LO3 - Evaluation

Weekly blog updates are required, as with every unit. Please remember to
take photos/screenshots as you film/edit. You might find it easier if you note down a record
of what you did each day in a diary form.

Please use the following guidance to help you with each week.
THESE MUST BE COMPLETED IN DETAIL. INCLUDE IMAGES AND BE
SPECIFIC!

Week 1 This week was spent on idea generation

What have you been asked to do? This week we have been asked to generate ideas for the
BeCreative unit, to start with we had to pick from 3 mediums:
 Short film
 Music Video
 Animation
And pick between a target audience of 5-12 year olds and 40-60
year olds.

After picking of 2 of the 3 mediums we had to generate 3 ideas

Why have you chosen this target
audience?
What two productions have you decided
to make? How do they allow you to
improve your skills?
for each, I picked Short Film and Music video. After coming up
with 6 ideas in general I completed a focus group and sent a
survey out for feedback on these ideas to help me later pick the
final two. I created a production schedule and finally wrote my
proposal for my final ideas and extended my explanation on them
slightly.
I chose 40-60 for my target audience for 2 reasons, the first being
that I don’t know many people within the age range of 5-12, most
people in my life are older than me and I could get the most
accurate results using a group of people I was more familiar with
and had the most access to. The second reason I choose 40-60
year olds is related to the two mediums I chose, I wanted to pick
two productions that would be beneficial for me to produce, both
a short film and a music video allow me to explore with
cinematography and visuals a lot better than I feel doing an
animation would. I feel like this age range would be much more
inclined to watch something with carefully thought through
visuals more than an animation, to me this seemed like
something the younger target audience would have enjoyed
more; and if I had chosen 5-12 I would have most definitely
considered.
As mentioned above I’ve decided to make a Music Video and a
Short film to help me with my chosen specialism from the
previous unit. Last unit I chose to go into directing and
cinematography as these are something I am looking to go into in
the future, I thought it would be helpful for me to carry this on
for this unit, not only to familiarise myself with it more before
taking the path at uni, but to also use all the information I have

