evaluation

1. EVALUATION
Daniel Thompson

2. PRODUCTION
PROCESS
EVALUATION

3.  Strengths: I personally feel that the strongest area of my research was the survey
that I had created on SurveyMonkey. It allowed me to analyse a group of results
from more than just my own personal opinions and answers. This helped to
broaden my research. Not only was it more than just my own answers but it was
also not just local to my classroom meaning that there is a much lesser chance of
people's answers being influenced by each other. This helped my product
because the research gathered from this survey was independent and gives me a
whole new side to look at in regards to my project.
 The production techniques research also helped me quite a lot during the
research phase. It allowed me to take a detailed look at existing products that
were similar in design and analyse what aspects worked well with others and what
parts of them lacked. This helped the production of my product by giving me
inspiration and ideas of potential lighting tricks, shot types and even plots.
 Weaknesses: Overall, I feel that the weakest area of my research was the
secondary target audience section. This is due to not being able to find much
useful information on the types of films and products I was looking at. I feel that I
would have benefitted a lot more from spending more time on the research period.
I would have been able to gain a considerable amount more survey answers and
my target research would have benefitted better than it did.

4.  Strengths: Personally, I think the biggest strength of my planning is
the mind map section. It is there that the base for most of my ideas
and potential ideas came about. I was able to simply and clearly map
out all of my thoughts that I assumed decent enough for a mention.
This benefitted my work by helping me remember thoughts that
would otherwise come to me for a few minutes only to be forgotten.
 Weaknesses: The biggest weakness to my planning in my opinion
was the mood board. This is simply because it contributed the least
to my planning work and my final product or even my experiment
product. It pointed me in my initial direction of what I wanted to
create and the type of things I would need to think about but apart
from that there were few uses. Especially counting that the mind map
did the same thing. The only benefit is that I was able to look at other
peoples work before the research phase to give an initial look.

5.  Overall, I feel that I need a lot of work in time management as I have
found myself lagging behind too much. This is due to getting
distracted easily and prioritizing the wrong pieces of work at the
wrong times. For example, once one of the PowerPoints were meant
to be finished and I had not, I should have simply moved on at
college and finished off the past PowerPoint at home in my spare
time. This is something I have struggled with for a long time during
my time at York College and I am always looking at improvements I
can make on the subject. My main project was finished on time
which I was certainly happy with however I still had pending
PowerPoint work for a while after and even coming into new projects.
This is a big problem which I have noticed and I feel I can rectify
rather easily by sorting something out with my tutors.
 If I had more time to complete my project, I would have gone back to
the pending PowerPoints and finished them off to the best of my
ability for the time allocated.

6. The first similarity you will
notice is the shot types used in
both of these films. The
screenshot examples given
below are both Dutch tilts. They
are often used in tense
moments backed by intense
music and a serious
atmosphere.
Both of the scenes seem
to be based in public
areas which could also
indicate or symbolize to
the audience that the
characters are past the
point of trying to hide
their uncomfortableness
and are prepared to
react openly to a threat.
Both characters in the
screenshots look
distressed and that could
likely be because of what
was explained above.
The biggest difference is that my film uses
the Dutch tilt during an action scene
whereas the other film uses it in a tense
moment before the action begins. This
proves that it is possible to effectively use
both methods.

7. Both scenes have a
theme of loss and
mourning which can
often be displayed with
silence.
Both of these shots are in almost complete silence except for one or two low
background noises. This is to help the audience focus more on the situation. It
could also symbolize the blankness and emptiness of the characters losing
something, be it silly or not.
The film on top is not
serious but more
parodying the bottom
screenshot which is
meant to be emotional
and depressing.
Both films have sound
effects of the characters
crying out over their loss.
The top film however has
the cry sound effect
added in rather than the
way the bottom
screenshot has the cry
on set.

8. My film on the top of
the two screenshots
uses slow motion
effects to
dramatize the
situation in the
scene.
Slow motion is being used in the scene as a shock factor. For example, in the
top screenshot the audience would not be expecting the character to throw
the phone. In the bottom screenshot, the audience is also not expecting the
character to get shot at and also react the way he did.
My film has a bass
drop sound effect
edited in at the
screenshotted point to
add emphasis to the
shot. It has the same
effect as the slow
motion: to give the
scene a shock factor.

