Film Portfolio!!- Wig'd Out

A. Rationale:
We made a comedy that seemed like it would be romantic but essentially was a bit gross. Our plan was to gradually expose the audience to the strange habits of this guy who seems to be interested in a girl, only it is actually just her hair he likes. We wanted to do this film because it was simple, yet compelling and showed our ability to make an audience laugh. It seemed like a good idea because with comedies actors are easy to work with and we knew it would be funny. The audience is anyone looking for lighthearted entertainment.

B. Commentary:

My areas of responsibility were cinematographer and co-editor.
As the cinematographer, I foremost found it difficult to work on a café front of a relatively populated area of town. We often had to stop just before getting a shot because someone was about to walk by. Another part of this challenge was that we could see inside the café through the windows, so people came and went while we were shooting the same scene. This caused some error in continuity as people suddenly appeared and disappeared between cuts in the final edit. However, to solve these problems we just allowed as much time in our schedules as possible with the fast-approaching deadline to shoot and we tried to be polite to the random passerby, but there was no true resolution, especially with the continuity error. Another challenge I faced was with lighting. The film is supposed to be set during midmorning, but one of our shoots had to be shot after school because of the deadline. However, with winter approaching, it got dark much sooner than our completion of shooting, so we had to shoot without sunlight, which was out source of light for the rest of the shots. We were just glad that there was light in the café to offer some assistance. We solved this issue in editing with various filters, as I will later discuss. As cinematographer, though, I tried to fix the problem as best as possible by increasing the exposure to its greatest extent.

As the co-editor, one of my challenges was with how to present the first scene with Jen coming to the café and going about her routine. It involved costume changes, so to save time rather than have her change back and forth we just shot the complete scene twice in both outfits. In the edit, I thought about overlapping them, but the camera was moved in between outfits to get other shots, so I had to settle with cutting back and forth between the two outfits with a lot of cross dissolves. Therefore, where Jen was in the frame by the end of the shot with one outfit she picked up with in similar framing in the shot with the second outfit. Another challenge I had as co-editor, as aforementioned, was with the lighting. In this instance, I had to use the 3-way color corrector filter on several shots. I tried applying a cloning tool to match the color and lighting of one of the well-lit frames to the poorly lit frames, but it made other qualities of the frames look poor. With this in mind, I resigned to increasing the whites and saturation levels dramatically and slightly decreased the blacks. Despite the problems in lighting, it was difficult to tell that there was any problem at all after applying the video filter. Another issue we had was with a couple of shots with the male lead’s dialogue. Although the camera had not been moved or shut off, the color temperature changed drastically between these couple shots and the shots preceding it, although I, as cinematographer, did not notice at the time. These two shots had a very high color temperature, while the others were fairly low. As, co-editor, I resolved this by using color correction. I merely used the color wheel to make the color temperature appear more consistent. One last problem in editing was with our audio for dialogue. Some of it came out very low, so I had to use the gain audio filter to raise it. However, some audio had a lot of static gained in the process. This was a problem we could not solve, but the choice was that we either had audio that could not be heard or we had audio accompanied by static. The dialogue was crucial, so we decided to keep the filtered audio.

As a whole, our group had problems with actors and schedules. Our original film concept was completely different and we had shot about half of it when our lead actress told us that due to her commitments to the school musical and her parents’ inflexibility she could no longer film. Therefore, we had to scrap everything we had already done and come up with a less complex film that could be shot in a couple of days. We managed to shoot, but it was rushed, so what we accomplished during our shoots with our more flexible actors was not as good as we had hoped. Still, we were very pleased that the final product was a general success. Luckily, we had no issues with group members as they were all very dependable and it helped that 2 out of the 4 of us had cars.

Critical Evaluation:

This film is clearly of the romantic genre, as there are many periods of silliness in the actors’ expressions and actions. However, the only thing that establishes this in the first minute or so is the choice of music. It is French accordion music that creates a light mood. Otherwise, the genre is not clearly established by what we see, as all new see is the girl going about her routine and a creepy person watching her. Still, the surprise created by the motif of hair and the reaction of the girl makes it a good attempt at being funny.

The narrative itself is interesting as it seems to unfold with a guy who has taken an interest in a girl, but it turns into a story in which there is a happy ending for no one, only grossness. I feel like the between the two people could be further developed, as well as the climax, but the story does feel resolved with the appearance of the other girl who walks by, which also adds to the comedy aspect. To improve this as well as the identification as a comedy, there could be a scene in which the two seem to be getting along fine and then he later finds out about his obsession with hair, thus making the intensity of disgust between the two much more potent. To avoid such problems in the future, special attention should be paid to character development in increasing the effect of the climax on the audience.

The acting is believable, for the most part, although at times it seems as though the girl is fighting back giggles. Still, the cheesy nature of the climax was evidently deliberate and full of laughs, so this makes up for any faults in acting. Once again, though, the relationship between the characters could be better developed.

As far as editing goes, there are some stylistic elements that enhance the film. For example, the choice of classic horror music for the moment in which the wig is revealed adds to the comedic genre. However, this could have been further utilized with the use of an echo audio effect in witnessing the girl’s reaction. The use of cross dissolves suggests the passing of time in the first scene fairly well. On the topic of time, though, I feel the shot with the guy watching the girl in a time lapse is much too lengthy, for while it establishes the nature of the guy’s obsession with the girl this could have been established if the shot was shorter, as well. Still, they made well use of the slow motion in shots, such as when they show the girl’s reaction and the new girl flipping her hair. One interesting technique used was a video filter at the end in which there is a glow around the other girl in which the guy has taken a new interest. This heightens our perception of the girl so that we see her as the guy sees her, thus establishing the perspective of someone we don’t necessarily want to have the perspective of due to his disturbing personality. Overall, the film’s moderately formalist nature is evident as serves to create an altered sense of time and visual perception with its manipulation of time and visual effects, although they are not overdone.

The score fit the genre well in its lightheartedness, but it could be interpreted as misleading for its implications of romance (it is French music, after all). I like how the same music from the opening scene is repeated at the end because it gives not only a sense of resolution but a sense of the male lead’s character with the new hair interest of his. The use of the classic horror music in the climax is effective as it is the most intense part of the score, thus highlighting the events it accompanies. There are no discern able sound effects, but this does not seem to disadvantage the film, for this type of comedy seems best suited as being simple.

The cinematography is mostly static, but, once again, it adds to the simplicity of the film as a part of the comedic genre so that it does not distract from elements of this genre such as the characterization of the male lead. However, there are some graphic vectors with the use of lines down moving down the street with the male lead in the foreground, the female lead in the mid/background, and the rest of the avenue in the background. This highlights the guy’s attention to her, as if he is being drawn to her (or her hair, at least). There are some close-ups used only to show character’s reactions or simply emotions, such as when the girl sees the wig or the guy’s eyes follow her when she leaves in the first scene.

The production design is fairly good as there are no continuity errors in costume design for either character, thus showing the passing of time without causing confusion. One issue in mis en scene is that there is no control over the extras as they are random passerby and café patrons. Therefore, in the same scene, one person may be in the background in the café in one shot, but when it cuts back they may be gone or someone else may have taken their place. This could have been fixed with the use of shallow focus by the cinematographer to emphasize what is happening between the characters, as well as avoid noticing such continuity errors. The choice of location for the film was advantageous as it seemed like a place people could go to on a regular basis and it had outside seating that isolated the characters with each other.

Overall, I believe this short film is a success because it achieves its goal of being funny with a disturbing twist. All of the errors are either very minor or merely missed opportunities, so they are not distracting in receiving the overall point of the film: some people are weird, so just stay away.
C. Supporting Material: https://sites.google.com/site/causeitsib/

P.S. It's about time I finished this...