Outtakes reel from the student production of Mind of Obsession, a short film about revenge with a comedic twist. Mind of Obsession has been my most ambitious project to date, filmed in Spring and Summer, 2008. It is a short fictional film running 30 minutes which I produced for my HNC Graded Unit which I got the idea for making after watching the original classic Ealing Film, Kind Hearts and Coronets. A moment of inspiration led to months of hard work to produce the final film. Looking back at this film, it's full of mistakes, particularly continuity and problems with the film trying to be a period which is no easy task. I look back though on the project as being a great learning experience for learning how to make a film. I've not been involved with anything as complicated as this project since so it's at the forefront of my mind in terms of being a useful experience to apply to future projects. The filming used some impressive locations around Edinburgh which included the beautiful setting of the village of Duddingston where the Church scenes were filmed at Duddingston Kirk. We were really lucky to film here for free after the kind gesture made by the Minister, James Jack who remains there today. I remember on one of the shooting days, we had a large picnic lunch prepared by James which everyone really appreciated. Oddly, I discovered that my parents had got married where we were filming which I hadn't known before so it was an interesting piece of the past to know. We also filmed in the Secret Garden known to Edinburgh residents as Edinburgh's Secret Garden, a maze of well kept flowers overlooking a nature reserve on the Loch underneath Arthur's Seat. This provided the perfect backdrop for shooting some of the scenes which included a conversation on a bench. The other noatable location here was the Ministers house which again was kindly offered for filming in. This house was perfect for what I was looking for, what better location to set a Ministers house than their own house itself. Of course, I'm unsure if the time period is at all accurate but I think I was more enjoying making the film at the time. The deeds of the Minister never end as he offered to play the part himself and it turned out to be one of the best performance despite not having had any previous experience of acting. Other locations we filmed at included the interior and exterior of the Edinburgh Cine and Video Society at Fettes Row in the New Town of Edinburgh. We filmed the kitchen scene with Mama there and some other comical moments although I dislike the interior shots for this segment of the film although I like the exterior. One of the locations which didn't work well was the Media Village. I think I can speak for all of the crew by saying that it felt like shooting inside a skip; there wasn't enough room to move around and the lighting was poor. Maybe something to reflect on for the future. The best location was Newbattle Abbey which doubled up for our grand historic estate where the Williamson family stay. This location was kindly offered for filming as long as we adhered to some rules and guidelines. The grounds worked really well for creating a sense of grandess and I'm happy with this apart from me including the shot with cars seen in the distance? Cars in the past, wrong! We also used the Newbattle forests nearby for the final sequence. I think to re-shoot this, I would have got a hold of some film gun props although the logistics for this are more challenging. I'm happy with how the forest setting worked but feel a little work on my part needs to be done on the dialogue, it just didn't flow too well.