MEDI 119 (Larping About: Critical Evaluation)

Larping About: Critical Evaluation.

I have very much enjoyed this project despite constant problems setbacks and technical failures and I feel that I have learned a lot from my mistakes. I have a far better understanding now of how to produce a movie and the time constraints of this. Although it’s been hard and at some points the technical faults have been near soul destroying I have learned and adapted and remained flexible.

I think that although it was a valuable lesson I will not be doing another casting call using a social networking site again and feel maybe I was being a bit to experimental with the so called new media phenomenon’s, perhaps they aren’t quite as useful as I originally thought they would be but I would like to maybe try more traditional methods next time. However I thought it would be best due to the nature of my original script considering I needed a cast of hundreds...

I am sad that I wasn’t able to stick to my original script although I feel it was extremely ambitious to begin with.  However there is some storyline left of the many fast rewrites and improvisations that were needed in order to actually have a finished piece. As I have said in my project report my original location was far too specific and the location that I found matching it would have needed a budget of more than nothing to transport everyone to and from location as it was remote and not even on any bus route.  Having said this I don’t think it is vastly deprived by the downscaling of locations.
The overall tone I originally wanted was an epic fantasy story that eventually you found out was all in some bodies head. Although I had to make it much more light hearted and fun I do feel I kept this element to some extent.  I am happy with how the tone of the piece turned out and think it’s very funny. It’s also a very nice representation and advert of my hobby and although not intended I am quite proud of this as it’s a hobby I care a great deal about.

I enjoyed the actual filming and I think that the footage that I got was fairly clean and crisp so I am pleased with this. It was a good day to film and we were blessed with the weather conditions. It was hard to co ordinate a cast and make up and sound and things but I feel I got the hang of things fairly quickly mainly because it was a lot of fun. I did enjoy filming the outtakes because they never differed from my plan and this pleased me.  All of the cast had a good time and were happy to be there and I think that shows.

The technical issues were mostly to do with the lack of working tape decks available, I had them eject the tape at random and turn themselves on and off for no reason among other things, this meant I had a hard time getting all the footage off. In the end I had to ask a friend that knew lots about fire wire to come and help me. Luckily most of the footage was saved thanks to the use of fire wire cables however it left no time for a reshoot.  If I could do things differently I would have definitely re shot at least the storyline parts. I feel it would have vastly benefitted from more footage since the storyline footage I shot that I was able to retrieve didn’t last as long as I thought it would in terms of time.

I feel pleased with the responses that I received at the screening and subsequently via YouTube and Face Book from strangers, course mates and friends alike and everyone agrees that it’s funny.  The fact that I have had such a positive response reassures me and although in the screening I have seen far better videos than mine I feel that I have also seen far worse and would place mine at least middling. I do feel that whilst it could be better both technically and in terms of better depth of storyline that it is at the very least entertaining and humours.
As I stated in the project report my main actor was going to do a voice over but due to a sports injury was not able to make it to a sound studio for me to record him. However the sound track I feel is right for it and I don’t think that given the option I would change it now.  I have made a lot of prototypes with different music but have ran into problems because of copyright mainly so I decided to go with some music that was under creative commons and therefore free to use for non commercial purposes, all of the tracks are the same band so it sounds more unified and works as a whole. I spent hours alone on making sure the music fit perfectly and faded in and out at just the right time. I am very pleased with how the music works with the film and feel that it is tied together with the sound from the location that I opted to keep making it feel more real, since I wanted to avoid the movie just being film set to music.

My group was very enjoyable to work with and I am pleased to have been part of it. I hope to be able to work again with its members in the future as they are very supportive, creative and flexible and I think all of our movies are good. We had lots of technical issues in the group and problems with actors and occasionally lack of equipment but we all worked together well and helped each other.

This experience has taught me to remain flexible with everything movie related as things never worked to quite to plan yet I am pleased with the results. Although it’s not what I would have originally wanted to do, I still feel that it has evolved quite well and although as I have stated there would be a lot I would do differently looking back I am still proud of how it turned out.