It turned out pretty well, all things considering.
The film has been designed to provide a backdrop to a live show, and in that regards, I think it's very good and can't wait to give the film it's 'Live Premiere'.
There were some issues with the film though, as there are on all zero budget projects.
To begin with, we lost our leading man the day before the shoot, so everything needed juggling around.
I stood into the leading role and hastily re-wrote the script to include Lyndsey Muller in an extended role from what was originally planned.
I also doubled up to portray the antagonist of the piece (which was always the original plan)
Playing two roles proved to be a challenge, but it was enjoyable. My AD stepped in to play the antagonist in one shot, so we could have us both in vision at the same time. It's a quick cut and not too obvious.
As a result of my extended role in front of the camera, I couldn't focus on the shots as much as I would have liked so some elements of the film suffered. The first was the lighting, which while good, wasn't perfect, and was a little dark. I had to add a large amount of color correction of the shots to make both camera's match up. The backdrop was supposed to come out white, as a contrast to the black's and red's in the foreground, but it turned out more like beige.
In correcting the colors, I had to de-saturate the stronger colors a little, so we lost a lot of the striking color contrasts (There is a lot of Red in the film) as the strength of the colors became dulled. It's not a huge issue, but it was a shame to lose that element as it was in the original shooting plan to have them. Still, you can't win them all and the white backdrop was more important.
The other gripe is that I couldn't control each shot, leaving it to my AD David Chandler to shoot much of the film. He did a brilliant job too, but there are definitely some shots I would have done differently - not to improve upon, you understand, it's just my personal vision that had to be mildly sacrificed to get the film completed.
These things happen in every production though. In fact, I find that a production that refuses to compromise usually doesn't get completed.
Overall though, I'm very pleased with the finished product. I feel it's a unique film that truly reflects my imagination and voice, and suits the song perfectly.
I hope you enjoy it too.
