My Short Film Evaluation

Story boarding and script

Our storyboard w very detailed and we kept to it as much as we could, but we also added additional features to improve our work. Our film didn't have a lot of dialogue in our film, so our script was limited and we didn't follow it word for word. It was useful having a storyboard to revisit ideas and we also used it to improve on the original. I think that our script could of been more professionally done, for example word processed. Instead we just jotted down our ideas by hand. 

Locations

Our location for filming was very limited as we were only able to film in school. This effected things such as what the film was going to be about, and when we were going to film, as corridors can get busy when we don't want them to be. Our film was about a student being bullied at school and this left our options fairly open as to we're we could film around the school. We chose a corridor and stairway to film as it provided good light and very quiet when lessons were in progress. Unfortunately this meant it was quite hard to film outside of lesson times as people needed to use the corridor and stairs which created unwanted noise. 

Talent

We first filmed our short film using other people, rather than ourselves. We found that throughout the process of filming, our talent began to loose interest and this made it increasingly difficult to film. After a while, we decided that we would be in the film ourselves, as we know we could rely on ourselves and each other. We wanted our film to be the best it could be. We found that after being in the film ourselves we became a lot more creative with our ideas, this also helped as we achieved exactly what we set out to do in our plan, aswell as developed ideas.

Organisation 

Overall I think that we were organised. More so when we finally decided to star in the film ourselves. We were given lesson time to create our short film, but we also decided to do some filming outside of lesson time. I think that this made the film more successful and all the plans we had made to film outside the lesson were always carried out. I think that organisation is very important to a successful team, as it makes tasks much easier to complete and with a lot less stress. 

Team work 

I found that me and my partner Alice worked very well together. During all the stages of creating our short film we communicated well and shared ideas to make our film better. I think that making this film with poor communication would be very difficult, as it would be hard to make agreements and overall the film could be of a poor quality. As we were both in the film, we both had to film and act. This is something that I think was very good as it allowed us to gain experience in how to use the equipment and learn skills relating to filming, as well as how to act in front of the camera. Overall, I think we worked well as a team and I think that I have learnt some valuable things, in terms of choosing an appropriate team member to make the final product successful. 

Editing 

Editing took the most time out of the whole process. The most difficult part was trying to crop videos to keep continuity. For example, there is a part in our short film when there is a slight jump cut. This wasn't intended but it was the best we could do to keep the continuity. We also added additional features such as music, this helped create a much more tense atmosphere in our film which is exactly what we wanted to achieve. Also, we added some transitions and credits and this also made our film look more professional. 

Final product 

Overall I was very pleased with the final product. I think it was edited well and the topic of the film was suited well to our location. I have learnt somethings as well, for example finding talent that is willing to cooperate throughout the whole process is extremely important. We needed to start ours again about half way through because some members of the original talent decided they no longer wanted to take part. This meant we had to be in our film and this was much more reliable, and it would of been better if we had been in it the first time. I also learnt that you need to work around other things, for example locations and what time you can use them and availability of cameras, tripods etc. Making this short film enabled me to gain experience using iMovie which will be useful in next years tasks. I think that our film could of been better if we had opportunities to film outside of the school, as this would of left our ideas more open when it came to knowing what our film will be about.