Post-Production
What we did on post production process were adding special effects, voice over, and cutting out most of the scenes. These parts required deep focus because we had to interpret features that would make the film perfect. Yet, it was tiring to focus on specific things at a time, especially when we watched the same scene over and over, we felt intolerable and impatient. We used some speacial effects like green screen, lighting and dissolving. We realized the importance of arrangements of lighting in the scene, especially when we were shhoting a film-noir type of scene. Watchingh the same shots again all the time made us find the weaknesses of our scenes. That's why we decided to retake some of the scenes. Plus, we had a really good time trying to find the best dissolvings. In each trial of adding a special effect, we felt just like the critics. Another mission we had to comlete was editing. In editing part, we mostly cut most of the scenes and I'm proud of myself to be able to cut the scenes and link them wıth each other just in perfect time. Just like Umerto Eco once said, we need to cut down most of our work to reach the real valuable piece beneath. While we were cutting the scenes, we sometimes felt heartbreak and disappointment because we had believed that we had some strong shots. Sometimes, watching the film again and again made us intolarable to the sounds. It was also tiresome because we had to focus deeply on some scenes to make them perfect. We were amateurs who always tried to catch the perfection. Finally our film has come to an end. We have been working so hard, so the moment we decided on the title (Jouska), I was very revealed. We found the name 'Jouska' on the internet, because we wanted a name that summarizes and reflects the idea in the film. 'Jouska' (a Japanese word) seemed perfect for that, because it means a hypothetical conversation in someone's head. Overall, each time we acted like the critics of our own film. We were the judges and were the problem solvers. We were the developers, the producers and the directions. It was slendid to create a film only with four people. Thanks to IB program, we were able to discover ourselves and produce the best depending our abilities. A great experience is going on right now: we have been filming for the festival! At the moment, there are lots of staff going on and we have been learning many things about filmmaking, and of course there are many challenges to overcome.
When we were first handed the cameras, we were so overjoyed with the excitement to be junior directors of our school. For a month what we had done was basicly discovering the functions of the cameras. We examined each feature and shot scenes impulsively. However, we were too amataur and our shots didn't make any sense. After one hour shooting all we had got was a 30 sec passable scene. The scenes were not fluent at all, the camera movements were not adequate, the angles were not well arranged. We had known the shot types or the terminalogy, but it was not enough to know those; the application process was where we lack familiarity. It took us for a month to get familiar with when to shoot close ups and when to shoot middle shots. We have leant the directorial advances and we all have become cameramen. We started to apply the five shot rule, we especially paid attention to depth of field and compositional stress. Although we had a hard time in the arrangements of the scene and establishing a storyline, I believe that we have overcomed the understanding of five shot rule very well. Most importantly, we have learned to link the shots and get more fluent footages. Fortunately, in IB film our teacher is very knowledgeable with how to create an effective film, and she is well informed about film movements. She is our master and we are learning from her at ech step. We had watched many examples of Film Noir, German Expressionism, French Impressionisms, even Dada. Right now our film includes Classical Hollywood and Surrealism. We even got inspired from the movie 'Breakfast at Tyfanny's'. All these examples were helpful for us to observe the mise-en-scenes. Just like we got to taste many dishes and sense their flavor. What I learned about myself in this process was I lack drama skills for sure. Even though I have been in a role of bully(and of course I've had to be confident and relaxed all the time just like a bully), I had a taugh time acting in front of others and I kind of lack facial expressions. As I have it as a characteristic, I'm not very good at expressing my thoughts with other people. On the other hand, I'm good at catching the small details that my team mates don't seem to notice, especially with the arrangement of the camera and angles. I like being the director, because it seems significant to me to arrange the scene in all ways even catching the color matches. In post-production process I believe that the small pieces that we've got so far will create a beautiful and successful film even it's an amateur made. Still we have so much to learn and as we go far in filmmaking, I believe that we will overcome the tough parts much more easily.
The Kuleshov Effect is a film editing effect that makes the audience think that the actress in the first scene is somehow impacted from what he sees.
Basically, the actress is shot in front of a plain background so that the attention will not be lost. All she does is to look with empty and emotionless eyes.She stands still and her eyes are only thing that move. Then, some other shots are taken which they have emotion in them (like a happy child, an injured cat or a beautiful girl). Between each desire creating shot, the actress is shown. When the scenes moves through a emotional one to the actress, each time the actress seems to feel for what she saw. For instance, after the first scene of happy child, and then the actress, the audience assumes that the actress looked happy. Infact, the actress has shot just once in the beginning of the movie and the same shots are used between the emotion rising scenes. Thus, even though the actress has looked with a blank face, the audience is highly convinced that she has desires and feelings. |