In my film The Game of Love, sound became a rough patch that caused many problems in production as well as post-production. As far as microphone placement goes, we had a pretty rocky time with that; we were very inconsistent. We filmed in public places, unable to control outside sounds such as other people within the vicinity we shot in that made irritating sounds that disrupted the recording of the shot; Consequently, I was forced to avoid it in the editing process and had to replace it with music so it would flow better although I thought the film would be stronger if I preserved the natural sound of the film, but i couldn't due to those outside distractions. As far as audio levels go, they are pretty distinguishable; they are pretty consistent so nothing is overbearingly loud that it is aggravating, and in other moments it loud enough to lightly hear but doesn't take away from the film's environment. The audio is somewhat clear for it doesn't contain that much but in the end, the dialogue between the boyfriend and girlfriend is a bit sketchy when the boy friend says "you’ve been actin' hasty, find your own ride home". Other than that the audio is easy to determine and the mood of each scene is depict as well. Looped segments do go by unnoticed, solely because the editing process helped blend them. But, when importing the last two scenes footage, we hit a speed bump as the audio didn’t record for one reason or another. Also, considering that our two column script didn’t fully set us up for success and didn’t quite prepare us as needed, when we re-shot those last two scenes, our dialogue change; consequently, the dialogue we used was somewhat bad and unrealistic. With all of this being said, I personally realize that sound design and maintenance is the most difficult film process for me that I immensely struggle with. This is one aspect I look to improve over the course of the year.
The most spectacular and personally fun component and process of the film that I thought I did a decent job on was the editing. Despite the fact that I felt our scenes had loose ends on top of dealing with the acting (meaning looking at the camera and their placement), the editing allowed those stains to be unnoticeable. The shots do flow in harmony and call for a simple, yet coherent film. I successfully avoided jump cuts and the continuity was pretty consistent as well. We were consistent with the continuity for we made uncountable match action cuts and the actors wore different clothing to portray different days. The audio has a somewhat good balance to it and the sound effects somewhat accurately match the motivation of the particular scenes. We avoided crossing the 180 degree line so the audience will definitely not be confused despite that the story and plot itself may not be quite fully developed. The shots are cut to see what is necessary and eliminates continuity problems. Shots are held longer such as when the awkward boy first sees the girl to establish the fact that he has fallen in love. Considering the fact that we had a short spectrum of time, I cut the scenes to only view what is necessary to help develop the story although I believe if I were able to get a couple more shots in the hallway scene as well as the end scene, I believe the film would be more clear and effective. One problem that I constantly had trouble with was the camera. The actor playing the awkward boy kept on looking at the camera in crucial moments in the film such as the flashback when the two are frolicking in the field. By him doing that, it somewhat distracts the audience as they wonder what he is so happy about when it should be obvious that he is happy that he is frolicking with the girl. Another example is when the two are in the hallway scene. After the awkward boy gets knocked down and the girl helps him get his books, when he is standing up he looks directly at the camera for a good two seconds. I avoided this by later getting another shot of just the girl preparing to hand him the book. Meanwhile, in this shot of the girl, the audio of when the awkward boy is getting up is held so it would flow easier. Despite some misfortunes during production, the editing helped remove some of its problems.
After this film I have realized that picking actors is crucial to the success of a film. Our actors loosely provided the audience with emotion, but it is easily seen that they were just acting, as opposed to putting themselves within the film’s intent. In my opinion, the actors were not too emotionally involved to a point that the audience would care what happened to them. This is not only because of their personal acting though, but because the film is focused on comedy and quirkiness. As a director, I tried to make all of the gestures to be meaningful, but the acting made it seem unrealistic and meaningless as well. Although the talent energy was always fueled, it was spent in an unexpected way and although it helped our film in some ways, it also hurt our film in many ways. On the other hand, the costumes were always perfect to portray another moment in time. I was impressed with the actors because when we had to re-shoot the last two scenes, they remembered to bring the same outfit as when they previously did without me or my partner’s direction. Make up was unnecessary for our film, so that relieved us a bit. I hate to bash on the actors (and I am an actor as well), but I feel that they had the potential to make our film to be much better. Predominantly, I hold all responsibility because I realize that I should have directed them more although I tried hard to do so anyways. If it is any consolation, all of the other actors we tried getting had bailed out on us.
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