The first thing we did after being assigned into groups was arrange who would be portraying each role and who would act as director. After we did this, we looked through the script and each actor/actress practiced their lines with each other. We also discussed which locations we would be shooting in and who had appropriate costumes to bring in.
On the first day we were planning to shoot, we were given little time to do so, and one actor was unavailable to shoot her scenes. Although we tried to shoot the scenes that didn't feature that actor, we experienced other difficulties with getting the desired camera angles right, joined with the college fire alarm going off. We were unable to shoot anything we used in the final video that day.
The next day we filmed was during the final week we were given to work on the film, which generated a lot of potential problems, giving us little time to get the lighting how we wished it to be and little time to do retakes of particular scenes that were not at a fully decent standard. Before we commenced filming on that day, we attached letters that made up "SPADE AND ARCHER" to the window in order to re-create the shot in which the camera pans from the window with this message to the character of Sam Spade sitting at his desk.
The shots featuring the character Effy were not as we hoped they would be as the actress only brought in her costume on the first day of filming, so we had to film her scenes in her regular clothing. The same applied to the actor playing the role of Miles Archer, who too only brought in his costume on the first day of filming.
For those who did bring in their costumes, portraying Sam Spade and Miss Wonderly, there was still continuity errors present. The actress portraying Miss Wonderly brought in a fascinator hat to wear for her role. However, she is not seen to be wearing this hat in some shots after it had fallen off and we were running out of time. The actor playing Sam Spade decided against wearing his costume on the final day of filming as by then, we were placed under a heavy amount of pressure and decided to focus solely on making the dialgoue and the cinematography strong, so he goes from wearing formal clothing to present-day regular clothing durihg the sequence.
There are various other continuity errors to be noted. After the shot in which Sam Spade, who is resting his arms on his desk, says "yes..." whilst he listens to Miss Wonderly and makes eye contact with her, he is seen to be slouching on his chair reading something on a sheet of paper in the very next shot. Also, after the shot in which Miles Archer enters the room, the next shot involves Sam Spade telling him to come in whilst looking at where the character is supposed to be located. However, we can visibly see the actor portraying Archer sitting down right behind Spade in this shot.
There were also problems with lighting in some shots. We can see the light reflecting off the windows in some shots, darkening the remainder of what is located in the frame. We could have perhaps avoided these lighting errors by decided on alternative camera angles or altering the settings on the video camera that we used.
One particular example of a camera angle we used which we didn't think through was the final shot in which Miss Wonderly stands up and takes her leave. However, as the shot opened with her sitting down I chose to use a close up shot, so as she stood up her head was no longer visible in the frame.
If we were to attempt this assignment again, we would have given ourselves more time to shoot all the footage needed and decide at the start whether or not we would be using costumes to avoid continuity errors. In the final shot I would have panned up so that the camera would follow her head as she stood up. I would have also attempted the shot in which the camera pans down from "SPADE AND ARCHER" to Sam Spade, as it is shaky in some parts of the shot.
Mistakes seen:
Poor cinematography
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