Evaluation - Thomas Brown

1. When we first began to work upon our film, we decided that we wanted to develop a social realism style film. We also decided fairly quickly that we wanted to make use of the Cellar below my house, which was a very promising location. We decided to create Social realism / Post apoclyptic film, And that instead of tackling what was outside, we wanted to explore the feelings that the characters would have. We felt that this was an interesting choice as a large amount of these films tackle whats outside directly, Whilst our film doesnt directly show you what the threat is. we drew largely from films such as the Road ( John Hillcoat ) which are focused around a few characters struggling against a large threat ( Also see 28 days Later). We felt this would help with character relation, as you get to know each character more. On the social realism level of things, we wanted to keep things realistic. Some films set post crisis have the characters gunning down hordes of zombies, and whilst this can make for very interesting film, we decided it was not a path we could realistically go down. Social realist movies can end in a huge variety of ways due to the amount of sub-genre's attached to them. We decided it was best to leave our ending more open, the hinting at a rescue, However you do not know if this was recieved, Or wheh the message went out. he fate of the father is also left open. We felt this would allow people to make their own decision, Which often makes for a more enjoyable experience.

Key things we wanted to include in our Short film from the Post apocolyptic Drama :

• Low Key Lighting - We Felt this would add to the suspense, as well as fit the scene, as there is no electricity in the area at the time of the apocolypse.
• An Unknown terror - Although not a horror film, the idea behind this was to play on peoples personal fears, because the viewer is no directly shown the enemy, then the viewer is allowed to imagine, which can add a lot of suspense.

Here Is a link to our video showing our low key lighting, Due to their being little natural light in the cellar, we had to artificially light 100 % of it, This turned out to be a very difficult and frustrating decision. We had to reshoot 3 times to finally get the lighting right, And even with the third shoot i feel it should of been lighter. In terms of conventions i feel we have met the criteria, Although their are issues with lighting we have achieved low key ( If very low key! ) Lighting, And the suspense is their. However if i were to Redo a simaler film, I would rewrite the script to include more exploration, If only of the cellar, The location has a lot of potential and the script could of been extended to be more dramatic.

We aimed to keep all sound Diagetic, So that it kept to the realistic aim of our film. The voiceover Is supposed to be as if heard over a radio, so although offscreen can be heard by the characters.
2.

For the Ancillary Tasks, Me and michael split the load into two, Taking a 75 / 25 % Share, I took main control over the poster, With michael on the Review.


The poster was designed around a single image, Which i wanted to surround with Darkness, To emphasise the Lonely aspect of the film. I then Added text into the black areas so it did not Overlap the image. This was important as it made the image the centerpiece of the poster. I feel that the poster actually represents the film quite well, It is striking with a lone image in the middle, and although Dark, Catches the eye quite well with the Strong image in the middle. We chose to use a Single award, As to much on the page would Take from the image to much, Simalerly, we tried to keep the Text to a minimum, With the only large font being the title. One of the main flaws with the poster is the Certificate. The Font does not match the rest and the 15 is not clear, and could easily be mistaken for an 18. This could hurt the potential audience, as the 15 - 18 year old bracket makes up a large amount of cinema goers. Criticism from Our target audience Showed that they felt the bottom of the poster let it down, With it being difficult to read and the Certificate and Studio block not Being level.

The review is my personal favourite of the productions. I feel it fit the task of recreating the LWlies review well. The language used was overall very appropriate. However i do feel we were slightly Generous with review scores, which could leave consumers expecting more from the film.

3. We Recieved varied feedback from people. The Difficulty with getting people to give feedback is that people generally dont want to be to honest in order to not offend. After asking around we got varied response. Some people praised some elements of the film, Mainly stuff such as the setting and some of the framing. however there was a lot of people saying that the middle segment of the film was lit very different to the beginning, which was something we also picked up upon. These comments have convinced me thy clear, this is something we predicted people would comment on, as we were worried about this upon finishing our film. in the future we should make sure to check that lighting is very consitent, as it can really spoil the illusion that is film. Some people were also very confused by the plot, as some of it wasnt verm that we have never used before.


4. We used a large amount of technology whilst producing this film, All of this technology allowed us to create the film as it is, and without it the task would not have been possible.

I will start by mentioning the XM2. When we first shot our film, The footage was unwatchable, It was to dark and the general purpose camera we were using wasnt picking up enough of the light. This ment we needed something which would perform this purpose. The XM2 ( Link to techspecs here ) Allowed us to capture much higher quality images and sound. This ment that filming in low key lighting was easier. It is also much easier to hold steady, so for what handheld shots we had to do, We were more confident about them.We tried a variety of lighting whilst filming our footage. On the final shoot we used Redheads, As these allowed us to get more directed light, As well as to light from different angles due to their being multiple lights. This allowed us to create more realistic natural light. you are also able to Attack Gels and diffusers, to further manipulate the light. We used this to our advantage, And managed to create convincing light. However we did not use these to their full advantage, Due to the lighting being changed part way through the shoot. This ment the film has incosistent lighting, which was one of the main complaints about the film.

One of the main pieces of technology we have gotten used to using is Final Cut Pro. We were originally going to use Imovie, The built in apple software, However it does not allow the customisation that Finalcut Provides. Final cut allows you to use more fonts for titling, And offers much more option for Shot changes and visual effects. We used this software to lighten the shots slightly as well, So that they were more clear. without this the shots would have definately been to dark. The fonts also allowed us to create more dynamic titling which could not have been done in Imovie. It also allows you to edit clips before you add them to the movie, This allows you to make sure a clip is going to work before you add it, meaning you have more control over the clip, as once its in it can be difficult to change the segment of film without disturbing other shots

We Made extensive use of Photoshop as well, For the Review and poster picture. I removed a lot of the background of the image, And darkened it to emphasise the face and the candle.I also resized the image & made use of the clone tool.

The main tool used to create the poster was InDesign. This allowed us to arrange all of the different Images & fonts that went into the Poster on different layers. Although this can be done in photoshop, Photoshop is more image based. Indesign offers much higher customisation on fonts, So we used photoshop to edit the pictures and then Arranged them in Indesign.

However we did have some trouble with technology. Since we had not used Final Cut before, It took us several days to become efficient in using it, this ment that we were unable to use our time effectively. Photoshop also consistently locked up and crashed, leaving us with our unsaved work staring at us, unable to use.