This is my final summative evaluation will tie my FMP together and is an analytical and reflective piece that addresses the key and crucial points of the project and how you addressed throughout.

 

Intentions

From my Pitch presentation, my intentions on this project were to create an intriguing looking effect that looks extremely realistic. I needed to create some kind of Visual Effect as this is what i am going to do university. Through some small research, I wanted to create a Wanted/Matrix style classic effect where a hero shoots a villain. This would also be in the Action and Thriller genres. However, i knew that this would not be enough content for a short film if i want just doing the one scene. With this in mind in needed to tie a story around the one effect or create a next concept but possible add multiple effects in one short film. So I decided on creating a short film with multiple effects instead because this gives me the opportunity to express my skills in Visual Effects. This is because if i chose to do the one effect i am limited to what i can show and i won’t be able to push my skills to the there highest capability.

Then i created my Proposal explaining what i have already achieved in my skills and what i would like to improve on even more. It also provided me to explain my new project concept which at the time was:

I want to create a short film/skit where there are two main characters going through an interview. The short/skit is going to be an Action Comedy, to genres that I have never investigated properly so, this will all be new for me. There is going to be lots of different action effects inspired by when I watched Max Payne with Mark Wahlberg. I want to add a comedy element to it which I think will work well.

Looking back to my proposal i have stuck to my routs and my FMP relates to this concept quite well. In the early days, i did not know what my audience liked about action and comedy films. However, from doing research into my target audience and then going into more detail into what elements they like more i then had a better understanding from them. Also my presentation, i did research on where the best social media sites where best to publish my short film, however, i needed my audience’s opinion on it. With this, i know where to publish my short film as i had solid research and i also had my audience for the research on top of that.

Developing Idea

Pitch

My original idea has changed a lot since the Pitch presentation. I wanted my final product to be a scene where there i a hitman looking for a criminal that has done some horrible things. The Hitman notices the criminal and the criminal elbow barges past him. The Hitman turns around, in slow motion, and shoots him. ”The effect that i wanted to achieve was a Matrix/Wanted effect where you see the individual parts of the gun move like the slider and the trigger. There would have also been the smoke, air warp, muzzle flash fireball and 3d bullet going through the air.” These effects where what i was thinking about at the time however this all changed when i did my pitch.

I was then told that if i really wanted to do his effect i would place it into a short film as this would not work by itself as a product. Plus it needed to be longer than 2 minutes to get a high grade. So the options i were given where tie that scene into a story or create i completely new idea but still have the element of VFX. So I decided on a new idea as i wanted to create more than one effect anyway to express what i have learnt over the years.

Development, Research and Audience

My idea was that I wanted my film to be based on the fact that someone was going to be shot. I initially thought of this crucial component because I know that I am able to do this visual effect. I had a general interest in this because I enjoy these effects in films so I definitely wanted this to be a key scene in my film. I knew that I wanted to do an interview room in which two people had alternate personalities. Instead of doing the ordinary criminal and superhero cliche, I decided to do an angry interviewer and I, laid-back relaxed potential employee. I then decided that I wanted to tweak the genre so that it wasn’t as serious which made me change an action thriller into an action comedy. I wanted a simpler idea so that I could do multiple effects and this allowed me to do these effects with ease, rather than doing just the one detailed effect. I wanted to show that I am capable of doing various effects rather than just the type (the gunshot) which is why I decided to do the humorous scenes of Thomas doing his fun stunts. With this in my mind, because the interviewee is creative and relaxed, once the interviewer asked him a question, his mind imagined something very over the top and exuberant so that the interviewer would be impressed by how his imagination goes beyond exaggerated.

I then started by looking at a short film that has a lot of VFX involved called Losses. I then did some on the codes and conventions of the Action and Comedy genres this was really useful as there where elements i used in my imagination sequences where certain things happened to make people laugh. On the other hand, my interview benefited as one of my characters was constantly laughing at what he was thinking about making the audience wonder at what else could he be laughing at. This was to help the plot develope and also help the action and comedy genre shine in my short film. I then needed to know who my target audience likes. So obviously i went on IMDB and looked the most popular action and comedy films and looked at the ratings and reviews. I then took the key points, that came up frequently, and applied it to my short film in some way. Having this information i then wanted to find out where i should publish my short film. So I looked at Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Instagram. From this research, i wanted to publish my short film to YouTube however i wanted to see what my target audiences thought about this. Through the questionnaire, i found out that over half of my audience picked YouTube so the feedback suited me perfectly (Here is the blog explaining this). After this, i wanted to see what my target audience liked about the Action and Comedy genres.

