Below is my vlogging checklist, unfortunately I haven't been able to stick to it. I have managed to vlog the beginning of the project with the research and evaluation of the FMP pitch I did with Jo Dolby. I have blogged the tasks and included extra analysis in my final evaluation to make up for it. Due to the lack of vlogging for my project developments, I feel that my documentation skills need to be improved to allow me to reach the higher grades, but in this case it is the one weakness I have mainly faced within this project.
These photos of my script show notes which I have made on the scene's location and how I will achieve certain shots. For some of the scenes, I wanted to experiment with some new shots so create a dark and suspenseful story.
In this evaluation, I will use the comments I have received from my survey I conducted. This way, by using both methods, I have managed to cover most aspects that need to be improved and I will also be able to get a hold of more data in what was good and bad about the film.
Self Evaluation of Draft
After watching my film's first draft, I feel that the film was good but needed a few adjustments to make it better. The first adjustments I would make would be the background sound, to reduce this, I need to layer the audio and try to cut out as much of the background noise such as the wind. For example, in the scene where Gary grabs Mina's arm, there is a honking sound in the background, if I were to minimise this, this part of the scene will sound less comical. Another example of where I need to reduce the background sound is where Gary and Mina are discussing why Mina isn't allowed to go to Bea's party, the sound is a little inconsistent and so makes the audio sound unprofessional, to adjust this, I need to play around with the audio's consistency of volume.
The second adjustments I need to make are the cleaner/smoother cuts. Due to the amount of times some of my actors have accidentally looked at the camera when we were pushed for time to film, I had to cut some of the shots and merge it with others. I feel I could make have made the shots a little softer to make the transition from one shot to the other smoother. For example, in the first bathroom scene with Harriet playing the younger version on Mina, as she looked at the camera for prompts, I tried to keep the camera rolling to ensure that the height of the shots remained slightly more consistent. That to me could be improved and also the difference in movement from one shot to the other could also be adapted to make this look cleaner.
Another error I have realised in my film is that I am is some shots, whether it is in the mirror or as a shadow. I must ensure that when filming that I am out of the shots, unfortunately due to the lack of time I now have, I am unable to reshoot these shots, but for future reference, I will ensure that I place myself correctly when filing and ensure I am not in the shot, but still get the desired shot.
The final error I have spotted is that some clips have been repeated, for example in the scene where Mina's friend, Sammy judges Mina's clothing choice, the clips were not cut properly and so I need to make sure that when I go to finalise my final film, I must ensure that I tripple check all my edits and effects to make sure everything fits where it is meant to. Peer Evaluation (Survey)
These are the responses that I got from my survey I conducted to see what people thought of my draft.
The first question I asked was whether they liked my film. 90.9% of people said yes and 9.1 said no. This shows that the majority, overall liked my film, but unfortunately there were some that didn't.
The second question I asked was what they liked or disliked about the film. I had a few vague answers, but most was pretty helpful. One of the comments made on my draft said 'good use of film shots', reflecting on this I believe I experimented more with my shot ranges compared to m older projects. Another comment said about the draft, they said they like 'the plot and how the characters changed over time', at first I did contemplate whether to do the transition from young to old, but I feel that especially due to this comment, it has made the film a little more interesting and dynamic. Someone else said that they 'liked the idea' and that they thought it was 'well structured', this is good as they find that the story is clear to them, giving them full understanding of the plot. Another person wrote, 'The wind sound in the outdoor scenes was distracting. The first part of the story where three characters called at the house, didn't link well to the rest of the story. If it was an introduction to the characters, it still felt a little disjointed from the rest. I really liked the different camera angles you used when characters moved from one area to another - it gave the film real movement and supported the story telling aspect. Close up shots supported the story telling aspect too e.g. girl walking upstairs showed feet and stairs. I thought this imaginative. The music element at the end gave real power to the way the girl seem to find the breath holding exercise an escape from the difficult elements in her life. I thought the subject was handled sensitively and the visual story telling elements were excellent. Well done!', from this comment, it has given me a lot to think about and things to improve on. They mentioned that the wind sounds when outdoor was quite distracting, I could adjust the volume and and tweak the the sound effects on these specific scenes outdoors so that I could try minimise it as much as I can, making the dialogue stand out more. They also felt that they thought the beginning scene felt disjointed from the main story, I could adjust this so that the characters could have a better introduction and scenes could be made clearer to make the two time zones more related. They thought the camera angles used was