Do well or gain in:
– Experienced a lot in situating an idea within fashion contexts and presenting it with a film.
– Challenged myself to create abstract narratives which has long be my weakness.
I used logical connections among the body, consumerism and identity to support storytelling as well as used the mirrors and mirror fragments as symbolization to rich presentation.
– Shooting skill and editing skill
As it was difficult to shoot mirrors – highly demanded in equipment, shooting angles and distance, my shooting skills were well practiced and improved. Also by refined my film again and again and asked for others’ advice, my editing skill was practiced.
– Communication skills and collaborate skill
I created my own crew and collaborate with a foreign model for the first time.
Weakness / things need to be improve in the future:
– Lack of primary research for the topic
Most of research of the project is secondary research. To develop this project in the future, multiple research methods such as questionnaires about consumer psychology and behavior need to be taken for a lack of primary research. The semi-structured interviews with 5 females about their attitudes toward beauty and their view’s on public’s defining beauty can be re-arrange to make it more helpful in better understanding the research background.
– Ability of time management
Although I made a specific schedule and time line for the shooting day, the shooting is still in a rush. Shooting in the future should be prepared more in advance, including booking studio and getting in touch with crew members, which is one of the most important things.
– Do not be too “greedy”
In the purpose of getting footage as much as possible, I set up three camera. It turns out that it is too much. It caused goof with equipment visible in mirrors in many shoot and light occluded by too many cinema cinematographer. One of the cinema cinematographer is the gaffer – I asked her to help me to do some shooting for the last too part, resulting in not only many goof but also neglect of lighting.
– How to clarify an abstract narrative
The idea is not very clearly presented in the film. There are too much metaphor in the film. One of the most significant issue I realised was that when I want to express everything, I will lose the main idea.when I want to express everything I will lose the main idea.
– How to use back ground music to support storytelling and to demonstrate changes of emotions
I combine 3 music in the film as background music with the aims to support storytelling and increase the atmosphere which I want to create. However, it seems that I failed to make the background music supports the changes of emotions among different parts well – it is too weak.
– How to increase the tension of films (make it “punchy”) through specific editing technique
For the third part of the film, which is the part of mirror fragments, it is originally planned to be very punchy with strong visual effect. I tried to apply some specific effect during each footage however it is not that punchy.
– How to demonstrate consumerism (or other things which involve specific items) in an abstract film
Although I created multiple scenes of the model changing in clothes and make-up to make consumerism get communicated in the film, I failed to present it very well – most of the audience did not notice it. Therefore, the presentation of “consumerism” is too weak in the film – it seems to just exist only in my description.