Evaluation of Maltese Falcon Reconstruction

The things that went well with our film project is the lighting in the shots as this was something we tried to focus on the most to match the shots of the original Maltese Falcon. One example of this is the shot been behind a window; we knew that this would be a hard shot to shoot due to the back lighting we tried to avoid  this by not using hardly any natural light and focusing on light through other windows in the classrooms  and light sources, to ensure there was not any back lighting and all the actors in the film was visible.

I also thought that our framing of the shots worked well because we took time and looked back at our storyboard and the original film to ensure we could get almost the exact same framing when re-creating the film.

A big problem with making this film was we underestimated how much little things could take up valuable time that we could spend shooting our film, for example finding the blue tack to stick the ‘Spade and Archer’ sign onto the window, as we wasted about 10 minutes  trying to find this, something which wouldn’t of happened if we had planned this better. Something else which then also took a lot of time was when other members of the group forgot there script and we then had to take time to re-print the script again which the resulted in us loosing more time for filming our film which resulted in us not being able to shoot the entire film sequence.

Another large problem we faced was continuity, as in some one hour lessons we realised that after setting up the scene and getting the camera in the correct place for framing we did not have a long time to shoot the actual film, especially when we did not have study periods after our film lessons, that is why in various parts of the film the costume, hair styles and the places of were the film is shot changes. This is something I will focus more on when shooting my own film as I will start shooting early to ensure that the shots flow and are unnoticeable that they are shot on different days (if this is needed).

I will also make sure that when I shoot my own film I will not work in such a large group as this proves to be unreliable when specific people are needed for a certain shot and are not in the lesson, I will therefore ensure that my own film does not have as many characters in it to ensure that I can rely on everyone.

Overall I think our end project went well, even though we had minor set backs which I have previously discussed. Our final film looked like what we had hoped for in the 2 weeks which we had to do all of the planning and shooting. It has taught me that I need to plan a lot more efficiently when it comes to my own film and that this will save a lot of time and I will produce a better finished project.