were good when the characters moved from one area to the other. They also thought the ending of the film was powerful and that I handled the topic with sensitivity. The next comment I got from this question was that they liked 'liked the balance between script (talking) and the action (people doing things). Not too much talking. The visual was enough to tell the story.', this supports my efforts for showing the emotion felt in each scene, I didn't want to add too much dialogue as I felt that it would distract the audience too much from the emotions Mina feels during each scene. Another comment said 'the acting of the older girl was really good but I think the acting from the dad and the younger children weren’t up to the same standard. There was also a lot of background noise', to improve this I could reshoot the scenes where the the younger actors are in and run through the scenes without the camera first so that they are aware of what they will be doing - unfortunately due to the lack of time I now have, I am unable to do this, and so I will keep this comment in mind when casting for my future films. Someone commented saying 'I did not understand it', from this comment I could try adapt my film so that the storyline looks a little clearer during each scene. Some else said that they liked the 'special effects and creativity', another said the film was 'intriguing', this is what I wanted as I feel that due to my wider variety of experimentation I did,it has supported my work and has improved it because of the experiments I took.
The third question, I asked was whether the audience understood the storyline. 81% said that they did, but 18.2% said that they didn't. This shows that the story overall was understood by the majority of people.
For the fourth question, I asked the audience what their intake of the story was, I had seven responses which were spot on, which shows that even though there were some people who didn't understand the story, the vast majority did. There were two comments saying 'I did not understand it' and 'unsure of the whole plot - more explanation', this shows that I need to break down my story a little more and make it slightly simpler for people to understand on the basis of the main storyline.
The fifth question I asked was what they thought could make the film better. One comment said that the film 'could have been slightly longer, and also that the wind gets in the way of the sound', to improve this, I could put a little more detail in the film to give a little more understanding for the audience, 'i will also tweak the sound to calm down the outside sounds which may have over powered the dialogue. I could also improve of the scene transitions, I can do this by timing them better and experiment with the effects on Premiere Pro. Another aspect I could work on is the colour grading, some of the scenes look slightly different from the other due to the lighting, for my final version, I will edit this to make the lighting less random. To create a clearer storyline, I could move around the scenes slightly and give the audience a little more information. Thus making the storyline slightly clearer. Another thing I could work on is a wider amount of camera angles, and steadier control with it.
The next question I asked the audience was whether they would recommend the film to a friend. 100% of people said yes. This shows that even though some people did not understand the storyline, the film is still good enough for them to recommend to a film.
The next question I asked was whether the audience thought the film brought across bullying awareness. 72.7%of people responded as yes and 27.3% responded no, this shows that the film has fit its purpose for the majority of the audience.
To investigate as to why those that said no in the above question, I asked why they thought that. One of the comments was that they found that 'the film doesn't really talk about bullying at all', this means that I now need to make the film a little more obvious of bullying. My original idea for this film was to showcase subtle versions of bullying to make people more wary of their actions and words to other people. Another comment said 'I thought it was mainly focused on the problems at home, with the dad drinking, rather than bullying', I could possible show more conversations at home with Mina and her friends to show the effects of comments from her friends, to what she overhears at home. Someone else just said that the story was not clear, to help this I will break it down slightly to make the story easier to take in.
To conclude this survey, I believe that it was a success and the responders have given me plenty of ideas to develop my film a bit more. From the comments on ways for myself to improve my film, I will next have a look at what I can do to develop it so that the final film is up to scratch to my expectation and the assessors.
To conclude this evaluation on my draft of my film, I feel it has been successful as I feel like I have received many responses which have been helpful to motivate me to complete the project and I have also received plenty of tips on ways to improve my skills.
In this evaluation, I will be using the comments from the focus group/surveys I produced and also all of my daily reflections to ensure that my evaluation is thorough. I will also asses the film against what went well and what could have been improved during the duration I was giving for the project. For my FMP, I chose to create a short film to make people more aware of bullying, showing them how small insignificant actions and words could affect the person they are directed at, for example like my main character, Mina, that person may have other things going on in their lives which they would like to keep separate from their social life, almost making them show a different, happier personality to distract them from the pain and baggage they have.
