Evaluation
In this essay, I will be evaluating my “Short Film “assignment. I will discuss the research process, the pre-production, the production, the post-production, and finally my conclusion. I will examine the strengths and weaknesses within the group including myself, as well as the areas of improvement throughout this unit. Firstly, I am going to discuss the process of pre-production and start on the planning stage then continue all the stages of our short film into paragraphs so I can assess and evaluate how well we did in our short film.
In the first stages of the short film, our tutors gave us the task to create a short film using a script that was already written. The script we chose was, "Dead Connection", which is roughly 2 - 4 minutes long about a guy that is stuck in a phone box and surrounded by zombies trying to kill him. Also, the tutors put us in groups, and I was a little apprehensive about this, as normally we choose them. However, I got put in a hard-working group that I’m grateful for. The group consisted of myself (Ben), Lewis. Nick, Stephan, Ethan, and Patrick. The people I haven’t worked with before like Ethan and Stephan. The next stage was to create a pitch on a role we wanted to be throughout the Short Film. I chose to be a cinematographer as I think I have developed the skills that I need to do this job role and I haven’t done this before and I wanted to try something new. After that we assigned the pre-production to the roles to complete. I was a little nervous at first because another member of my group wasn’t coming in, and I thought to myself if we don’t get this done we would be behind schedule for the filming stages. During this project, also when we first started on the project, we had to create a pitch to get the job role we all wanted. I chose the role of "Cinematographer" and I immediately started to plan what kind of scenes we were going to have, which required me to then plan the locations we were going to film at, so we all started to get together and yet again, do planning, this time where we would go to film and at what times, and on what day.
Pre-Production:
During the pre-production period, I feel my past experience from level 2 and previous units this year made me feel very prepared for the role - cinematographer - which I was assigned by my tutor, (Abi). Firstly, in the beginning, stages, I helped my team by looking for appropriate locations to film at night with the director and producer, to start on the location recce. As a group, we all took turns by looking at the script and giving our own ideas. The part of pre-production which was allocated to me was the storyboards and the shot list. The reason being, that all the other group members could complete the rest of the more complex pre-production. I found this a little hard at first, as I needed to think really hard about the different types of shots to gather for the short film.
However, I got the hang of it and started thinking creatively by using inspiration from other films and short films. Then we all agreed on a final location, which was perfect for the scenes that we wanted to shoot, so we settled on a time and date to go and film. Despite the success of this, I was a little confused at times on what I properly needed to do. So I thought of creative shots to use during the short film, some of which were included in the final edit. I also had help from the director, (Nicholas Stone) who was in my group. He helped me with the “cinematography”, and also occasionally to move the camera and some of the equipment around as I struggled with heavy equipment.
Production:
Personally, I'd say the production was the most challenging part. Despite being well organised, on the day of filming we discovered that the phone box in Banstead had a multi-colored light in it. The light was on a timer and there was no way of turning it off which was annoying, as we needed it to be at night time. Thankfully Nicky had a backup plan, and his mum was on hand to drive us down to Stoneleigh where it was... the ultimate phone box location, the light was not on a timer, the light was not multi-colored and when we got there it was so late no one heard Liam (Tom) scream. The second location we went too was outside the train station. One thing we hadn't taken into consideration was rush hour. It was very busy, and we had to stop multiple times, for cars to go past and background noises from trains.
The hardest part of trying to film our short video is that we had to wait very patiently for people's cars to move. This was extremely annoying and time consuming for us. There were loads of cars that kept pulling into the station, multiple times, and we had to constantly wait until they had all gone so we could get to work and to begin filming our shot. When everything finally settled down after being very frustrated, we were almost ready. When suddenly another problem occurred, the background noise, especially cars would disrupt our filming, so we had to wait for the roads to quieten down for around 45 minutes. We started filming in an area that was quieter, so Lewis (Sound operator) could capture the audio by using a boom and a blimp, which is used to reduce the wind sounds, but whilst the actor was talking this made it hard for Lewis to do. After we finally finished filming, we had to decide on which part of the scene we were going to shoot next. I was confident in this project because everything was set, all the cameras that we used were Sony A7S cameras the locations, the timing etc, which was vital and super important for each shot. One of the problems I faced during the production is that I was slightly nervous that I would waste time or ruin the project, which put pressure on myself. Although I tried and tested the camera before, I felt more confident when I was using it to film our short video. As I gained experience, and therefore, I knew what I was going to be doing when I was filming. Also, during the production stage, I found it difficult to include some shots in the short film like a long shot and extreme wide shot. As I was restricted due to the location by having lots of cars and people despite filming at around 9-10 pm. This made it hard to change some shots for the script, for example, the script said an abandoned street and we changed what we thought was necessary, and, also, we had to think on the spot and use our initiative on new possible shots that we could add in the short film.
