Assignment Write-Up: After Shooting - 02/09/2010

1. Bartender(?)

2. The main idea that we as a group started with was to have a bartender be the only character that the audience focuses on while three exaggerated characters come in and bother her - the progression of the bartenders short fuse with these people is important because it is the main reason for having so many other characters, and it also expresses the personality of the main character: the bartender

3. The idea was built from the fact that Angee had access to a bar for us as a group to work in - and the initial reasoning behind having three extra characters for the main character to feed off of was built from the fact that the assignment called for three directors - so we each we responsible for one character within the movie and it just went from there

4. The key emotion that we would like the audience to experience is laughter, enjoyment, and understand that this is supposed to be a comedy - the characters are great exaggerations of real life situations

5. Theme discovered after you finished:
When the bartender explodes on the customer at the very end, the theme changed as we filmed it from when it was on paper. When it was only on paper it was hilarious, and even on set we were trying so hard not to crack up at what the actors were saying. However, the theme to US is hilarious - but when it is presented as a final piece in a class where it should be seen as technically and conceptually serious, will the comedy come across or will the audience only see the bartender being mad? The premise of her being mad leads to all of the comedic dialogue and expressions on the bartenders face - but my main concern is that the audience will only take away an aggravated bartender as a character from the movie. I guess the theme is up to the audience - but the intent is laughter. So we will have to see how the screening goes.

7. Strengths of the film:
- The ability to have a location all to ourselves is very nice - the bar was empty and everybody was very co-operative that was cleaning or doing things in the kitchen
- The main actress that played the bartender was not hesitant to get angry or act dramatically towards the customers that she had to deal with
- The collection of actors that played all of the customers seemed to get into their characters after only one or two practice runs
- The lighting was definitely my favorite part of the movie (aside from the setting being so wonderful)
- As a team, once the actual production of the movie was going on, there was a great cohesiveness

8. Problem areas:
- I am worried that the transitions will be a little iffy with some of the cuts
- I am also worried about some of the audio with a refridgerator that had to be left on because we had to keep the bar the exact way that it was before we got there and turning it off would have upset the owner
- Most of the shots are similar with the same medium shot over and over, and I worry that the audience will grow tired of this - but I hope the dialogue will keep them interested

9. My own notes:
I have always noticed in movies how inconsistent the lighting is and it has always bothered me because it basically shows the fact that it isnt natural light - but after shooting with complimenting light on the subjects I realized that you need to change the lighting around otherwise it doesn't look as thought-out as a movie and that tears away from the narrative more so than inconsistent really well thought out lighting would.
Also: Allowing actors to improvise (within reason) makes for very interesting takes and much more natural dialogue.