After more research, I realised that I needed my audience’s feedback on the action-comedy genre and with this in mind, I sent a questionnaire. I asked various questions ranging from how much gore would they like to see in an action film. Then going from this sort of question to a more comedic side which involved questions like ‘how often would you prefer jokes in comedy movies?’ With this research, I knew that I wanted to have my imagination sequences to be the gory parts of my short film. But, then I wanted the comedy aspect to follow during the interview scenes. Doing this blends the action and the comedy together. From this, I knew that I needed my two main characters to bounce off each other in some sort of way. I then did research on clashing personalities. I looked into The Rush Hour franchise and watched their documentary and it explains how the characters, Inspector Lee and James Carter, how they are completely different in ways that make the films funny. So, Inspector Lee is a Chinese man who can’t speak English very well but he is very good at mixed martial arts and James Carter is a black American Detective who gets annoyed very easily and is a humorous character. They work very well together mainly because of their differences which makes the audience laugh. Relating these characters to my own, my interviewer will be lazy and unenthusiastic. However, my interviewee will be casual and easygoing. This relates to The Buddy Cop sub-genre which is an attachment to the action-comedy genre.

In addition to this, I started research on film production. I found that in the pre-production stage, I needed to properly location scout, in order to find a suitable location for the scene that I was doing. I knew that later on, at some point, I would location scout and find my perfect location for that particular scene. I discovered that I knew I had to do storyboards for, not only my favourite scenes but, for all of them and this was important as I was told to create my favourite scenes from storyboards first. This was because these were the most interesting for me and this helped my drive in completing this project. This is what helps people achieve their aims and goals in their final product because they know that these scenes are essential in making the film unique. Furthermore, I was reminded to create test shots, shot lists, location recces, risk assessments and call sheets. I knew that during this process, I would have faced problems however, these are easily solved. On the other hand, in the production stage, I learnt that through my research, the hardest scenes for me to film will be my interview scenes as this will take the most time. However, once the interview scenes are filmed, I can then start my effects (I explain later on in my project that I am splitting my project into two halves). I had to stick to the budget and schedule that I made so that I wouldn’t have to worry about any dates or times because it will have already been planned out beforehand. This allowed me to get on with other aspects of the film because I knew that my timescale was sorted. Moving onto my post-production stage of the blog, I found out that the part of the visual effects of my short film is going to be the most tedious part because it will take the longest to edit. My effects will be taken from other people’s effects so that I can follow how they did it and add my own twists to them. This prevents anything from going wrong as all I need to do is follow how they created the same effect. But, I knew as well as not to change too much as this can cause problems that I might not know how to fix in the future.

Through the research, i had found my idea developed into an office interview where at the end you wonder if the interviewee has the ability or not. My reflection shows that as the short film starts you think that the short scene that is playing is his imagination and you think he is just trying to impress the interviewer with crazy scenarios. However, in the end, he goes back in time and relives the interview to answer the question in a different way, hoping he will get the job. It makes the viewer think that he could have used this time travel item on the truck hitting scene and where the car run over him. He would have known that the car was going to run over him so he wanted to look cool so he did it how he did. This makes you then think that these scenarios that he told the interviewer could have been real. This is what i was trying to portray in my final piece and i think i the acting was a little better and if time wasn’t an issue i know that i could have made this even better. However, i know where i have gone wrong and i know what areas needed developing to then make my next project better/more appealing than this one.

After more research, I knew that I needed to look at the codes and conventions of action-comedy. With the action genre side, they will be my own imagination sequences because I want to make them look cinematic and like a Blockbuster movie would be. Not forgetting, I found out through the codes and conventions for both genres, I can add sound to my short film, for example, a person being hit by a car to create a thud onomatopoeic sound which will be sudden and a fan in the background to create an awkward silence. These two sounds will help with the genre that I have chosen. Also, with the car hitting sound, it will be in the imaginative sequence and the other sound (the fan creating the silence) will be for the interview scene.

Also, my script writing skills weren’t that great so i decided to do some research on my actual scriptwriters and how storytellers write them. I learnt that i must create all the most interesting scenes first but mind mapping. I also learnt lots of tips about organising the story by creating a ”step by step outline” and then also having a character overview which was really useful but i only have two characters to remember so this didn’t really help. However, having this in a big film with lots of characters will be really useful as all you need to do is read this and you know how that character should be acted like and what characteristics they have etc… The big part of this blog was teaching me how to write a proper script so that my actors can read the script with ease and know exactly what to do/say. I needed to ensure that my script was clear for the actors to read and understand. I didn’t want to overcomplicate the script in case it worried my actors and they might panic during filming. I had to make sure that my actors didn’t have any questions regarding the script so that they could act in confidence. Furthermore, I didn’t want to ramble and make the script too long in case it made my audience bored and it can lead to the actors being demotivated and less enthusiastic about their acting. The actors need to enjoy the script as much as the audience so that they feel more determined to give their best performance. I must avoid confusion, characters names need to be kept completely separate from the dialogue. I have to do this to avoid bafflement.

