Short film Evaluation

1. EVALUATION
Your name

2. PRODUCTION
PROCESS
EVALUATION

3. • What were the strengths of your research? How did your research help
your product?
• What were the weaknesses of your research? What could you have done
better/improve? What effect would this have had on your product?
My research helped my product by giving me an idea of trends, techniques and
themes that reflect the target audiences opinion. My audience research showed
me the trends of the audience and what the audience feel about the film
industry. This showed me how often my audience see short films and that the
main port for short films is on social media. This was more of a logistical or
business result as it showed how short films are distributed. In hindsight my
audience research did not reflect much onto my final product however it did give
me industry knowledge which is relevant to the project. My research into film
techniques was very helpful when it came to visualising my final piece and
helped me decide on which shots would work well and which ones wouldn’t.
If I were to improve my research I would conduct more shot experiments and
that I could use in my final piece

4. My planning stage was successful due to the usefulness of location
scouting and experimenting with all of the aspects of my film. I believe
having an extensive planning stage aided me in my organisational
skills as when the time for production came around I was ready to start
without many setbacks. This is something I am happy about as this
has been a flaw in my recent projects. One thing I would still like to
improve on is my time management. Although my planning was
completed on time, I found myself improvising and without a solid plan.
This was still effective however I do not believe it is an sustainable way
to work. Overall the project was completed on time however and I do
not believe I needed more time to complete the tasks but the
management of the time I was given could improve by sticking to a
schedule and delegate different tasks for different days. The
management of my cast and crew was very difficult for time as there
were some days that some could do and others not. Leading a team is
also something I believe I can work on when it comes to cast and I
hope I can improve on this in my next projects.

5. I decided to focus on many different
camera techniques during my production
of ShutEye Sandman as I knew this was
vital to creating the right amount of
atmosphere and an overall cinematic feel
to the film. I prioritised shots that had a
good depth of field as this reflected the
divide between the two characters. I got
this inspiration from Old Western films
such as this one from Shootout at High
Noon however I chose a high angle shot
for the showdown rather than a low angle
as I wanted to create the feel of equality
until the antagonist was revealed. I shot
the film at 25 fps and filmed with a Canon
700d DSLR. This was easy to use as I had
a lot of experience with this specific
camera. I lowered the exposure to create
darker scenes which I could then adjust
and colour grade in post production. I
found this process easy to do as it allowed
me to focus on what I was filming and
being a director first then editing later.

6. For audio, I used a large amount of royalty free sound effects as I was unable to
record my own successfully. For example, the train transition sound effect I created
by layering different train and steam engine sounds over eachother to create the
distinct sound that is heard in the film. I did not want to find royalty free sounds and
then just throw them over my footage so I decided to create distinct sounds that
were personal to my product. I also created my own sounds such as footsteps and
the heavy breathing. I decided to only do a partial amount of the sound production
when on set as it was very windy and snowing so the audio recorder did not pick
specific sounds up without clipping from the wind. My way around this was to
record ambience on set to create a base for my sounds then layered specific
sounds such as breathing or footsteps over this. I also used keyframing to map the
volume of the sounds coming closer or getting further away. This was the first time
I had done this over film and I believe it worked fairly successfully with the level of
immersion that I was trying to create. Some areas of my sound production were
not how they wanted them to be such as the train transition which I do not believe
worked well due to the pace of the film changing too fast afterwards and myself not
being able to find an effective way to fade the train out. Overall, I feel that for my
first foley sound project

