Production Notes

Oh boy do I have a ton of stuff to say about this project.

Pre-Production

Let's start with the idea. I had no idea what interesting story I could make up in Hunter College, but my partner Joanne said she wanted to do something about the life of a cockroach, which somehow ended up as a spider because it would have been too much like that book about that guy who turned into a cockroach. Well she only thought of traveling through the school, but we didn't have an objective for the spider.

A few days later, we sat down and made up ideas, and somehow a bunch of stuff just came out of my mouth as I was eating a sandwich. Joanne liked most of it so she outlined the ideas and created a storyboard while I wrote up a script. Maybe if I was thinking more instead of eating a sandwich, I wouldn't have come up with ideas that made production a pain :(

Production

When we started shooting, we realized how little time we had so we rushed through a lot of the shooting. This was a very bad idea because once we imported the shots into the computer, we had a lot of problems with continuity. Joanne and I had creative differences too because of the pressure from the time constraints; I kept wanting to change things to what I felt would be better but she wanted to stick to the storyboard. The problem there was I was only there for the textual outline for the storyboard - without specifics - but only she sketched the storyboard. I also tend to become a control freak.

A huge problem was the different number people on the bridge/halls and the lounge area. We shot on different days so the number of people changed. Another problem with the number of people and their positions (since a lot of different people are constantly walking) was that I didn't shoot the hallway scene in one shot. It was EXTREMELY tiring on my legs; I was walking half-crouched, pushing a book from near the beginning of the North building bridge to the beginning of the East building bridge. My legs kept giving out and I had to stand up and stretch a few seconds so that ruined the shot. People were looking and laughing at me and one guy jumped in front of it which also ruined the shot. I got him to help me afterwards with a scared reaction to the "spider" so I spared his life.

I made the traveling scene 300% faster to be less noticeable. I hope it worked... The lounge area was also empty, which was great for the conversation scene, but the shots of the spider approaching the lounge area was when it was full of people so I had to add a fade to black with text saying they all ran away. I hope that worked too.

When we started the conversation scene, we realized we didn't think about how we would shoot us talking to each other. Good thing Joanne has good friends. She called one of them and he helped shoot our conversation scene. Of course we had to direct him and I was pretty anal... until I got tired.

We also should have rehearsed it and memorized our lines. We had to hold the script at our bellies so we can read each others lines. So when I was speaking, Joanne would hold the script, and vice versa. Thank God for shot/reverse shot, huh. I think the biggest problem of all with the conversation scene was the noise from the escalators. We were originally supposed to have it at the lounge outside the library, but there were always people there. It would have been great if we had a controlled environment and extras instead of real students going to class.

Being the writers and directors at the same time was good and bad. The good is that we know what kind of shots we want. The bad is that we come up with stuff along the way, which we thought might be better, but got us confused and missed some shots. We tried to fix it with editing though.

Post-Production

Although it took the longest, I think post-production was my favorite. Editing is like tricking the whole world. Pretty fun stuff. I also liked the feeling of being in control of every frame, but that's only because I'm also co-writer so I have the freedom to do so. I was still able to do some changing to the story like in pre-production, but this time I got to see my work and manipulate it to make it send a whole different message. I think rendering was the most annoying, but since I was on the computer I got to do other stuff while waiting for it to render.

I had to record my voice at home for the spider too, and some lines of myself. I think editing sound was the most fun. Changing the music can really change the whole feeling of a scene. Changing my voice for the spider was really fun too.

In Conclusion

I'm happy with what Joanne and I were able to "fix" with editing. However, I kept wanting to go back to reshoot a few shots. There are a bunch of shots in our video that don't exactly go together.

I'm glad I learned what a pain production is. I think I'm pretty clear now on which aspect of production I prefer if I were to pursue a career in this field, and that is pre-production. I do like the feeling of being in control in post-production, but at the same time it is a ton of pressure and I wouldn't want to anger the writers if I made a huge change.

Editing Analysis

F.R.I.E.N.D.S is one of my favorite shows. It's a sitcom so the lighting is always very well lit and even. Joey is one of my favorite characters. In The One with the Late Thanksgiving, Joey gets his head stuck in Monica's door because of the little chain that stops a door from fully opening.

It started with Joey sticking his head in and apologizing for going to a Rangers game and coming back late for Thanksgiving dinner. There's an exchange of closeup shots of his face sticking into the apartment and medium shots of Monica and Chandler eating dinner inside. This was useful because Joey was using his big-eyed stare to try to apologize, and Chandler warns Monica not to look at him. We can see how big Joey's eyes get and it's really funny.

Then, instead of a close-up of Joey's face, there's a wide shot of his head and the whole door, which was a good idea because it allowed Ross, Phoebe and Rachel to stick their heads in to apologize too. I also like how this shot was wide enough for us to see the back of Chandler and how he sits up straight on his seat as a reaction to the heads popping in. The following shot was a medium shot of him continuing his straightening up to make the shots look seamless. When only Joey spoke again, it was a close-up of his face again.

Even though Chandler and Monica are together, both of them aren't always in the same medium shot. It would only be a medium shot when they both react to something. When only one of them speak, it would be a medium close-up of the speaker. When Joey's head gets stuck in the door, it starts off as a close-up, but then the next shot of Joey is a medium shot since Chandler and Monica are standing there watching him and reacting to his struggle.

So sometimes when it's only Joey speaking, it's a close-up of his face, and sometimes it's a medium shot to see Chandler and Monica's reaction. A really good choice of a medium close-up of Joey was when Monica squeezed turkey grease on the sides of his face, because we get to see Monica's shoulder, the turkey grease tube, and it is close enough for us to see the grease flow down Joey's face as he tries to lick it off his face.

I notice whenever Chandler makes a joke, only he is in the shot so we can really focus on his facial expression. I also like how in the end, when Joey runs into the table of food, he begins to fall and we can see the surprised faces of Phoebe, Rachel, Ross and Chandler followed by another shot of Joey continuing his fall but from a different angle.