Stop Motion and Short Film Evaluation

We were given a main topic ‘British Youth’ to create our productions on. I chose to do my
productions on Social Media as it affects many youthful people every day. Both of my
productions have been uploaded to YouTube to show how I will have progressed in college.
To be able to achieve a good stop motion you have to have the patience as it takes very long
to complete it. I did quite a short stop motion however it took me a while to complete it as I
was getting used to the technique and wanted it to look good, so I took a bit of time to make
it. People make short films every day, they can take a while to film and edit but I found it fun
to create mine as I was learning whilst doing it. To make a good short film, you have to
research your topic that you have chosen in order to make it seem realistic and so that
people will understand the storyline better. Different shot types and camera angles can add
to the quality of the video to make it seem a little bit more interesting than what it was
before adding them.

The brief was to put together a 30 second stop motion of the topic that you had chosen.
Obviously, this means that I had to make one about Social Media, so I asked my target
audience what they wanted to see in mine so I could make it somehow relatable to them.
For my Short Film, we had to create a 3–5 minute film to show another way of portraying
the topic. I demonstrated my short film by making the character use their phone constantly
to show and make people realise that they need to reduce their screen-time that they spend
on the phone daily.

For my stop motion, I made a girl out of plasticine and used her to show how she was
affected my social media. My stop motion demonstrates how she gets many likes and
comments from pictures she posts but still seems very sad, this shows people that others
online could post happy things to hide their emotions and to make people think that they
are fine. I could have improved how the character looks or used a different material like a
lego figure. However, I like how I used different camera angles to display the story that I was
trying to communicate to the audience as it gives it a bit more character.

This scene in my stop motion worked well as it is

clear that it is showing the girl receiving
notifications from people.

Whereas, in this scene, I could have added a bit

more to it as it is just the character walking around
looking sad.
For my Short Film, I produced a production about a male character never paying attention to
the world around him as he is always looking down at his phone. This may help others to
realise that they shouldn’t be on their phone constantly and should spend time with their
loved ones away from their phones.

I like this scene as I used a time-lapse to

show that he just woke up and went on
his phone straight away.

In this scene, I could have used better

lighting as it is quite dark, and you can’t
see the characters face that well.

I think I used a few techniques from the

short films that I researched, such as this
camera angle. I used this in my short film
to let the audience know what he was
doing on the phone however I could
have used a more relevant post in the
scene as it was just something random
that he was looking at.

From the responses that I have received, I think the audience enjoyed both of my
productions as it exhibits Social Media affectively and some people related to them.
In my Stop Motion, people suggested that I should have moved more of the body of the
character to make it look realistic when she was walking instead of it looking like she was
sliding. For my Short Film, it was suggested that a bigger event could have happened at the
end or to make a build up for the event at the end to be more emotional. It was also
suggested that there could have been more slightly less serious events to happen.

From this Unit, I have learnt many new things that I can use in the future. One of the main
parts that I learnt whilst doing my stop motion, was learning how to batch process my
photos. In my stop motion, I would keep using different camera angles to make it more
interesting to watch. I would also add a voiceover to a stop motion that I make in the future
to make sure that the audience follow along with the storyline. However, I would make each
part of it to look more realistic. To improve my short film, I could have switched up the
camera angles as I mostly stuck with a long shot throughout the video. But overall I am very
pleased with my outcomes.