Below is my finished film.
Strengths
During this project, I believe that I have shown progression in my skills and previous weaknesses such as the lack of experimentation. My strengths in this project include efficient organisation, knowledge of my topic, more variety of experimentation, leadership skills, and teamwork skills. I have shown efficient organisation at many points of my project, I have attained this by creating a schedule of when my actors are available to film and spread out my workload to allow me to complete each of them in plenty on time, by doing each of these stages, I was always kept busy doing something to ensure that no time was wasted in the process, when my actors were no longer able to make it to the planned date and time, I was able to switch it around so that I could do some written work to fill in that space of time that I would have been filming.
I mentioned knowledge of the topic as a strength, this is because I believe I did an extortionate amount of research to support the fictional story I created. With my research, I did a variety which studied the emotions of the victim of bullying from films and television shows, even though you may say thee emotions would have been exaggerated in those cases, I was able to grab hold at least a foundation basis of the emotions of the victim and characters around them. Another form of research I did was a case study, this was very interesting and at the same time disheartening to do, as to think something like the content of racism at a school is upsetting to hear about in our generation for which we have finally allowed gay marriage. Other forms of research I did were questionnaires and vox pops, these are similar forms of collecting data, but each has its flare, for example with questionnaires, it is able to give me statistical knowledge of what everyone thinks of the topic 'Bullying'; whereas, with vox pops, they are able to put emotion and a face to whoever is making the comment about the topic.
Furthermore, another strength of mine was that I experimented successfully with a few shots which I said I will try out in my experimentation blog. This was helpful experience for me and I feel has progressed my skills with the camera and on Premiere Pro too. I believe my experimentation which I have done over the duration of my project has definitely progressed me as a storyteller, director and camera operator. I believe that during this project, I have shown leadership skills as I have directed my actors, also listen to any of their ideas they have for their characters.
As the leader for this project, it is my job for every participant for my project to know what they are doing, how to do it, when it will take place, and finally where. All these things are important as this will then cause less stress and a better atmosphere for the team.
My teamwork skills are, I feel, one of my biggest strengths, this is because I made sure that all my actors were being looked after and had full knowledge of what they l were doing. I feel that by working with a variety of ages really helped me improved and strengthened my teamwork skills as I had to adapt so that I am able to cater to each person.
Weaknesses
Through the duration of this project, I have shown many strengths, but at the same time have l so shown some weaknesses. These include organising so of my actors, the beginning scenes of my film, complicated script, blocking of background noises, and up to date vlog entries. My first weakness as I mentioned was organising some of my actors. Even though I efficiently organised myself, I found organising my actors quite tricky, an example of this was my original actor for my main role Mina, Olly (the actress) was always rescheduling and bailing of planned filming slots, this got quite disruptive to my work and so I decided to replace her, I wish I did it sooner as I had only two and a half weeks left to film and examine my project, thankfully with the replacement, I was able to get through filming quite quickly. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an actor in time to fill in the roll of Tina, due to this, I stepped in and played the role and had my friend to do three shots which Tina was in to allow me to get scenes with her out the way.
Another weakness I have found in my project are the beginning scenes, as I chose to use young actors, I found that a lot of the time, they looked at the camera, unfortunately, I noticed this during my post-production. To hide it slightly, I have tried cutting some clips, this is okay, but I feel that that part of the short film is of a lower quality to the rest of my other scenes. Next time, to ensure that this does not happen again, I will ensure that I check all the clips to ensure that it is near to my vision.
Another weakness I feel I had was over complicating the script, I found that at the beginning, when writing the script, I knew that I wanted to create a story where it showed how bullying can be perceived in many ways and so we must be careful with how we speak or treat each other. I had to rewrite my script a few times to simplify it and narrow down the plot. This was very time consuming and so I feel to have improved and quickened the process, I could have mind map my ideas and then that way I would have a visual image of all my ideas, then I can decide which idea would be simpler and at the same time create tension in the film, without over complicating everything.