9. Personally, I think that my short film looks quite nice with plenty of quirks and silly shots,
tense moments, etc but it could also be polished up a lot more. There are a few
problems such as props appearing in more shots than needed and clothing changing
between shots which indicates that the main avenue of improvement needed is in
continuity. This has also been picked out in my interview questions in earlier
PowerPoints. I love the randomness of the plot and the humorous shots towards the end
to make the audience laugh. The slow motion and sound effects really boost them along
and help to create an over-dramatized scene.
The main areas for improvement in my product would be both the continuity of props
and clothing but also the shots in general. I feel as if I would have been able to use a
wide range of different and more effective shots at some points to further emphasize
emotions and atmospheres better than the final product. I also would like to work on my
focusing in my shots as sometimes the screen can get blurred which leads to problems
in editing. Luckily I managed to solve a problem in which the audience was unable to
read a phone screen halfway through the film and therefore they would not know what is
going on in the plot. I changed this by simply reusing a clip from later on in the film. This
will have also helped make the story easier to follow: showing clearly that the message
that is displayed at the end of the film is the same as the one seen at the beginning.

10. My product has appealed to my target audience in almost every way I said it would in
my earlier PowerPoints. The first and easiest example to see is how my product
appeals to males at the ages of 12 and upwards. I have created a film in which there is
an action scene that uses fast transitions between shots and an intense atmosphere. I
also tried adding in a base threat to the character to show the urgency and terror that
the character could potentially be experiencing.
For all that I feel I have appealed to that particular part of my target audience, I feel that
I could have done more to better that. I could have added more action based
references, techniques and camera shots to further direct my product to the male
audience of the younger age. I also would have benefitted greatly from adding more
humor to my product as I feel as if the ending can be a bit dull for some people hoping
to laugh.

11. PEER
FEEDBAC
K

12.  What did you like about the product?
 Very funny acting and extremely good camera work I really enjoyed
the sound effects but my favourite part is the hand held part as it
made the scene
 What improvements could have been made to the product?
 Don’t use Kieran's face as your mum

13.  What did you like about the product?
 I really liked the sound effects in this film they worked well with the
visuals and were funny.
 What improvements could have been made to the product?
 If you asked me what it was about I couldn’t tell you

14.  What did you like about the product?
 I liked the overall concept of the comedic payoff the film was building
up to the entire time, the musical soundtracks go a long way to assist I
this, I also think the slow motion at the end of the film helped in the
comedic payoff, making the it seem much more dramatic than the
situation actually is.
 What improvements could have been made to the product?
 I think the film could have used more continuity, for instance is
some shots the the bag is dropped but is then in the characters
hand again in the next scene, and at the end of the film their
jacket is off in the next scene despite them wearing the entire
time in the last shot.

15.  What do you agree with from your peer feedback?
 I agree that I need to have more continuity in the outfits and props
used. For example, my outfit changes towards the end of the film.
 I agree that the plot wasn’t exactly obvious to the audience and that I
will need to clear things up for them in future.
 What do you disagree with from your peer feedback?
 I disagree with the first interview's constructive criticism because my
classmate's face was included at that point in the film for a comedic
effect of sorts, foreshadowing the silliness of the ending.

16. In future reference, I would be sure to check through all of my shots for
any issues of continuity as that seems to be one of the biggest things
letting the short film down and ruining the immersion. To help with this, I
could even get more than one take for each shot and then pick the best
looking and most accurate looking one from the bunch. I also need to be
sure to keep the prop locations consistent as the audience managed to
spot a couple of props following me around in the final product.
Despite my research telling me that the majority of my audience prefer
films that make you think about the plot, I still got complaints that the
film plot wasn't obvious enough and needed to be clearer to the
audience. Due to this, in future I will make a clearer and simpler story
that has the plot more open and simple to follow.
What changes would you make to your product based upon your peer feedback and
why?