LO3 - Evaluation

Weekly blog updates are required, as with every unit. Please remember to
take photos/screenshots as you film/edit. You might find it easier if you note
down a record of what you did each day in a diary form.

Please use the following guidance to help you with each week.
THESE MUST BE COMPLETED IN DETAIL. INCLUDE IMAGES AND BE SPECIFIC!

Week 1 This week was spent researching and planning your

How did primary research help
you to understand what to
include in your short film?
In what way did creating
infographics help you to display
your research?
What conventions did you find
should be included in your genre
and how are you planning to use
these findings?
short film
Prior to planning the short film, I created a survey on
what people would like to get out of and what their
preferences would be towards a more informative or
a more narrative approach. This was also how I
decided what genre I wanted to aim for. All this data
has been put into an infographic and presented
clearly on my weebly. From this genre (drama) I went
to YouTube and found two short films under the
drama genre. I analysed these two films on
 Location
 Costume
 Camerawork
 Editing
 Lighting
 Sound
I think that this personally allowed me to understand
what I want to include because analysing what I liked
from other short films of a similar style and genre, it’s
easy to get inspiration and ideas.
The infographics helped a lot when displaying my
research. It’s Easy to understand as it’s very clear and
simple, I put the most important information on the
infographic as being minimal is important rather than
getting bombarded with random facts and data on
homelessness. It’s easy to understand and draws your
attention because of the colours and various pictures.
I think it is a neat way to display the data rather than
just writing the information down, it’s more
aesthetically pleasing.
The typical conventions of drama films would be to
include real life situations with realistic characters, that
usually portray a journey and some form of character
development, also normally emotional of some kind,
meaning the audience attach themselves to the
character, I am hoping for the audience to attach

How has your planning helped
you to organise your filming
week?
What issues do you think you may
encounter during your filming and
editing week?
Are you on track for the week?
What work needs to be
completed for you to catch up?
Week 2
How did you planning help you
when out filming?
themselves to my character “Scout” as she goes
through a journey and it’s not a typical story you
would expect to watch and not feel emotionally
attached/ sad for the character. To do this I am
hoping to make it obvious that scout is clearly
isolated, a wide shot of scout sat alone will make her
seem smaller and more vulnerable, hopefully this will
make the audience feel sympathy towards her.
My planning has helped a lot with my organisation.
For example the use of the production schedule was
very helpful, starting with the dates I 100% knew like
the deadline and the day I was going to be filming,
having these days confirmed helped me plan around
and figure out what I should be doing with the spare
time that I have. For example I knew that on the 4th I
would be filming, meaning that the 5th would be
primarily editing as well as Fridays morning. Having
these dates labelled as “busy” in a way helped me
stay on track for the days where I didn’t necessarily
have anything specific planned, Monday would be
for catching up work such as, finishing my script,
storyboards and any other pre-production tasks.
I’m hoping to not encounter any issues when filming
however, actors are known for being unreliable and
this is where issues could start. Other issues would be
not having enough footage to reach the 3 minute
mark once I have edited, I feel less confident about
the short film than I was hoping to feel, and I am
struggling to think of a script and ideas for my short
film, I don’t really have a final vision so its proving
difficult to work forward from there.
I think so, yes
None
This week was spent filming and editing your short film
Planning helped me to feel slightly more confident in
what I was going to film, without the planning I would
have gone into filming blind and would have ended
up being overwhelmed with the amount of work there
was to film. However the location and actors did
change around as my actor decided to tell me 2
hours before I was going to leave that she forgot and
that she couldn’t make it to London. So very last
minute we changed the location to Reading, this

How did the filming and editing
process go? Provide detail of
good and bad.
Did you learn any new filming or
editing techniques during this
process?
meant that I had to change actors for the role of Riley
as my Riley was London based, to be more
convenient. After a lot of asking around I found
someone able to get to Reading and willing to
participate at such last notice. So apart from that, the
planning really helped me stay on track and
especially if I hadn’t of planned as much as I did and
my actor cancelled it would have been so chaotic
and stressful.
The filming progress didn’t go as smoothly as I had
wished, I had to change a lot due to the location and
actor change, I ended up having a lot less footage
then I had originally hoped for, and once editing this
down it didn’t reach the time limit for the short film,
with both the title screen and credits, it made the
overall time longer however the actual film footage
wasn’t long enough. And ended up not even
reaching the 3 minute mark, The editing overall went
pretty smooth and I think the music I chose worked
well for the genre and atmosphere of the film.
However I did originally have “self-control” by frank
ocean towards the end, but this got copyrighted so I
took it down and decided to use the piano version of
“we fell in love in October” by girl in red. I do this that
this works really well in the end and I’m happy with it. I
had planned to have more dialogue in the piece as it
was a short film, I wanted it to come across very raw
and real, but due to the issues I had when filming I
think I made well with what I had and overall sorted
out the issue as much as possible. Even with the very
little dialogue and not much footage I think that the
storyline has still come across clear and I think the
overall message was still met.
During my filming I don’t think I had really learned
anything new due to the whole process being rushed
and a bit chaotic, it ended up turning out to be fairly
simple filming techniques and defiantly not my best.
When editing however, I am happier. I learned how to
separate a section of sound and turn that section up
or down. Meaning I could play my music and turn the
dialogue up so you were able to hear both. I also
learned how to do a simpler thing, however I think it is
more effective. Rather than having still credits I
figured out how to make the credits roll. I think this
made it look more professional and more tidy/neat.
Regardless of it being fairly simple. I’m happy I figured
it out as I think it adds a lot more to the piece and
especially as mine has proven to me more “basic” the
credits really helped.
Are you happy with your final
product and does it match your
initial proposed idea?
Are you on track for the week?
What work needs to be
completed in your own time?
Considering the issues I faced, I am happy with the
final product, I did have a lot higher expectations and
visions for this piece and I was the most excited to film
the short film, but obviously things happen and I had
many inconveniences get in my way. So even if this
wasn’t what I fully expected to get out of the short
film, I am happier with the final product now, then I
was at the start of the editing process, at the
beginning I was barley sure I would reach the1 minute
mark and didn’t have high expectations at all. I had
missed out a chuck of what I had originally planned
to film due to running out of time and light on
Wednesday. I thought that without this scene my
Whole Film would not have any structure to it and
honestly I thought it would look like a bunch of clips all
put to together. I do think that it looks good and has
an order, making it have a structure, therefore telling
a story. The final piece, I don’t think matches what I
had planned in the proposal, I originally wanted to do
a sort of “day in the life” of a homeless person and I
think it turned into more of a “this is an example of
one problem that the homeless face” but I do think
that it is effective and gets the audience thinking
about what they can do to help. Which in my surveys
that I did, people wanted to get out of it, “what they
could honestly do to help”. And I’m happy that I
achieved a small section of that. In the end I might
not have stuck to my proposal completely, I do think I
suck close to what I have first envisioned and overall I
am happy.
I am on track
I have completed everything