My third weakness was blocking out background noises in scenes, this is especially shown in the first scene where Gary is walking Mina and Christine to their friend's house, I tried blocking the sound with some of the scripts, but unfortunately it did not work as well as I had hoped, the next time I film on a windy day, I will use something which is a little less flimsy and also check whether the background sound is too loud or bearable, as then I can reshoot it and adjust the blocking mechanisms position to dampen the sound a little more.
My final weakness I have was keeping up to date vlog entries. This is because I found that I would be a few sessions behind and so as I catch up with my vlogs, it meant that my written work lost some time. Next time, I will create a schedule where I will separate the time well between vlogging and blogging.
Changes Made from Original Idea
The original idea for this film was to create a film where victims of bullying know who to go to and those observing, should be made aware of their actions towards others. I feel that this was a good idea to start with, but I found when writing the script, I found it difficult to portray it all without over complicating the story, and so to simplify it, I made it to create bullying awareness as I feel that this is the most important message, by creating awareness, others will have more knowledge of what some people see as bullying and so will make them think a little more before speaking harmful words or even acting on them.
Originally, I also had an idea of showing both Mina and Tina's story, firstly it was show Mina clueless to her parent's arguments and then one day walking into the door to hear them for the first time, it would then transition to Tina's 'story' which shows how her husband, Gary, treats her. When writing the script, I found that I didn't have a real grasp of the story myself and so it almost went in a loop, and I didn't even understand the storyline myself. And so due to this, I completely took out Tina 's story, I still managed to show her pattern of emotions I feel, this is shown when after the third scene's argument, she calls for dinner and acts as though she didn't just have an argument with Gary. I think it is important to show this as I will show the audience that each of the characters in the family know what is happening, but are unable to do much about it. I also took out the scene where Tina and Mina connect with one and other in the end scene, I feel that if I left it blank, the audience would be able to use their imgination and come up with whether Tina is okay after the big fight with Gary, 'is she still at home?', 'is she filing a divorce?', etc. I feel this is better because of the cliff hangers left at the end.
Another thing I changed from the original idea was the vlogs at the beginning of the film, when creating my film, I felt from the tone that I was setting in the film, the vlgs just seemed too random as Jo Dolby originally said in the ideas pitch. I feel that as I experimented with it myslef, I understand as to why she now said that at the beginning.
Experimentation
I feel that my experimentation have definitely developed my skills with camera handling and video editing. This is because, especially with camera editing, my grip is much firmer, so when doing moving shots, I have positioned myself so that the lighting doesn't show my presents and I'm holding the camera better to give it my stability when I'm doing that kind of movement shot. My skills with editing has also improved as I feel that I am more familiar with the software and more confident when experimenting. I did an experimentation shot where the younger version of my character, Mina, is in the bathtub, but then transitions to her older self, here I had to make sure the frame was roughly the same, and also that the two actors needed to be placed roughly in the same space to give a more effective outcome. I also experimented with the pass by effect, I thought of doing this as I felt this would make my film look more interesting with a simple transition. I feel that this went okay but could have gone slightly better with the transition of when Mina runs up the stairs and back down, if I had enough time to revisit this, I would time the movements a little better to ensure the transition gets to have its full effect.
REMOVED
This short film from YouTube was the original inspiration for my film. The quote, '...you don't remember my story, you haven't walked my path, you haven't seen what I've seen...' 'My past defines me.' was so simple but so effective, I for that grew empathy for the character as I felt as though I wanted to do something but am powerless to do so.
This film is about a young girl who at the beginning is shown being abused by her father and then one day the police arrests him for unknown reasons. She then is separated from her brother who she is greatly close with as she looks after him like a mother. She then enters countless foster homes, as she continues, she goes to a foster home once more which is different from the rest. "It would be impossible to fully understand the life and emotions of a child going through the foster care system, but this short narrative film portrays that saga in a poetic light, with brushes of fear, anger, sadness, and a tiny bit of hope." - Santa Barbara Independent.
In comparison to my film, even though the general topic is different from one and other, mine is about the awareness of bullying and this is about a child's intake of her experiences through various foster homes. Even though you see the difference in their family life, you also see similarities which indicate that no matter watch class you are in or how you are brought up, nothing is really what it seems.
