Evaluation

Your intentions – what did you intend on making and why?

For my final major project, I wanted to push myself more than I had at any
other point in the units previous. As the FMP (final major project) was a way
of showcasing every skill we have learnt throughout the year, I wanted to
use this as an opportunity to put this to the test and really show myself my
ability. I decided that a short film would be the best way for me to do so. I
felt as if this medium was perfect for me to be able to put in everything I
had learnt and push it to a high standard, I contemplated the genre for a
while, it was important to me to make sure my genre was going to allow me
that room to push myself and allow diversity in narrative.

I decided that a short thriller film was where I wanted to go with my FMP,
not only was this something I would have fun doing but also a genre that I
believe would be extremally captivating for my target audience, as a short
film it was important to keep the attention running throughout but also just
as important to make sure there wasn’t an overload of information towards
the audience that could come across as overwhelming and confusing.
Personally, I think that thriller was the perfect genre for that. I went with a
fairly simple narrative idea to start with and decided that I would expand
out from this idea and adapt it in ways I felt would make it more
professional and would up the standard of my final idea. I wanted to start
simple because it was a completely achievable solid base and there was
less room to make mistakes, for example if I created a complex idea and
didn’t plan and propose the idea correctly, this would immediately effect my
work ethic and motivation, ultimately the quality of my work and
subsequently my end grade.

Most of my favourite and most inspirational films I have watched have been
horror/thriller, these were films that have really spoke to me as a aspiring
filmmaker and I think this was a huge reason as to why I wanted to create
my own within the same genre. Not only did I want to create a more thrilling
aspect to a production, I also wanted that feeling of nostalgia and
friendship, although at the end of my piece this was betrayed, I still tried to
make this a strongly noted theme. It makes it a lot more relatable to the
audience as no matter what people are going through, turning a film on and
watching a typical “coming of age” esc friendship is something really
warming and makes you feel connected. This is something I wanted to
achieve and make the audience feel like they could relate and feel close to
it.
How did you use your findings from your research to plan a production?

I used a variety of findings to help plan my production. One of the most

important findings I used to help plan would have been my research on the
medium. I feel as if this work helped me find out a lot more about short films
in general and also the history of shorts and how they progressed into what
they have become today, without the research regarding my chosen
medium, I think that my overall planning wouldn’t be to the standard it is at
right now. The reason I think this helped me so much is because I got a
huge understanding into why short films were made and what
messages/impacts they are supposed to convey in such a short amount of
time for a film.

As you can see from the screen shot above, short films are good at creating
a bond between audience and narrative/characters and although full length
films are still capable of doing so, it tends to be more apparent in shorts due
to some limitations shorts have, for example, it would be extremally hard to
create a film 40 mins and under with more than like 2 main characters due
to simply not having enough time to introduce them and their background
to the audience, I think that because in shorts you typically have these 1 or
2 main people, its easier to quickly become attached to them. This helped in
planning my production because I knew that I didn’t have to come up with
lots of character profiles for many different characters and could focus on
making the profiles for my two mains more complex and thorough.
Another finding I would say helped me to plan my production would be
the platform study, this was research that I carried out in order to find
the best platform to upload my final production to (had the current
pandemic not taken place). I felt it was important to get an
understanding of these platforms because there would be no point in
uploading and showcasing my work on a platform that no one used,
especially not my target audience, to help me in these findings I completed
both primary and secondary research towards platforms and sent these out
to my target audience specifically, this ensured I got the best and most
valuable feedback I could.

The most common answer I received was YouTube being the most popular
platform that my target audience had seen short films on but social medias
being a close second, which was surprising to me. After my primary
research and communicating with my audience, I decided to take it to
secondary research about the two most popular platforms that I received.
This was immensely helpful regarding the planning of my production. It was
helpful to my planning to know about these platforms because I needed to
know if there were any limitations or requirements to do so, would some
platforms cost me to upload on or would it be free. Both YouTube and IGTV
(a form of social media uploading) would be free for me to put my work out
there. YouTube has further, simple age restriction rules That I would have
followed and the only limitation with IGTV would be no longer than a 60-
minute upload, which when referring to a short film would work perfectly
fine.

Other notable findings would have been research into the context and
artists I admire, which all helped me further my planning for my production.
Although each of these findings were extremally necessary and helpful
towards my planning, the context was arguably one of the most important.
Due to wanting my production to have the psychological aspect to it and to
have a character who was showing mild psychopathic behaviours, it was
essential that I did research on these topics. In order for myself to achieve a
realistic piece of work, I didn’t want to create something using those sort of
behavioural issues without doing research on it before hand and finding how
this was portrayed in the best way possible normalize these behaviours as
real things and not just follow the typical approach to these sort of topics.
As my film involved the days repeating, structure was something I needed
to add to my context research, having never followed something of this
structure before it was important to plan it into my production well and was
something that defiantly needed the
research on as it was such a new thing to me and again, was something
I felt that without the research it wouldn’t be to the standard I met.

