EVALUATION

BRIEF

For my unit 13 I started by creating a brief talking about

what I wanted to produce for this unit. I wanted to
create a production that would allow me to show a
concept I had been planning previously to the best
standard and be able to make it move people
emotionally effectively. I chose to create a short film for
this unit as I thought it would allow me to show my
skills that I have learnt and developed over the past two
years to the highest level than any other type of
production, I also felt it would allow to express my
concept to the best of my ability. In my brief I talked about
my concept and how I changed it from what it was
originally as I found it less appealing and I wanted to make
sure that I was passionate about the idea I had for my production so I would execute it well. For my
target audience I did a survey asking people from different ages to rate my concept so I would be
able to pick a specific target audience and I discovered that my concept covered a large age
demographic which I knew that meant is was going to be difficult to make my production appealing
to everyone in my target audience so I decided to narrow it down to 15 – 24 as I think this age range
specifically would find it more appealing.

I am unhappy with the overall production

as I don’t think I created what a set out to
do at the beginning of the brief. I wanted
to create a production that could control
the audience’s emotions effectively
through the concept and the skills I have learnt and developed over the past two years, but due to all
of the problems I had I wasn’t able to create the production I set out to do, even when I tried to work
around the problems. Another task I set myself for this unit was uploading my final production to A
film festival. There were very little rules for the competition I chose which was the reason behind my
decision to pick the aesthesia short film festival, there were only two rules that stood out to me
throughout this production which were that my production must be under 30 minutes and my
production allowed to contain any copyrighted
content. This rule never presented itself as an
issue to me, I knew quite early on that my
production was going to come under the 30-minute mark as the concept/storyline I had mind wasn’t
going to take that long to show, but my concept and storyline did change quite dramatically through
the course of this unit so I made sure to keep this in account when re-planning my concepts and
writing my script that I was staying under the 30 minuet mark. The second rule that stood out to me I
knew was going to be slightly more of an issue as music is always an important part of my
productions and to be restricted to what kind of music I could use was difficult however I decided I
was going to create my own score using a music producing app. I started going through my
production and finding temp tracks for the film and then form that started trying to create a score.
While beginning to do this I was finding it quite difficult to create a piece of music that effected the
emotion of my production the way I wanted it to which made me begin to realise that that idea was
a bit farfetched as I didn’t have enough experience with creating music or enough time to create and
entire composition that applied to what was happening in the scene and represent the right
emotion. I then looked into using royalty free music instead, I really didn’t appeal to the music I was
finding, there wasn’t a piece of music that stood out to me that I felt delivered the right emotion I
was looking for. This put me in a very difficult position as I wanted my production work as well as
possible however I felt I could only make it work if I used copyrighted sounds so I made the decision
to use copyrighted music in my production, breaking one of the regulations and not being able to
submit my short film to the festival. I was disappointed that I could not follow this regulation
however I was very pleased with how my production turned out compared to how it sounded before
with the royalty free music, there was more emotional connection to the character and the storyline.

HOW WELL HAVE I DONE?

My attitude has been a lot better for this unit than in previous units due to the fact I have been
behind I have been staying late at college every day so I can complete my work as I find it very
difficult to concentrate at home. I have tried to stay on top of my work even when I have run into,
instead of ignoring them I have tried to fix them by using my contingency plan. Despite all these
efforts there are still multiple things with my production that I am disappointed with and will make
sure to consider the next time. The main issue I faced for this production was actors, at the beginning
of the production my plan was to only use myself as I knew I could rely on me, however I later
decided that it would be easier for me to show my camera skills If I was behind the camera so I
decided to create a production that required a cast. This was the biggest cast I had worked with in
any of my productions so far and I wasn’t used to the level of authority I had to present when trying
to direct my actors. This resulted in them eventually dropping out
halfway through filming due to them having too much coursework
to complete. I did manage however to acquire a new cast and
new locations to re-film my production and
was able to do it within three days. Because
it was all such short notice, I still ended up
having to cut a lot of scenes and this caused
the storyline of my production to become
very poor and unclear. I intend to be a lot
more efficient when trying to hire actors for
my production and making sure that they can
participate fully. To work around the issue of the scenes that
were missing I created a VHS tape effect to make a smoother
transition between scenes which worked quite well and
brought the different scenes together more slightly. In future productions I intend to make sure to
only consider using the actor if the can commit to the role and will be able to film on the designated
dates to prevent any cancelations.

