Have a Nice Day Reflection

Have a Nice Day

Pre-Production

The script chosen for our short film was Have a Nice Day written by Mason. His concept was a drama that revolves around a Grocery Store worker and his coworker and his unfair firing. The first thing we did was write the script, as it was Mason's idea we let him take the wheel and offered help where necessary. Next, we realized that we would have to half his original idea due to time constraints. We found and agreed on a cutoff point that ended up turning this short film into a tragedy. Next, we storyboarded out the scenes. Mason and I split this work about half and half. Mason helped us get the grocery store location because he works at one.

Production

Since Hy-Vee is open 24/7, we had to film during slow hours. We started filming at 9 on a Friday night and ended around 11, then finished up the next morning at 7. This was enough time to finish the scenes in the Hy-Vee. The biggest difficulty in Hy-Vee was getting clear and crisp sound. Our two other locations were Mason's house and the conference room. We used the conference room as a break room and I think it passes quite well as one. At Mason's we used both the exterior and interior for our film. Overall I say production went well.

Post-Production

Since we were on a time crunch, we split editing between the three of us fairly equally and Mason put all of the parts together to ensure the final product reflected his vision. I think the final product is obviously stitched together this way and is possibly the weakest portion of our film. The audio in some parts is obviously re-edited even though it was turned into Mason as an MP4 so he had limited ways to fix the errors. These errors are very obvious in the final product.

Reflection

On this project I was Director of Photography, which I have started to become very comfortable with. I feel that I learned a lot from this project. I attempted to implement more movement in the camera and changing focus mid shot, and I think I succeeded on this attempt. I also learned how to collaborate with a group and plan shoots and changing plans on the fly and still having it all work out in the end. Next time, I would be more precise with my lighting, although it was difficult with our three-man team. Another thing is using a lavalier microphone in the busy store to get crisper audio. I would use the tripod to get steady shots again, that worked out. I learned a lot technically and personally to carry into my next project.