In the first stage of production, there was the treatment. Our group consisted of me, Jasmine, Vincent, and Crystal Dywer. Crystal and Jasmine had a similar main central idea for their treatment, which is the involving of the drug dealing. Jasmine treatment had the idea of a package delivering to the drug dealer. In my treatment, I had the whole scene of a messy, graffiti type of location that looks shady and rocker, hard type of people used in the film.
Also, in the first scene of our movie, we had the bed and phone conversation which was also in my treatment.
Our group combined most of our scenes and acts from our treatment. Our original idea was to have a sensitive boyfriend that cares about the girl unlike our final product. Mr. Bigue, you, gave us the idea of instead of having a sweet boyfriend; we have a boyfriend that betrays the girlfriend in the end. The boyfriend is characterized as a bastard and he even watches the girlfriend get taken away.
The script was produced by the whole group. Everyone contributed ideas to the script. The title of our movie, “Nothing Personal”, I thought of the idea since the boyfriend uses the girl for his own personal reasons (which are debt in this case). We had a very hard time thinking of our movie titles and we used the thesaurus and dictionary. When it came time to do the location diagram, Jasmine did the diagram for the outside shooting because she was most familiar with the area. I did the location diagram of Crystal’s room, which is used for the first scene with Vincent’s help. For the two column script, Jasmine and Crystal worked on the shots and angle. Although I didn’t contribute to the shots and angle, I gave them ideas with the plot and dialogue. When we started filming the scene, everyone helped. I switched off with Jasmine as the sound recorder. We also helped by telling the actors what to say and told Crystal which direction or which way to film since she was the director and the cinematographer. I didn’t really get to express my artistic vision in shooting as much as Crystal and Jasmine. I contributed mostly to the plot ideas and general ideas for the setting. After the shooting, we needed to fill in the parts where the girlfriend talks to the phone with the boyfriend and in the ending, where the new girl talks to John on the phone. I did the voice recording for this part.
The voice recording was crisp and clear which is not what I wanted. I wanted the phone conversations sound like the sound is coming from the film so I did an edit of it to make a crackling sound which helped a little bit. Most of the shots were shaky because we didn’t use the tripod a lot. We did not spend that much time on shooting because it was hard getting the cast together and all whole crew come out the same time. Also, we shot this very late at night so there were curfews for people. If we did a retake of some of the shoots, things would’ve been better. We also didn’t rewatch the shots so we didn’t spot errors until I started editing it like the tripod in the background. We wanted the effect of hand held since it creates an effect of danger or anticipation or panic. There were some shots which might’ve worked better with a tripod.
Section Two:
Casting:
The casting had been done by Crystal since she knows people who will fit into the roles of our film. The characters are appropriate for their personalities and physical attributes they’re portraying. The age group fits in well too. Each actor has a clear and distinct identity. Maria, the girlfriend, is a normal, average girl who seems innocent and loving and willing to help her boyfriend. Dick, the leader of the gang, looks a little rough and acts as if he doesn’t really care about others but to his benefit. He is the typical bad guy. John, the boyfriend, acts as if he cares and loves her but in reality, he doesn’t so he is a deceiver. On the outside, he looks a bit rough too. The actors played in somewhat believable manner. The only one that throws it off is Vincent. He stands out from the group of people and he doesn’t really look evil unlike all the other male characters who dress a bit rough. We had another actor to play his role but they couldn’t show up so Vincent is the replacement.
Vincent’s smiling..There are physical differences in the actors. There is only one girl, and the boyfriend is tall and is the only one wearing black who fits with him sneaking around in the darkness, and Dick is shorter but dressed more casual.
Acting:
Maria is definitely the most vulnerable, stating the fact that she is a girl and is alone by herself. The boyfriend is seen as the bastard in the film. Dick is portrayed as a typical bad guy who has his chuckles. The actors played their roles nicely and in terms about moving the audience emotionally, in some parts they move the audience and in other parts, they are too cheesy and it makes them look like they are just acting out the roles. Overall acting, I believe they become the character they have to portray. The gestures are used pretty. For example, Maria had her arms crossed most of the time which shows worry.
