Evaluation

For my Final Major Project of year1 I had to do a film for the Rain-dance competition. This had to be
either a Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, Narrative Short, Documentary Short, Animation
Short, Music Video, Queer (Feature), Virtual and Augmented Reality Experiences or a Web Series.
The category that I would fall under would be the Narrative short and would have to be less than 45
minutes long. I defiantly think it would easy to tell a story under 45 minutes and it will possibly be
round 25 minutes long. This short film would be for teens between the ages of 14-19 as it would be
about teenage stabbings. Jodie is actually a real life victim of the 2019 London stabbings. She got
stabbed on March 1st and was found dead on March 2nd in Romford.

I worked with a few people on my production as I had five actors in my piece. The two main
characters where played by myself and Juras Povilaitis, I was the victim and Juras was the
perpetrator, and the side roles where played by Karolina Kaczorowska, James Ravenhill and
Cameron Hay. Cameron, James and Karolina played the roles of the best friends. James and Cameron
where Juras’ friends and then Karolina was mine. The reason why I chose Juras as the main actor
was because I felt like he suited the role very well, this has to do with a few reasons. The first reason
is that his personality is very much like the charter themselves. Another reason for me choosing him
is the way he walks, Juras has a very distinct walk and I felt like that was very relevant to the
character. The last reason was his voice, his voice was very much how I envisioned the character to
speak a kind of musky deep voice with a little bit of an accent. I wasn’t my going to be the main
character, as I didn’t think that I fitted the role, it was originally meant to Karolina but because she
couldn’t get to some places that I needed her to be in, I had to then make the decision to be the
main actor. I asked Karolina to then be the role as the best friend as she could get to some location
for example I get the train to college every day and I could film on the train whenever and Karolina
doesn’t live near a train station so she wouldn’t be able to do them scenes . I was going to film in
Henley anyways so I could meet her there and she could film the scenes there.

I did have a few roles in this project, obviously I did all my research and planning and then some
other roles that I did where, Filming, Editing, acting, producing and directing. I myself filmed all the
scenes with the main boy in, so that was at the house, in the abandoned garden centre, the part
outdoors the house and then the bits of Juras at his house and leaving his house. I had my friend
Nicole film me sat on the platform at the station and then me sat on the train. I had Jacob film me
and Karolina waking though town and sat on the grass and he also film also the final stabbing scene.

Genre
The genre of my production is a crime related docudrama although it is not a unique idea for a
genre, I thought it was fitting especially living the that times that we do. What I mean but that is how
recently in the past few years, crime rate has gone up and it continues to rise each year. This is to do
mostly with gang violence and how it pressures young people into doing it. My production is based
on a true-life event that happened to a young girl named Jodie Chesney who was only 17 years old.
Poor Jodie was just in the wrong place at the wrong time as she was found dead in a park in Harold
Hill, London, she didn’t have any relations to any members of a gang so it was purely just a random
attack that ended her life.
From this screen shot of my survey that I put out you can see that people agree that it suites that
genre and only one person says that they think it’s more of a short film that a documentary styled
piece. I do agree slightly with that person as in the end it did turn out more like a short film as I
didn’t have time to add in some facts and some information about the girl that I loosely based it off
so I feel like if was to do that then it would maybe feel more like a docudrama then a short film.
Another thing I wanted to do that I didn’t get to was, to want to show both my characters life’s more
as that is what they did in the film I researched called “The impossible”. In the film they show the
lives of the characters for the first 15 minutes of the film they show the lives of the family and the
place that they are at. Even though I wouldn’t show my characters life for that long, I would still of
tried to do it for a bit longer as I feel like you don’t get to really know the characters as well as I
wanted to.

Techniques
For my techniques I looked at using different camera angles and using different lighting. The camera
angles that I looked at were Close ups, Medium shot and wide shot. I then also looked at low light
when in key scenes, like at the end when she gets stabbed. I also wanted to make a clip dark when I
had filmed it in the day time as I couldn’t get my actors to film at night and also it was only starting
to get dark at 8.30 and I didn’t want my actors to be out late at night.
As you can see from the survey most people like my camera and editing techniques. The techniques
that I used were some of the ones from the examples like, the close up shots there found in both
“the impossible” and “murder by numbers” is was so I could show the raw emotion on the actors. I
also had to use different types of lighting to show the different moods of the scenes. At the end of
mine I have a darker low light type of lighting and in the middle scenes they are bight as there isn’t
anything bad happing at that current time.

