Construction Post 10: Looking Back - Reflections on our Final Outcome

Overall, I am extremely happy with the opening sequence that Shayam, Amy and I have created. It has been a long and sometimes hard journey but it has been made easier with these two by my side.

Our completed film opening - Unlawful 

Highlights

• Working so well as a team throughout. We had good levels of communication and everyone was there for each other. Also as we are good friends, it was a fun experience to share together.
• Organisation. Being organised with the filming equipment and having ideas in advance about how a shot should look helped with the success of the shots.
• Being creative. I want to be in the film industry when I am older and with this project, I feel as if I have been given more of a taster of what the future could hold for me. I found coming up with story ideas and filming really fun as I like to think creatively. 
• Gaining confidence in editing. I have now done editing to a higher level and so I have improved my knowledge on how things work. I enjoyed grading and seeing the effect of the changes made.

Low Points

• In terms of production, it was sometimes frustrating to have to re-do the same shot again and again. For example, we had about 20 takes for the lipstick shot on one of the shoot sessions.
• It was a shame to see that the shots were not always as good as we thought they would be when we reviewed them at the edit suite. 
• It took us a long time to find music, as we were constantly not happy as a group with the track that one of us selected.  Sometimes, it did not suit the character or the atmosphere.

I hope that the audience will recognise the mysteriousness of our protagonist; that she has something to hide. It would be even better if they think she is a femme fatale type character. We have tried to connote this through her putting away her detective badge and by revealing that she has several identities and a gun. Finally, I would be pleased if the audience are drawn into the story; enough to want to know more about what Stacey is up to.

Overall, I believe the project has been a great success and I can see that individually we have all improved and gained experience. The main thing I would change in hindsight would be the time spent on music. If we had found a song earlier, we could have spent more time on other aspects of editing. Lastly, I would have made changes to the speed of some of the shots downstairs, for example, when Shayam is putting on her gloves, the pace is a bit slow.