Evaluating a Sci-Fi Film

By Fabian Viles

Research

Overall I think the research into the Sci-Fi film and the Genre was useful because, we were able to
gather ideas, which we used to gather audience feedbacks from our target audience. We gathered
this feedback by using a survey, we were then able to crunch our data into a bar chart.

The most useful part of the data we gathered, was what content our target audience would like to
see in a Sci-Fi film. This was because we were able to develop our film ideas into a physical story line.
The survey also enabled us to combine three of our most popular subjects, being Donald Trump,
People Powers and Time Travel. Because this was our most wanted content in a Sci-Fi film, this
allowed us to combine the three ideas into one movie, so our movie appealed to everybody in our
target audience.

We used Time Travel as a code in our Sci-Fi film and as a convention because we dealt with the
concept that, if you change the past it will affect the future. Many films within the Sci-Fi Genre deal
with this concept, such as Doctor Who, Back To The Future and the Time Machine. Looking into
these films and gathering their codes and conventions helped myself and my group to see how much
of these films link to your typical Sci-Fi Genre. It also allowed myself and my group to see how much
of our film would link to the typical Genre codes and conventions.

We used a motion graphic effect as a code to show how our time travelers go through time. I felt
that using the motion graphic affect was not effective, because when other team members put it
into their edits, the motion graphic effect would either appear at random and not where we would
like it to be positioned or would disappear delayed, compared to the actual footage. This is why I
have decided not to use the motion graphic, however this makes it harder for me because, it doesn’t
seem that my characters come from a different time.

I hope that my film will be recognised as a Sci-Fi film, however this depends on whether I am able to
clearly show that we are swapping between two different time periods at the beginning, this will
truly test my editing skills.

I looked at how particular Sci-Fi films did at the box office for their opening weekend.The films I
looked at were Justice League, Terminator Genesis, Terminator and Ghost In the shell, I also looked
at ratings on IMB to see how popular these films were, I also further looked at what number they
were ranked by Box Office Mojo based on the opening weekend of these films.

I did this because it meant that I could make a solid piece of secondary research based upon my
survey because within my survey I asked my target audience what would they like to see in a film,
next options were people with power cyborgs robot is taking over the world etc and the films above
all deal with these concepts. So by researching I would be able to see what concept would seem to
be preferred by my target audience and still make money if this was a real production giving it a real
life connection.

All of this research would then assist me and my team in making a decision on what concept we
would like to do for sci-fi film and still make our target audience happy with the final product.
Planning And Production

For the planning and production for this film I provided the correct paperwork, such as a script,
storyboard and camera booking paperwork including a risk assessment. Our storyboards were the
main item that went through many different versions, as originally we were repeating the same shot
composition, as we were initially using too many long shots.

My lecturer looked at the original storyboard and said we should use a range of shot composition,
such as close ups, mid-shots etc. The script was also an issue in the planning and production of the
film because we were unsure how to show the audience how people from the future would talk, this
meant that the script went through roughly three versions, before we were able to come to our final
product. This meant that there was a delay in filming, due to the script being incomplete. It also
affected during filming, because our actors did not learn their lines before filming, meaning that we
had issues of actors getting their lines correct whilst filming causing greater delay, between pre and
post production.

Our draft and final storyboard helped us during our filming, because it meant that we were able to
show a good range of shot composition techniques and showing the development of our skills,
however we made a rookie mistake in failing to print off the final storyboard for the scenes we were
filming on particular days. This meant that we would often go back to the typical student film shot
composition, being a long shot, causing higher risk of re-shoot.

Practical skills and presentation

My group’s shot composition were mainly long shots or close up however in scene 7 we should have
used more close ups to show the terrified faces we could use a high angle shot to make the elements
seem powerless and the guards powerful.

We used the green in scene one and the introducing of the elements and scene 9 we did this for
multiple reasons for example when we had to any scene with the White House because we was able
to film those scenes for real. We also use the green screen for introducing the elements because we
need backgrounds the would match with the elements powers.

I think the green screen was overall effective because two of the uses of it worked really well as in
the introducing of elements you can see a line of the green screen however this didn’t happen in the
rest of our time using the green screen I am not sure why this happened but it could be the lighting
during the shoot my group actors was further back in the shoot green screen compared to the other
times.

Most of my film was framed correctly however there are three mistakes this is in scene one,
introducing the elements and scene seven this was the worse one when it comes to framing because
as the guard walks off screen the audience sees a lot of dead space. I wanted to re-shoot but I was
unable to so as myself and my group had more important scenes to re-shoot. I didn’t realise that
scenes one and introducing the elements were slightly out of focus until I re-watched my final edited
film. To prevent this from happening again I would check the footage was framed before leaving a
shoot.
The film was out of Focus in part of introducing the elements, I would fix this next time by using the
manual focus on the camera as well of the auto focus to make sure that all my footage using the
manual focus on the camera as well of the auto focus to make sure that all of my shots are in Focus.
Myself and my group planned for props and costume however we didn’t really plan for continuity,
we tried to keep continuity the same but this did not happen due to actors coming in the wrong
clothes as they forgot what they are wearing before.

When it comes to preproduction I used visible transitions and compositions overall I think my
compositions was the strongest aspect because out of the three times I used compositions due to
using green screen, two of the times were successful. When it comes to my transitions I feel that
some scenes were improved by using the transitions. However some scenes such as scene five were
affected dramatically due to too much use of transitions. I had too many jump cuts when trying to
edit without too many transitions.

I would like to improve on my use of match on action when it comes to my post production work, I
would also like to work on using invisible transitions so my transitions aren’t clear to the audience
this is the most important things I would like to do differently next time.

Evaluation and Reflection

Myself and my group made some changes to our production this included changes to our
storyboards because our teacher said we need to show a variety of shot composition so we changed
some of our long shots to close ups, however I think myself and my group should work on it as there
is still room for improvement because it meant that we then focused on using close-ups and long
shots instead of anything else.

We also changed parts of the script as actors say something or do something that we liked and this
was not scripted so I added it to the script. We finally changed the original plan to show how the
elements changed time periods as originally I was going to have a portal, however after seeing how
it doesn’t really work in other peoples edits I changed that idea and just used a transition. I hoped
this would improve my edit but I don’t think it was as affective compared to what the portal would
be.

I think that changing the script and storyboard did help my production however I don’t think it
changed it that much and myself and my group could have changed the storyboard further to
improve our shot composition.

I think myself and my group told the story to the best of our ability however we could have
improved by making it clear to people where the elements come from and how they travel through
time. This was very difficult because we wasn’t sure how people from 2050 would talk and act, it
was also hard because we didn’t know how best to show the difference on camera, this is something
we would have to work on if we were to re-make the film and possibly would mean more planning
into how society has changed throughout the years so we could make a better judgement of how
people would communicate.

I think the scenes worked most effectively were scene one, scene nine and introducing the element
because I felt really confident in my composition skills, I feel introducing the element was the
weakest out of all of it because of a line on the green screen which you could see in the final film.
The techniques I would use again are my Composition Skills and Transition skills and I would use my
techniques in terms of planning like writing scripts and drawing and writing storyboards again
however next time I would like to add invisible transitions and match on action to improve my skills
further.

I asked for feedback from family and friends about my film and this is what they said.

One said that they liked the plot and it clear to them but at some point My transitions would cut off
before they finish their lines And the audio was good.

Another said that some of the sound was a bit fuzzy at the beginning but they liked it.

Another said that they like the lighting throughout the film but they didn’t get why the elements
were on the phone at the start but this became clear later on.

One piece of feedback that I noticed myself was in scene eight I did not realise that the word action
was still in the scene before I uploaded it this took away from the idea that the film was not a film
but a world my audience was being taken through. next time I would make sure that action was
taken out.

In regards to my other feedback I would make sure that my audio for any future films that I do was
always clear, I could do this by bringing a camera in closer. I would also make sure to continue
making my plot clear and my lighting good as this was a positive from my feedback.

I would also make sure that actors fully finished their lines before a transition came in I also think
this feedback was fair and agrees with most of my opinion.

In conclusion I don’t think Trump VS lived up to my expectations because I believe that myself and
my group tried to pull off a too ambitious idea with too many scenes meaning that we wasn’t able to
spend enough time getting a scene 100% perfect, this then meant we had more to re-shoot then
what we had time for meaning the entire film was affected by this.

I think next time I will do a film that doesn’t contain so many scenes and I can get all my scenes up
to how I would like them to be, however I am glad that I made this mistake because it means that I
know how to improve my future productions.