Evaluation

Here is the brief of what we had to do. “You have decided to enter a competition being run by your local arts cinema, The Little Picture house. This cinema, which is part of a small chain of 12 independent arts cinemas across the country, shows a mixture of independent, foreign language and documentary films. The company prides itself on providing access to non-mainstream cinema and seeks to make independent cinema accessible to ever wider audience groups. The chain is running a national film-making competition and your local cinema will be hosting the regional finals. Entrants to the competition are required to make a short extract from a film they would like to make as well as materials for a promotional booklet. Finalists from your local area will be entered into the national competition. The competition is open to young people and aims to encourage creativity and technical ambition. The competition prize in the regional heats is access to equipment and technical support to enable you to complete a 30-minute narrative film for entry into the national competition. There is also a cash prize to help with production costs. Entrants are asked to ensure that the content and themes of the films are within the BBFC's guidance for a 15 certificate. All entrants to the competition must include a short written overview of the film they want to make, including its title and a brief description of the plot. This should include information on the genre of the film and the target audience.” I decided to create a short film based on urban life. I am also creating a Blog based on the creation of my film and a fan blog of the film. The target audience for my film is young adults to middle age (18-40). I chose this audience because I think they would enjoy films like The Hangover 1, 2 and 3 also films like 21 and 22 jump street. I think my film would appeal to the target audience because as it involves relatable events like going out drinking, getting married and having a good time.

I came up with the title of “The Stag” for my film as I believe that it will intrigue both men and women this is because it is an event or gathering attended by men only and it would attract a male audience as they see it as relatable. It would attract a female audience as they would be intrigued to see what happens on a stag event and what the men get up to. The characters are represented as a group of men reunited by a special event. Jason who is getting married the next day is represented as a typical “lad” who wants to drink and have a good time compared to Nick who is shown as someone who doesn’t want things to get out of hand and doesn’t want anything to go wrong for the next day. Steve is represented as a “chill guy” who wants to embrace the night and have a good time. I think that the location, mise-en-scene and the storyline will appeal to the audience as it has panoramic shots across different locations which introduce the actors into the location giving a bit of the background of where they are.

The post production effects I used were mainly music and transition slides. The music I used was Everyday by A$AP Rocky, Shots by LMFAO, Intoxicated by Martin Solveig and Skyfall by Adele. I also used a car crash sound clip to emphasise the velocity of the crash.

The extract I created from my film is the starting 3 minutes of the film “The Stag” I decided to make this part of the film as I believed it was an easy part of the film to make with a small budget and I believed I could get some good shots and create it really well in the local area.

I think the strengths of my film extract are the wide variety of shots. This includes close ups, medium shots, panorama’s and due to using a range of shots it creates a variety throughout the film. Another strength is the post production effects such as music as I think it complements that moment of the film throughout. Charlie Rudzinski watched the final cut of the film and he thought “Some great shots and I loved the music throughout, however the ending could be clearer with what happened to Jason.” This is good feedback as it can be unclear but what happens to him is what is revealed later on in the film after the car crash. Rhys Meredith also viewed the film and said “the music suits the shots and situations and I enjoyed the panoramic shots as they gave a nice shot of the location before it got into the dialogue.

I think I could improve my film by making the ending of the 3 minute extract clearer to what happened to Jason. The reason for doing this is so the audience has a better understanding of what is going on. Also I’d like to improve the quality of some of the scenes as some are shaky and breathing on the microphone and small details like that.

Also there is a blog available showing the creation of my film and a fan blog showing what others think about it as well. The target audience for my blog is similar to my film aiming for young adults to middle aged people (18-40). I think the blog would appeal to this audience as they are of an age that would be interested in looking for blogs and reviews of the film before they go to see it and watching sneak peaks and trailers. The strengths of my blogs are my colour scheme and content. This is because the colour scheme is aesthetically appealing to the audience and therefore they will find it easier and want to read the blog if the page looks good. The content on the blogs is at a really good standard and that if the content on a blog is good more people will want to read it if they find it interesting or entertaining.

I think the main weakness of my blog is how interactive it is because there isn’t many navigation bar options as there are only bars for links to the fan blog and getting to the top of the page. I think if I made it more interactive more people would be interested as technology is a major part of our life and how quick it can be to get to something. So if it was improved more people can get to my post quicker.

Rhys Meredith also analysed my blog and said that “The blog has a good colour scheme and has good content but I found myself struggling getting to the posts I wanted to get too.” and Charlie Rudzinski said “I really enjoyed looking at some of the posts on the blog but I found that there wasn’t many pictures of your location or the treatment of the film.”

If I decided to create a film poster I would include the title at the bottom with each of the three characters with Jason in the middle as a medium shot looking into eyes of the audience. I would make the poster quite dark and mysterious as they don’t know what has happened to Jason. This would help advertise as I would have links to my blogs on the poster so that the audience would be able to find the locations props and rough cuts of the film along with the script so they can find out more about it.