Chris comptons evaluation of Short Film

Evaluation of Short Film

The general story to the short film called 'Packet of Luck' that we made starts with a group of keen film studies students looking for a location to shoot their film. As the majority of the group stops to talk another member of the group walks into the woods and stumbles across a mysterious bag which he then further investigates to find that it is full to the brink of cash.

Excited and in slight disbelief the group member returns to the group to show the money and it is this scene where the film’s three story lines actually begin. The group argue over what to do with the money causing one member to walk away with the bag to hand it into the police. One of the other members grows angry of this decision and lashes out with a bag knocking him to the ground.

When this action occurs the video rewinds and begins from the original scene where they have just discovered the bag. The scene then leads to a member of the group quoting “I want nothing to do with this at all” which was the original member in the last scene who threatened to hand it into the police. He then walks of and takes the bag without the group realising and is then pursued by a man who was originally picking up the bag. The chase leads round the corner and there is a distant gunshot, which leads to the tape rewinding once more.
In this scene the student who finds the bag decides that it could be the wrong choice to take it and leaves it on the floor. He then walks off to find the rest of the group and the credits roll in.

My key role in this short film was both an actor and in charge if cinematography which means I am in control of the camera shots and angles alongside the director. This includes angles such as over the shoulder shots, close ups, panning and establishing shots. Using the 180° rule proved difficult as there were three members in the group all arguing at the same time. Also many of the camera shots were used in a hand held perspective, like a POV shot as we thought this could add a bigger sense of realism to the short film. The group were supposed to be filming the short movie so we used the fact that they left the camera rolling in certain scenes when the group is together discussing the money.

The Idea behind the film was great in the sense that we created three different sequences all based upon the sole decisions of the group and what this effect had on the outcome of the story. We found the rewind effect to be very useful as it blends in well with the fact that they are a film studies group shooting a film.

In the first scene when the group first appears on set one of the students is holding a camera bag. I would like to clarify that this was not an accident and a bad case of mise-en-scene as we wanted the viewers to realise that they were a film studies group. The weather also proved a problem with continuity as on the first day of shooting where we filmed the main core of the film was very cold and overcast and then when we completed filming on the other two days it was very sunny but there was not much we could do to change this.

We used Final Cut to upload and edit the film which we all helped out in expanding our ideas and merging them together. We also used Garage Band to create a soundtrack for the opening scenes and the end credits. We created a slow beat with a creepy sense of suspension which worked really well with the film.

We added an effect to change the levels of contrast in the film which added a dark sinister effect to the film. We feel this gave the film a stronger sense of a thriller and horror combined. This was achievable by letting the viewers know that something bad was about to happen leaving the viewers on the edge of their seat to see how it was going to end.

In conclusion the film was a success apart from small continuity errors which we could not change. I personally wanted a few more over the shoulder shots in the group discussion but key members of the group were not always able to film making it difficult to correct these errors.

Tim Pearson's Evaluation of our Film

Our short film, called 'Packet of Luck', is about a group of students who find an extraordinary amount of money. What follows is three different accounts of what happens when they find the money, each one following the other as if the previous response had not occurred. While I'm content that our film has successfully portrayed the context and narrative of the story, there are some things that I think could have been improved, judging by the comments we received from the audience and my own personal opinion. However, there are things in the film that I think were done well and don't need to be improved. My main role whilst we were creating our film was as the Editor.
To start with, the things that I'm pleased that I contributed to the project are varied, but mainly I would say my determination to make the film to the best of my ability. This means I had to be more confident than I would normally be when it comes to saying 'no' to an idea or suggestion that I know is bad, and that does not follow the genre and aim of the film, even when I'm in the minority during the discussion.
I'm also pleased with how I've contributed to the imagery of the film. What I mean by this is that I edited the colour of our footage to give the film more depth, making it feel more cinematic.
But there are things that I would improve if I was doing this project again. For example, I would want to spend a lot more time on it, shooting more footage, so that we could spend more time concentrating on getting good shots that would keep the audience interested. We could also have got a greater variety of different shots. I would also want to improve the location, as I don't really think that where we originally filmed it was such a great idea, as it just did not give the feel of an out of the way place (We filmed it in the school grounds). Next time we would probably choose some place that does not have much background noise, and doesn't have anything that could interfere with us while filming.