As for the artists I admire, this helped me plan some aspects into my
production that I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of without referring
back to those that got me into the subject in the first place.

This is in relation to Edgar Wrights films ‘Baby Driver’ & ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs the
World.’ Music is a huge part of these films and tie them together very
professionally and is something I really look up to in Wrights work, this is
also something I planned massively into my work and quickly became
something the plot of my narrative ran around. I think music can have such
a huge impact into a film and when done correctly makes a huge difference
to the quality of the film. Without going to back to where this all began with
the films and artists that I admire the most, I don’t think my FMP would have
the same outcome as it did with this research. So was one hundred percent
something that was important to plan into my production as I feel it made it
all come together. After receiving some feedback from somebody who I
trust would give me their entirely honest opinions, music was something
that they picked up on and said worked well in my piece.

This was reassuring to see

someone else had picked
up on this and the impact I
personally Intended on
creating.

Why would your production have met the needs of your target audience?
I feel as if my production would have met the needs of my target
audience because during the planning phase I did some research
regarding my target audience, most of this was done through primary
research and to my audience directly. For example, I put out a
questionnaire on my Instagram as well as a few surveys. The content of
the surveys varied but the Instagram questions were used to create an
audience profile, this allowed me to build up a better understanding of my
audience and understand their habits.

I asked the age of everyone before they continued to answer the questions,
the pie chart below was a piece of data that I created once I had got over 30
responses, the range in ages that I received was from 13-23 years old. The
most common ages were both 16 and 17 years old, making the perfect
audience for a teen thriller. 13 and 14 years both have very low
percentages, this meant I wouldn’t have to worry as much about younger
ages watching something that isn’t targeted towards them however, the
fact that they are still there and active on my Instagram account (which is
somewhere I was planning on uploading the production to) still meant that I
would have to take the precautions and put a viewer’s discretion before the
production due to possibly graphic/disturbing scenes.

My production would
have met the needs of
my target audience
due to the research I
completed with my
target audience and
what they wanted to
see, on one of the
surveys I put out, I
gave my 3 initial idea
options and the idea
that got the most
votes and the most
positive feedback is
the idea that I have
chosen for my FMP. As well as taking the most popular idea, I took
improvements that people suggested and took some of the good and well
praised aspects of the other two ideas and used this to adapt a narrative to
which I would used for my final idea. I think that using the feedback that my
target audience suggested to create a final idea is a strong way of securing
their needs and making sure that I have met them.

What codes and conventions did you plan into your production?
I planned many codes and conventions into my production, as the genre
I picked to do was a thriller, there were many I intended to follow to
make it clear to the audience. First, I had to research these conventions
and codes, using both primary and secondary research. For my primary
research, I decided I wanted to do a focus group with some people in my
target audiences age range and ask them some questions on what they
expected to see from a thriller, due to the coronavirus my planning of this
focus group soon became something that wouldn’t work, however I was
quick to think of solutions to this issue and decided to hold a quick focus
group on a call, and although it was a call with my friends who didn’t take it
as seriously as people around the college would have, I still ended up with
some valuable information from the group. As well as my primary research I
did look around online at articles regarding the codes and conventions of a
thriller film and once I had put the two together, I has a pretty clear idea on
the generic expectations of a thriller.

The next step was for me to plan these aspects into my production. I think
that some of my conventions I added into my production are more
noticeable than others but personally I think that this adds to my work as
keeps within the thriller category. Some of mine include lighting, the shots
and camera angles. The main thing that stood out to me was costuming, in
my research I read that typically the more sinister character within a
thriller/horror would be dressed in dark clothes from the start to mirror the
darkness of within, this was something I hadn’t really noticed until reading
up on it but is something that is extremely true for majority of films in the
same genre.

In my script this is the first time we are described with that my main
character Justin is wearing, black jeans, with a black band t-shirt and dark
red shoes, this dark red is a hint at what happens later in the narrative.
Another thing that I read up upon was that proxemics make a huge
difference towards the tone of a production, typically smaller proxemics
cause more tension to the audience as they start to feel trapped,
although I didn’t change the proxemics of the locations I used, the
structure of my piece mimics the same feeling of being confined.
Reliving the same day over and over again in a way, is like the proxemics
are metaphorically getting smaller and smaller and this builds up the feeling
of tension towards the audience, which is a huge convention of a thriller and
probably the most important because if there is no tensions, there’s no thrill
aspect. Without the thriller aspect you can’t really class it in the thriller
genre. The fact that the feeling of being stuck and confined causes panic for
a lot of people is reassuring that it’s a convention I have used correctly.

How effective do you feel your planning materials are? Could they be used
by another person to produce your project? If not, what could be improved?