I think the actors did a pretty good job with the scene where Maria is taken into the car. By covering her mouth and having two guys taking her away, it shows empowerment.
Talent project warmth, sincerity and poise are presented by the actors. The only problem with the audio is the clarity of it. The machine in the background makes a loud noise and when we tried to put the film together, some buzzing noises were higher than other which is very annoying. The overall talent, pacing, and energy level stayed about the same. The actors acted accordingly.
Script:
The lines are consistently "in character" and appropriate to the background with the motivations and personality of the characters portrayed. When Dick talks, he uses uses short phases or sentences which make the film understated a lot of the times. The audience is left to imply what happened and happens. Maria’s lines are usually questioning, which portrays uncertainty and worry. John’s tone is reassuring and then reveals the real person he is with the truth near the end.
The dialogue is unique for each person because each character’s character is revealed by the tone, facial expression, and the gestures he or she said it in. Our dialogue is kept at a limit because it does not reveal the whole plot. For example, in the beginning of the movie, John seems like he is coming to save Maria but you never know for sure because in the end, he betrays her and planned the whole plot. The story and plot makes sense because from the first scene, you see John and Maria’s conversation and John leaves, perhaps to help Maria.
The second act shows the conversation between Dick and Maria with John lurking in the darkness somewhere near them, either going to Maria’s aid or what, is what the audience know. The third act unravels everything with John not going to save Maria after she found out that she is part of the deal. The fourth act shows the implied bad thing that is going to happen to Maria and John’s phone conversation with another girl, possibly repeating what just happened. The film lives up to its genre, film noir. The main theme is betrayal of John in this film.
Wardrobe and Makeup:
Maria is dressed casually, which fits her part since she does not know what is going to happen. John is dressed darkly which fits into the part where he sneaks around the darkness. Dick is dressed casually but a bit rough. Their age is appropriate for the type of clothing they are wearing. Both Maria and Dick are usually at the wall, which were the brightest part of the night since there is lamps on the walls. They are dressed with neutral colors with suits the place appropriately. Makeup was not important and necessary since most of the actors are male and Maria can just apply her daily makeup.
Music and Effects:
The voice when speaking does not have equilibrium. Sometimes, the speaker is very loud and sometimes, the speaker sounds normal. The main problem was the machine buzzing. The sound was very annoying and I could not get rid of it. I had a different variety in background music. The first background music was a rock kind of sound. I believed it fits in with the movie because when he leaves the house and Maria waiting for Dick was a long wait so the background music helped transitioned and makes the wait shorter than it seems. The second background music was more of a snooping around, curious type of background music. It plays when John is snooping around the area and Maria is trying to find out what is going on. The third background music is anxious and danger is going to happen type of song. It plays when John is still hiding and Maria finds out what happens and gets taken away. When she gets taken away, it happens fast paced. The forth background music has an unfinished, eerie effect since John takes to another girl and the audience can assumes that a repeating of the incident will happen to another girl. The music fades in and out and does not interfere with the dialogue’s clarity.
Staging, Props, and Mis En Scene:
The set designs are urban, secluded, shady area for the outdoors. The room is supposed to look messy and rocker type. In the outdoors one, the set design is suppose to have lights on the main focused point which is the wall, and the backside of the small building, it is mostly dark and you can’t see clearly. The lighting creates a dark, and high and low contrast.
The set is properly toned with the separation of talent and wardrobe but not the set elements. The tripod was seen for some shots. The props like the car were necessary and it is appropriate to
Lighting:
The lighting did not remain even because there were some parts where lighting was bright and a colder color and other parts had warm and orange colors. There is visual separation and depth and detail. It is at night and the depth fit in perfectly with the time of hour. The unwanted shadows were controlled because we all watched very carefully on our placement. The sources of light were appropriate. The dim lighting was used pretty well but it could be a warm and yellow lighting problem. We also used the car lights which gave more light or else the set would be too dark. The angle of light was towards the wall which gave a lot of depth into some shots like the above picture in the stage evaluation.
