The Red Box Criticisms

The Red Box

Recently, I had my first criticisms that went a bit like this...

On the contrary, I did not find it condescending at all. I appreciated the message although it didn't make as much sense to me. So after chatting to him again, I understood the statement. 'The shots are too normal and that doesn't make the red box significant'.

I had agree with his perception as most people didn't get the reaction I was expecting and so I knew something hadn't worked. After looking at the video several times asking myself what could I do better with my shots and objects in the film, I decided the critic himself - 'What would you suggest to make the shots/objects significant?' So he answered with many ideas such as the background story to the plot, in his exact words 'perhaps, shots of someone in that room and house leaving it in one state but coming back to see this strange box (I think the suitcase itself is perfect, wonderfully strange and alluring)... and the end of the ''taster'' is that person putting it onto the bed and unclipping it...' After reading this my head bounced off the walls with new exciting ideas that I cannot wait for everyone to see...

Also, I had another criticism from a person in my fathers work, he asked: Why do we see your shadow in the video?

And the answer to that is that I when I was filming the light from downstairs had still been on and then that affected the filming as it had shown my shadow. But after looking at it  again, it looked suspicious as now you know there is a person going up the stairs rather than a box that was situated in a random room.

The Red Box

The Red Box

I took a camera home from school just to explore the use of it. After exploring the camera itself, I saw the red box that came with the camera and suddenly ideas popped into my head instantly. It was crazy to just suddenly see a  colourful box and then get so many ideas. Finally, taking all these ideas and a film started to produce in my head.

This link will provide you the video of The Red Box.

In my head, the film had been so perfect but actually applying the angles/types of shots to filming was very difficult. When going up the staircase, I had to do it several times to get the best shot and even that shot was not that great because you could see that I was shooting it as you could see my shadow with the camera, it moved incorrectly so it didn't look thriller like and the next shot did not correlate with the 'going up the staircase' shot as it was inline. So I had to rely on the effects of Windows Movie Maker to make it a smooth outline, but even then the colour grading was different and the proportion of where the camera was, was different to the next shot. When filming my room, the lighting was very different so I had to colour grade it and change the brightness to make it a mystical room. This was also relying on the software which I was not expecting to do.

The sounding was impeccable for me as I imagined a particular type of music in my head but as most thing happened through this filming making process, I couldn't find the perfect music I was looking for after searching for 30 minutes but the music I found was much better than I had expected it to be. Although, editing the music into the short film via Windows Movie Maker was a stressful course of action. I had to listen to the whole piece of music and then cut/trim the parts that I didn't like. I had to zoom a lot into the editing so I could get everything precise but even then it was disappointingly early or late. Especially the last 'boom' with the bold letters spelling 'THE RED BOX' which was the most unsatisfactory process. I kept on contemplating if the 'boom' came exactly on time with the words so it would have a bigger affect but unfortunately every time I see the video I still think it's a second behind.

Overall, the software I used was hectic to use as I knew the basic but I had to explore it on an in-depth level, the sounding could have been better but it still was a success finding the first piece of music and filming was generally stressful as I couldn't film what was in my head as properly as I thought I could. Eventually, I came to a success product which I am proud to put my name on it.