A similarity the two films have are the main characters, both have problems at home and insecurities, but keep it separate from the public. Both have been hurt in different ways, mental,verbal and physical. Both handle their pain differently, but has the same effectiveness, this is because they both forget about their home situation in those moments.
Both films are also quite dark, showing deeper emotions. This is shown as there isn't actually much talking in both films, technically. In REMOVED, the girl during the film does not say so much, which bring the audience to gaze on her detailed facial emotions. Similarly in Delirium, there isn't much talking compared to other films. I believe that by having less speech, it gives the actors to play around with their roles and make it their own, giving them a stronger bond and better of the character they are trying to impersonate.
A difference to the two films would be the quality of facilities and trained characters. REMOVED as a whole was shot with more quality and control, having the colour of the scene reflect the main character's mood and also dampening unwanted background noises, all this quality also comes with the quality and commitment of the film crew. Whereas compared to my film, the budget was much lower, the team was also smaller and the resources were limited to when specific equipment was free. I hope that after gaining new experiences with storytelling and camera operating from this project, it will allow me to soon create something as professional looking as REMOVED.
The audio from REMOVED sounded more controlled compared to Delirium. The sounds sounded as if each had their ques and tied in together nicely to create a settling atmosphere, as if the audience was there themselves. With Delirium, the sounds were much harsher and so disrupted the dialogue slightly with it. The use of sound in REMOVED was used more effectively, the sounds were like as if they were all singular and put into one harmonic group, reflecting the right mood from the characters.
Key Areas of Development
The key areas of development for me include organisation of others, audio effects and to also have better camera handling skills. Like I said earlier in the evaluation, I found myself rushing nearer to the deadline as there were complications with my actors availability. To ensure that that doesn't happen again to me, I will need to creat an assesment where I analyse the actors commitment to the film and for example, if they were to get strikes everytime they wre to bail. After two, I would need to properly talk to the actors as to why they have a lack of commitment, I will then have to decided whether to replace or give that actor another chance. By doing this, it will mean that I will be less stressed and have more time to overview shots more carefully to ensure the sound was suitable for the scene, or whether the camera was correctly focusing on the right areas.
Another key area of development I mentioned was the audio effects. Audio is one of the most important fctors to having a great film as this tells the story to the audience, whether it's with words or the background sound, no sound is too small and so detail counts with sound to tell the story effectively. Unfortunately, I don't believe that my sound effects efforts did not go to plan and so my film suffered from this. What I should have done was also record the audio separate from the camera filmed audio, this would mean that I could enhance the dialouge and allow me to make it clearer for the audience to hear.
The final key development I gaveto myself was to have better camera handling skills. Even though I have already commented on how much I have improved with my handling skills, I feel that it can deffinately be beter. To help improve myself, I need to practise more movement based camera work to ensure that when moving, the camera doesn't go out of focus, and that it goes with the characters' movements. I feel that to also help me practise with this, I must experiment with more dynamic shots so that I feel more comfortable and confident with riskier shots.
Reaction from the Audience
To record the reaction to my film from my audience, I produced a survey to allow me to receive a variety of feedback for my film.
The first question on my survey asked whether they enjoyed the film. 100% of the response said yes. This shows that they were interested in the film and enjoyed the basic aspects of the film.