How did the focus groups help you to
select your idea?
Are you on track for the week?
What work needs to be completed for
you to catch up?
Week 2
What did you find out about your target
audience through your secondary
research?
How will this help you in adapting your
idea to meet the chosen audience?
How useful was interviewing people
gathered from doing a large amount of research
on it and using the BeCreative unit to play
around with it slightly and see what works
before this years FMP. Allowing me to improve
my skills massively, although this unit is still
very important, especially in current times; it
still allows me room for improvement and
learning. Making two different productions in such a short
amount of time is something I am defiantly going to find
challenging but in the long run I know will benefit me hugely.
Both Productions I have decided to make were chosen because I
thought they would benefit me the most in allowing me to
improve my skills, I feel as if I had done an animation, although
fun, it wouldn’t have helped me too much within a
cinematography aspect, at least not the end of it that I am looking
into going into.
I carried out two focus groups, one on each production I was
intending on making. The feedback I got was varied as it
definitely could have been better but I think this was a mistake
on my half as the questions I asked didn’t allow enough depth for
answers to tell me what I was looking for. The overall tone I got
from my focus groups was that all ideas would work and would
be suited to my target audience. I used the surveys I created to
further pick my final ideas as they were much more beneficial to
me.
I am
I am caught up
This week was spent researching target audiences
I carried out secondary research this week, although I found my
primary research much more helpful and factual, the secondary
research told me a lot about the generation as a whole, a majority
of 40-60 year olds fit into the category of “Generation X” I
carried out my secondary research on Gen X because from my
primary research I found out that I reached more 40-50 year olds
than 50-60 year olds and because Gen X are ages 40-55, this felt
the most beneficial to me.
This will be helpful when adapting my idea further because I
have allowed myself to deepen my knowledge within a
generation I was particularly unfamiliar with; deepening this
knowledge has allowed me to get a better understanding of their
watching habits and common likes and interests, as a filmmaker
this is helpful for many reasons. When creating for a target
audience that you personally don’t fit into, it can be very difficult
to produce something that they would enjoy, by researching into
their habits, traits and personalities a bit more, you can begin to
think about how to adapt your ideas and your style to match
something that the set audience would be interested in.
Obviously, this is extremely important because different
generations have clearly different watching habits and if aiming
for a set audience you need to look into this and match it,
otherwise your less likely to achieve within that audience.
I found the interviewing process the most helpful. Two of my
from your chosen target audience?
Was it difficult to get a large response to
your survey? How could you improve
the amount of respondents for your
FMP?
What have you found to be the key
things that you should be targeting your
audience with? What makes this
audience different to the one you never
chose?
Are you on track for the week?
What work needs to be completed in
your own time?
Week 3
What genres have you chosen and why?
interviewees; Nik and Nicola Goodman gave
me such in depth and constructive feedback
from the questions I had asked them that I left
the interview feeling much more confident in
both my music video and my short film ideas.
Although only 2/5 of my interviews felt
comfortable with me recording their face, I still
had permission to record the audio for all 5. As all that
particularly mattered is being able to hear what is being said, this
wasn’t much of an issue for me personally, however, did make it
more difficult to edit. Making sure I picked people within the age
range of my target audience was extremely important as this was
an opportunity for me to have a sit down conversation with
someone aged 40-60 and have a genuine chat about what they
would like to see, rather than feeling more limited within a
survey, this allowed room for us both to express opinions more
freely.
Personally, I did struggle to get a large response to my survey. I
ended up with 24 responses when the aim was 30-50. Although
24 was still helpful for me and gave me the information that I
needed to be able to understand what the target audience wanted,
I think in order for me to improve on this and get more responses
for my FMP would be to send the survey out as early as possible
to allow for maximum time and people to see it, I also would ask
people to share the survey once they have completed it. This
ensures my survey would get the most coverage possible.
From my research, I found out that my target audience has a few
key points that I need to make sure I include within my
production, this being.
 Thought provoking
 Dark but not explicitly violent
 Good use of colour
These key points would be quite the opposite (for the most part)
if I had picked the other target audience of 5-12-year olds.
Although it still would have been important for me to create
something thought provoking with a good use of colour, it would
have had to be done in the complete opposite tone to what I am
aiming to do with my target audience. Clearly the “not explicitly
violent” applies to the other target audience of 5-12 as well. For
my production with 40-60 year olds as my set target audience, I
have decided a darker narrative that gets you thinking more
psychologically with darker colours to suggest uncertainty and to
match the dark themes. If I were creating for the other target
audience of 5-12 I would pick a lot brighter colours and a happy
upbeat soundtrack to make the productions cheerful and light-
hearted.
yes
n/a
This week was spent researching codes and conventions
For my two productions I have picked different genres. My short
film is a Thriller and my music video a coming of age/ drama.

What have you learnt from your
secondary research this week?
How will this influence what you include
in your productions?
What are the key conventions for your
chosen genres? What MUST you include
for it to be that genre?
I chose these genres based on the feedback I
got last week from my focus groups and my
surveys, as well as the secondary research on
the chosen target audience. I think I picked the
genres very well as they both are quite broad
genres to go into and allow for a lot of
experimental room. Considering this is the final
bit of playing around we get to do before our FMP I am glad I
have chosen genres that’ll help me learn and expand my
knowledge into filmmaking and as well as leaning new things, if
my productions go well it could push me to do a similar genre for
my FMP.
I have learnt quite a bit from my primary research this week.
Especially within the sound category. We analysed clips from
well know films and focused just on the sound from them. This
was eye opening to me because I hadn’t really thought about how
experimental you could be with sound until this, for example, I
had watched “A Quiet Place” in 2018 when it first came out and
had thoroughly enjoyed it, it wasn’t until this week when I sat
down to analyse it, that I realised how much of an impact sound
can make to a film. The way that John Krasinski wrote a deaf
character into the narrative then completely took this a whole
opportunity to play around with the sound is so admirable and
has opened my eyes completely. I didn’t know that it was
possible to make the audience feel quite as much from sound,
obviously music is very important in setting a tone whether that
be happy or sad, but the use of external sound and more
specifically where these sounds are and aren’t being used was
completely eye opening and quite possibly something I would be
willing to try in my FMP if I came up with a narrative to
accommodate it.
I have learnt what is necessary within the genre of my
productions. Obviously, sound doesn’t play a part in my music
video however, locations will play a huge role in this. The way
that location in used in genres differ massively and it is important
to get this right in order to articulate your narrative in a music
video and film where no dialogue can do so. This has Influenced
my use of location for my productions massively and has put a
much clearer picture of the end result in my head, an example of
this would be that for my music video I am looking to include
comparison shots of a happy childhood with a much more
isolated adulthood; a perfect example of a location to use for this
would be a large open field, as a child this would represent
freedom but as an adult it shows how alone you are in a world so
big and I think it would be a perfect comparison shot for my
production in order to help tell the narrative.
For a Thriller I would say that:
 Darker tones of lighting
 Times of absolute silence
 Confined spaces as a location
 Higher pitched sting sounds for music.
For a coming of age/drama music video
 Wide open locations
 Make it relatable
 Lighter tones of lighting (childhood)
 Darker tones for the drama parts