7. I enjoyed the editing process the most enjoyable for me as it allowed me to see my
product in its entirety and fine tune the entire process to what I wanted. The most
difficult part of the editing process was creating the main transition sequence with
a black out and train sound effect. The visuals for this sequence were fairly easy
as it involved bringing the first scene to a climax and having a black out then
transitioning into the next scene. This was fairly straight forward as this was a
simple editing process however the audio I found quite hard to edit. The train
sound effect that I had created was perfect however I found it hard to transition the
sound out of the sequence as the pace of the following scene was considerably
faster than the one prior to the transition. This made it extremely hard to make it
work and flow with the piece. This was the one part of the editing process I
struggled with as it wasn’t until afterward the final render that I realised why it
wasn’t working, at which point it was too late. I tried to include a wide variety of
transitions with a variety of camera angles and levels of pace. This was too create
a reckless atmosphere and overall feel to the film. I took some inspiration from the
transitions that are used by Edgar Wright in Hot Fuzz to create a fast paced feel
which I documented in my research. The transitions are used like montages to
show the past are the future in a short space of time to either explain a backstory
or to accelerate what happens next. Overall the editing process went really well
apart from a few flaws in some aspects of the transitions however I accepted this
as experimental flaws which came form my first practices

8. The aesthetic qualities of my film are what I am most
proud of. I believe that the grainy black and white effect
that I created added to the tension of the piece and the
scribble effect de-humanised the character from just a
normal antagonist. The loss of colour in the environment
created the effect of a loss of nature and humanity which
linked well with the scribble effect and the de-humanisation. Although I believe the effect
looks good, some parts I believe became too grainy and lost a lot of focus on the scene
that was taking place. To improve this for next time, I will take more care when editing
effects into the piece. From this project, I would like to experiment with more visual
effects such as rotoscoping and green screening as I have developed skills form this
project which can easily transfer to other levels of effects. Overall I am extremely happy
with the overall aesthetic of my piece as I feel it created the right atmosphere for what I
wanted to create.

9. I believe my film appeals to the intended audience of
16-25 year olds. I made sure to stick to an appropriate
BBFC rating of 15 as this is accessible to the entire
age group without the extreme content of an 18. The
distribution of my film was also as intended as I found
in my research (audience survey) that the target
audience are most likely to view short films online
which is conveniently where most short films are
promoted. I believe that my film appeals to the
experiencer psychographic as the horror themes in
my film are made to provoke an emotional reaction
such as fear. Overall I believe I filled the classification
of audience appeal as my film features a unique
concept which I have not seen done before and aligns
itself to the intended VAL category and age range.

10. PEER
FEEDBAC
K

11.  What did you like about the product?
 I like the artsy style of the overall film, how it leaves it open to many
questions about who is who and what is what. This sometimes adds
too much confusion to a film however I think it works really well with
this film. As well as the overall film I really like specific elements such
as the wind sound effects and the editing with the lines and drawings.
 What improvements could have been made to the product?
 The only thing I could criticise is how grainy some parts of the film are.
It makes it hard to see some specific areas however I like some of the
grainy areas some are too much.

12.  What did you like about the product?
 All the editing was done very well, can tell that a lot of time was spent
doing this, and all the time paid off as the editing adds a lot to the
product and makes it very good.
 The shots were really good, such as the long shot where the bad
character appears in the background.
 The sound was done very well, the wind in the background was good,
as well as all the sounds from the attacks from the bad character.
 What improvements could have been made to the product?
 The story could be explained a little better, as it isn’t clear who the
characters are and what they are doing.

13.  What did you like about the product?
 I found the full thing absolutely amazing and loved the full feel of it and
you are genuinely on edge to see whats happening next. I loved the
drawing over the face showed great skill.
 What improvements could have been made to the product?
 Maybe a few more sound effects but overall is amazing.

14.  What do you agree with from your peer feedback?
I agree with my peer feedback in saying that the story could be
more clear however I disagree due to the abstract nature of the
piece which I intended to create. Due to the time constraints of the
film I found that character development was incredibly difficult to
create in such a small space of time so I decided to just have the
characters in mystery. However if I was given a longer run time I
would have definitely added more of a linear story. Another
criticism of the piece is the grain effect is distracting in some parts
which I outlined in my own analysis and completely agree with. I
plan to improve on this next time.
Based on my peer feedback, the changes I would make to my
product would be the runtime and the grain effect as I believe these
2 elements are the only downfalls.