Evaluation

Introduction

When I first read the brief for this unit I was quite nervous as I knew we would be getting marked on our editing and visual storytelling skills which is something I am not very confident with however, I was really looking forward to the research part of the unit.

When first hearing about the brief I actually did not have any initial ideas about what I wanted to do for my film until I got into my group and we started discussing different ideas.

We talked about maybe doing a drama as sometimes this can be easier to write a script for. Then we talked about romantic comedy and started discussing the genre conventions and decided this was the genre we wanted to do. One of our team members Chloe actually inspired the film a lot as she considers herself to be quite awkward and clumsy and this is how we wanted our character to be as this is what we thought would make it funny.

 

 

Research

When I underwent my research I looked at three different clips from three different films which were the same genre as my film, I analysed them and went into detail about what I thought was good and what fitted in well with the genre conventions. From doing this I feel that learnt a lot and noticed more about romantic comedy that I did not know before. I also looked into the guidelines for the ratings of films from the trip we went on to the BBFC in London. This was also something I did not know much about it also made it easier to be able to put our short film into a certain category, which we decided would be a 12 as we used a explicit word. I also conducted my own questionnaire and focus group (which we did as a group) in the focus group we asked the group members to watch a clip from a film called “Man up” we chose this clip because the main character was very awkward and this was the vibe we wanted to go for however we wanted to see how the group responded to it. In the questionnaire we asked people if they liked romantic comedy films and what they would expect to see in them. This form of research really helps us as we are getting real answers from real people which helps us inform our idea. I would say that the most important research findings would be the focus group as you were speaking directly to the people so they are giving you their honest opinion. I would say that the least effective research method was looking into costumes, props and locations as we do not have the budget of these romantic comedies so we will not be able to make them look as good as the others and we will have to work with what we already have at home etc. I would say that my research portfolio could be improved by going into more detail with my findings.

 

Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production

 

I feel that our pitch went really well we spoke slowly and clearly and every group member had a clear knowledge of our idea. The feedback was really good, there was obviously some questions about where we are filming and when we will be filming. As a group I feel that we did really well considering we didn’t actually have any time to rehearse and we each had answers to the questions. I actually did not know much at all about interactive short film and how it worked and the thought of editing really stressed me out as I had no idea of how to do this. I found the editing and the putting into the most challenging part as I had never edited in sequences before. As a group I feel like the most challenging part was having to try and edit the clips as we would have amazing shots of the main character but then the other character who was played by Chris would just start talking, about something completely irrelevant to the filming and we would have to mute the clip and add in the song or add in SFX. I feel that the group did communicate well as there was clips that I did not have and Chris would come over and give me the clip straight away. Another problem a lot of people in the class faced was if you had a large clip we were not able to put it on Eko so we would have to make it shorter, however we were aware of this from the beginning so some peoples clips could not be made any shorter as the narrative would then not make sense. So we had to use our tutor Natalie’s laptop so that we could upload the lager files.

 

The final product does meet my initial idea and I am very proud of what I have achieved, however when doing peer assessment I noticed that eko had made a mistake with my edit as there is a scene that is meant to end the film completely however it does not and it goes to another option which makes the film very confusing. I believe that the film does reflect the genre and works really well. The interactive elements became very confusing which made editing very stressful. I would say that the acting is an area of improvement as we were not as good as we could have been. I have gained knowledge in how to use sequences on premier pro. From reading my peer assessment I feel that I have made a lot of progress from the last time I edited, I can tell this from comments such as, “editing is done well the scenes are edited together well” this comment helps me understand that my editing has gotten better even if I do not recognise this myself. Another comment I received was “comedy is brilliant but could do with romance” this comment will really help me as the person that wrote it is telling me what I need to improve on which will help me for next time.

 

I feel that during this unit I have been very challenged in each part, in the research we did not have as much guidance as we usually do which meant that we kind of had to decide what to research ourselves  and as I have already said the editing and putting into eko was different to what I am used to. The next unit is FMP were I will again be on Camera for this I need to remember to be professional as I will be speaking to new members of the public. Over the half term I need to look into interview techniques and to prepare for my pitch. Even though it may seem like I did not I have truly enjoyed this unit and enjoyed learning new things during research, production, pre production and post production.