Things learnt by watching finished films.

1. Keep the swearing to a minimum. There was a group who's film was riddled with F words and there was a C word in there too (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI22EnkgP3Q). Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of F'ing and blinding generally speaking, but in a film where it's not necessary, it can be fairly distracting.

2. Take care when letting actors improvise. They have a tendency to spell out the story, this is the directors job to keep the actors from being overly obvious.

2.1. Little is often more. The best films were those that used dialogue sparingly or not at all (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDuS24TlCXI). We are making films not radio plays - we have pictures to explain the story not just dialogue.

3. Be careful with comedy. There was one group who made a hilarious film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SUrjXk2fPM), but it came off very studenty and some people thought it was a little distasteful.

4. (and possibly the most important point to take from this learning curve) Step back from the script. A lot of the films took for granted that the viewer would know the story, this meant they left out important plot devises. For example, one of the films didn't make a point of showing the first 'teleport' in a clear way. For an outside viewer who had not read the script, there's no way they could understood what was supposed to happen - making the rest of the film null and void.

So my point of the year is: to avoid making nonsensical films, make sure you are not too close to the script.

And here it is.

Editing, music, etc...

It's been a jam packed week of editing, I have personally been between the castle walls for 5-6 hours spread over any free periods I've had- Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Jaeeun has done similarly. I took a back seat for most of the time we were editing together, as she has more previous experience on Adobe Premiere Pro, and I was more than happy to watch; I feel I have learnt a lot from working this way.

My role in editing was firstly creative adviser. I would tell Jaeeun how I thought a sequence should run, she would express her opinion (we would normally come to a similar conclusion) and she would organise the shots and do all the fiddly technical bits. I also did a bit of editing, making sure everyone was featured in the credits and that all the titles were grammatically correct.

My main role in the editing process was editing in the music, which I found a lot harder than I initially had thought.

I had collected the songs I thought would work a month or so before we started filming. The songs I decided on were two tracks by my housemate Barney and his band Casitas and also three tracks by a DJ I knew from Cornwall called Bucklemunki. Both were more than happy for me to use their songs.

The problems started when trying to fit them together. I had two quite different styles of music -, because the film has two quite different feels (one being the harsh reality, the other being the cheesy and happy daydream sequences) and I wanted the music to suit them both. I found when trying to put the two styles together they clashed. Because of this I ended up putting a lot less music in than I had originally planned.

I found through the music editing process how difficult fitting songs into a fairly unflexable time line is. What I mean is, without being able to move shots around or edit the lengths, it was very difficult to keep the beats of the song in time with the film, to make it flow together. I am very aware of the songs, the points where they come in and, I fear it may be slightly distracting from the film.

If I was to do the music for a film again I would edit the film around a piece of music or alternatively, find someone to compose music especially for the film.