Looking back at the scripting and making of the film, I would also like the chance to re-write the script. The three sequences follow the group's response to finding the money, and the moral choices they make, and what happens in each case as a consequence of their choice. Although at the time of the original discussion the three choices seemed very different, and to follow three different story lines, I think that with a bit more thought we could have come up with better situations and locations. However, the group as a whole were keen to keep things as simple as possible because of the strict time limit for the film.
The audience reacted quite positively to our film, as they understood the context and genre of the film. However, they did have some fair comments and ideas that we could use if we ever got the chance to do this project again. For example, we could have improved the script so that everything flowed more smoothly, and sometimes the camera work was a bit shaky. But they seemed to react positively to my concentrated area, the editing, even though I still think I could improve upon it.
We also had comments that agreed with me about the location – somewhere more remote would have been good. It was also suggested that more close-ups would have isolated the actors from the bits of background we really didn't want. This is a good point – it would have improved the film.
A couple of people also liked our use of background music to create tension.
During the entire process of creating our film, I have been trying to be involved in as much of the creation as possible, cooperating with my group in the planning stage, being very determined to put forward my ideas and feelings, and trying to keep the project on target, especially when members of the group were absent on filming days.
One of our prime aims in the film was to give the impression of continually returning to a certain point in time, the time when the money was found and a decision made. We edited a 'rewind effect' to show this happening. I think this worked quite well. Several of the audience commented on it, and felt that it had the right effect.
There are always restrictions that affect projects of this type. Having a small group, and so limited crew, was one of the main problems. We ended up having to film without someone to hold the camera in the majority of shots, resulting in less interesting camera angles.
Whilst looking back at the film, there were a few errors I have made that I think are quite noticeable, and yet the audience did not comment on them when they watched the film. The first error that I have made which is quite noticeable is where the sound near the beginning of the film changes volume during the cuts between scenes. The reason for this is that the camera records different levels of volume depending upon where it was placed during filming. During the editing process I tried to counteract this by using some background noise that was continuous, laying this under the original noise, but I still had difficulty editing it so it was not noticeable. It succeeded in the majority of the film except for this particular clip.
Also, there are a few continuity errors in the film - mainly to do with costume, which in my opinion we should have been more careful about during filming. I think I managed to hide the fact of one person's costume being changed, there where other times where it was quite noticeable.

In my role as the Editor, while I received mainly positive comments about my work, I have made a few mistakes which I missed until we had completed the film. I think some were unavoidable, because when you watch the film so many times whilst editing you sometimes skip over bits to the bit you want to change, so you are not concentrating all the time on all the elements of the film to see what needs to be improved. This is where a new viewer would have helped in the editing process to see what I missed. However, we do this in a way, as the other members of the group did look at the film continuously as I edited it.
While we were concentrating upon our own roles we did sometimes help each other out or do some elements of the other roles. All my group did this at some point. But I mostly spread my influence in trying to get as many varied shots as possible. Also I tried to keep the project flowing smoothly from one step to the next, so that we would always have something to do, to add or change within the project. You could say I was directing people, telling them what the project needed to be better. Of course when I ran out of things to say I always listen to my group, and to their ideas. I also helped the person in our group doing the sound to record the background sound for the film so as to improve the sound levels.
During the planning stage, when we where deciding what our film was about, we had a look at several influences, the main influence that we thought of was the film “Run Lola Run” - quite a strange film in its own right. We thought of the different consequential events happening in a scene at the same time, all of them ending badly until the last one - which basically leaves the audience where it started.
Overall during the entire process of the making our film I have tried to be involved in every step so that I could keep track of what we have been doing and how everything would fit together during the editing stage of the film. Sometimes I would have to try to take control of the filming so that we could end up with a good quality film created to everyone’s best ability, sometimes we would have difficulties but as a group we found our way around them. The exception to me being involved in every step would be the creation of the sound track as I am not great at composing and don’t understand much about it.
This whole project has been challenging and educational – the strict time limit concentrates the mind. I have learned new things about effective film making, and audience expectations. I think that our group made, on the whole, a good job of the project, under sometimes difficult circumstances.

Problems when filming

Through out the time of creating our film we find that the major problem was being able to get all the footage completed as soon as possible. The cause of this problems was the fact that our group has not been able to get together all at once for one shooting period, so we have not been able to complete some vital shots for our film. However we have still managed to complete the majority of shots for our film for an adequate rough cut.

stage directions

The story begins in the forest of the college where the film group are preparing to film a movie extract.

As they begin to film a member of the group stumbles across a bag of money and informs the rest of the group after a brief moment of joy they then realise they must come up with a solution of what to do with the money.

the story then breaks off into three scenarios in which each member of the group has there own key role to the story. The first scenario consists of a member walking off to inform the police where another member strikes him down to prevent the group loosing the money.

the second scenario begins with another member of the group stealing the money for themselves and eventually over spending on alcohol and drugs which causes him to breakdown.

The third scenario continues with the group undecided with what to do and the original owner of the money appears and must take down the group in order to keep him secret.

The final scene jumps back to the original finder of the money and kicks dirt over it as if it was never there.

Props, costumes and Location:

• We have use used some printed money, in large bulk for the main prop item, as point of the film.
• We have used a inconspicuous bag to place money in, which allows for the plot to move forwards.
• We used the camera bag to set the scene of what our actors where their (i.e. a Group of students going out to film).
• We decided to use casual clothing as it was the easiest and less complicated way of representing our characters as students.
• We decided to use the woodland area around the back of the college as it was easy to get to in the time we had it was ideal for our storyline, as a suspicious place to find the money the trigger in the film.
  

The Three scenarios

With in our film there are three endings these endings include.

1. The person who finds it goes and and tells his mates, one of whom thinks they should hand it over to the police, on the way over to the police, they start arguing among themselves, which eventually ends with one of the mates possibly "Knocking the others out" and run of with the money.
2. The person who finds it goes and and tells his mates, a different mate suggests that they should keep the money for themselves, and split it between themselves, one of mates is afraid that they may get caught and doesn't take the money, he is given the empty bag and told to shove of. Walking past where one of them finds the money, the person who was supposed to pick it up see him with the bag and kills him.
3. The person who finds it goes and and tells his mates, One of them finds the money doesn't tell anyone, and ends up going mad because he doesn't know what too do with the money.
   

At the end of these Scenarios, the guy who finds the money, leaves it covering it with dirt.