FEEDBACK

Throughout the entire unit I have received feedback my peers, target audience and teachers
throughout this entire production that has helped me and improve my production and my work to a
higher standard. For each Idea I have developed I have sent out a survey asking peoples opinion on it
and then developed it from their responses, I also did a focus group to discuss my idea with my peers
in more detail, and from this feedback I think I was able to create a concept that appealed to my
target audience effectively. I kept developing my
concept overtime from surveys and comments my
peers have made until I was happy with the
final idea. The feedback I got for my final
production was as I expected it to be, I knew
that my storyline was unclear due to the
shots I was lacking. However, I could not
improve this as my actors are no longer
available. As well as getting feedback for my Idea I also received
feedback each week from my teachers to help me improve my
research and planning. My first draft was simply just all the footage I had recorded cut and out into
order, so I had a lot to for the next draft such as adding in sound effects and music. When I began
adding music t my production it took quite a while as I had to reorganise the clips to the beat of the
song.

CODE AND CONVENTIONS

The most important aspect of
my production was my codes
and conventions I wanted to

make sure that I represented the techniques I had learnt form

analysing the films in my genre and present them in my short film.
One of the main aspects I felt worked well was the
lighting in the production, I felt it fitted the mood of
the atmosphere I
was trying to
create a slightly
warm neutral
tone, to represent
the calm atmosphere of the classroom. The light also didn’t
illuminate the whole room only just enough so you could see
clearly. When filming scenes with Erin I wanted everything around her too seem very appealing to
represent how she see things, In the first shot where we see Erin the shrubbery around almost
appears to be glowing. Another factor of codes and conventions I implement into my short film was
Locations, despite having to completely change all my locations I was still able to find suitable
replacements that worked well. The art classroom still had large windows around it that allowed a lot
of light into the room. There were student’s art pieces also dotted around the room, so Paris was
able to interact with them during his scene. Due to the layout of the train station I wasn’t able to
shoot the camera angle that I had done previously at the other train station location which would of
captured the emotion of the scene a lot better, I improvised however and used other camera angles
to try and show the emotions I was trying to express through the scene. When using camera angles
in my production I wanted them to suit the emotion of the scene, when Erin doesn’t turn up to the
train station and Oliver storms into the art classroom I wanted the camera to be close to his face so it
would seem more intense and I also made sure that the camera was not stable to add an even more
dramatic effect which I think worked very well and made the scene very serious. When adding music
to my production I wanted to make sure it fitted well with my production and gave the right emotion
for the right scene because I had decided to break the rules of the film festival I chose and used
copyrighted claimed music, I wanted to use it well.

COMPARISON TO OTHER PRODUCITONS

Due to the number of issues I faced and the footage I had to

work with, I haven’t been able to accurately follow my codes
and conventions. The most similar aspect of my production
when compared to other short films I had analysed previously
is how I have chosen to represent my main character and her
personality. When analysing films with the same genre I noticed a common theme that the main
character was very socially anxious, and not good at
communicating with other people, which I implemented
with my main character Erin, throughout the film you can
see her finding it difficult to say anything, or talk to anyone.
But you can see as she gets to know Oliver, she becomes
more comfortable to talk to him. Another similarity
between my production and the film I analysed I found was
both main characters were influenced by someone the care
for to go outside of their comfort zone, which I refers to the hero saving the princess character
theory. When I synthesised my analysis of TSLOWM I talked about how I wanted to show more depth
into Erin’s character by showing how she organises all of her equipment to add a very careful, gentle
characteristic, I did not end up representing this however due to the sudden production filming and
the little time I had I wasn’t able to film my characters in that detail as I was more focused on filming
the main scenes for the storyline.