The second question asked what they liked most/disliked about the film. I received a variety of comments on different aspects of the film. The first comment was that they 'didn't like the lack of music', reflecting on this I could have added orchestrated some background music when the character was alone, or songs to when Mina and Christine went over to Bea's house. The second comment said that 'the acting was quite dry', to improve from this, I could allow more time for my actors to study the script and get into their characters more. The third and fifteenth comment said that they enjoyed, 'Fraser’s acting trying to be a drunk parent - Jacob', 'loved the father', this shows that they enjoyed watching how the actor got into their character and the casting for the father role was a success. The fourth comment on my film said that they liked 'how it was laid out and shot', this shows that I was able to draw the attention of this person with the variety of shots I experimented with, with each of the scenes. The fifth comment said 'I enjoyed the storyline and how each situation could be relatable to many people and families', this shows that they understood the plot of the story and was able to relate to it in some form of way. The sixth comment said 'Mina’s character was really convincing, audio was edited well and good use of different scenes! The message behind the film was conducted well', this shows success in the casting of my main character and that they understood the message of the story that even the smallest of things such as words, can effect the health and well being of someone. The seventh comment said, 'I really enjoyed the use of jumpcuts throughout. The whole film just helped show the dedication Met has put in to direct and write the film', this comment shows that they appreciate the hard work put in and they liked the jumpcut transition from each shot. The eighth, ninth and eleventh comment said that they liked 'the character development through the two ages', 'the acting from the older Mina was really good and liked the layering of two images over each other', 'time shift forward', Mina's transition in the bath tub from young to older was quite risky for me to do as people could of understood the transition or they could of not got it at all, but I felt that if kept the idea in there, it would make the film look a little different and dynamic. The tenth comment said that they thought it was, 'clever and creative', this comment shows that they understood the plot of the film and appreciated the creativeness of the story. The twelfth comment said 'captivating story line, good camera angles', this shows that they enjoyed the story and liked the use of camera angles. the thirteenth comment said 'I liked how powerful the storyline was, I didn’t like how hard it was to follow at times', to improve this I could make the film a little longer to allow myself time to spread out the storyline a little more so that people find it easier to follow the plot. The fourteenth comment said 'I liked the whole movie, the flashbacks and the storyline were also really effective', this comment shows that they enjoyed the whole aspects of the film and understood the plot fully. The sixteenth comment said 'it was quality, I liked how it really got its message across and it all seemed like everything that would actually happen', this comment shows that they were able to follow the plot well and understood the message of the film. The seventeenth comment said, 'I liked how when Mina got in the bath young and then cut to the scene with older Mina was in the bath', this shows that they were able to follow the transition properly and like the dynamic effect of it.
The third question I asked in the survey was whether they had a better storyline in comparison to the draft version of the film. 82.4% said yes and 17.6% said no, this shows that the large majority of people understood the storyline and plot, but for those who didn't, to improve that I could spread out the storyline a little more to make the story a little clearer for those who didn't understand.
The fourth question I asked those who didn't understand the storyline, why they didn't. the first comment said 'could’ve included a longer conversation with the friends and with the mum and dad', reflecting on this I understand what they mean, if I were to add more dialogue with the parents and friends, that will show the repetitiveness of the bullying and would make the story a little more captivating. The second comment said to 'show the suffering of the victim', like the first comment, I could add more scenes where Mina is alone and reflect her emotions in each of the scenes. The final comment I received on this said to 'use captions to set the scene and tell people what’s going on if it’s complicated', to help audiences like this person, I could have added narration from Mina, talking about her emotions, almost like a voice in her head.
The fifth question I asked in the survey asked what genre the audience recognised the film as. 88.2% of people recognised it as drama, 5.9% recognised it as a mystery, and 5.9% recognised it as awareness. All these answers are the targeted genres I aimed for and so shows success in the story telling as they were still able to recognise the genre, even if some didn't completely understand the plot itself.
The sixth question I asked was whether the film made them more aware of the different kinds of bullying. 88.2% of people said that the film did and 11.8% said that it didn't. The film was a success for making the majority of the audience thinking that the film did a good job at making them aware of the different kinds of bullying. For those who didn't think it did, next time if I were to do a film based on bullying, I will show a wider variety of different kinds of bullying, possibly starting with the more well known bullying methods to the less subtle.
The seventh question I asked in the survey were for those who said no in the above question and I asked why they didn't think the film made them more aware of the different kinds of bullying. The first comment said 'I didn’t really get what was going on' and the second comment said 'doesn’t really show bullying', to increase to chance of my viewers to recommend my film, I must unsure the message is clear enough for a variety of people and that the plot is clear enough for everyone to follow.
The eighth question I asked in the survey was whether they would recommend this film to their friends. 94.1% said yes and 4.9% said no. This shows that the majority of the audience enjoyed the story and like it enough to recommend it to their friends, this also spread the bullying awareness message.
The ninth question I asked on my survey were for those that said no to the question above. The response I got from this was 'I didn't really get what was going on', to make it clearer for this person, in my future productions, I will make sure that I break the story down more and ensure it is much clearer to follow.