Are you on track for the week?
What work needs to be completed in
your own time?
Week 4
What have you learnt from your primary
research this week?
These conventions will all play a part in
making sure my productions stick within their
genres. This is extremely important for both of
mine as essentially, they are both silent
productions. No dialogue to assist in either of
them, therefore it is critical to get this right.
yes
n/a
This week was spent researching codes and conventions
From my research this week, I’ve learnt a lot about the typical
codes and conventions of the genres that I’m going into. For my
short film this being thriller and for my music video this having
more of a coming of age/drama feel to it. It was important for me
to research into these conventions for the specific genres that I
am going to create so that I can produce my productions to the
highest standard possible. When doing my analysis on the short
films I discovered that you didn’t have to stay typical within your
narrative as long as you stuck to the codes and conventions of the
genre. For example, the first film that I analysed being more of a
thriller-comedy and the other two being more of a horror-thriller
or a typical thriller. For the short films alone, although they all
had different narratives and subgenres to them, the main codes
and conventions stayed the same through out all three pieces.
Majority of this being within the cinematography which was
particularly interesting for me to analyse as this was a specialism
that I had studied previously. In a way it was eye-opening for me
to be able to see how to produce something of quite a simple
narrative but make the production much more complex using
purely cinematography as my short film is going to include no
dialogue. In all three of these short films there wasn’t much use
of colour, the shots seemed to remain within a more dark and
gloomy atmosphere and if colour was used it tended to be a
cooler tone. There were a few moments in some of the films
where more warmer colours were being used but this tended to
be in comparison with the cooler tones or used as a way to trick
the audience into thinking the piece was that of a lighter, more
warmer tone its self. Again, as I can have no dialogue in my
music videos the typical conventions the genre are particularly
important. As well as lighting, I feel like framing is particularly
important, especially when wanting to show that someone feels
more isolated and alone. In the music video of ‘Rue’ by Girl in
Red, there is a wide shot of Marie running through a field that
makes her look tiny in comparison to the amount of grass like
she is being drowned in the grass and I think this is extremely
powerful considering the music video is about her feeling lost
within her own mind and wanting to escape that. Again, for my
music video I found this particularly inspirational for creating
this sense of loneliness and isolation without explicitly saying it.
For my music videos, again the lighting made a huge impact on
the tone of the piece, especially when analysing ‘Robbers’ by
The 1975 in which you were able to work out the state of Matty’s
mind with the lighting and the framing combined. I thought this