PROBLEMS FACED

I have had an issue since the beginning of my production, as ever since I decided to change my idea
halfway through my research it has put me slightly behind this entire unit, during week 4 I was doing
my topic research, target audience research and was planning on doing 4 video analysis’s. Due to the
sheer amount of work I was only able to analyse two videos instead of one This was working out well
however towards the very end of my production I was only able to produce two due to lack of time.
Another large issue I faced was exporting my pitch video. while I was briefly editing it before I had to
pitch my hard drive began to malfunction and even begin to beep, this was a big issue the hard drive
not only had my pitch on it but a large amount of my coursework as well, however I was able to fix
this issue by plugging in the hard drive to a different computer and was able to export the edit pitch
in time for mine. The biggest Issue I faced in this production was when it came to my actors, When I
began to email my them to see if they were able to audition a lot of them replied and said they were
able to make to an audition others who had given me verbal confirmation that they would be willing
to act in my production never got back to me. When it came to film the auditions I was only able to
film three out of the five I had panned as one of them was ill and I wasn’t informed until I arrived,
and the other actor that had agreed to audition said she couldn’t make any as she had revision to do.
This wasn’t that big of an issue to me however as I knew the people and I knew that they would be
able to pay the roles well as they share very similar characteristics. What I should have done after
this to make sure that anything like this would happen during filming was make sure that when my
actors said they would be available to film they would be %100 sure and wouldn’t be allowed to back
out halfway through filming. But I wasn’t as firm with them as I should have been, and this resulted
in two of them backing out the day before filming because they had changed their minds. Because I
had no other crew members it meant I had to change the script to work with the actors I had. The
next day I began filming I had asked my main actor Emily to arrive early as there were some scenes I
wanted to film with the sunset an that meant arriving at The house location at 6am, I asked Emily to
arrive a 6 just in case she was late due to unforeseen circumstances which she did, we got all the
necessary shots needed at that location except for 1 which required a prop that was a different
location. One we had filmed those scenes we waited for the other actors to arrive, Ben got to the
location on time and a 08:00am however Scarlett was incredibly late, and we ended up walking to
her house to retrieve her and by that time it was 08:30. Because of this change of plan I had to re-
schedule on the spot where we were going to film next, what didn’t help were my actors constantly
asking me what we where doing next and trying to take over the schedule so we could finish quicker.
We ended up missing the last scene at the house location and moving straight onto the next location
which was on a main road. These shots went by very quickly I had few issues with people running
down the pavement and had to restart the shot. These were easily fixed however by reshooting. We
then moved onto the next location which was the school I thought that this would go a lot smoother
than the filming earlier that morning however I was wrong, although my actors were eager to get
home to the could do their art coursework they decided that they weren’t bothered enough to drag
out the filming even longer by mucking about by laugh on camera. Emily’s attitude was also difficult
to work with as she was tired as she had to get up so early in the morning and kept nodding off. We
ended up finishing early as my actors were being so difficult to work with, I didn’t see any point in
continuing. Because of this I had to change my planning/production schedule so we could finish all
the scenes we missed the previous filming date as all three of my actors had agreed to film with. I
shared this information with my actors on the Friday of that week and they all agreed that they could
film no those dates however, they Sunday of that week was an absolute nightmare as one of my
actors began to panic about the amount of art coursework she had and because we were on a group
chat for the filming this caused my other two actors to start to panic as well as they to also had art
coursework to do. And words of not being able to film any more were being thrown around but as
these were the only cast, I was willing to try and film as many of the scenes as possible in as little
time as possible. I ended up only being able to film with them from 08:00am – 12:00pm on Monday
which I then had plan what scenes I could film as it was impossible to film the rest of my production
in such a short amount of time. I did manage to resolve this issue however by discussing it with my
teachers and with their help I was able to procure and new entire crew and make a very brief filming
schedule and refilm my entire production. I did still face a few issues when re-filming this production
as I was unable to procure as classroom on the date I had planned as it was being used by a class and
for some reason, we weren’t able to find another that was available that day. Luckily however my
actors agreed to film for a third day, and I was able to find a suitable art classroom to film in. what I
didn’t consider however was that one of my actors was in London that day filming an interview, but I
quickly worked around this however by spreading out my lines to my other actors. When it came to
editing the production I only ran into the issue of connecting certain shot however I worked around
this by creating a VHS tape effect and putting it in between the gaps.

TOPIC RESEARCH

I began my topic research by looking into daydreaming and imagination as this was the topic for my
idea at the time. Finding research for this topic was incredibly difficult as a lot of it is very
philosophical rather than physical or neurological. Eventually I started looking into maladaptive
daydreaming which is a condition you have where you daydream extensively, this was very
interesting to me and at the time I had planned to give my main character the condition however,
upon my research into mind wondering I discovered a condition called Aphantasia, I became so
interested in the condition I decided to change my idea to instead of the girl daydreaming to much
she can’t daydream at all. I knew that this was going to be an issue as we were already a week into
doing our research for the unit so this would push me back an entire week, however I wanted to
execute the idea anyway as I was very passionate about creating a film on this condition. When I
began doing the topic research into Aphantasia I found it a lot easier to find the information I needed
for my production such interviews with people with the condition so I could learn the personal
experiences of the condition.

SPECIALISM

The specialism I chose for this year was art direction as I wanted to learn how to create visually
stunning productions not just with camerawork or editing. I was also already very familiar with the
technique of camerawork and editing and wanted to learn about the other aspect to the productions
as I had very little knowledge at the beginning of the year. However, over the past year I have learnt
and developed this specialism and have used my knowledge to create a visually aesthetically pleasing
production that compliments the concept. I felt that executed the art direction in my production very
well and was able to pick the right locations for the right scenes and make them appeal to the
content of the scene.

WHAT I WOULD DO NEXT TIME?

In future productions I will make sure to have a more solid and stable idea and stick to the concept
the whole way through the production, only making minor changes, as this presented as a large issue
for this production. One of the key things I have learnt form this production and that affected the
outcome the most was the cast and crew of the production and my disability to keep them
organised. In future productions I intend to make sure I am stricter with my cast and crew members
and get a more solid confirmation so they will not back out at the last minute.