Evaluation

The style and content of my film is similar to the conventions of the genre, as the content of the film is about a boy who loses his brother and has to come to terms with that. This is something you would see in a drama based film. My film follows the 180 degree rule which means that the audience won’t be confused it also shows that I follow the normal conventions of films. I used shot reverse shots in my film to highlight who was speaking and give more emphasize to them. With my sound I followed the normal conventions by having the non-diegetic sound louder when action was happening such as the chase scene, and when titles are being played. I did this because there was no information the audience could take in through the sound at these points, however when there was speech in the film the non-diegetic sound became much quieter so that it did not overpower the speech.

The lighting I used in the film was all natural which I think shows the film to be a natural low budget film. The natural lighting also gave me the opportunity to get shots where there the sunset was present to make the shot all together beautiful with the mix of colours in the sky. The costumes I used mainly followed the conventions of other teenage based dramas; all the clothes people were wearing was what teenagers would wear day to day, so it also stuck true to life. The actors and actresses were chosen due to them actually being teenagers so they could easily relate to their characters.

Although the narrative of the film jumps from present time to the past, I think this adds a depth to the film which other films also use. It allows the audience to receive a piece of information and then to receive more information which further expands the prior information. I think it forces the audience to fully pay attention to the whole film in worry that they will miss a part out.

I don’t think my film shows a stereotypical portrait of males and females. There are male characters in my film and each one is completely different to the other. None of them I would say is a stereotypical image of a male teenager. In my film there is only one main female character with speaking lines, however she does not follow the stereotype of a female character as she tries to force the male character to get over the death of his brother instead of constantly caring for him. My film lacks female parts which hold importance as the story mainly revolves around two brothers; this is the only reason why female characters seem to be lacking in presence.

My film does not show older people, and this is something I could look at if I was to do another film. It only looks at young people during their teenage years. Sexuality is only slightly portrayed in my film. During the chase scene the person running away breaks through two girls holding hands, it is then followed on by pushing over male characters also. This shows that the person running away was not discrimination between females and males and potentially homosexuals to potentially heterosexuals. So my film doesn’t show either a positive or negative view on homosexuality, which is good as my film doesn’t show either a positive or negative view on heterosexuals. My film does not feature a person of a different, this was done unintentionally, this only happened because the people willing to act where the ones I had to work with.

My film is lacking many groups of people and it something I will work on in my next project, I could have easily included religious groups and other racial groups. So this is defiantly something I will work on for my next project.

I think my kind of film would be financed by companies such as warp; this is due to the fact that they normally back things which are a little bit more different than the normal Hollywood blockbusters. Warps are also lightly partnered with channel four, who commonly shows regional films and shows. Channel Four are also known for showing things that are slightly different and will only appeal to certain people and may not have a large audience. Also a lot of the media they produce is very regional and not done in prime locations. My film would most likely be advertised by word of mouth and by people’s blogs more than actual adverts; this is because there would be a lot less money to spend on advertising and doing the works. My film would also only be screened in selected screens especially smaller cinemas. My film would make money by gaining audiences in the cinemas and also by people buying the film on DVD.

People who would watch my film would most likely be teenagers/young adults and most likely be arty type people. Females would also be more likely to watch the film due to the fact the film talks about love and on the most part teenage boys don’t care too much for that kind of thing. My film would more likely appeal to people who are explorers and reformers, as these types of people enjoy finding new things, such as a film, which is unable to heavily advertise and are the type of people who will not mind that the film is not produced by a big label company

An audience would be attracted to my film as it is different, it challengers a lot of issues and so makes it watchable. My film goes head on with suicide and then the trauma caused onto his brother; this is not often seen in films. It would defiantly attract audiences who want something a bit different than the usual Hollywood love story, because in all honesty my film doesn’t act up events and love. My film also shows love for what it is, something unconditional, something that you cannot choose and something that can make your life horrible and yet at the same time amazing. That is why I think my film would attract a certain type of audience away from the usual big blockbusters.

 The skills I learnt about filming during the process was to be patient, I found it very difficult to tell the actors what I wanted them to do. I also found it difficult to get what I envisioned onto the camera.  I also learnt about how to control the lighting on the camera and how to use Zebra Lines to see what would appear as pure white and how to control them. I furthered my learning on skills I already had such as using a tripod. I am now able to manipulate the tripod successfully to make a tilt, which may be useful for future projects.

I learnt a whole new array of skills when it came to the editing process on Final Cut Pro, which I have no used before. I learnt how to cut and delete parts that I did not want. I also learnt how to use effects effectively such as fades between a clip and a title screen. I also discovered how to have text overlaying actual footage. This allowed me to have a title play over the footage, which is what I really wanted to do. Through the editing process I had to learn how to change the sound levels of the music and the dialogue. This meant that I was able to have a change between the music being quiet and out of the way to becoming louder and much more noticeable by the audience without them telling the music was changing sound. I was also able to do this with the actual sound recorded during the filming process. So if a sound made during filming that was to loud for the microphone, I was able to lower the sound levels so they were not to loud. I was able to increase the sound if the sound was to low that it was not audible.

Throughout my project I reached many difficult challengers, which I had to overcome, I had great difficulty getting what I had in my mind to happen in front of me, to overcome this I had to keep going and keep doing the shot till I was happy with it. I also had trouble with the actors and actresses, and to get them to act seriously for my film, I overcame this issue by forcing the repetition of the shot until it was done in a satisfactory manner. If I were to do another project similar to this, I would find people truly willing to work on the film or people who for instance are drama students. This would insure me that the people are going to have some skill in acting and would make the film look better. Another challenging issue I had was to do with the editing, I found it difficult at points of the editing process to keep continuity, this is because not all what I filmed matched perfectly in time. To combat this I had to thoroughly look through all that I filmed and try to edit it as best I could to make it have continuity.

I had one big issue during my project. When I had started to edit part of my film I discovered that it was filmed without sound, this meant that I had to re film an alternative scene much later on in the project. However I was able to get the actors I needed and manage to film something, although it was not my selected idea.

Since my preliminary task I have learnt more about camera angles and how to effectively use them. In my preliminary task the camera work and editing was very basic, I would like to think now that my actual project is more complex.

There are few similarities between my preliminary task and my main project, these include that I stuck with the similar sort of actors. They were people I could rely on yet weren’t brilliant actors. There are a few key differences between the two. In my preliminary task action and fighting was a key part of the film, however in my actual project I moved away from this. I decided to move towards a film that was drama based and more emotional. Another difference between the two is that I also decided to add more actors and actresses into the main project, by doing this I was able to have extras and people who had no actual contribution to the film. I think this gave realism to the film, which is a good thing. Having more actors and actresses allowed me to have more differentiation, this makes the film more interesting and so it is not the case that you are seeing the same people constantly.

If I had the opportunity to go back and make changes to my project I would change the story line. This is because the story line I chose was very hard to start showing in the time I was allowed to have my project be. This meant that a lot of what my film is doesn’t make to much sense but would have made sense if it were a full-length film. If I were to re do my project I would most likely change the genre to that of an action where the story line is not so important and would be easy to start showing within two minutes. I would also go back and choose different actors and actresses, I would most likely pick people who actually do drama and can act. This would’ve helped with the realism of the film and make it more captivating. I would also go back and use a different way of capturing the sound, due to circumstances I did not have the right leads to use an external microphone, so I had to rely on the camera’s microphone. If I had an external microphone I would have been able to pick up speech much better, and would have hopefully had many of the background noises sounded out. I would also have filmed more and repeated shots a lot more, this would have made my editing process much easier as I would have much more to work with. However all in all I am happy with the way my film has turned out.