LAFTAS: Evaluation

http://vimeo.com/100090404

Following a showing of our LAFTAs short film, we recieved audience feedback from the rest of the class, this feedback was both positive and constructive and allowed us to see where we went wrong and what we needed to do for our coursework short film next year.What people said they liked about our film was how simple the storyline was, we didn’t over complicate anything and we chose something that could be shown visually and without much dialogue so that our audience would understand the concept of our film. I felt that this was a good decision because we were able to redirect our time on incorperating really nice looking shots rather than concentrating too much on worrying whether or not it made sense.

In particular, the shots using the mini dolly were very successful and added an element of movement to our film, which made a difference compared to our previous work which mainly contained static shots. I’m glad that we made the decision to test this piece of equipment because it is something that I will definitely use in the future. We found out that we needed to put down a flat piece of plasitic in order to ensure our dolly had a smooth run, as well as this we attached a piece of string to it that we then pulled it along with. This took a while to set up, but it means that now we know what works and what didn’t when using this piece of equipment.

Another thing that our audience liked was our sound design, which started off silent and came in during the film title. I felt that our music choice worked well and wasn’t too loud or overpowering. It also suited the visuals well which is something that other films seemed to be unable to get just right. We didn’t want our sound to be too repetitive so therefore we added in the odd foley effect such as the car door slamming and shuffle noises. Also the sound contrasted well against the ending, as it almost seemed to be building up to a jump scare, but rather it made the ‘suprise’ ending a little funnier.

The shots that we took of the body being dragged had both positive and negative reviews. We wanted this scene to be really dark and difficult for the viewer to look at. The sound effect definitely added to this because it was a little over exaggerated and wasn’t very pleasant to listen to. However some people said that they felt we could have thought about our shots a little more because there were a few too many, although we did make the right decision to use a handheld camera, because this made the scene seem more rough and uneasy to look at. I think we definitely needed to plan these few shots a little more, as we didn’t anticipate how difficult it would be to find the correct angle whilst the body was also moving and how to achieve a steady shot that wasn’t shaking too much.

Some people felt that the shot of the body being taken out of the boot was a little too long, which I agree with. We were aware of this whilst we were editing, however it was difficult to cut this shot so that the continuity of it still made sense. Also, during the filming of this shot we struggled to remove the body quickly. On the other hand it could be said that the length makes the shot uncomfortable to look at which adds to the roughness and shock of the scene, although we should have found a way to reduce the length of this one shot by at least a few seconds.

Although not many people said that they noticed it, one thing that really bugged me was the fact that you could see my little sister’s reflection in the car at one point, which was annoying because we couldn’t see it until post production. We were unable to reshoot and therefore we had to include it in our final film, we covered it a little with the filters that we put on, however it was still visible. Likewise, people said that they felt they could see our dead body moving, whilst I felt that it looked as if our murderer was simply moving him about in the back of the boot. There two aspects of our film had mixed opinions on and both probably should have been addressed if we were able to.

Our day into night effect was sometimes a little inconsistent, especially during the shot looking out of the boot, as a lot of sky was seen in the shot. We tried to match this in each shot by setting the levels of each filter at the same value, this was mostly successful and I felt that we should have thought about this more during filming rather than relying on being able to fix it post production. I also felt that we could have recorded a little more sound on the day rather than having to find foley effects so often, even if we didn’t use 75% of them, I felt that they would have been useful to us.

The overall feedback on our final film was mainly positive, and although we had a number of errors in the way we planned and filmed it, the finished scene still worked well and had the desired effect on our audience. I’m glad we chose the idea that we did and that we worked well as a group.

There were aspects of each of us in the group that meant we were able to combine our skills and create a final film that was made to the best of our abilities. Ben and Thomas helped to organise us during the day of filming and offer practical solutions to the problems we were having, whilst I was able to set up the camera in a way that looked really nice visually. Also during planning, the differences in our personalities really came out, all of our ideas really contrasted and we found it difficult to come up with something that we all agreed with, in the end our storyline with really dark visuals but a comedic aspect suited us all. I felt that this really worked despite seeming like an odd combination. Ben and Thomas are both incredibly creative individuals and I really feel that without them our storyline wouldn’t be nearly as good.

Both me and Ben worked equally on the editing, we both had a completely different method of getting the finished scene edited. Ben seemed to roughly cut all of our shots into place and apply filters, his aim was to firstly get the entire film put together. Whereas I was a lot more particulous with the little details. For example the aligning of the text and the timings all the fades and sounds came in I wanted to get perfect. As a result of the two of us working together we had a film that was finalised and edited to the best of our abilities really efficiently, and we didn’t miss out anything that we could have improved on.

The one thing none of us seemed to be able to get right was organising transport and the times that we would be at all of our locations. The first shooting day, Lauren was unable to make it and we ran a little behind schedule. We were forced to rush a little more than we had hoped but it helped to know what we needed to do and in what order, therefore we quickly made up any time that we had lost. We initially planned to film the party shots on the same day, however we made the decision to do this on another day so that we had better access to props, location and actors. We would also have more time and we could begin editing the first element to our short film in the mean time. This was definitely the correct decision because it relieved a little bit of stress to complete everything on that one day for the group, we didn’t waste any time because we had plenty to be doing in the mean time. Our timing can be greatly improved the next time we film something and plan dates well ahead so that we can ensure that all of us are there on the day and we don’t have any other plans that mean we need to leave early or start late.

At the end of this process, I am really proud of the outcome, I feel that our short film was really successful and it was definitely the best scene I have put together throughout the A level course. I couldn’t have done any of this without the group as we worked so well together and on top of that we’re all now great friends and we look forward to hearing back from the LAFTAs and hopefully attending the award ceremony!

 

Shell Shock Evaluation

http://vimeo.com/100090621

Shell Shock is a short film by Rosy and Jess, about two tortoises in a relationship, one has an affair and is caught by their other half and is chucked out of the family home. I thought that the idea was great and the finished film was quite funny (but only because it was so cheesy, sorry!). I found it fairly difficult to understand what was going on between the three tortoises as there was no way to differentiate the characters. The text helped me to understand the storyline, however it needed more visual story telling to improve the comedic factor that also came from the sound effects. Furthermore, sometimes the text wasn’t on long enough for me to read, which again meant I didn’t fully understand the story between these three tortoises.

The choice of sound was a little over the top, however it did give the film a comical feel. The music was often a little disjointed however sometimes I felt that it worked. The camerawork could have been improved as some shots were a little wobbly, and the camera tracked back and forth a little too much. This being said, there were some really nice shots, for example, the outside shot of the car as it was lit by the sun in an interesting way. I would say that this film has potential, with more planning and a little more thought into the ways in which the story was presenting it could have been great!

The Boy Next Door Evaluation

http://vimeo.com/100090405

The Boy Next Door is a short horror film created by Ben Ayres, about a man who receives a parcel that was meant to be delivered to the house over the road. When returning the parcel, he notices a young boy up in the window of the house, and when questioning the owner of the house, she replies by saying that she lives alone. The man makes his way back home and turns the corner only to find the occupant of the house standing in front of him where she then gives the camera a sinister look.

I felt that the storyline had potential to work as a short film, however it was maybe a little more like a scene from a film rather than an entire short. Even so, parts of it were executed really well, such as the shots used, the editing and the last shot in which the woman looks very creepy, her costume also works great. In places, Ben could have benefitted from retaking a few shots, particularly the wobbly ones taken whilst walking and the bit where the actor says “that was a bit weird”, because the delivery seemed a little too unnatural.

Some of the content needed a bit more rethinking in order to tell the story more visually as opposed to the one long conversation at the door which explained the whole story. This may have meant that the film would have been longer, which would have worked because there would have been more time to develop the story and add to the suspense before the last shot.

I think the music worked really well for the scene, despite a few places where it didn’t really match the visuals. However, for a score that wasn’t composed specifically for the scene it really helped to add to the creepy, dark feel of the short film. The order of the shots towards the end of the scene could have been improved, however I really liked this short film, especially the creepy last shot!

