http://www.withoutabox.com/ is an easy way of entering a number of film festivals at once so when our film is completed we will sign up to this website and apply.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Evaluation- Distribution
http://www.withoutabox.com/ is an easy way of entering a number of film festivals at once so when our film is completed we will sign up to this website and apply.
Evaluation- Audience
Techniques we have used help to reinforce this onto the audience for example, content of our film suits a certain audience as we show young girls dressed up in dresses and /heels, there is also alcohol and a pub. The main content of the short film is aimed at the audience to educate them on how to be more safe when on a night out as we illustrate the horrors of what could happen if they do not take control of how they are going to get home and the danger that they could be putting themselves into.
Our pace of editing changes at different points in the short film to show the feeling our main character is expressing for example when she is getting ready we have sped up a few shots to show the excitement she's feeling and then when her and Hollie are in the pub drinking we made the shots slow down to show the slowness of her reactions and that she isn’t in control of everything’s she’s doing anymore.
Our script illustrates our shocking story by surprising the audience; I started off writing the script in colloquial language to make the film more realistic and for our audience to relate more to her, Felicity starts off simply talking about the events of her night out. I made sure that the language suggests that these events happened last night so the audience get an understanding of the time scale.
Felicity tells her story directly to the camera as if she is talking to her friend which engages the audience as the script builds up the tension to make us wonder what the point of her story is. This tension builds throughout as she goes from talking about getting dressed, her journey to the pub, talking to old men in the pub, getting too drunk and then having her friend book a cab home for her. This is when the pace of the script slows down more and we get a feeling that something’s wrong. Felicity’s body language changes as she speaks slower, starts to fiddle more and doesn’t look directly at the camera as much as before.
This adds more tension to when we find out the horror to her story, as she describes her clothes being ripped and we assume the cab driver rapes her.
After presenting our short film to the year 12 class, we got them to fill out the questionnaire we designed. From looking back at their answers I can see where we could have improved and what went down well with the audience for example, the majority of the class liked the fact that for the opening of our short film we had the start of Felicity’s dialogue with no visual and then faded into the shot of her on the sofa.
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There was a mixture of answers of what the audience thought could had been more effective which were that there could have been more alternative shots, I agree with this completely. The rest of the audience felt it was a really good piece.
The storyline was made perfectly clear but some of the audience felt that music would have added to the atmosphere in the short film.
Also more of the audience agreed with our decision of not filming the actual attack as one of the students wrote 'It makes you think, which is good'. As for the last question there was a mixture of preference to what everyone felt was most effective in our film which is good as it shows most elements of our film were filmed and edited effectively.
Overall I like the feedback we received from the year 12 audience and agree with their comments, there comments will help with future projects I work on like this for example I will look into using the right type of music to create an atmosphere and mood for certain scenes.
To help promote and get a mixture of feedback for my film I can use new media methods for example, Facebook, Vimeo and Youtube where the film can be watched and people can leave comments about what they thought.
After posting the short film to Facebook I got these comments,
The comments reflect all of the feedback we have received from our short film and I am very pleased with the feedback as a whole
Evaluation- Influences
In terms of narrative 'About a girl' has influenced the monologue for our short film and also some of the way the film has been edited, I wrote the monologue using colloquial language like the main character in 'About A Girl' her language is shocking at first but then it suits her and we get an insight into her background and life, we aimed to do this in our monologue for example when Felicity says "She is such a spoily brat sometimes" she is breaking the 4th wall as if the audience are friends of hers.
Our use of camera was also inspired by the short film, we took the fact that the main character in 'About a girl' talks to the camera as we felt it made the audience connect with the character more which is the feeling we were trying to portray in our short film.
The structure of our short film is also similar to 'About a girl' as we have 1 main character and a main setting or action for example, Felicity sitting on the sofa telling her story and then like in 'About a girl' there are flashbacks and shots from different situations that relate to what she is talking about. To make ours different, for most of our flashbacks there are no diagetic sounds and we just hear Felicity's monologue carrying on throughout.
During the inspiration week me Lavinia and Ali liked the game where we looked at different pictures and then had to make a short film synopsis from them and this is exactly what Ali did when we saw this poster.
We all agreed on the concept and thought that our short film will also be giving out a positive message and warning people about the issue of unbooked and unlicensed mini cabs.
Evaluation- Completed Short Film
Prey-Vimeo Settings HD from BDC on Vimeo
We only used diagetic sound in our film as we wanted to keep it really realistic. Sound wasn't a main feature of our film as we did not use background music. This works well in most of the film but I feel that if we did show more shots in the cab and of the attack we could have used some chilling music to more fear to the film.
I think our actress and script worked really well together as she was very engaging and makes the audience at first just think shes a bubbly girl talking about her night out and we just think we are going to hear some gossip but then as the film goes on she uses great acting skills to change the audiences mode and create tension in the audience as we can tell something bad happens to her.
We wanted use of colour in our short film to reflect our main characters feelings at that time, for example during the monolouge scene we have filmed her purposley in a room with white walls, white sofa and a white top. The use of white in the scene represents the pureness and innocence of Felicity as its the day after the attack we see her vunerabilty and at first feel she is an innocent girl but the contrast is that she has actually been taken advantage of.
The colouring of the flashbacks of when Felicity is on Midholm road and walks home is a nice contrast to the rest of the shots and expresses a different feeling
I feel that we should have filmed more footage of the night as it would of made the film more visually exciting. We could have also had a better ending for example I would have like to have titles and credits at the end of our film which would have informed people of who acted in the film, who made the film, and what locations contributed to the film.
My contribution throughout the short film process was mainly equal to Ali and Lavinia's. In the preparation stages I along with Ali helped to find our actresses and I also wrote the monologue and then gave to Lavinia to look over and improve. I also did the mood board and storyboard for the short film along with the inspiration behind the film and the locations information.
We made a few changes to our original plan we wanted to shoot the pub scene in a club in Croydon originally but this was proven difficult as we couldnt always get hold of the clubs managers and space for our camera and equipment in the club was limited and dangerous. Also originally we wanted to have 2 more female characters to make it feel more of a night out along with filming Felicity waiting and getting into the mini cab.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
PREY Questionairre for year 12's
1.To open our short film we started with a black screen with the main character starting her dialouge and then faded to the shot of her on the sofa talking, do you like this opening of our short film, if not do you have an idea of what could have been more effective?
Yes No
What could have been more effective:
2.‘Our goal was to show young people the dangers of getting into unlicensed cabs and to advise people to organise safer travel arrangements prior to a night out’
Did our storyline illustrate our aim suitably?
Yes No Could have been made clearer
3.For the flashback scene of Felicity walking home after the attack did the experimentation with colour give the scene a good effect?
Yes No
4.Do you think the use of music would have added more to our short film?
Yes No
Reason Why:
5.We purposley didn’t include footage of the attack do you think withholding this scene makes the film more powerful? Or do you think it would have been more powerful with it?
With Without
6.In terms of entertainment, What did you find most effective in our short film and why?
Use of camera shots Locations Sound Actors Visual Effects
Reason Why: