short film evaluation

1. EVALUATION
Kieran Beal

2. PRODUCTION
PROCESS
EVALUATION

3. Strengths:
- I think my research was useful when researching which shots were good to use in each
scene, my experiments were also very useful for practice with the camera, how to stage
each shot and gave me some practice with the editing software before using it to refine
my final work, the research and experiments also gave me some practice with audio,
how t record sound effects, when I should include music and when I should leave it out,
and as a result I decided not to include any non-diegetic music in my film as I felt it
would break the mood that my sequence sets up.
Weaknesses:
- While my research did explain my target audience parameters, it failed to explain for
instance why my audience psychographic was the achiever class, I provided vague
reasoning behind my decision for their NRS grade however I didn’t give a full
justification for it.
- I gave a varied list of examples for lighting, shots and audio, however I only wen on to
explain a few of the aspects of shots in the research and overall I believe I could’ve
covered a broader range of topics.

4. Strengths:
-My pre-production plan does a good job of explaining the general idea of my
production, while also taking into account the risks and a shot by shot analysis,
while also listing a contingency plan, a call sheet and a cast list that covers
problems with equipment and staff, location info (if needed) and a production
schedule. Overall my pre-production plan set out a good group of guidelines for me
to follow for my production to be as smooth as possible.
Weaknesses:
-In the end however my pre-production plan proved inert in many aspects,
especially the shot list, by this I mean that while I had specifically written down
specific shot descriptions, in actuality I didn’t stick to many of them and I had to
change many of them, usually the main reason came down to space limitations of
the filming locations, fortunately however I don’t think it affected the overall quality of
the film that much.

5. I think I managed my time well with this project, all of the production was completed
ahead or on schedule, this allowed me more time to edit the film with the digital
effects I needed/wanted. In spite of this I think I could’ve made some of the
transitions smoother in my film, however I don’t think digital effects could’ve solved
them, so if I had more time I would’ve likely filmed some additional content even if it
was small amount to further refine the transition between shots.
The flash of white I used to show the time travel taking place in the film was also
fairly basic, he standard effect used in Premiere Pro and so I would’ve gone back to
personalise this to make it more unique to my project. I think I would’ve also used
the time to create more varied scene transitions, watching through the film I notice I
nearly strictly used the glitch and static effects, and while they definitely are fitting I
think using a few varied transition animations would’ve gone a long way to making
my short film stand out.

6. Both my film and emergence
use close up shots to show
the expressions on the
characters faces.
A clear main
difference in the two
shots however is that
their character looks
directly into the
camera, subtly
breaking the 4th wall.
Emergence uses a lot
of jump cuts during it’s
chase scene which is
the majority of the film,
I also use jump cuts in
my film where
appropriate, however
due to a lack of action
scenes they appear to
be more jarring.
Emergence also makes use
of behind shots, in that the
camera is generally focused
behind someone in the
background, however this
deliberately puts attention
on this figure.

7. Camera Eye has exactly one
non-diegetic sound effect at
the beginning, a single guitar
chord. Then there is a slight
gap in the sound effects and
sound tracks.
Throughout the rest of the film
there is a continuous beat of a
drum and a bass guitar
however this is diegetic sound,
displayed when it shows the
two figure sin the background
playing the instruments
themselves.
The main difference between my
film and Nick’s is that throughout
his entire film there is diegetic
musical overtone, whereas in my
film I have left any musical
accompaniment out completely,
and sound effects are mainly non
diegetic, however towards the end
there are a couple that are
diegetic, as evidenced by the
character actually reacting to
these ones.

8. Black hole is short film that heavily
relies on digital editing for it to work this
however doesn’t mean to say that this is
a bad thing, the movie makes excellent
use of this digital effect to tell a brief but
interesting story.
A significant difference between
their use of special effects and my
own, is that their editing is used to
tell the story, whereas mine are
more used to serve as transitions
between different shots and scenes.
Despite the differences in usage of
special effects between the two films
there is the similarity in that they
both rely on special effects to tell an
effective story, as without special
effects my film wouldn’t make much
sense and would likely leave the
audience asking many questions.

9. I think my work was a success to a large extent, while my plot was a little cliché I think it
was a clever concept to develop upon, I like the visual transition animations that I used to
develop the story further with smooth movements, I also liked the variety of camerawork
that I used in the film with a variety of shots to keep the camerawork engaging.
However a part of the film that I didn’t like was the lack of good lighting throughout the
entire film which slightly messed up the shot, in many parts I had to completely change
the shot due to lighting blotting out the scene. The ending to the short film also bothers
me, I had to use the green screen to finish the scene off however the photos I used in the
scene are pixelated due to the scaling issue, and the only image of a vault door that I
could find is not only incorrect to the New York federal reserve, but in addition the photo
was taken to it’s side and as a result it was very difficult to make the door look like it was
directly facing the camera lens.
I would’ve fixed this issue by spending more time either looking for pictures that work
better when scaled up, or even taken the original photos to Photoshop to edit them to fit
the scene better, a well as making the animation of the door smoother and less jarring, it
helps with the comedic affect but not much else.

10. I have referred to my target audience by making it a movie that makes the ending
more ambiguous for them to guess what will happen to the character, his also means
that is not necessarily suited to children as it requires a broader knowledge on history
and geography to understand the time periods entered, the target audience don’t
have to be history majors, just to have a basic knowledge on historical events.
It appeals to the psychographic of ‘achiever’ down to the fact that the protagonist has
a device that they can use to further their own ends, generally achievers care mainly
about furthering their own ends by any means as long it improves their lot in life.
However due to the least favourite genre being horror I have stayed away from that
genre of film. I have also tried to keep it to one genre, as any movies that try to mix
two separate movies together generally always have mixed results. I Have also
appealed to the gender of males, as the masculine stereotype spend more of their
time glued to their computer monitors. While the NRS grade doesn’t typically matter
people from higher up on the NRS grade scale may find the film more enjoyable to
watch due to expensive hardware in the film.

11. PEER
FEEDBAC
K

12.  What did you like about the product?
 What improvements could have been made to the product?

13.  What did you like about the product?
 What improvements could have been made to the product?

14.  What did you like about the product?
 What improvements could have been made to the product?

15.  What do you agree with from your peer feedback?
 What do you disagree with from your peer feedback?