Chess Film : The Film Proposal

            As the editor of our group, I was responsible for a lot of work behind the scenes, yet I'm also an actor which means I'm included on both sides of the field. Our director was able to pitch our ideas and have them come to life. As a group, we communicated throughout every process of creating the film. The cinematographer also played a big role in our unit, because of the orders and commands given to us.

Our group discussing the main takeaways from our film proposal.

        The Problem With the Proposal:

The only apparent problem we had with the proposal was reinstating our shot list and other factors, as we first got a yellow light on our proposal. For example, our shot list was WAY too short to start the film, and we needed to redo our storyboard and plan more of the scenes we had discussed.

Pre-Production (Chess Film) - The Role of Editing

 As the editor of out group, I did research to determine how short films are able to display the main purpose of the entirety of the film without using dialogue. Since the film revolves around thriller/drama, I looked for key examples of what the film should capture, essentially explaining the reason for the film's creation, and the best representation of what I want my ideas to be are from this specific scene in The Queen's Gambit where our protagonist Elizabeth (Anya Taylor-Joy) faces Harry Beltik in a game of chess. 

The Queen's Gambit (2020)

This scene beautifully captures the suspense of playing chess with spectators surrounding you, while also having to focus on the game in front of you, which deals a great deal of suspense towards the main focus of this scene.

 

Pre-Production (Chess Film) - Editor

         For the production of this chess film, I'm collaborating with 3 other people, one of which I know and the other I don't know as much.  We all agreed on our chosen roles, that leaving me with the task of being the editor. At first, we all agreed on adding a role of suspense to the chess film, which led us to choose two genres to combine, thriller and drama. Our main focus is to have an idea of how we can represent chess pieces from a different aspect. I researched chess films and the game of chess as a whole to understand more. This excerpt from Searching for Bobby Fischer served me well. The website www.chess.com also served as a big help to understanding the fundamentals of chess.

Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)