‘True Life: Brian Bergman’ Reflection
My group being Brian Andrew and myself first got the idea to do a mock-MTV style documentary after thinking about how funny Brian’s interactions with other people are. We knew from the start that the film was going to be about him, we just didn’t which style of film would best convey Brian’s quirkiness to the audience. After thinking long and hard, we deemed it best to shoot our film in a “mockumentary” style. I personally thought shooting it this way would make an already funny topic even funnier. As far as everybody’s experience within the group goes, Andrew is the one with all of the equipment so he took on the roll of cameraman. Brian was obviously the star. And for me, I was the editor of this glorious film. Creatively, everybody had their own input and we bounced ideas off each other. Honestly, there was not an MVP within my group. Everybody added to the group, as well as subtracting to the group.
Brian, Andrew and myself have been great friends for a while, so instinctively they were my partners of choice. While picking them as my partners there was no thought in my head of fighting within the group, but boy was I wrong. There was a lot of tension between Brian and Andrew. You obviously know Brian, always having an opinion and not really caring what other people have to think. And when it comes to Andrew, he thought that because we were using his equipment, he was higher than us, he thought that he was the sole director. Pre-production was the worst for us. From the start we knew that we didn’t want to procrastinate. So we would occasionally text each other saying “okay, lets meet up and just get this project over with” but of course that never happened. We just kept on putting it off and off, which happened to be our biggest problem! Once we finally established the direction in which we wanted our film to go, things went a bit smoother. Production wasn’t too bad, since we filmed in school it was convenient for everybody. Post-production was a disaster though. We waited till the last minute to edit our piece, neglecting the fact that post is a very slow and tedious process.
Our film is about Brian! Everything that Brian does is amusing. He just has a way with words that makes you laugh. So the premise of our film is what other people think of our beloved Brian. We have a segment on people describing him in one word. another of what teachers in our school think of him. And one of younger kids looking up to him as a role model. I happen to think that our film is successful. From the start, we all decided that we wanted it to be funny. And after seeing it multiple times, I still laugh. So as far as that goes, it is very successful. It is also successful in a sense that we set out to portray who Brian really is, and I think that we accomplished that as well. If there is one thing that I would do differently when making my next film it would be to leave more time for everything. Making a film is a very daunting task that requires much time and effort. By allowing more time, chances are, your film will be more thought out and effective.
My favorite scene is when Mr. Mooney is asked to describe Brian in one word. He looks right into the camera and say “does it need to be clean”, which alone could describe Brian. Later he goes on to call Brian “passionate.” Over the course of the film we used a bunch of cinematic techniques. The most common one being the medium shot. We used this shot because it doesn’t show too much detail, but at the same time it gives enough detail for the audience to take it. The next technique we used was a tracking shot. We used this type of shot when we followed Brian through the halls in between periods. This was effective in giving the audience a view of Brian day. Also we used inter-titles to convey a message to the audience of what is to come. Another technique we used is the close up. We did this to show a specific detail that another shot wouldn’t show. Lastly, we used the long shot. This technique was most effective in showing Brian through a large group of students in the main hall. All in all, through the knowledge I gained in RotMI, I feel that I now have a better understanding of film in general.
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