By the time we were asked to complete our third visual exercise, a small group of us had grown comfortable enough with each other to try and go beyond the specification. The four of us (Arthur Johnson, Aaron Ross, Jay Heaton and myself) decided that we would make a short mockumentary following one of our classmates and his fictional stepfather.
We spent a long time in pre-production and scripted all of the stepfather’s lines. However, none of Piers’ lines were scripted. When shooting, we simply told him roughly what he should be talking about and he just improvised!
During production, we encountered several problems. The boom mic we were planning to use didn’t work properly and this set production back by hours until we could get a replacement to our filming location. It was the first time any of us had lit a scene with so much consideration. While the lighting is a bit iffy at times, it suits the rough style of the mockumentary anyway.
There were many small details we added, scattered about the flat, which was actually filmed in two separate flats, but cut together to look like one. Unfortunately, while we shot many cutaways of these, they just didn’t fit as well as we hoped and the footage was scrapped. However they are still visible in the background of many shots.
We all did our part in every section, however the section I was in charge of was the music section (and the credits scene in the extended cut). I’m very happy with how it turned out and think it went very smoothly. I enjoyed lighting the scene and Jay gave us a very nice touch by adding fairy lights to the background of some shots.
In post-production, we had to sift through seemingly endless footage, due to the improvisational quality of what we were dealing with. We cut together the film and repeatedly refined it until we had a film we really liked. However, it was roughly eight minutes, which was far too long for the exercise. We had to cut the film almost in half, which unfortunately meant cutting some of our favourite moments and lines. However these can still be seen in the extended cut.
In order to view the extended cut of the film, click here.
In order to view the official submission of the film, click here.
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