Evaluation

Evaluation

• 1.
  EVALUATION Mel Nuttall
• 2.
  PRODUCTION PROCESS EVALUATION
• 3.
  My research, especiallythe secondary research, did not go as well as I had originally hoped. I found it more difficult than I had been expecting to find information on what I thought would be relevant to my current idea for my short film. The survey that I did was useful in getting some feedback prior to doing my secondary research. I was even able to ask about a very brief and summarised plot for my short film to see what the people who took my survey thought. Out of the people who took my survey, Sci-Fi was the most popular genre which helped me make my decision that if it was done well, would be popular with the target audience. The main weakness was that I didn’t think quite all of the questions were useful and perhaps I should have gone into more detail with regards to my short film and questions more specific to my target audience.
• 4.
  For my secondaryresearch, I did manage to find some useful bar charts on a website for the popularity of movie genres in the UK in two separate years to compare the changes. There I could realise that the genre that I was thinking about making short film had been consistently popular over the years and would probably be a good idea to incorporate it into my short film, especially when put alongside the results from my survey. However I did struggle to find other pieces of information that I thought could be relevant to making my short film. Though definitely the biggest help in research for me was looking at existing short films with a similar plot line. It was interesting to see how they laid out the sequences of shots and I could take inspiration from that.
• 5.
  Overall I thinkthat my planning went quite well. I found that because I already had a more detailed layout for my short film in my head, being able to visualise it and storyboarding it was quite easy for me to do. The most difficult parts were being able to write it down into words and making sure that I could get all I wanted into the sixty second time frame, plus the credits. Luckily I had previously made the storyboard which I could then turn into the different shots and figure out how long each one would last. I didn’t stay quite as to the shot list I’d hoped as I did have to condense some shots together since the timing wasn’t quite right and one I split up to give a slightly different but personally better effect. I think to improve it I would have been more careful when thinking of the timeframe and if the length of shots were actually realistic.
• 6.
  My time managementdefinitely did not go as planned. The first week or two were on track and I was managing to keep up with the time I had set myself while I had done my research and started my planning and pre production. However, my USB memory stick suddenly went missing and couldn’t be found anywhere. And sadly while I thought my files would be safely backed up on the Mac in the classroom, not all of them had been properly saved. So I ended up spending more time redoing the work I had lost which meant that I was behind for the rest of the project. So for next time I will make sure and check that next time the most updated film were saved on both the Mac and my USB to prevent this happening again.
• 7.
  Both my shortfilm “Lost and Found” and the other short film “Survive” (https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=kBbNz q7Jnj4&t=70s ) start in similar ways. They both give an opening shot of the landscape that the film was set in. However, “Survive” wasn’t a short film bound to a minute in length and so was able to have more time to show the landscape more in depth. Since I only had a few seconds instead of thirty, I made sure to pan the camera a little bit as if it was the character slowly looking to the side.Throughout “Lost and Found” the camera stays in focus, except at the very end but I did my best to use it to my advantage of adding to my character’s confusion.
• 8.
  When it cameto audio, I was stuck between the choice if I should use recorded sounds from the set and the possibility of some quite music in the background or if I should just use the music to set the atmosphere. I ended up choosing the audio overlay since I was pressured on time and from what I realised that most of the sounds I thought you would be able to hear and the camera would have to pick up couldn’t be heard anyway. Although I could have still recorded them and added them in but since I ran out of time so quickly, it was easier but still effective to have a music background. Looking at the other short film I researched, “Hopeless Wanderers” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxmyBLrc7dU ) used a similar technique of having the majority of the audio music with a few recorded sounds, especially in the fight scene. They also used a similar technique to ending their short film where the screen went black but the music still carried on into the credits.
• 9.
  There wasn’t alot of special effects in my film, just to show the transition of my character going through time. I found some free VFX files online and initially used the ‘screen’ blending mode to add them to the video. I then found ‘colour dodge’ which just set the colours even better for a more realistic effect for the time I had. “Survive” did have their special effects on a slightly different level however. The editor managed to add the destroyed city that would have needed to take a lot longer than I did. If I didn’t have so little time to focus, I would go back and make the VFX more realistic by changing the lighting that the effects would most likely add.
• 10.
  I liked howI managed to edit the brightness and colour slightly of my short film to make it appear more cinematic. By making it slightly darker than the original footage, it gave a bit of depth and made the surroundings feel a bit more shady and less like a woodland park for commuters that was well lit. An improvement I would make would be when there is a close up on the character’s face that was a bit dark with the colour corrections so maybe I should have used a clipping mask to make her face just a bit more bright or in a better focus when the camera trick I tried to do didn’t work quite as well. I also enjoyed adding in the VFX I downloaded royalty free to show the watch sending out sparks and jolting around as the character begins to travel through time.
• 11.
  I feel likeI have appealed to my target audience, especially to do with a seemingly post apocalyptic setting and supernatural elements like time travel that fall under the Sci-Fi category. When looking at my peer feedback, the Sci-Fi style elements seemed to do well in popularity, making me think that I did well with the target audience. The comparison between the two graphs shows that Sci-Fi was the most popular genre in 2016 but specifically in my target audience, Sci-Fi was most popular in relation to action, comedy etc, although sometimes there is some crossover in genre.
• 12.
  PEER FEEDBAC K
• 13.
   What didyou like about the product?  EVERYTHING! I enjoyed the use of sound and the cuts between shots, I also liked the special effects and the use of location to create a scene.  What improvements could have been made to the product?  Perhaps some brightness may be used to light up the actors face so we can see the reaction a little better but apart from that it was amazing.
• 14.
   What didyou like about the product?  The visuals of the film worked well, which meant that the film flowed nicely as it all made sense. The audio tracks chosen helped the film give an emotional atmosphere. The colours and fonts used for the text make the text stand out and easy to read as well.  What improvements could have been made to the product?  The main improvement which I would change would be the sound of the rain in the background as I personally think that the background hiss is too loud, especially when the sound is used throughout the film. The second improvement is during the end of the film there is a black screen, this should be on the screen for less time. I understand that this is to show the divide between the film and the credits but I think this gap is too long.
• 15.
   What didyou like about the product?  I really like the opening shot and the use of different camera angles and music sets off the film really well.  The effects with the watch also looks really good and it gives good transition into the next scene.  I thought that the storyline behind the whole film is great and I would love to see an extended version.  What improvements could have been made to the product?  I like the mystery behind the stuffed toy but I would like to know the background of how it arrived where it did.
• 16.
   What doyou agree with from your peer feedback?  I agree that the special effects did actually end up being better than I expected. I’m glad that it seemed to others that hadn’t read the idea for the story still understood.  What do you disagree with from your peer feedback?  Personally I didn’t think that the period of time that the screen was black at the end was too long. This was because I thought it felt it gave a good gap between the sudden hopefully dramatic ending of the short film and the credits. If it had been much shorter I don’t think the effect would have been as good.