Fargo Elevator Scene Evaluation
Evaluation
After much discussion, my group decided on the
idea of shooting a scene from popular TV series Fargo. The scene chosen is from
Season 1 Episode 9. It is set in an elevator with two main characters (Malvo
and Lester) and three smaller characters consisting of 2 females and one male. The
reason we picked this scene was primarily because of the location and how easy
it would be to find actors to star in it.
The equipment that was taken out of stores to
film was a 5 In
1 Reflector, Boom Pole, Manfrotto Tripod, MFS Indoor Boom Mic, MFS XLR Cable
& JVC HM150. However, when it came to setting up and filming, it was
decided that natural lighting should be used and so the light reflector wasn’t
needed. Another piece of equipment used was a selfie stick. This was attached
to a IPhone and used to get the over head shot. This was possibly the hardest
shot to get as it was hard to get the perfect height to fit everything in the
frame. My biggest fear with this was the dip in quality going from the JVC to
the IPhone camera. However, when it came to editing, it was hardly noticeable.
One of my biggest fears when it came to the
planning was definitely how we where going to find an elevator for us to use that
was both big enough to fit the camera and actors in and also one that doesn’t
get used a lot so there was less disruption to the filming. After much
searching and even phoning the Premier Inn in Preston, it was decided that the
ideal elevator to use was in the Media Factory close to the stores. I felt that
using a university elevator wouldn’t work as they are always getting used and
we would need more time to ask the relevant members of staff to block the
elevator for a few hours. We decided the best way to solve this would be to use
the elevator but work around it being used. This took slightly more time as
filming was interrupted by people using it.
My role in the filming process was originally
producer and to operate the camera however it was decided that everyone in the
group should just share the roles. I felt that this helped to an extent as I
was able to learn new things along the way however, there was never any real
structure to the whole process and ideas where constantly changing all the time
even during filming.
When it came to the filming and the planning, I
felt that certain members of my group could have participated more, it seemed
they spent a large amount of time messing around and even turning up hours late
on a few occasions meaning equipment had to be loaned out for another day. As
the filming took place in only the one location, it should have easily taken a
couple of hours to film at the most yet it took almost a week. If it came to
reshooting this, I wouldn’t choose to work with the group again because of this
and how frustrating it was to try and get them to act in a professional way.
I believe that there where some major positives
that came out of the filming process. For example, after being continuously let
down by actors failing to show up, we as a group stepped in and tried our hand
at acting ourselves. This actually worked quite well as we had all seen the
particular episode and the scene we wanted to recreate, and so had a better
understanding of it as well as the characters themselves. Because of this,
nobody had any form of costume with them and so we shot it in the moment. This
sort of turned out to be a ‘happy accident’ as I believe it puts our own spin
on it and makes it slightly more fun.
To conclude, I believe the recreation turned
out better than expected and the editing has really made a difference with the
lighting and sound etc. It has our own spin on something that could have easily
have been recreated shot for shot off the original scene. As mentioned above, given the choice, I wouldn’t
choose to work with this group again as the filming did seem a little bit
rushed and took far too long costing us actors and valuable editing time.
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