The final question I asked was, what aspects I could improve on. I received a variety of comments from this. The first comment said 'making the storyline a bit clearer' and like I said previously in my evaluation, I will ensure that I break down the storyline a bit more to make it easier to follow and also make the message clearer too. The second, eighth and ninth comment said 'background sound at the beginning' and 'audio is a bit iffy', 'use a microphone to reduce the sound from the wind and so you can here the people better' reflecting on this, to improve this I will check the shots to ensure the clarity of the audio is clear enough, and if not to either redo the scene, or record the sounds separately with the sound kit so that I can enhance individual sounds, depending on the scene. The third, fifth, seventh, fourteenth and fifteenth comment said 'N/A', 'nothing, was perfect', 'I think you did great :)', 'Nothing really', 'N/A was good Met x', this shows that this person enjoyed watching the film and didn't feel like I needed to change anything. The fourth comment said 'just making sure your showing the aspects you want show clearly', and this comes with making the storyline clearer by breaking it down a little more. The sixth comment said 'camera angles could transition a bit smoother, but overall they weren’t bad at all', from reflecting on this, I need to make sure my camera control is better to allow smoother transitions from camera angles. The tenth and sixteenth comment said 'make sure we can’t see the camera when filming, eg shadow of cameraperson. Transitions could be smoother and audio more realistic', 'only at one point we could see your shadow holding the camera' to improve this I need to position myself better to allow myself to still get the desired shot, but also making sure I or my shadow isn't in the shot. To make my audio sound a little more realistic, I could record some Foley sounds to ensure that the sounds are of specific elements in the scene such as the water splashing as Mina submerges in the bath tub. The eleventh comment said 'the film cuts between scenes', this can be improved if I did more experimentation with editing to make sure the transition from each clip was clean and not seen as random. The twelfth comment said 'maybe shorten pauses between scenes', that can be easily done, by adjusting the timing of each of the scene. The thirteenth comment said 'make plot clearer, use a dead cat mic cover to stop wind ruining the dialogue', a clearer plot can be achieved by breaking down my story a little more and I agree with using a dead cat to record my audio as like they said, it would reduce the wind running with the dialogue. The seventeenth comment said to 'maybe make the conversations more dramatic', I agree with this comment and to help those who didn't understand what was happening most of the time, by having more dramatic conversations will help them with that for the bullying aspects.
To conclude the response from my survey, I believe it was overall a success. This is shown from the variety of comments I received for my film and also a high majority of the comments were positive, showing the success in the film. I have also reflected on many of the other comments so that when filming in the future, I am more aware of those aspects the audience picked up on on this film.
To conclude my whole evaluation, I believe that the film was overall a success. There were a lot of ups and downs in this project but overall, I managed to salvage as much of my time as possible to complete the project. The ups in this project included organising myself, and later showing my leadership skills when filming and organising my actors. The downs of this project included my original actors consistently bailing on filming days and wasted time. From these downs, I have created ideas for myself to prevent things like this happening so often in the future when filming. I found that when I reflected on my script at the end of the project, I feel that some of the scenes I did cut, could of made the storyline a little clearer to those that didn't quite understand. Overall, I enjoyed doing my project and it allowed me to grow as a screenwriter, camera operator and director and I feel that I have shown initiative at times such as when I was short of actors, I have also shown strong team work skills to better my film as my actors have prompted me on things which could make their characters stand out.
For my film, I wanted to add a few young actors to my film, I felt that this will express that bullying can effect anyone, whether they are a 12 year old girl trying to find out what kind of person they are at senior school, or whether it is a 19 year old exploring career opportunities.
As bullying is also a sensitive subject, I wanted to have the younger people's parent's consent, making them aware of what I am planning to do and that way if they had any queries, they had my contact details on the consent for to get a hold of me.
In the consent form I added details about me, showing them why they can trust that I will not exploit their children. I was planning on using my youngest sister's friends to play the younger roles of my film, and so due to that, separate from the consent form, I first messaged each of them the plot of my story, then that way they could first decide whether they wanted to be a part of it.
After I started receiving the consent forms back, I contacted the girls straight away to organise a date where they can come over to film. This was quite tricky as all the girls had their own commitments, but luckily we managed to find a day which everyone could do. Below are the consent forms which I received back.