I feel as if my planning was fairly effective considering the adaptations and

altercations regarding the pandemic that we had to follow. The planning
materials that I used for my production were:
• Script
• Storyboards
• Location Recces
• Props and Equipment Lists
• Character Mind Maps

Some of these proving to be more effective than others. My script for

example I think was my strongest and most effective, starting with my
character mind maps first, I created two detailed maps for my characters
with various topics and categories to go into, I spoke about more simple
things like their ages and their interests but also went into a lot of detail
about social classes and family life and well as any conflict they were facing.
This was really helpful when I began to write my script because it gave me a
better understanding of the characters themselves and made writing about
them easier and more natural as I felt as if I knew them personally. The
character mind maps also helped when I asked for feedback on my script.

As there is no visual side to the script it is very

difficult to portray everything about the
characters through it, I think that reading the
mind maps beforehand give you that “visual”
aspect of the characters and made for a really
effective script. I think that with my script and
the character maps, someone else could take them and use it to create a
visual production and the outcome would be similar to what mine would
have turned out to be. I also believe that with the help of my storyboards
and location recces, the end result would be very similar to how I envisioned
it. I made sure to complete my storyboards once I was one hundred percent
happy with my final script and once I had added the feedback, this was to
ensure that my storyboards were a high standard, again the script has no
visual aspect to it other than the imagination of whom is reading, the
storyboards provide a slightly more visual side and would help get the vision
of camera angles and shot types, this would be helpful to another person if
they were to use them to recreate my idea. The location recces could also
be used by another person as they have detail such as postcodes for the
location, and although this wouldn’t be necessary for someone to use, I felt
as again, this was an effective aspect in my planning and it meant I had a
extremally vivid idea to base my script of off, I completed my proposed
locations before the script writing process took place to ensure that I

wasn’t going in totally blind but completed the recces after the script was
complete this was an effective way of working for me personally and I
believed it ensured top quality for my work.

I feel as if my props and equipment lists are probably where I could have
improved the most, I found these the hardest to complete, given the
circumstances. Although my equipment list was well thought through and
had everything, I could think I would need for filming this production, the
equipment list only has one item on it, this item being a very prominent
feature in the film. Looking back on it, I realised that the script in tales more
items that could have been classed as a prop, such as the speaker. I
think this was due to not being able to complete any test shots, it meant
that when following my props plan list and the script side by side, I
would have realised there were props missing to the list. The equipment
list, I think could be used by another person, but the props list wasn’t
done to the best standard or effectively enough for somebody else to follow
and use.

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the work you completed?

There are both strengths and weaknesses of the work I have completed for
my FMP. I personally think that a lot of my LO2 research was a big strength
in my work. I felt as if it helped me get a better insight into what goes into
making a short thriller film and was extremally fascinating to complete, this
not only helped in my motivation to do the work but also made me feel like I
had a better understanding about what I would produce. I think especially
the genre and medium research was some of the strongest work I
completed and helped me massively with creating my own. My LO3
planning for my production is another aspect I felt I have done quite
strongly,, the character mind maps that I completed before starting my
planning, I feel like they add a lot to my work, they also helped my
understand my characters a lot better which further down the planning
line helped me to strengthen the standard of my script.

I think my LO1 work is probably a big weakness within my FMP, my guess

would be due to the coronavirus we had to no longer attend college and had
to quickly adapt our lifestyle and working habits towards the pandemic. This
being the start of the unit was a struggle to try and adapt as quickly as I
needed in order to complete the work, proving as a huge struggle for me
and I believe this is seen in the quality of my work, if the pandemic had not
have taken place as I was in college as usual with the support and help
available, I think that the quality would have improved. However as the LO’s
go and I got more used to working under these conditions, I soon found it
easier to cope and knew where I could reach out to if I needed any more in
depth help again, I think this is seen in my work quality as the unit
progressed.

What areas do you feel you need to improve on most in second year?

Although I learnt a lot in first year, I still think I have a lot to improve on in
second year. A main aspect that I would say still needs a lot of improvement
is my time management, even though I still manage to achieve the
deadlines on time I often found that I leave things to the last minute and
that my work sometimes ends up being rushed. This is something that could
easily be improved if I mange my time correctly and planned accordingly to
set deadlines. I think for second year it would be beneficial if I found ways to
plan out my work slightly better and stick to the plan, make it a part of a
routine and hopefully this would increase the quality and standard of my
work.
I think that another improvement I need to take on board further would
be my detail when analysing and evaluating, even though this is
something I feel I have definitely improved on so far during first year, I
know there is still so much work to be done with it and I know it’ll make a
huge impact in the standard of my work in second year. When I first joined
the college earlier this year, this is something I struggled with massively but
as the year went on I quickly found the right ways of approaching analysing
and evaluating and although this FMP unit is defiantly the best work I have
produced yet, I know I still have so much more potential and this is
something I hope to achieve and watch flourish more in second year.