Spot Remover hort Film Self -critique

For the final project, my group of Me, Alex, and Shianne worked together to create a shot film I wrote called Spot Remover. We were fortunate enough to get our equipment from Hawaii Media Inc. We got two Canon C300 cameras with tripods, 2 sets of 16-35mm lenses, 24-70mm lenses, and 70-200mm lenses. We also got LED lights with a battery charger. Our group started shooting November 17th, 2017 and we did not finish until the 19th of November. The genre was a phycological drama and I wanted to get the descent of an Autistic OCD woman into madness over something she could not control. My favorite kind of movies are horror, fantasy, phycological types of movies and I wanted to incorporate all of them into my film. however, working in a group one must make compromises but I am still really happy with how we worked together on this.

The premise was that Shay a young professional woman living with OCD goes made. Shay does the same thing every day. Wake up, shower, has breakfast, goes to work, sees her brother, and organizes her belongings. One day her routine is broken when a spot appears on the floor of her kitchen. She tries all she can but can’t get the spot off the floor. As time passes she becomes obsessed with the spot and ends up getting fired from her job, almost poisoning herself with illegal cleaning products, and having a break down where she stabs herself thinking the blood will clean up the spot. In the end nothing works and as she lays on her kitchen floor the spot changes and a light emerges from the spot. She looks into the light and smiles at the sight. Nobody knows what she sees. I wanted it to be like Pulp Fiction where we do not know what is in the briefcase.

The strengths of this film were the effort everyone in the movie put into it. Shianne and my brother Jason played the actors and for not being professionals they put their best into the roles and it ended up a lot better than I thought it would. Alex was our DP and assistant director. She knew what she wanted and how to get the shots we needed. We would make most of the decisions together or I would let her do what ever she felt looked best. I myself wrote the story, produced the piece (making sure we had the needed props, proper paper work, and anything else that was needed, and directed. It was my first time being a real director on a story with people and a set up. I did not want to be over bearing so I tried to let people do what they felt but in the direction that the story had to go. If Alex wanted to try different angles I was fine with letting her try it out as long as we got the original shot I planned at least once. I also made sure that we stuck to our schedule of getting the shots we needed for the day. I would write out the scenes we needed the day before and be ready. I have only seen snippets of the project because Shianne is also our editor but I am very excited. The issues we ran into were that sometime filming would be delayed because Shianne’s roommates maybe at her house (were we did the filming) and we did not what to get in their way because it is their home and they were kind enough to let us use it. The sound was also an issue. We tried to use external mics and they would not take some SD cards, run out of batteries, or just turn off during a shoot. We had to use a lot of voice overs and iPhone recordings. Also, time management was something we had to learn as we went. I’m not sure if the final product will really be the final product. If I see something that I really want to fix I will try editing it myself. Overall, it was hard, nerve-wrecking, and left me physically and emotionally drained but, I am really proud of it and honored that people liked my story so much that they were willing to work with me to make it come true. Coming to HPU I thought That I wanted to be an editor for films but now I am not sure I have really found a love with writing and prop/set design.