I then looked into developing my codes and conventions for more specifically the comedy genre because I wanted to get a better understanding. I realised how important facial expressions and body language were in film. This was mainly for my interview segment as my imagination sequences don’t need that much facial expression and body language. This is where the idea came from in having a shocked expression my interviewer so that I could have my interviewee imagine something over the top and have the interviewer look shocked. This is why after every question is asked, there is an imagination sequence that follows. As goes for my interviewee, his facial expression and body language are going to be laughing at the things that he imagines but when he gets the interviewers reaction, he shows an awkward/uncomfortable feeling. This will be seen through his face and body language.

I needed some short film inspiration so I did some research on contextual analysis. The short film, Room 8, gave me so many different ideas to implement in my short film. The big one being foreshadowing at the start leading you to the big twist at the end (Where you see the matchbox shaking and then puts it in his draw). This is done in big blockbuster films just on a bigger scale. ”I really like it when directors do this because the viewer will brush this clip off because it doesn’t seem impotent at the time but then you remember it at the end which makes you remember it from before. I wont to implement this into my short film however i must mind map some ideas down and come up with something. This is because the idea must be unique and something no one else has thought of before. This is has helped me go more in-depth into my time travel. Having my main interviewee go back in time at the end of the short film to then revisit the question he is being asked so that he gets as many attempts to answer the questions correctly (so he can get the job). I would have right at the start of the short film my actor laughing as it he as said something funny in his previous attempt to get the job.” This was what helped me develop the big ending that i have (cliff hanger) however i got more in-depth with this later on.

After my short film inspiration, I realised that I needed more specific codes and conventions in the action genre. Through this research, a small part of it was that throughout my action sequences, it is crucial to make this action genre shine, they have to be male because it relates more to men than women. This is helpful because all of my actors are male anyway and this didn’t need to be a worry. It was also important that I chose to have a strong male protagonist but reading further, if I did the complete opposite, by having a small character and have him doing tasks that a strong, male protagonist does (ironic), it will help the comedy genre shine just as much as the action genre. Also, it is important that my imagination sequences are over the top and dramatic because this is what makes action moves due to the wow factor drawing the audience in. With this being said, I must make my imagination sequences impossible for an average human to do.

After the research done so far, I developed my idea enough so that it was at a point of being close to being 100% with it. My idea was that the interviewee was going to walk into the room with a smile on his face. This is to make the audience contemplate why he is finding an interview funny. The interviewee replies to questions and during the last dream sequence, I want it to be realistic and aggressive with what I am trying to show. The interviewer will show the shock of emotion because he didn’t expect his answer. Then, the film will cut again to the beginning of where the interviewee first enters the room showing that he has gone back in time. He is trying to impress the interviewer by the answers that he gives and he can sue something that the general public use to go back in time which can be a phone. The question and the imaginative sequence will happen four separate times with the questions prior. Once the interviewer realises what he is thinking about, it is when the interviewee realises that he needs to start again. The reason foreshadowing occurs is because of the mistake being made. By using the same shot from the beginning and putting it at the end, it shows that there is an infinite loop happening.

Then a few blogs down and i then wanted to ask my audience about what imagination sequences they liked the best from the ones i have previously selected (i had selected these as i new i could create these effects with the skills that i have now whilst following the tutorials). I already knew that i wanted to create the bullet whole effect so that wasn’t an issue. However, The selection that my audience picked was the hardest ones however i new i could recreate them. They also picked the bullet whole effect which was a bonus. With this information, I came up with my interviewer questions and linked them to the effects chosen. However, my questionnaire had only three extremely popular ones so instead of picking a fourth unpopular one, I just found a similar tutorial to my third most popular one. Thus, giving me four imagination sequences that work very well together. On the other hand, at this point, I still didn’t know what to do for my fourth imagination sequence, I just knew I wanted it to be a big one.

