'Maltese Falcon' Re-Make: Evaluation

As part of the preparation for the FM3 Creative Project coursework where I will be creating my own short film sequence, I was assigned to a group with four other people to re-produce the first six minutes of 'The Maltese Falcon' 1941, directed by John Huston. Throughout this process we encountered many difficulties as well as some successes. Some of the difficulties included are that I felt the time we had to complete the task was limited. Furthermore,  there were many occasions where members of our group where unavailable which relsulted in the group being held back from completeing the task to a high standard due to unplanned absences. I felt some members of the group were not very organised and could have prepared more so that when it came to filming, the process ran more smoothly. The unorganisation lead to other problems such as taking longer to film than originally planned which lead to members of the group getting slightly irritated resulting in them becoming less co-operative. Therefore, leading to having to re-shoot scenes more times than necessary due to members of the group not putting 100% effort in the first time due to boredom and fatique.

Nobody within our group had any acting experience therefore we found it difficult to get into character. In addition to this many members of the group were uninterested in acting to their full potential which was detrimental to the outcome of our film production. This lead to the final product been executed badly as it looked as though no effort was put into the production.

Our location changed a few times due to the previous room that we were using being unavailable on later dates of shooting. This, obviously, affected the outcome of our project as there was a lack of continuity throughout the final sequence. Therefore the editing was effected due to the lack of continuity.

Despite these failures that we encountered throughout the project I believe we did try to make the final production goood through the use of editing, but during this process we discovered that some of the scenes had not recorded and, unfortunately, we did not have time to re-shoot them, therefore we had to put together the footage we had which was, obviously, not the full sequence. Therefore, the full task had not being completed portraying lack of effort as well as a lack of organisation.

This preparation task has made me realise that I do not want to work in a group when producing my own film. I believe I will execute the film sequence better if I were to work on my own as I prefer not to have to rely on other people. I believe if I did include other people in my production then I would become stressed if they were not working to the potential which I believe they should be. Also, working on my own will allow me to go about the whole process in my own way rather than, possibly, having to compromise.

Personally, I believe I was the most organised and co-operative throughout this task. I was the only member to provide props and costumes. Also, I produced the storyboard and the 'Spade and Archer' sign for the window. During the filming process I tried very hard to get everyone to maintain focused throughout the project which proved unsuccessful and was very tiring on my behalf. So, honestly I don't believe I am much to blame for the unsuccessfulness of the final product.

Overall, the final product of 'The Maltese Falcon' is nowhere near to what my group and I could have produced given more time, effort and organisation.