Title and Credits:
I could’ve done more work to the title because I wanted to make the title from white to red which gives more of a grave effect. I used cursive in the film noir production and the credits to end in black and white which were the characteristics of film noir. The moving blobs in the title gives a sense of mystery since you cannot see the title so well until the black spots move onto it and then the moving blobs all turn black so you can see the title. I could’ve made the blobs to black a bit longer for the audience to clearly read it.
For the credits, I used simple cursive and black and write and it’s a scroll credits how most of the time, the movies do that.
Camera Operations:
The shots demonstrate the rules of composition except Jasmine mentioned one shot breaking the 180 degree line which I did not notice. The shot where John was talking on the phone and the zooming in part was not what I would vision. If there was a dolly, it gives a more of an effect of seriousness and a change of mood to a darker mood. Otherwise, the shots were used appropriate including the use of panning and such. The hand held movement could be a bit disturbing since it moves around a lot. We should’ve used the tripod a bit more. The camera work was not well planned. We were in a tight schedule and rushed.
Sound:
Most of the outdoor sound recording went smoothly. The voices are usually constant except for some parts where the speaker is loud and I had to adjust the volume. Also, the building buzzing noise is very distracting. It throws the placement of the characters off like you don’t know if he is somewhere else or still here. There was no other sound besides the buzzing that was not planned, in the movie. The phone recordings could’ve had more of a phone sound to it but I made a bit of a crackling noise to give a hint that it is a cell phone.
Edit:
I made the movie a lot shorter because some scenes drag on for a long time. I fixed the technical and general continuity jump cuts. I tried to make the transition smoother by adding transitions sometimes and inserting different scene between shots that were recorded in different times but in the same area. I used soundtracks to shift the scene from one to another like the room scene to the isolated parking lot.
The different edited shots shows continuity of the film and the audience get a good grasp on what is it about. (The shots constitute logical visual statements.) Most of the editing is fluid and smooth, maybe some shots could’ve been taken out to smooth things more. The scenes that were not needed were removed from the final edit.
Section three:
Fragility means there is a lack of strength which is showed in Maria when the two men are taking her to the car and Maria cannot fight back, and she is also easily damaged and destroyed. The fact that she is in love with her boyfriend is a sign of weakness because she is willing to do anything for him. Her personality is weak because she trusts her boyfriend and didn’t look beyond what else was going to happen that perhaps she is in danger. Her lack of physical strength is showed when she is standing across Dick, who is bigger than her in size and height.
Entrapment is a feeling of being trapped. When Maria finds out the truth that John is not coming to save her, therefore, betrays her, she gets taken by the two guys by using their physical strength and locking her inside the car. She is physically entrapped in the car and overpowered by the two men.
Betrayal means dishonesty and use of trust to get personal gain which breaks the trust in a relationship.
Betrayal is our central theme of the film. Maria is worried and scared so she calls John to come because she probably thinks he will protect her from any danger. She later finds out in a conversation with Dick that John will not be coming to save her and she is part of the deal. John betrays Maria by lying to her and using her trust for his own personal gain, which is freeing from his debt. Maria then is assumed to have a bad outcome after she gets taken away. John is the bad guy in the story because he seems like a good guy unlike Dick, who people already assume is not that straight of a character. Dick also plays a role in John’s betrayal. Dick helped make John’s betrayal evident and he acts on the plan.
Our film deals with lust, paranoia, and sadism. There is an unclear lust because of the assumption that she gets raped or sexually harassed. There is a bit of paranoia because Maria gets taken away and she must be scared and frightened backed up with her screaming. There is sadism because John sees and must know the sadness and broken hearted that Maria must be suffering from his betrayal. John says: “Yeah, she’s part of the deal” and he smiles and a tiny scoff.
Textured images like the high and low contrast use of lighting and surface of the walls were used. The surface of the wall were not smooth, but more rough looking. There is high and low contrast in the lighting. Our main source of light came from the dim lights on the walls or the car headlights which creates shadows. There is also depth that is used.
The dialogue that Dick uses is short and his tone is lack of sympathy. This characterize Dick as the typical bad, shady guy.
Our setting was an urban, isolated, shady, dangerous place to be which is our expressionistic set. Our setting was in the night where it is dark and there is harsh lighting that we used like the car headlights and the dim lights.
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