Many Happy Returns Evaluation

http://vimeo.com/100090406

Many Happy Returns, by Lucy, Kate, Jemma and Grace, is a short film about an elderly man who visits the dry cleaners every day at the same time each day. The shop owner discovers a letter that reveals that it is his birthday soon so she proceeds to make him a birthday cake. However, when the man doesn’t arrive when he usually does, a newspaper obituary is shown that reveals that he has died unbeknown to the shop owner.

The storyline was good, and worked well for a short film as the audience was able to understand what was happening. The location was nice and looked good on camera due to all the colours, however the story may have worked better set in a library (as the group intended to at first) because this would have created more sympathy towards the old man as it would suggest he was lonely and bored as opposed to spending money on getting his clothes washed each day.

The camera was often pointed too high and was quite wobbly, particularly during pans, this was due to our tripods however it did take away from the story at times. Perhaps they needed to find an alternative way to shoot a couple of their shots. Also, I felt that they could have found a better way to show the letter, as I was unable to read it and the shot looked a bit staged. The shop owner could have read out the letter which also would have given some variety to the repetitive music.

I really liked the shots that were taken whilst the lady was baking because they worked well together and gave variety to location and shots. Also, the last shot of the newspaper blowing in the wind worked well and looked good on screen. With these and a few small adjustments, their short film would be very successful as the story was easy to follow and was able to evoke feelings of sympathy and sadness towards the characters.

 

Flatliner Evaluation

http://vimeo.com/100090794

Flatliner is one of the other LAFTA entries that was submitted from our class created by Henry Spencer, about a man who has got lost whilst driving in the countryside and encounters hassle from a group of teenagers which results in a heart attack.

I felt that the whole thing was filmed really well and had a good simple story which worked well for a short film, however there were some aspects of the film that could have been improved. Henry demonstrated confident use of the camera by having long shots with very few cuts in between them, despite this I felt that it got to a point where the long drawn our shots got a little boring as they only showed the man looking at a map and getting out his flask. I felt that some actions could have been shown through match on action in order to cut the length of the scene. As well as this some of the shots were a little too wobbly, such as the one from the back of the car, but Henry almost gets away with it because we would expect some movement if we were in a car.

The choice of music was great and created a lot of suspense, especially the sound of the heartbeat which was suggestive of what was going to happen. However, occasionally the music was a little too tense for what was shown on screen, for example when he was wiping his windscreen, the music was a little overly tense for such a non-threatening action and maybe the music should have peaked a little later on in the film.

The short film could have been improved by maybe taking out a few seconds of footage (as sometimes it was a little too drawn out) and maybe by adding a few colour corrections to add to the feel of the scene. However, I really liked this film and I felt that it worked well as a short and it was brilliantly shot.

LAFTAS: Final Product

After spending whole days working on the editing of our short film and rerecording the odd foley effect, we finally have a finished film. We were surprised to get the whole thing filmed and edited in less than 6 days, but I feel that our planning was sufficient enough that we knew exactly when and where we were filming each shot. Once we had exported our film, we were able to upload it to our own personal YouTube channels, however it was only once we’d watched it at home without the volume levels of a classroom, that we noticed a few odd bits of dialogue and sound that we didn’t want to be heard. We were able to fix the issues very quickly the next day with plenty of time to again export the film and enter it into the competition. Here is our final short film, ‘Uninvited’:

http://vimeo.com/100090404

 

LAFTAS: Editing

The editing of our LAFTA was fairly simple, as we had quite a few long shots with little cutting to do in between. The only thing that challenged us was the colour corrections that made the scene look like it was filmed at dusk. We first tried adding the ‘Day into Night’ effect, but we found this to look really artificial, so we looked online for some alternative way to make our film look like it was filmed in the evening. We found a tutorial on YouTube that gave us a step by step guide, however, it was so difficult to tell whether or not it looked right, obviously because we knew we were adding effects and we knew we filmed right in the middle of the day! Aside from a few shots, I think our colour corrections were successful, in particular the shot looking out from the boot definitely didn’t fit with the others and this was because we had too much sky in the shot which gave it away. However, we had never attempted to do this effect on any previous project so this was a lesson learned!