What developments do you need to make
to your production for it to meet these
codes and conventions requirements?
How did processing the results of your
research help you to understand it
thoroughly?
was particularly smart and was something I
wanted to carry into my music video as the
narrative stays fairly the same, that being
someone who feels that they have lost
themselves in the world and does not care about
the impact of their actions as they are too in
their own head. Without being able to explicitly
say this is a very difficult thing to get right and I feel that Marie
(Girl in Red) managed to do this perfectly.
For my productions, I need to further develop my techniques
when it comes to the cinematography to successfully meet the
codes and conventions of both genres. I feel like it is particularly
important as both of these do not include dialogue, it heightens
the amount that the audience is relying on the cinematography to
give them these clues into how the characters are feeling.
Although I have actors acting the emotions out, nothing is being
verbally put across to the audience and lighting especially is
going to help me convey these emotions through the screen. As
I’m starting the planning next week, I haven’t thought too much
into the details of my productions just yet. However, I have
thought of certain shots for certain moods I want to create. For
example, in my short film I want to include a red room as it is
about stalking and I feel it would be quite impactful to have the
stalker be in a red room developing pictures of their victim. Not
only do I think this would make a good shot, the lighting being
mainly red helps to represent the desire and the power that the
starker has for/over the victim but also it more so represents the
danger and the warning tone to the piece. I am thinking of having
this scene very early on and I think that using the red this soon
into the production will help foreshadow the cliff-hanger at the
end. For my music video, I want the scenes that are flashbacks to
the main characters childhood to have warm tones with bright
lights and airy shots and I want the current day scenes to have a
much cooler tone to the lighting and the shots to be more zoomed
in and focused on the characters face rather than on the setting
they are in.
Processing the results of this research has helped me understand
the codes and conventions a lot more thoroughly than I had
before. We went into research about this in first year however, I
took it upon myself to dive deeper within this research as
cinematography was the specialism I looked into as well as
directing and it felt particularly important to me. Again, both my
productions include no dialogue so getting these codes and
conventions correct is something that I really need to do in order
to achieve a higher grade for these productions. I understand that
these codes and conventions are what the audience are expecting
from a certain genre. for me this being thriller and coming of
age/drama, I took my research into these genres rather than
looking at genres as a whole. For thrillers, the audience expects
to feel tense and they expect darker shots and things hiding in the
shadows. Whereas coming of age, you think of lighter shots and
wider shots as it is a lighter tone. It was quite difficult when
thinking of the codes and conventions from a music video as I
was combining two genres that never really have been seen
together in a music video this closely before, so there were not
very many examples to go off. However, I think that it is going to
work really well if I blend the conventions of each genre
seamlessly together. The blending of the two conventions sort of
make a new convention in themselves and I feel like this is
something I am going to be able to achieve with the amount of

