Evaluation of First Draft of FMP

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.