Characters
To create the characters in my production I made character profiles that give information about the
characters and who they are. There are five characters in my production as I wanted to keep the cast
small as I could to make sure I was relying on less people and it works with my narrative. The two
protagonist characters have detailed character profiles so that I could involve points from the
profiles in my production If I wanted to, this also helped by giving character depth in my production
and ensured that the characters are believable. The side characters profiles aren’t as detailed as they
aren’t as important so there is little information about them.

Looking at the answers I got in my survey I can see that overall the answer was that yes the
characters are believable for the most part. Most answers agreed that my acting was good and the
characters worked for the most part the general answer is that the characters are relevant and
believable which is great as I tried very hard to make that happen. People said that the characters
were realistic and that they were believable which is great. This was great news to me as I had to use
so many back-up actors and I had to take loads out is well. My characters are kind of the same to
the ones in “the impossible” as they are both real live event and then in the way that they are not
the same, is that in “the impossible” all the main characters survive the tsunami and found each
other in the end whereas in mine the main character doesn’t survive the attack and she dies. My
charters are also teenagers and the ones in film are adults and children with the oldest being around
14. I did audition all the right actors to be my piece as I didn’t have to change my main actor boys I
only changed my main actor girl and that was before I had even don’t the auditions so I did in the
end just have every one as I had planned.

Style
I wanted a good style to my production as I wanted to make it seem as professional as I could and I
wanted to do it in the style I wanted to chose was emotional/ sad. This is due to the topic that I’m
doing so it wont fall under categories like comedy or romance as someone is getting murdered in the
end of it. Of course a murder is going to sad and emotional and I want my audience to connect with
the main character who is the that gets stabbed at he end of my production

As you can see most people agreed that they like the style of it and that I had edited it quite well. In
the end just have it as a emotional style but I could of made it so much better different and longer
clips of the characters when they are just by themselves, but I didn’t get to do so I will know for next
time to go into depth with the characters’ lives like they do in “murder by numbers” and also “the
impossible”.

Target audience
My target audience for my production is between the ages of 15-19 this is because I am going to be
showing a stabbing and also as I am going to be using some strong language in my production. I felt
like 15- 19 was a good age as that I kind of the age when people start getting into trouble and they
also get a freer reign. By that I mean that they are allowed to stay out later and they can do what
they like really so that is a path to cause trouble. I sent out this survey to make sure that my target
audience was correct and that they could give feed back on the production that I had created. The
British broadcast age range for film also know as the BBFC. At the BBFC, there focus is on helping
children and families choose well by providing them with the guidance they need to help them
choose what’s right for them and avoid what’s not. With the huge growth in film, video and online
content, and in how and where we can watch and use it, this is becoming more important than ever.
Through their experience, regular consultations and research, they are careful to reflect the views of
people right across the country. They understand what matters to families and apply this knowledge
in setting their standards. They take the integrity and impartiality of their work very seriously and
over the more than 100 years of our history, they have increasingly come to be recognised as the go-
to guide that people can trust. The structure of the BBFC and its management is designed to both
reflect and reinforce this. I definitely thin that my characters that I have created suit the native
structure and the age range that I have picked this is because the actors that I have used are 17 and
this is I the same age category as my target audience. As you can see from my research
As you can see from the screenshot of my survey that everyone was between the ages of 17-25. This
is good as they are my target audience category.

Aesthetics

Lots of my feed back said that liked the locations that I used which was the main focus of my
aesthetics and that is one of the key parts of the story line. I had to use most of the location where
Jodie Chesney was in and about and for the last scene for example I had to do it in a park because
she was murdered in

I didn’t use the actual park and locations that she got stabbed as I couldn’t get to places and I also
didn’t have anyone it goes with and also my actors couldn’t get there either.

In some scenes like this one, I have purposely place alcohol bottles on the table to make the
audience see that these kids are reckless.

I made the actors dress quite casual as they are normal teens and, in the stories, you can see that
Jodie wears normal clothes that aren’t posh but aren’t just average clothes that you could get at like
Primark. Most of the boys are wearing tracksuit bottoms that are all branded and then the girls are
wearing plain clothing that has no brand at all. This is because the type of people, the boys are
“roadmen” and roadmen wear branded stuff and they most of the time wear tracksuit bottoms. I am
playing the role of Jodie so when I was going on camera I made sure that had as little brands as
possible so that I could relate to the character
 Creative
I like to think that my idea is very creative and that, even though it is loosely based on something, I still had to
come up with the script, the story boards, the locations and half of the narrative myself. As it is based off of
someone’s life and their death, I have the ending which is obviously when she gets stabbed and then I had to
come with the rest of the story like what does she do 5-day prior to the stabbing. This was quite hard as had to
make up scripted conversations as I wanted to be a natural a possible and not have it sound robotic.

