heart aching, as the male lead mistaken the goodwill of a friend and ends up murdering him.

14 Grind
Another film that was based on the same script as our film, but gave such a different outcome. The transition between fantasy and reality was done amazingly! I loved the fact that mugs were used as a transitional tool. The ending of the waitress serving the female lead a ‘bloody mary’ is a ingenious idea, serving as a good comeback to the murder scene in her fantasy. Adding to that, the soundtrack compliments the film perfectly, absolutely love the music!

The snapshot of our film above was taken during the TV1 screening on last Thursday and I must say that watching our final product on the film with an auditorium filled with people felt AMAZING. It was just what Christine mentioned that the experience will be totally different when watching with tutorial classmates versus students from the whole course (and not to mention their actors and friends). Our film was screened before the intermission so that amazing feeling of fuzziness lingered on throughout the whole screening.

It was a great experience being able to watch the works of others. Some had really really good camera work, very different film genre, etc. It gave a grasp of what I can improve on my future work as well, also to judge where the standard of our work stand within the works of the others in the course.

It was interesting to hear the crowd laugh during the ‘pen drop’ scene earlier in the film. My boyfriend did too find that scene cheesy and he laughed at the sight of it, but it was a totally different feeling hearing many many people having the same reaction to one particular scene. The crowd also laughed at the scene where Zan, our female lead is sipping wine and looks to right where her boyfriend and her friend (who’s actually John, our director) is chomping on chips and gulping on beer like two very blokey blokes. In fact, it was actually John’s exaggerated munching motion that makes it comedic. It was in the initial plan that John wanted to make this film a comedy but we ended up making a drama/comedy as the Sally’s original script was meant to be dramatic.

Hearing the crowd laugh felt great as that gave me the sense that we manage to entertain the crowd. I even receive feedback during the intermission that other people liked the film and that there were really beautiful shots in there (a big thanks to Holly’s apartment!) I have to say we were darn lucky being able to get our hands on such a lovely shooting location! It was an exciting (also exhausting) experience journey producing this film but the sense of satisfaction is just too great to be put in words. Having my group and mine name rolling on the credits gave us a sense of achievement, of all our hardwork and dedication!

Above is a photo of us working very hard at Edit 6 from 10am to 3pm to get the final product together and have it exported as a mov, av3, mpeg2 file, media managed file, and one more at a h264 compression. We had great difficulties exporting the files into a av3 and mpeg2 file via compressor as the software is a total alien to us. Despite the step-by-step instructions on the TV handbook, we still had problems as certain settings and options were not available/not preset in the computer that we working with. As Evelyn and I were almost going nuts in the editing suite on our own (not to mention with growling tummies!) I decided to get the help from the techs! I basically ran up and down multiple times and eventually had hands-on help from Lachlan before we manage to get the files exported OK (I hope!) but not as according to the handbook.

To talk a little about the final touches to our film, I would say that our group’s film would be the more unique one, this is in terms of how we actually got the whole product together. It is because we didn’t record the sounds live on set, Evelyn our amazing director of sound had to piece the individual sound clip in GarageBand – which isn’t a bad thing after all as we manage to have layers and layers of diegetic sounds. But however the down side of it was that the transition between shots isn’t as smooth as we place a soundtrack in the background, which we had to bring the volumes up and down in order to construct the sense of movement in space. Moreover, we even had the credits created in iMovie. Talking about multiple usage of softwares! I have to say that we are quite competent from the aspect of familiarity (to some extent) with Apple media softwares.

However, it is because we had the sound created in GarageBand, and the credits in iMovie, the sound and movie clip had to be first exported and then later imported into Final Cut Pro. This is why I said the way we had the final product placed together quite uniquely. And because John didn’t manage to join us in this final editing session, a copy will be available online so he can have a look at it (no worries, he promised to shout us a round of frothies at the screaning!)

I’ve learnt plenty from this TV project and it will definitely have loads of help for TV2 next semester. NOTE to self: always record sound live on set!

YES, and finally the BIG BAD K-Film is completed! We worked very hard on this project, so I hope our audience like it too!

In addition to that, this is the Julius, Celine & Loan’s K-Film Essay

kfilm draft 2