The filmmaker evaluates their short film project. They believe the editing and soundtrack were strengths, making the film look professional. However, production was disorganized, with planned shots missed due to scheduling issues. If they were to remake the film, the filmmaker would improve the script, filming quality, organization, and continuity to create a higher quality, more professional product. Overall, they gained skills like planning, improvisation, and editing, but feel the project could have gone more smoothly with teamwork improvements.

1. Evaluation
I think one of the main strengths of my short film is the editing, I feel I have edited it
together to run smoothly and look fairly professional and it looks like a short film of a good
standard instead of just loads of clips edited together poorly. Also I think the soundtrack I
used runs smoothly with the film and it really fits together. Another strength I think is the
style in which we have filmed it, it is done from the point of the camera which is being held
by Alyx and is all filmed from his point of view. I think we have done this well and it gives a
good feel of being in that person’s shoes. One of the weaknesses of my film is that when
filming it, we were very unorganised and we had to change our idea because we were
struggling to get it all filmed in time and the other idea would’ve been easier and quicker.
Several times we had planned to film shots and failed to do so mainly because of people
failing to turn up. I think another weakness is that the film is quite repetitive, there are
some clips where only one thing is really happening but it goes on over a long period of time
and becomes quite boring to watch and just fills up time.
I think in terms of pre-production I have performed fairly well and I think it has been my
best area of the short film project, I completed a lot of pre-production to a good standard,
most of which was completed on time and it really benefitted me in the later stages of the
unit. The weaknesses of pre-production are that I struggled to complete one or two tasks
and I didn’t have a great understanding of what had to be done. I think production was the
worst area of the unit for me in terms of performance because of how difficult we made it
for ourselves. Often we would plan to film but fail to do so and in the end we found
ourselves rushing to try and get everything filmed and even had parts of the film missing
because we had to get as much done as we could. I do the strengths are that we filmed it in
a good style (point of view) and we did it well, I think the finished film looks good. In terms
of post-production I feel I have performed quite strongly but could have done better, I think
the main strengths were the way in which I edited. I edited it to look smooth and fit
together nicely and look like a professional short film, also I feel the soundtrack was done
well and fits together with the film. I think my weaknesses were that I took too long to edit
it, I was rushing a little bit to get it finished in time and there are a few bits that look slightly
poor. I think part of that is linked to our poor production, if we had completed that sooner
we would have had more time to complete the post-production and could have done a
better job of it.
The shot composition in our short film wasn’t particularly important because we filmed it
from the point of view of one of the characters so every shot was filmed in the way the
character would see, we still had to take some things into account such as making sure we
include the necessary detail in shots like making sure everyone was in the shot and that it
flowed smoothly and made sense, for example the shots of us walking included every
character and showed clearly where we were and where we going and it had a good look to
it. I think we did it well and made the most of the point of view filming. The only flaw of the

2. point of view shot is that you can’t film scenes from different angles and make it look like
smooth, professional editing and also that point of view filming can lead to shaky shots
which can add to the effect but I think some shots were too shaky, for example the chase
scene after the fight scene, I think it was a little bit too shaky and in parts it was difficult to
understand what was happening. Apart from that I think the technical quality and shot
composition of my final edit was done to a good standard and looks quite professional.
I didn’t used many editing techniques in my short film because where it is filmed in the
point of view of one of the characters, it is supposed to look like it has just been filmed from
a camera and editing should not be noticeable. I used the obvious techniques such as
piecing it together to make sense and make it flow and I used a technique where the camera
cuts off from one clip and then cuts back somewhere else which helps it cut from one scene
to another when we hadn’t filmed the parts between the scenes. It just looks as though the
cameraman has temporarily stopped filming and then started filming again when something
is happening. I used adobe after effects to create a title sequence and a credit sequence, for
the title sequence I used a lens effect to make it look like a professional title sequence and
also used a few of the effects on after effects such using the opacity to fade the titles in and
out and make them move from one part of the screen to another. In the end credits I just
kept it simple and used the opacity to fade the titles in and out. Also in three different parts
of the short film I have inserted text onto a black screen stating where the movie is going
next e.g. 15 minutes, just to explain why the film has just cut from one place to a completely
different one and help the audience to understand. I don’t think the continuity editing of
our short film is great because we filmed several parts in different clothes when we were
supposed to be in the same clothes to keep continuity. We filmed those scenes
unexpectedly as we had to finish it as quickly as possible and it looks quite unprofessional.
Apart from that I think the continuity of some parts is good, our clothes remained the same
for some parts and we made sure to keep the same left-right relationship with the
characters in order to keep continuity.
I think I edited the soundtrack quite well; it is one of my favourite aspects of the final edit. I
looked for songs which fit the specific scene and imported them into the edit and I think the
songs I chose in the end fit those specific scenes and fit together nicely and give it an added
effect. Initially we weren’t going to use a soundtrack but there was only any speech at the
end of the film so we filled it with a soundtrack. The only actual editing to the soundtrack I
did was taking two different parts of a specific song and putting them together to make that
specific part of the song sound longer because it would end up finishing before that scene
has finished. Also I had to cut the other songs down so that they didn’t run over the scenes
and clash with the other songs. Overall the soundtrack is one of my favourite aspects of the
short film and I think I have edited it well and chose a good range of songs which fit the film
really well.

3. I think one of the main skills I have acquired whilst making this short film is the ability to
improvise, we struggled to complete our initial idea so we had to improvise and use another
idea using our judgement which I think has worked well and his improved my improvisation
skills. Also we have had to film certain scenes differently because we haven’t had the
weather or there has been another so we have had to improvise and go with our instinct to
make it look as good and professional as possible. I have gained advanced planning skills
from the pre-production and can plan an idea in extreme detail completing every part of
pre-production so I know everything about the idea. Also my editing skills have improved
and I now have a firm understanding of Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects, skills such
as creating a title sequence for my film and just film editing in general on Adobe Premiere. I
have also improved my ability to work with others and overcome problems such as people
not turning up for filming or having to change an idea because it doesn’t look as though we
can complete our current one. Overall this project has helped me gain a lot of new skills and
improve ones I already had.
I think if I was to make this film again at another date, the main thing I would improve is the
quality of the film, I would change the script quite a lot to create a bit more a story and
make it more entertaining for the audience. Also I would improve the filming, I would keep
the current style of point of view filming but I would include a bit more detail in the shots
and try and stop the camera from shaking as much as it does. I think the overall production
stage of the project was quite unsuccessful and I would make sure if we did it again that we
were much more organised in this stage and make sure we get all our filming done how we
planned it to make it look as professional as possible. The continuity of the film was quite
poor as well so I would ensure it is better next time around and keep things such as clothes
the same throughout to make it look more professional. Another improvement would be to
just tidy the film up a bit, in some parts it is difficult to understand what is going on and I
would just film and edit it make it look neater and make it easier to understand for the
audience. Overall I think with those improvements taken into account the film would be a
lot better quality and would look a much more professional product.
Overall I am quite pleased with my short film but I think it could have gone a lot smoother if
improvements were to be made and if we worked better as a team and got all our filming
done in time. I think it looks quite professional but does have the potential to look a lot
better.