Backbone (Short Film Evaluation)

I was cinematographer as well as a producer on Alex's film. The short film is a story of Racism with two foreign brothers who hitch a ride at the back of a truck being driven by a man listening to the radio. He eventually stops the trunks and hears the two brother from the inside and tries to do something about. He is about to take a heavy approach to almost have the two boys arrested but instead hears a familiar sound on the radio, and the host convinces him to let the brothers go.

Day 1

The majority of day one was making sure the cast of the two brother turned up and making sure the truck Alex hired turned up on the day as well. The shots where going to be filmed inside the back on the truck. Boxes had to be quickly made up to be placed inside the truck not only to give out that the main character who would be driving the truck is delivering something but also it's like a temporary home for the two brother as they made this place their home.

With this particular shot as seen above, the way we made each shot look realistic was to use two production assistants to be set on the back of the truck and to wait till the director said action. From there they would use their legs to bump the truck around to give the motion that the truck was moving  while our actors where do their roles.

Next came the scenes where the two brothers are running after they get out of the truck and are let go by the truck driver. There was a huge long path for the actors to run down and was a few easy steady shots to get it done. At the same time we were making sure to get as munch coverage as possible.

Day 2

The second day involved in getting introduced to the main character who was playing the truck driver. He portrayed the character externally well and did very well in being a troubled father at the same time when his son's voice goes onto the radio.

We had to move the truck to a different location in order to set the scene of where the truck has to stop as the driver hears the sound of the two brothers from the back of the truck.

We wanted to make sure to get as much coverage as possible and to ensure that the story was told and shown in a very visual well. Alex was quite professional when directing, he had a good vision and he kew exactly what he wanted. He communicated well with the actors all though he could have ensured we had a location that didn't have so many distractions and people walking constantly onto our set.

What went Well

• The scheduling and timing to get the film done went very well, everyone turned up on time and then everyone got to work.
• The shots were handled nicely as Alex our director managed to land a great D.O.P to take a black magic camera and get the shots that he needed.
• The actors who participated were very professional, especially the man who was playing the truck driver.
• Everyone got along and everyone did their parts in a professional manner.

What didn't go so well?

• On location there were quite a few interruptions, horses and lots of people out for a walk had to be stopped at some point in order to get a few shots done.
• The was a bit of trouble on location when a Lady came up to our director and was quite angry and stated that the land we were filming on belonged to her and not the other person that gave Alex permission to film on this location. Though we managed to per say her to leave and measured her that everything would be okey, it was something that we did not expect. We were filming on private property even though our director definitely thought he had the right permissions in order to proceed with the filming.
• On the last day most of the crew where stuck in traffic and had to hold up most of the film because of many incidents occurring on the motorway.

What we could of done differently:

Conclusion:
All around this was a pretty big project to work on. The truck, the location as well as most of the actors all had to be scheduled for only a few days. The script had to be in check, although the film isn't very long, the script had to put a lot of information and show that from the time that we had. All the cast and crew got along and were fed alright, and although we had quite a few interruptions with most of the people and the lady who owned most of the private land, the rest of the shooting went as planned and we committed to this project quite late up the iso on the camera couldn't turn up anymore in order to insure that we got the coverage we needed.