Over all they seen to agree that the idea of my production was very creative and also that they enjoyed
watching it. I used a lot of different transition in my production to show the passing of time for example I did a
transition from when the boys are in the garden centre to when they are then sat at Cameron’s house talking.
That is creative as instead of me doing a long clip that could last over ten to twenty minutes I have used a
transition to jump to the different.
 Comparation-“The impossible”
Differences:

I am going to be comparing my work to the docudrama I analysed earlier in my project called “The
impossible” there is a lot of differences however there are also similarities in terms of
professionalism. Starting with differences obviously the entire narrative and story are completely
different, my production is based on a stabbing in London and “The impossible” is based on a 2004
tsunami in Thailand my production also has two strangers as the main characters and in the
impossible it is a mother and a son. The impossible uses lots of close up shots that saw emotion
really like when they are being rushed down a flooded road and he is trying to get to mis mum and
he is frightened where as in my production the main close up shot is used when Terry is angry that
he friends haven’t payed him back.

this is so that you can see that the emotion on the actors facs and so that you can connect to them
on personal level . The impossile uses much better colour grading than I do as im mine ther is 4
camera colours where as there is only on one or two and it normally changes when they go in the
water, I should have done in my own more but I did not how to colour grade as much. There are
more characters in “The impossible” compared to my own production, I have five characters
whereas the impossible has over five, main and supporting characters.

Similarities:

There is also a lot of similarities between my production and The impossible. One of the main
similarities is that we follow Todorov's Narrative theory. Todorov's Narrative theory suggests that all
narratives follow a three part structure where they begin with an Equilibrium, where everything is
alright and balanced, then something will disrupt the equilibrium and things will be off balance,
there is then a recognition and then that restores the order. There narrative is basically a family goes
on holiday to Thailand for Christmas and then plan to
stay form a few more days after that. There is the a
scene in the film where the family is out playing by the
pool and the mum’s sat reading when here book page
fly’s away and when she goes to get it she sees the trees
falling and the ground starts to shake and then the
tsunami hits, it then destroys the whole village and the
town that they are staying in. you then see clips for her
and her son who find each other after being apart for a
short while and you see then see a lot of screen time of
them and how the mum is very injured and she is losing a lot of blood. Then you see that the day is
with the two other boys and they are trying to find his wife and other son. Then right at the end they
all find each other at the hospital and it ends with the family going home to get the mum treated.
That is the actually story about a family and it is loosely based off there adventure. As I didn’t know
who this girl was and she was just a news report that I had to gather as much information as I could
and I did the stabbing as well as I could to the actual life event. I did do my story where it was a day a
time then it leadup to her getting stabbed.
 How suited I am to the media industry
Overall, I have picked up a few skills that make me suitable for the media industry and in all honesty
I believe I do have a lot of things that I need to work on in order to make it into the industry I will
need to complete my second year first to make sure I am fully ready for the media industry. My
editing skills are alright so far I still do have to ask occasionally where they are in the software, they
still need developing however as seen in my work I have consistently been working hard throughout
the year, my main focus has been editing developing but for this project I was looking at lighting and
camera angles. I have made lot of advances with footage and audio editing through Adobe Premier
Pro, through using these industries standard software’s I have developed my skills quit well. In my
camerawork I have definitely become much better at it as I have learned from specialism research;
what angles to use, why I should use them, locations, pull focus, and camera movement, shot types,
camera positioning and more. I have developed my camerawork skills as I have filmed a lot of my
work and I told the filmers how had to film me how to do it. I can film my own productions to a fairly
high standard and this reflects in the work I have done throughout the year. I have also developed
my lighting; however, I wish to develop it a lot more in the second year as I have not spent any time
on it this year. Another thing that I need to develop on in the second year is time management this is
because I do fall back occasionally and I forget about certain tasks, because I am so behind. This will
need to be vastly improved if I want to make it into the industry so throughout second year, I’m
going to make sure that do all my tasks on time