Jonathan Sozomenu and I made an instructional cooking film. Pre-production we worked together to formulate ideas about what kind of film we should make. We determined that a cooking video would be a plausible option for our group of only two people. Our film entitled, How to make a Graham cracker Gingerbread house and Frosty the Marshmellowman was developed over the course of two weeks.
The first step was to choose what we wanted to make. We decided on a Gingerbread house because the ingredients were easy to acquire and the making of it would not waste very much good food. We spent one day filming the entire process. This worked out well because we each have very busy schedules; however another day of filming after the editing could have been very useful.
Our roles in the making of this film overlapped in many areas. Jon was the only actor. However, we both worked on the development of ideas and the how we should approach the project. I did most of the post production work. I was the editor but also received help from an out of group source, Ben Ratner. I had minor experience editing short films but this project forced me to learn much more than I ever would have learned on my own. I received assistance in the learning of the imovie program from my cousin, Kate Rose Itzkowitz, a professional editor for Woody Allen.
Jon and I worked very well together to produce this film. We spent days discussing our ideas and forming storyboards of what we would hope to do in the filming of each of these ideas. This good dynamic led to the final success of our film. The film is not professional quality or perfectly edited but as a whole I feel that the film was a success. We were able to film our project in a few hours and didn’t surpass our designated filming time. I feel that the greatest strength of our film was Jon’s ability to keep his composure while building the house. It is a very funny film because it is not common to see a teenage boy making a video of how to make a gingerbread house. He was able to keep his composure and not laugh all the time as many people in that situation would have. One of the weaknesses of our film is the group size. If the group had included more people it would have been less taxing on the people involved and the amount of time that each person would put into their part of the project would have decreased. Also having more people and hopefully more actors would lead to a more comedic atmosphere.
There were many different cinematic elements used in this film. We have a high angle shot at the very end of the film to show the entire house and property along with the Chef. Background music was added during the editing process because it was a very Christmas themed movie and holiday music added to this. Titles were also run on the screen while the film is starting to save time as well as to keep the audience’s interest. We have many close ups during the making of this film because it is essential in an instructional video to show exactly what you are doing so that this can be reproduced. We also attempted to include a match cut. There are several attempts during the film but one stands out. This is when Jon is adding the gummi bears to the roof, he puts one on and then there is a jump cut to him showing the gummi bear decoration complete. A match cut was also attempted during the making of the base of the house and the placing of the graham crackers on the cardboard foundation.
My favorite scene in the film is the making of Frosty the Marshmellowman. It is a very funny scene but also very fitting to the project. Unfortunately, a large portion of this was removed from the final version because the film was excessively long and this was the best place to cut from.
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