Monster Productions: Little Jokes

Elena Chwat

In creating this short film, for the most part everyone in my group was everything in that we all had a say in each step of the way. In the beginning we all brainstormed together what the plot should be, and came up with the general idea. Ali took the initiative to map out the storyboard and turn our scattered ideas we had into a reality. We all worked on the filming together; we discussed the shots and angles, and filmed the necessary shots. The biggest role I played in the film-making process is the editing; I put together the opening and closing animations and edited each shot to fit in accordance to the beats in the music. Most of the shots are four beats long, some double, and depending on where in the song it falls there are cuts in particular places that I thought would look and sound good. Ali and I got together to decide what order the shots should be in, how the story should develop, and then I finished with the editing process.

Like every other group working together on a project, the work is never evenly distributed, but overall we worked well together and we are all very proud of what we have created. Pre-production we all heard each other out and put together all of our ideas; the production process was the most strenuous, because of certain conflicting opinions, but was generally successful; the post-production process went smoothly.

We thought it would be interesting to create a film in which there are cuts between two stories at the same time – parallel editing. We decided everyone has his or her own morning routines, and putting them together became an interesting short-film! The film is about a girl who wakes up early to shower, get dressed, eat and look good for school, taking her time, while simultaneously the boy falls out of bed running around grabbing a quick breakfast and running out to door to school – both following their normal morning routines. The film ends with a twist – it’s Saturday!

One of the films strengths is the music. 5 Years Time is a perfect song with its “boopy” tune and bouncy tone, it gives the effect that everything is all right and normal, and I love that it is such a happy feeling. I also like the shots we included and that you never get bored with all the sudden cuts. A weakness in the film is that we have no shots of him running on roads besides his neighborhood, I think that is off-throwing. Also we have no footage of her transportation to school, you just assume she drives when she grabs her keys. There are a few other glitches I couldn’t work out and we couldn’t re-film, but in general nothing too major.

My favorite “scene” would be the four-second shot of Josh drinking the milk. It adds a comedic tone to the film and along with his “approval” look in the mirror, it gives his character a personality.

Although I knew film-making is a process, I learned of the real frustrations of creating a film from scratch. Everything from coming up with a plot that isn’t idiotic, to getting actors, to filming, to editing is a difficult thing to organize and put together successfully. Besides the stress and arguments that came in the package I think for the most part we were extremely successful, and it was worth it because all the work we put into this short-film paid off!

We incorporated a variety of cinematic techniques. Parallel editing was utilized throughout the film. It was appropriate because it showed what both characters were doing at the same time. It showed that she woke up earlier than him; it showed him rushing and her just casually going about her day. This was probably the most important technique we used. Other techniques we used were certain shots. We used tracking shot twice with Elana, when she was walking through her house and when she was rushing up to the school. This added variety to our sudden straight-on shots. We also used shots with the reflection of the mirror, which was interesting to see the character from a different perspective, looking at themselves. One other technique we used was a shot from the ground as Josh runs by – it adds to the suspense of him running and also gives the film variety.

All in all I am very proud of this film!