Evaluation

For my Final Major Project, I decided to create a short film called ‘Misplaced’. My plan for
this project was to create the topic of friendship and the importance of trust and loyalty
throughout the film whilst creating tension with the friendship with rivalry and betrayal
showing throughout my short film. I went for an action/adventure short film with the idea of
falling into a video game, sort of like the idea of
Jumanji going into the game and having to go
through level to get out of the game but with my
film I didn’t want to add levels I just wanted it to
be a second world like a multiverse to confuse the
audience but also create a sensation of what’s
going to happen. Explaining, that I wanted to
create a hard-hitting, emotional and exciting piece
of work to give many different emotions throughout as an
emotional roller-coaster which I think I created and am so proud
of my production how it has turned out even though if I had
more time, it would have been a lot better with the editing side. I
also decided to enter my short film into the ‘United Kingdom
Student Film Festival’ under the category of ‘UK Student Short’
which fits into what my film is. There are no rules saying how
long I make my production however if my production was under
2 minutes or over 15 minutes, I would have to change my
category in the film festival to fit under the rules of the festival;
moreover, my course has made a brief which we have to follow of no nudity, drugs and foul
language.
My goals for this unit changed multiple

times throughout research and idea generation

– I started off with a few different ideas of
making an action-packed film with fake guns
and fighting, a murder mystery based on a
hidden meaning and an adventure film about
getting sucked into a game. I also had the idea
of a live cooking show but I thought that
wouldn’t work with what I wanted to do overall
so I decided not to do that idea and continue
with the short films of action, adventure and mystery as that was the overall ideas for my
production that I wanted to create had nothing to do with an uplifting entertaining cooking
show which would change my genre completely which I thought wouldn’t be the best idea. I
really liked my first idea of an action-packed short film but I didn’t have much of a story line
however, had more of a narrative than my other ideas at this moment – I created a survey
hoping everyone would pick my first idea but everyone who answered had other thoughts.
Most people thought I wanted them to pick idea 3 (getting sucked into the game) so people
chose that as they thought that’s what I wanted or they chose this one because it is different
and people thought it would be more fun and cleverer to film and edit. I wondered how to
make this new idea come to life because most people chose this idea and there would be no
point going against people opinions because it would mean I didn’t have to the survey in the
first place if I would go against it anyways. I then decided to make mind maps on each idea
to try create a storyline just from bouncing ideas off of what I’ve written with the mind map.
Making these mind maps really helped me decide which idea I really wanted to do as well as
my survey feedback and am thankful I did the mind maps for each idea to see which idea
would be more useful for me and being able to research most into and therefore am glad
that idea 3 was the one I chose and made. I also did a few focus groups so everyone in the
group could help each other with what we are struggling on with our ideas and how to make
them better and come to life. my classmates had great ideas such as having one of the
characters die but come back to life in another scene - the character steps into a doorway
but you have only seen their shadow and my class mates said that having a cliff-hanger adds
more tension for the end as it is an actual ending but it is surprising to the audience which
leaves a cliff-hanger but a good way to end the film. I think the focus group really made me
think about my idea more as they let me think of loads of new ideas which I could add or
change in my production such as flashbacks of how something bad happened and why they
are in the situation that their in. In another survey I asked people their favourite action and
adventure films and why because this meant that people opinions on their favourites would
help me with my research as I can research into these films that people said and try
incorporate the ideas in the films into mine to have people enjoy my production more. Such
as Jumanji with peoples favourite
adventure films and I really
researched into this film as it really
helped me with my narrative in my
short film and having ideas from this
as I wanted to create a Jumanji like
film with my characters getting
sucked into a game and having to try escape which is what the basis of my production is
going to be and would work from this but try not to copy Jumanji and make it different to
something people haven’t seen even with the Jumanji like story.

