Monopoly Commercial
Pre-Production
We made a commercial for he board game Monopoly. Our original idea was to create situations you might find yourself in while playing the game in real life; however, that plan didn't work out so we ended up creating a new script. In our new idea, we would just record a relatable family game of Monopoly where everyone gets upset with each other. We started our commercial project by brainstorming products and possible ideas to go with them. Once we came up with Monopoly we spent a while scripting and deciding how the scenes should play out. We also scouted locations to film; though we never ended up using any of them in our final product. I was the director of our commercial, as well as an actor.
Production
Being the first film we recorded while social distancing, I quickly realized how difficult it can be to cast actors as well as find places to film. This is the reason we had to change our commercial idea in the first place. I now have experience with casting during these times, which should make directing any future projects much easier. I made sure to communicate all changes with my teammates, though many of them didn't respond, which made it much more difficult to make plans to film.
Final Product
Overall, I'm quite happy with our final product based on our any problems and time restraints. If I were to change anything on the final product I would probably edit it to be a 30 second commercial instead of 60 seconds. I feel like some of the shots are too long or drawn out and many could be easily shortened. Many of the cuts could be executed more smoothly as well. I would like to keep most of the lighting the same. This is the first piece I've worked on where I really tried to balance the light, and I think it turned out really well. I believe I can incorporate everything I learned about lighting, cinematography, and most importantly, trying to not do an idea that's too over the top in my next project. The most important thing I realized rom this project was that many of my ideas for a video are too difficult to execute. SO in the future I believe I can stray away from difficult ideas and do easier to film shorts.
