I found the most enjoyable part of making our production was definitely the filming. I had a lot of fun just being on location and being able to chase down Will , decked out in black like I was ready to mug someone, Good fun. If i could do it again i would definitely do something along the action genre but maybe a sub genre, something nobody has done for media. I really like how "A Clockwork Orange" and "Bronson" were done. I like that they managed to take utterly brutal stories and make them enjoyable and turn violence into a work of art. I think that if I had to do this again I would make a more character driven story, like in the films I have mentioned they focus purely on the main character and hear them all the time. I have learnt that preparation is key and you have to maintain focus on the task at hand. We ended up forgetting a scene in the production because we were too excited making the film to realise. I would have also filmed on a day that wasn't so wet. When we got to Osgodby we were completely soaked from damp the rain had left before. It was very boggy but thanks to this we managed to get George falling over, which was perhaps the funniest thing that happened all day. I liked portraying Clyde, I like acting regardless of how bad I might have been. I would have liked to taken on the role of a much darker, more intelligent character. It's always the characters with interesting personalities and the way they perceive things like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho or Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange. Not to say I am like minded at all but their personalities are intriguing as they simply could not exist in our world. They are much more interesting characters than that of other films because we are introduced to their bizarre mindset and it seems hard to think how they perceive things and see the world. A generic role is not as fun or interesting to portray. If I could have done this again I would have tried to play the role of Clyde as more of an unstable criminal than a calm but dangerous gangster.
"Charlie Bronson- Bronson"
"Patrick Bateman- American Psycho"
"Alex Delarge- A Clockwork Orange"
I would have quite liked to get a dolly rig or something on wheels to get some interesting shots. I know you can buy some rails and a tripod with wheels to fit the tracks but it was not within what I could afford. We initially said we would do this with a narration but it was decided the film would be better off without. 3 films that I have spoken about, which are perhaps some of my favourites, also have narration. These films being Bronson, American Psycho and A Clockwork Orange. These are amongst some of the most character driven films I have seen that set you deep in the protagonists mind seeing things as they do and being somewhat sympathetic or relative towards them. I think that if we did a narration for our film it would get the audience more involved with our protagonist. However the best thing about our protagonist, Eugene is that he is enigmatic and we are not supposed to know a lot about him during the beginning. I think that if we did go forward with this then our film would not be seen as a typical Hollywood film rather that of the independent style much like Bronson was seen as an artistic piece rather than a film glorifying violence.
I think we made the right choice making the decisions we did that made our product what it is but I thought about how different our film would be if it was catered to an American audience. For example "Hot Fuzz" is a British Buddy cop movie with dark undertones of murder. Compared to "The Other Guys" which is an American buddy cop movie with undertones of organised crime you can see the vast differences between the film market of each country. American humour and British humour are quite different. Whereas we Brits enjoy satire and black comedy the Americans enjoy simplistic "please laugh here" kind of comedy that is forced onto you. Shows like Blackadder would not work in the USA the same way their own branch of comedy would not work here. I think that Brits can enjoy American humour like "Ted" for example because it so easy to understand as it isn't clever or hard for most to understand. A film like "Death at a Funeral" for example is a brilliant
British comedy that the Americans took and made a remake catered for an American audience as they deemed our version "Not funny enough". It is just a case of sense humour being different to different demographics but I would say we managed to pull it off well and people laughed when we tried to make it humorous.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed working on our production and I am really looking forward to any opportunity where we will be in front of the camera or working on any film making in the future. I think that writing the script has helped me the most as I found it difficult to understand the layout at first. I need to work on writing good dialogue as that can completely butcher a scene or a film altogether. I feel like my acting could have been better but I don't think I was suited for the role I was in. Give me Bateman or Delarge and I would have preferred that, as I have said I enjoy the roles of characters with interesting psyches. I think that once we are filming my knowledge of acting goes away and instead I just do as I am instructed, speaking my lines and following my directions is not enough to make a solid performance which I will work on.
