Evaluation

My Evaluation:

Lewis Underwood's Media Evaluation A2

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Final Cut: Short Film

This is my short film in its final cut:

Ancillary Task: Poster and Film Magazine

These are my two ancillary tasks.
My final film poster:

My final magazine spread:

Extra Scene

With the addition of the extra scene I'm shooting I've seen it as an ideal opportunity to give more depth to my short film. Instead of getting the protagonist to take just any picture, he will be trying to take a picture of a white lily he has found. The connotations of a white lily are known to be of death which is relevant to my story. This isn't obvious but it is known to be related to death and I can include this to give a clue as to what has happened to the protagonist. Furthermore the flower is aesthetically good looking and will be believable that the student will try to take a photo of it.

Rough Cut + Feedback

Rough Cut:

Feedback:

Seeing as my conceptual idea was a bit too abstract to understand within my short film and wasn't executed as well as I would have liked, this has led to some changes to make it a bit easier to digest and watch.

• The protagonist needs to be seen taking more pictures to solidify his role as an 'art student' etc. Furthermore shots of him looking frustrated is slightly confusing. Perhaps emphasis on trying to take a good picture and failing at finding one, may support his attempt to climb out and take the lake shot.
• Need to see protagonist drowning, visual pleasure and understanding of what the plot revolves around. Currently the screen cuts to black and you hear the audio of the fall. Initially my plan was to film him 'drowning' but my actor wasn't keen on the idea and i've had to work around it.
• There is no audio in the shop scene to relate that the protagonist is not really there. The shop assistant is seen on his phone talking to someone "It's been dead in here all day, ..." etc. This would help to support the plot.
• Remove the car scene at the end, it gets too surreal and is confusing. Also bring forward the bystander saving him section to keep the narrative simple and easy to follow.

To do list:

• Film: The protagonist taking more pictures,
• Film: The drowning scene,
• Record: The shop assistant audio for background sound
• Edit: Re arrange the order of some sequences in adobe Premiere.

Marxist Film Theory

What is Marxist film theory?

Marxist film theory is the opposition to traditional Hollywood narrative structures in which it shuns featuring a singular protagonist and promotes group decision making. Essentially Marxist films will promote marxist ideas through film such as far right political views and believe Hollywood narratives promote capitalism.


How I think it has influenced my work.

When reflecting upon my rough cut I found it interesting that I had structered my narrative in a very Hollywood style in the sense it revolved around one protagonist and his represented the story from his perspective. I had also used shots of the character eating the well known "snickers" and drinking "Coke".
Furthermore I used the ultimately original male protagonist... These aspects generally popped into my head whilst brainstorming and I didn't question their relativity.

Initially I generally regarded myself as a independant thinker, whereas this research revealed to me how much my ideas can be influenced by what i've been watching and also as a result of advertising. Hopefully I will be able to consider these factors next time im going through the brain storming creative process, as this was quite a scary revelation.

Shoot 4

This is hopefully my final scheduled film shoot to gather the required footage for my short film.

This shoot included reshooting the panning shot which I felt went well, the only issue I had encountered is that I was unable to get the same SLR camera and had to settle for a slightly smaller version which means I will have to try to mitigate this during post-production.

The filming went well and I felt I was well prepared with props and shooting schedule regardless of the SLR camera issue. I employed the same technique which had worked well in previous shoots in which I prepared a small list of shots I needed and had sketched some of them out.

This helps me to get straight down to shooting the specific shots and angles I needed.

A further problem I had when filming was that I needed a shot of the mobile showing the protagonist receiving a text from his father. When I was filming the close up it was reflecting a lot of light which resulted in not really being able to see the text and also showing me in the reflection. To combat this I may try taking it again with a polarising lens to reduce this negative effect or perhaps I will animate the phones screen into a full screen shot. This would be an interesting extreme close up and should work as it follows a shot of the protagonist taking out his phone and looking at it.