Post-production:
In the post-production stage, this is where I excel and have strong ambitions for this, especially in editing. Throughout my time in creative media, I have gathered the skills that I need to produce a short film. I feel that I'm at highly intermediate level in editing and would love to go further in this field. During this stage we gathered up all the footage from the days we filmed, so I sat down with Nicholas (Director) and we went over the shots, and made sure we didn't miss anything plus if everything was filmed. At one point everyone in the group noticed the frame rate of one of the shots was off, but that was dealt with by myself. I achieved this by speeding up the shot in Premiere Pro. Once this was all sorted and we were happy with everything, we distributed the footage around the group to begin their own individual edits. Also, Nicholas and I had to check over the footage to see if we needed to reschedule to reshoot, as we didn’t want to spend any more time than we had to, and also we didn’t want to use our precious time wastefully by waiting around, re-taking and doing the shots, due to the disturbance of the trains, cars, and people getting in the way of filming. After Nicky and I filmed all the footage we then gave it to the rest of the crew individually via USB. I used the Adobe Premiere Pro software to edit the footage, with all my knowledge from my time in creative media. I started by putting all of the footage in order, then linking the audio, and adding additional effects and transitions, all into making a short film. This took me about an hour to edit all of the footage and audio together. I had to check through everything to make sure there were no issues, errors, or anything that would mess up the recording, such as continuity issues. This meant that I would be more proactive and ready to start editing my short film, which in turn would help me become faster and more professional. In the editing phase, I included a few quick shots to add suspense to my short film. Throughout the codes and conventions of the short film, I also added sound effects for the first time in my time studying creative media. I added sound effects to add a meaning of danger and suspense to my short film. This worked exceptionally well, even though it took longer than I thought. However, I thoroughly enjoyed experimenting with the sound design. It has added meaning to me and has inspired me to pursue editing further, and for next year I would do this again to get a higher grade.
Conclusion:
To wrap this all up, in conclusion, I think that everything went well, but there were a few moments that led us into frustration and having to be patient a lot of the time. However, we had high morale and motivation to do our project, and we were very confident and skilled within our work, as we had done it before. This gave us an advantage as we previously learnt what to do and what not to do.
As some of us have already spent a couple of years with each other, we knew what each other did and did not like, but some new perspectives came in, and in the end, we had to compromise to what everyone liked, and very importantly if it could actually be filmed and work, which luckily it did. In addition to this, patience was a key thing within our project as we had to wait a very long time for the cars and ambient noises to go away or completely stop. Other than all the frustrating and aggravating things that we had to deal with while filming, I think the short film went smoothly.
I understand the importance of thorough planning and that the pre-production process is vital. This will determine the whole overall aspect of the project and the way it will turn out. Therefore, extensive research and planning is key, as the more research you find and put into the early stages the better your product is going to be. For example, primary research like sending surveys through SurveyMonkey, then distributing, gathering responses, and getting the information that more people like horror than comedy. Another example of research is secondary research, where Nicholas and I watched Edgar Wright's masterpiece ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ to get knowledge of how to film in certain ways to make the audience feel like they were with the survivor, and trying to survive as well alongside him.
Overall, this project has taught me and given clarity of what career path I wish to follow in the future, in respect of the media industry. I have always felt passionate about being an editor ever since level 2 media. I enjoy it because I can sometimes take my time on editing and really focus on everything, and other times I will be pressured and on a tight deadline, which has taught me time management and how to work with stress from not only myself but others as well. I enjoy that I can put my own creativeness inside of the projects and make it my own and feel very self-accomplished with myself. Going into the future with my new projects will become much easier, as I have the experience and the knowledge of media from the last few years. This will encourage me to think of new and creative ideas to bring to my fellow classmates and inspire them to think of new ideas when we make a final choice on what the plan of action is.
Here is a link to my short film: https://youtu.be/gtuvVe6g2Vs
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