I now needed to do research on screenwriting and screenplay. After looking at my research, it was similar to what my target audience chose. I had asked everyone how many jokes they preferred on a scale of 1-10 and the majority said 5. As the professional filmmaker website ‘nuvotech’ and my target audience have said the same thing, I knew that I had to implement this into my short film. The website and my target audience said that I shouldn’t go overboard with jokes so I know not to do this. I also discovered that when creating my script, I would have needed to collaborate with someone who is naturally funny so that I had ideas to put into my short film. I needed a comedic feeling throughout my film and not just in some areas which is why I had to do this.

I now need to find some more contextual analysis and find ideas if I need them on how to improve my short film. So, I looked at a variety of Indi short films and I gathered various ideas from them. However, the main source of information was from the short film ‘The Shorter The Better’ which says that the shorter the film is, the less costly it will be. However, the intention isn’t to make the film look cheap and if anything is too long, the attention span of the audience will decrease. I thought that a film had to be longer than 5 minutes but it didn’t which is like Sebastian’s VooDoo which was only 4 minutes long and rated 5/5 on AIDY reviews and 7.3/10 on IMDb.

I then did some contextual analysis because i wanted to see if i could find any hidden VFX or to help me gather the extra idea that i could implement in my imagination sequences. I learnt that from the South Paw research that i can use the background to my benefit if i create a black slat first without moving my camera. With this, i thought of the Shaun of the Dead scene where the zombie has a hole in their stomach. I could find a black slate and place that behind the footage to the gunshot effect in my short film. This will create a hole in the actor’s face which will look a lot more interesting than a normal whole like in the tutorial I and my audience picked out. It’s the same concept just developed a lot more to look more realistic.

 

Theory

I had my Academic Theory first as i needed help with the reception theory ext… As the director and creator off my short film, I must know how to get the audience to read the film in a way that I intend. I do this by giving certain camera angles and placing certain objects in the environment ext… a must change the camera, editing, audio, costumes, locations and mise-en-scene in ways to give a certain emotion. This is going to be tricky as my short film is a comedy and action short film. I was thinking of having realistic comedy elements (camera, editing, audio, costumes, locations, mise-en-scene) in the interview room. On the other hand for the imagination sequences, i am going to have over the top sounds and camera angle to give a stereotypical action film (doing this make the short film have an element of comedy to it). So I must put into my short film good camera techniques (so I that my short film stands out just by the initial angle/technique), smooth editing and audio (this makes the audience feel like they are in the interview with then from the seamless cuts and audio eg radiators people talking ringing phones ext… This goes both ways with my imagination sequences), realistic costumes (i let my actors come in there college clothing as they looked smart but casual to fit the classic young person interview look), Locations (I know that my short film is going to be an action comedy. This in mind i must be careful when picking my locations. The office locations must be realistic and cluttered as this tell my audience that this scene is real and not a fantasy. However, in my imagination sequence locations, i want them to be fairly plain so that when something over the top happens the audience is left with very little to look at making them laugh because it makes them think that the short film has been created with very little effort), Mise-en-scene (With this in mind, I am going to have an object that is completely different from the example I made up before. This is because my two characters are going to be completely different, one being enthusiastic and enjoying being in the interview room, and one being lazy, bord and doesn’t want to be in the interview. So the object i will be having will be out of place and shouldn’t really be there. For example, the two characters will be opposite a desk and i will put items on the desk that look out of place. eg pens and pen cup knocked over, paper scattered over the desk, the office chair leaning back, phone light up the desk and an overflowing bin). I now needed to take a look at semiotics and get an idea on how I can make my short film better by using it.

Academic Theory, Semiotics is about what symbols you or the audience sees in the film that has an impact on the story. I learnt that Semiotics tells/shows the audience an emotion or make you wonder if anything bad or good is going to happen, without telling them a word or having a character showing an emoting. This worked really well with the shocked expression on the interviewers face when the interviewee explains his day but we don’t actually hear him say he has killed someone but we know he did by the interviewer’s expression. I also have a clock in the background symbolizing that when the time travel happens it tells the audience that the story has gone back in time and we are back to the past. This makes the audience wonder if the imagination sequences have actually happened or if he was just making them up. Also, a young man holding a pizza box tells the audience that he is a pizza delivery boy. Furthermore, i also have a small document in the interviewer’s hand, showing that he is the interviewer. I do many more of these small things in my Theory work however the list is a way too long to talk about them all.

