Holding Pattern

This is the finished version of the film entitled holding pattern I created as part of a group exercise. The aims of the exercise as listed earlier in my blog were;

To understand how a script works
To understand characters
Understanding of how a plot develops
To see different people's approaches to the same script
To build on my team work skills
Learn practical skills

The aims I think I most connected with whilst making this film are the last three listed above. I found it very interesting to see how the same script could create such a different variety of films (several other groups created films from the same script) Every film that was made by other students following the same script were completely different. This illustrated to me the challenges of bringing a script to the screen and how different forces of artistic control in film making have a great effect on the final film. I can understand now how if a script writer is not part of the creative process of making a film a director could completely misinterpret their original vision of the story. I previously thought the transition from script to screen was much more straight forwards than what I now understand it to be.

This was the first time I had worked in a team using separate sound recording equipment and tackled more difficult technical filming problems. It helped me build my communication skills and understand how important team work is to every aspect of the finished film.

I learned a great deal of practical skills in making this film as I was introduced to a lot of equipment I had not used before. I now feel I could use this equipment confidently and not have the practicalities of how to operate it effect the quality of a film.

In my opinion the only good scenes in the film are the opening and ending scenes by the side of the road, and the underwater scene. The opening scene I think helps a lot to develop the character and his situation. The length of this scene illustrates the characters boredom and echoes theme of the title "Holding pattern" the character is waiting for something that never ends up happening. I like the underwater scene firstly because we managed to achieve it practically and also because it is the most interesting part of the film. The aesthetics from filming underwater are very interesting, the restricted palette and the smooth movements that make it look as though it is in slow motion making the scene very interesting. I also enjoyed the opportunity it gave me to create unusual sound for the film.