Below is the tutorial we used:

We noticed a few minor issues with continuity when it came to putting our shots together, mainly during the dragging and the interior scene. This was due to difficulty tracking the body which resulted in us being forced to film as much as we could at the best of our ability and making what we were able to do work. On the other hand we could have spent more time planning a few shots, although we knew how we wanted them to look, we didn’t think about the practicalities of them and what equipment we were going to do this with.

As a group, we were all willing to put a lot of time and effort into this film, which meant we were in most lunchtimes playing with and tweaking our short film. As a result of this we played around with sound and our title sequences, which I felt were two very successful aspects of our finished film. We often altered the positioning of our title shot and ended up placing it just before the boot of the car was opened, which resulted in a rather confusing shot, where there was a thin line of light which the audience doesn’t know what it was initially. Although the lighting on this shot could have been improved, the placement of these two shots together I felt really worked. We also got a number of ‘Happy Birthday’ songs to put with our titles which we felt was an appropriate tune for our film, however we again wanted to put a little dark twist on it, so we adjusted the sound and ended up with something quite creepy but I really liked it and felt that it worked well for the atmosphere of the scene.

I felt that our editing went as well as we possibly could have done and that we spent as much time as possible trying to get the little details perfect. However, we often found a few errors that we should have fixed during filming, so next time we will have to think about those before we come to edit!

LAFTAS: Filming

We were all really excited to film, and we felt we had enough planning, equipment and support that was necessary to film some of our shots, for example, we had my dad available to drive the car into the driveway. We started the day at 11am as we planned, and spent half an hour checking through our storyboards and making sure we had the right equipment and props for each shot.

We filmed in chronological order and ticked off on our storyboards to make sure we didn’t miss anything. We had in mind that if we missed out a shot, our scene would have continuity errors, as the body needed to be shown at each stage of getting out the car, so we were careful not to miss anything out.

Although I had practiced using the steadicam, I found it very difficult to use it when we started filming, mainly because quite a lot of our shots were from a low angle. Therefore, we decided to film as much as we could using the mini dolly, tripod and handheld to ensure that we had enough choice when it came to editing. As well as this we filmed a lot of extra shots that we hadn’t planned for on our storyboards, because we didn’t want to have to re-shoot anything due to our limited time frame. We also filmed each shot at least twice and looked through them to make sure they were in focus and had no little wobbles or errors.

The interior shots, we had to film on the following day due to time, location and the number of actors we had available to us. This wasn’t too much of an issue as we were able to begin editing on the Monday and have the rest of the shots ready to add in on Tuesday.

Overall, I feel that our filming went quite well, despite a few changes to the weather which meant we had to wait for the sun to go away in order to maintain consistency with the lighting throughout the film. Also, as we were planning to add filters to make it look as if we filmed at dusk, we didn’t want some shots to clearly have bright sunlight.

Here are some photos we took on the day:

 

LAFTAS: Animated Storyboards

Last year we turned our still storyboards into a video on Final Cut, which was particularly helpful to us before we went out to film because we were able to see how all of our different shots fit together and also give us an idea about how long our film would be and how long each shot would need to be shown for. We were able to add transitions and text in, which gave us an idea of how our finished film would look even before we went out to film. We were able to identify any shots that we needed to add as this method of displaying our still drawings as a video showed us how our story would fit together rather than being separate images on a piece of paper. This year we decided to do the same before we filmed, however unlike last year, this time we payed more attention to how long each shot should be, thinking more about the overall pace of the film.

Here is the animated video of our storyboards:

http://vimeo.com/100976197

LAFTAs: Storyboards

Once we had written out script, we began completing a shot list and storyboard. We tried to make these as detailed and accurate as possible because we realised the significance of good quality storyboards during our planning last year. They were particularly useful for giving us a sensible order to film in and also making sure that we didn’t miss anything out. It also helps to have something visual down on paper to use as a reference when out filming, because reading long descriptive lists can often become a hassle when juggling equipment and trying to direct actors.

Here is a screenshot of our storyboards that we will take with us when we film: