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.