Final Evaluation

Evaluation 

The short film I created focusses on the theme of growing up, I wanted to play on the cliché of a coming of age story and make my film so it isn’t completely clear if its satire or not. I liked the idea of creating a film where I would be the typical target audience. Films like; Lady Bird (2017), Sixteen Candles (1984) or Clueless (1995) all feature a teenage girl struggling with normal issues and are marketed towards the same ‘average teen girl’, this was the type of story I wanted to create.  

While starting the initial planning process for my film I had an idea of the visuals I wanted to create and editing style I wanted to try but was less clear about the actual storyline. I wanted my film to have a somewhat abstract feel to it, not necessarily following usual film conventions. I liked the idea of mixing different styles of editing to create this concept. The 2019 tv show “Euphoria” was an inspiration for editing, incorporating snippets of montage editing into long scenes, and the use of stylised dream sequences to create the overall atmosphere of fairy tale. I planned on taking concepts from that and incorporating them into my film. My issue then was writing a script that would work with this and would still make sense.  

In “Slap” by Nick Rowland I liked the directors use of audience positioning, following a single character while experiencing private moments surrounding characters aren’t aware of. Rowland, in “Slap” uses this to make that fact that the main character is hiding a secret that no one around him knows more impactful, as it is made to feel like our secret too. This makes scenes in the film more emotional and suspenseful. I wanted to include this privileged audience positing into my film somehow as I believed it would make it a more emotive experience.  

Similar to the techniques used in “slap”, “the Arrival” by Daniel Montanarini also explores different types of audience positioning, particularly in the use of a voiceover where we are able to hear what the character is thinking. We are physically positioned opposite the character in what looks like a POV shot from a person sitting with her; a friend or loved one. Yet at the same time we are also positioned as if we are the main character, as we are hearing thoughts that no one else could. This made me think about using a voiceover in different ways, either talking directed at another person, or listening in to a character’s inner voice. At this point I was so intrigued by the concept of a voiceover I decided it had to feature in my film.  

By this stage I had decided on a few aspects of my film, I wanted to have a voiceover over little or no diegetic sound and I wanted to experiment with privileged audience positioning and montage editing while following a theme of growing up/ coming of age. Writing the script I was influenced by the lives around me but also the classic teenage clichés that are common in films to try and fit into the stereotype. I was aware that during this process I seemed to have an issue making a concept that would work for a short film rather than a feature length one, I believe this made the final product seem like it is missing parts of the story/ can feel rushed. I found that trying to write a script that is based around a voiceover rather than diegetic sound in the classic screenplay structure hard. So instead, in an effort to save time, I used my own format. On top of that trying to script a fast paced montage scene was proving almost impossible so I knew that my planning process was going to have to be quite visual, but this meant documenting my planning process was sacrificed.  

The first draft of my script proved to be a bit optimistic when I reached the point where I needed to start filming, it quickly became clear that my lack of appropriate location and actors meant that I would have to adjust my script for it to be logistically possible. I believe this process negatively affected my film as I was forced to remove some of the potentially more technically challenging scenes/ shots. As my script required many different locations to be shot I decided that it would be easier for me to shoot on my phone camera rather than a higher quality one, while this made the filming process much easier it meant that I would have less definition on my film.  

As I had spent so much time on the planning and filming processes it meant that I didn’t allow myself much time to edit everything together before the final deadline. I tried to speed up this process by deciding to use an editing software on my personal laptop rather than the suggested software on the college computers. I had experience using iMovie so I believed this would help me edit faster, while this did help it also meant exporting the final product was much harder than it could have been.  

The biggest issue I faced was my timing/ organisation skills, especially as I had to rely on other people for parts of the process. As I spent too much time in the planning element it meant the time I had for filming and editing was sacrificed, and I believe you can tell by looking at the final product. While there are aspects of my film that I am proud of I'm disappointed because I know that if I had given myself more time many parts could have been much better.