Production Cycle for "End of an Era"

Scriptwriting:While there was no apparent script or type of dialogue with our piece, we did follow a form of separation of narrative from visual representation as the reader explained. Due to our piece being based on a musical composition, the narrative pieces of the film were meant to line up with the changes in tone of the music. Each action and part of the story (from the setup to climax) was matches by an either upbeat or dramatic portion of the soundtrack.

Production Design:
A majority of the production and "where" and "how of the shots were thought of as we were filming. We had an idea of where we would shoot (down at the Waterfront, the Bridge, etc) but how each show was composed was determined depending on the conditions of the scene at the time. One thing we did keep in mind involving the shot schedule was when during the day we took each shot. As we shot on a clear day when there was only minimal hours of daylight in the time we could spend downtown, we tried to do shots that didn't require sunlight (or where you couldn't immediately determine the time of the day) later in the day. Aside from that and maintaining continuity through having our actors wear the same clothes, there wasn't a large amount of foresight involving most of our visual representation.

Script Analysis:
We had an entire shot list devised, as that was instrumental in having each piece of film fit the duration of the song. This was applied not only in shot composition, but also in the context of the script. The position of the camera and type of shot was reworked during shooting many times, but for most of them the actors and directors were on the same page with how each piece of the script would be applied in shots. The choice of open/closed/medium shot depended on what we could see upon shooting.

Cinematography:
As said before, each shot was written out prior and read between each member of the project in the class. This did not prevent us from adjusting shots during the filming process. Three members of the group at a time would handle filming each scene, although the amount of time spent between each member filming wasn't the most balanced, there was a strong sense of communication between all of us in what we were shooting. One graphic shown in the reader demonstrated the body position in comparison to the variants of open/closed/medium shots. While we did not follow this precisely, we were in the ballpark when shooting both open and closed shots.

Rehearsal: 
Considering that our actors had very little experiene in the field, we found it important to rehearse a couple scenes during filming. Yet because of our lack of dialogue, we didn't spend a large amount of time practicing scenes outside of the ones that had direct interaction between Sam and Nora. We left it to shooting a scene multiple times and choosing one of each part of the film that felt most dramatic or tense.

The goal for this project was to create a dramatic narrative not only filmed and edited, but scripted by ourselves. Using film techniques that we've learned over the first semester 

My idea for the topic of my film came to me rather quickly, but left a lot of wholes in what exactly the conflict was for the film. Thankfully my script critique with Nance helped me sort through what didn't need to be added to my film and made the focus of my script less broad, despite the fact that I decided to keep with not having actual dialogue for my piece.

Although editing is generally my forte, I'd be lying to say to say this wasn't the most difficult film I've had to try and edit, due to the numerous amounts of text clips that I've had to use for a short period of time. I was basically projecting my text on screen to demonstrate the Skype conversation going on in the story. This extended the editing process (and also excluding the original shots) and editing take nearly forever.

I'm proud that I at least attempted to make an entirely visually represented film and tried to go the extra mile with having text displayed on-screen.

I would try to flesh out the characters that were actually filmed better (in this case, Charlie and Alan). Due to the text appearing the same time as their acting, it left a lot of people distracted and not paying attention to what they were doing, I hope I can introduce them and other visual representations in a less jarring way.