Pre-Production, Planning and Organising

I knew i had a fully thought out idea and i just needed to start the planning now. So firstly, I went location scouting to find the perfect office space for my interview scene. I looked at multiple locations, two of which had more cons than pros which was first of all,  16 Fellery Street and it hadn’t got any furniture and space had to be hired out. I wanted to spend as little money as possible which is why I didn’t go with Fellery Street. The other location was Foxhall Road, Chorley and it had an open space which was great, however, it didn’t have an office environment with no furniture either. This property had to be let out and it couldn’t be used for one-off uses. So, I decided to go with the student support rooms at Runshaw College. I chose this because I didn’t have to pay for using it and the furniture was already in there. This office was a big office which made it easier to film in and the corridor was wide and long which helped me film with ease. It was an easy space to navigate when I decide to use the tripod. Moving onto the imagination sequences, I have four different effects which are the basketball effect; the car hitting effect; the car dodge effect; the gunshot effect, which meant I must have four different locations. Starting with the basketball effect, I needed somewhere that had an open space which made Tatton Park on Silverdale Road perfect because it is safe to work on and hardly many people go there. I visited St Peter’s Park as well which is on Erskine Road and this was much smaller, it was crowded with children and I couldn’t be positive about it being a safe place to film. There were basketball nets at Tatton Park as well which was great because it ensured the wide space that I needed and this location worked out the best. I then moved onto the car hitting effect and I started by looking for a main road which wasn’t too busy and I needed a fast car to give the best effect. I looked around my local area by using Google Maps and I realised quieter areas wouldn’t have been good for what I was trying to accomplish. I ended up choosing Bagganley Lane and the other option was Montcliffe Road. However, Montcliffe Road was overcrowded with cars and I couldn’t ensure safety on my actor. I saw that a lorry was approaching on Bagganley Lane which looked perfect and I filmed it, then filmed Thomas in his part and then I put the two together. I then moved onto the car dodge effect and started looked at a range of places for this including rural places on main roads and country/quiet roads. I knew I had to make sure I tried keeping myself and the actor as safe as possible because he would be lying in the road. This meant that I went for the safer and better option of choosing a quiet road and do two different film takes, merging the two together. I am glad that it was a quiet road because I knew that there would be no other cars to interrupt my film and it was easier for me to concentrate on the only car on the road. The importance of Thomas’s safety was high and I knew that a culdesac would decrease the chances of harm the most. For my final effect, the gunshot effect, this is the one that I found the most difficult. I wanted to find a house with a longer pathway to the door because the scene was a long shot and it needed to look real and give the best impression possible that practically anything is about to happen. I looked at different houses that I could use and I knew that I would need the owner’s permission to film their house. I asked the owner of the house that I chose and they understood what my aim was and they were fine with me filming them and their home. There were three houses in total that I narrowed it down to. The first house was Tony’s house on Moorfields and he is a friendly neighbour of mine making it easier for me to contact and communicate about the filming which was the same with Tracy’s house. Both Tracy and Tony’s houses wouldn’t fit my filming because one of them didn’t have a driveway and the other was on a main road and the driveway was the important part of what I needed to accomplish the filming. Tracy’s house has a path that curves, which I felt that it could have been difficult to film the gunshot scene with the way her driveway was. I ended up choosing Stephen’s house because the drive was very long and spacious enough for me to film at different angles.

I got my script out the way so that i can base my planning of that. I needed to refer back to my script layout research and my screenplay research in order to create my script. At first, I created a draft and created a full script on how my research had intended on it looking. I then started by creating a storyboard for my favourite effect, the gunshot effect. (I shouldn’t have done this in this order but i was so excited to do this planning. I should have started my planning for my  interview). I then followed my planning to do my storyboard for the rest of my imagination sequences. Then this followed up with my interview storyboard. I then knew that i needed to split my project into two part to my life a lot easier. This was explained in my ‘Splitting my project in half‘ blog. I then started my production schedule then followed my shot list, Test Shots, Location Recce and risk assessment and my call sheet for my interview segment. (After i filmed all this, as shown in my text below). I then started my shot lists for my effects. Such as the basketball, pizza box, gunshot and car hitting effects. then my call sheet for my basketball, pizza box, gunshot and car hitting effects. Furthermore, i worked on the Location and risk assessment for the basketball, pizza box, gunshot and car hitting effects. Shortly after then my location shots for basketball, pizza box, gunshot and car hitting effects. I also explained everything in more detail when talking about my interview and my basketball effect and then the rest of the effects in videos Vlogs.

 

Production and Practical Skill

My practical and production when really well i explain this in my 1hr and 30min videos talking about how i performed in my production and what skills i used.

Interview production

Interview Explanation

Imagination sequence Basketball Production

Imagination sequences pizza box, gunshot and car hitting effect productions

Imagination sequences pizza box, gunshot and car hitting effect Explanation

 

Final thoughts

I explain my final thoughts at the 28.23-minute mark on my effects explanation.