Are you on track for the week?
What work needs to be completed in
your own time?
Week 5
What did you learn from your planning?
How will this be useful as your
production process continues?
What issues did you encounter whilst
planning and how did you overcome
them?
How much work did you complete
outside of the lessons?
Are you ready to film next week and if
not, what do you need to complete to be
ready?
Are your storyboards up to standard?
Week 6
research that I have put into these conventions.
yes
n/a
This week was spent planning your productions
This week we began our planning for both of the upcoming
productions. I learnt quite a lot from the planning process.
Personally I found it easier to storyboard my Music video before
I wrote the script for it, this being because I had a lot of the shots
already figured out in my head and getting them drawn down
with the timing of the lyrics in the description helped me fill in
the gaps quicker than I would have if I had written the script first,
this allowed me to quickly complete the shooting script but still
to a high standard, this being important as I needed to begin
writing my full script for my short film
This is helpful because it has helped me manage my time better.
For example, I knew that I was going to be filming my music
video next week so I could work on the pre production work in a
higher amount of detail as I knew I would have time when I’m
not filming to complete the pre production work for my short
film. There will be days next week when I am not filming and am
in college, these days will be dedicated to my short film planning
as my music video planning is thoroughly competed.
The main issue was the actor auditions, obviously due to Covid-
19 there as restrictions of who you can meet and where you can
meet, I chose people who I am close who were up for the part as
this felt the safest for me, these being people I’m bubbled with in
a college/work environment and people I am bubbled with in a
family environment, these being drama students from the
LGBTQ+ club that I attend as I am already in contact with them
and my girlfriend and her sibling as once again they are within
my family bubble. This was a huge compromise to my piece as I
would have preferred older actors however, this didn’t feel safe
to me at the current times.
I completed a majority of the work outside of lessons. My laptop
decided not to work for two lessons this week meaning I had a lot
of work to catch up on at home, this being the script and location
recces, which in my opinion take the longest, luckily due to
already having the music video storyboards completed in lesson,
the music video script didn’t take up too much time outside of
my lesson time.
I am ready to film my music video next week, I have to buy a
prop gun at the weekend but a part from that, very ready to film
my music video, not so ready to film my short film just yet as I
need to finalise some things, however I am filming that the week
after so will hopefully be ready by then, I am filming my short
film at the Tate in London so have booked my tickets for the day
in advance, ensuring my spot.
I still need to finish my storyboard for my short film but my
music video storyboard is completed and to a high, detailed
standard.
This week was spent filming
How did you find the filming process?
Did you encounter any problems during
filming? How did you overcome them?
After reviewing footage, what do you
feel you need to reshoot?
What new techniques from your previous
units have you tried to use?
Are the locations you filmed at suitable
to your production?
Are you keeping up with your production
schedule?
What footage still needs capturing?
Week 7
This week I felt that the filming process went
pretty well- after not filming properly for
college in months due to the pandemic and
summer, it felt good to get back into it and I felt
a shift in my vision towards it. I had a lot of
time over the year to really sit and think about
what I wanted to achieve from film and after deciding to carry it
on for uni, I felt a lot more motivated to push myself and see
where that could take me. Already from the first week of filming
I have noticed an improvement in my production work and im
excited to see how this turns out.
This weekend I was supposed to film the childhood scenes for
my music video but have come into an issue where one of the
people I am filming with has been told to self isolate until their
test results come back negative or after 14 days. This is
obviously a huge set back as it throws a spanner in how I have
organised to film, I was planning to do my music video this week
and focus all on the short film next week however I am going to
have to move the music video filming around to either the
weekend after, if results are negative or after Christmas. I
overcame this issue quite quickly by just being able to accept the
fact I could not physically do anything else about it other than
create a plan for the weekend after (best case scenario) or plan
for after Christmas.
For my music video this week I am happy with the footage that I
got, I do have to film again with Libby after Christmas once I
have filmed the childhood scenes so I can stick to my narrative of
this picture, this will obviously depend on COVID-19 restrictions
at the time because everything seems quite uncertain right now.
As I chose directing and cinematography as my specialism, this
is something I really thoroughly wanted to progress with and see
a huge improvement within. I wanted to really push myself with
the shots I would be taking and take a more creative and artsy
way around my productions for this unit as this unit is the last
time before FMP that I am experiment and see what works and
what doesn’t work.
The locations that I picked for my music video are very minimal
as I felt it would to tell the story a lot better. The two locations I
picked contrast massively with each other, one being inside a
small cramped house, the other being a large open field. These
are suitable for my production as they mirror exactly what the
characters are feeling, as a child it is this sense of freedom and
being small in such a large world and having such an open mind
about things. As the older character it is about feeling trapped
and suffocated in a world you have no control over. I feel as
though the location match these emotions very well.
For the most part yes, I stuck to it this week and I am still on
track to filming my short film when scheduled next week but as
previously mentioned I am going to have to reschedule parts of
my music video due to an actor needing to self isolate.
I still need to film the whole of my short film which is what next
week is dedicated to. Then from the music video just the
childhood scenes and possibly one small scene with Libby if it’s
possible to keep to the narrative of the script.
This week was spent filming
How did you find the filming process?
Did you encounter any problems during
filming? How did you overcome them?
After reviewing footage, are you happy
with what you have captured?
Have the techniques you planned on
using turned out well?

Week 8 This week was spent editing

How are you finding the editing process

this week?
Have you encountered any problems
whilst editing? How did you overcome
them?
Are there any new techniques you are
trying to use during this editing process?
Are you on track with all of your work?
What work needs to be completed
outside of lessons?

Week 9 This week was spent editing

How did you finding the editing process?

Have you encountered any problems
whilst editing? How did you overcome
them?
Are you happy with the outcome of your
productions? Why?
How did your productions meet your
target audience?
What aspects of your productions could
have been better targeted to your
audience?
How effectively have you matched the
codes and conventions you researched
earlier in the unit?
How do you feel your work compares to
existing professional productions?
Are there any areas where your
production falls short? How would you
improve it next time?
What have you learnt about yourself to
take into the Final Major Project? What
do you personally need to improve on?
Are you on track with all of your work?
What work needs to be completed
outside of lessons?
Week 10 This week you pitched

How did you choose to pitch your idea?

What made your pitch stand out and be
different? Why would it convince
someone to invest?
How did the pitch go?
Is there anything you would do
differently in your next pitch?