Week two project seen through an actor's POV

It's week two of Media Production Project and Penumbra's Pictures latest production is finally up on YouTube!

So far our work together as a group continues to exceed my expectations. What I think is remarkable about our group is that everyone has different cinematic and script writing ideas and this factor contributed a lot to the quality and originality of our latest production- And That's How a Cookie Crumbles. At first I was sceptical about another comedy- like, short film. However, what did encourage me a lot was the group's meeting on Sunday, where every team member proposed ideas about the script and its filming. One of our most important group's decisions was to change and slightly prolong the ending of our film by adding a surprising twist in the characters actions. This, in my opinion enhanced the comedy nature of the film, the absurd relationship between the two characters,and it rounded the conflict and its funny resolution.

On the day of filming what surprised me is that regardless of our differences and the little time we have known each other, we managed to work as a team.Our movement on set while filming was quick and harmonized and given the time we had we made very quick decisions about the organization of our location of shooting.
The director was quite swift in the composition of mise-en-scene and the arrangement of colors we wanted to emphasize on. Colors, in my opinion were very good reflection of the characters' nature and they also played the role of a contrasted border between their conflicted relationship. Furthermore,organization of purple and reds amplified the overall comedy feel of the film and it is also a symbol of the ridiculousness of the ''good'' character. Black at the other end of the spectrum figured the ''bad'' character's inclination to violence and ''mischievousness'.

Space is another aspect that I find to be very interestingly cinematically presented. We were shooting in a very untidy kitchen. However, the cinematographer framed the kitchen in such a way that it looked relatively clean by using a lot of close ups and this way concentrating on the characters actions.
While it would have been an interesting idea to present space more objectively, and thus create a relationship between the chaotic space and the characters,in my view, this would have distracted the audience.This is why I do find the director's decision to accentuate on close ups to be of greater importance since close ups shots more clearly present the narrative's idea and what is truly essential for the viewer's understanding.

With regards to directing, another factor I consider to be very innovative in our film- is the change of sense of pace and intensity as the conflict evolves and resolves. This effect is constructed by the continuity of the shot. In the exposition there is a variety of shots in terms of angle,size and length, the combination of these shots after the post-production resulted in very detailed visual presentation of the narrative. The progression of different types of shots in the beginning was very important for it set a subtle pace as the relationship between the characters and their traits were revealed visually. During the inciting incident, however, we filmed the whole scene in one take, the continuity of shot and the whip camera pans completely changed the cinematic pace of the film and also enhanced the comedy-absurd look of the film we wanted to achieve.
To sum up, up to now, I think that our group is a strong united team that is comfortable with experimentation which I believe is the best ingredient for a good short film.