In my research, I made sure to hit all the

bullet points of what to add to my

research with the codes and

conventions, topic and genre
research, target audience etc. Firstly I
decided to write a paragraph on my
updated version of my idea from the
start until the start of the research
process which was quite easy and I just wrote
about my idea and thoughts of what I could
add into my production when I come to
scripting – as with a cliff-hanger which I knew
I wanted to add into my story but not sure
how, but luckily from working with a focus
group they helped with thinking of a cliff-
hanger which I can work with or change to
what would work best with me. In my focus
group we talked about having one of
my main characters to die but come
back to life and their silhouette to be
in a doorway with the other
protagonist to be the room when
they turn up in the doorway – I
thought this was ingenious with this
idea and wanted to add it into my
production just had to have the right
ending to make it work with my
storyline and not for them to just
turn up out of nowhere. I was scared for this because I really wanted to add this into my
story and for it work so I continued to think of how I could achieve this and for it to work and
thankfully it did work and made a great ending to my film and am so glad I was able to add
this element. After writing this I wrote up my practical and theoretical problems throughout
research and filming and throughout all my last projects like with the weather I would be
filming in the winter when I want it to be sunny and the day turns out to be cloudy or raining
which would make filming more difficult and I would have to work around this more but
knew what problems there were going to be and how to solve these such as camera dies
during filming and solution for this is fully
charge beforehand and/or have an extra
charged battery in case my main battery
died throughout filming – this luckily
hasn’t happened in any of my last
productions because I wouldn’t be filming
for a whole day and would just be filming
for part of the day but heard from my
class mates that when they were filming
their battery died so I knew I had to make
sure mine was fully charged and turned
off my camera when not using it so I wouldn’t waist the battery. Also, with the weather as
another problem and the solution was continue to look at the weather app or change to
another day and fingers crossed that the weather doesn’t dramatically change. I did have
couple days where it was very windy so I couldn’t use my drone which was very annoying as
I wanted to add a good tracking shot into my film which I wasn’t able to fully put into my film
which is unfortunate just because of the weather and because this happened multiple times,
I didn’t have time after that to try refilm again because of the deadline which is
disappointing but I did get the shots which I needed otherwise. When coming onto the
proper research side I was scared to start this as wasn’t sure how to start and what to start
with and scared if I would finish on time with the deadline as with my last final I had to
research at home because I was behind and was scared for this final project because I didn’t
want to have to do research at home – luckily before properly starting my research I wrote
up things that I needed to research into so if I got stuck with anything I could go back to
what I need to do and was able to get back on track whilst writing up my research. Once
getting on track with writing I think it went very smoothly with a few pointers which I should
adjust or change throughout my research. But otherwise it went very well and was very
happy with the amount of work I was able to do in the time I had - especially think that my
topic research was my best work as I had watched the tv shows and films multiple times so I
knew I could write a lot about it and how it effects my production – and because I chose an
action/adventure style films so there was a lot of films I could write about which connected
with my idea and show why I chose these specific films for this.

Comparing to my previous research tasks in other projects to this one I have definitely
written a lot more in this research than others not just because I have to but because I think
I enjoyed researching into my idea more as I could write more about the films which I chose
because I really enjoyed these chosen films
and had watched them multiple times
before. One of my topics was friendship
and I thought the perfect show to write
about was the tv show Friends because the
whole story is based around them being
friends which is so inspiring and is what I
wanted to incorporate into my storyline
and would make my production even more
powerful with this topic in it. I also thought
that friendship in rom-coms and in Jumanji is very powerful even though I am not doing a
rom-com, the friendship throughout the films are very necessary and powerful and makes
the film more successful in this field as well as in Jumanji as the 4 character’s get sucked into
a game together not knowing each other and coming out of
the game being best of friends which is the reason I
researched into this a lot and found that it really helped with my
character development of each character and think it made my
whole production better in the way showing that friendship is
very important in day to day life and betrayal can ruin a
friendship if the trust breaks which is what I really wanted to
portray in my film and think I did that very well. In my other
research productions I think I failed to add why this would be
helpful in my production and just wrote about what I liked
about the films I was researching into and not reflecting why I
was writing about it and I knew my research would be more
successful if I did this and help me think about how I could
change develop my idea more to be a better narrative and better overall with my target
audience watching for them to enjoy and understand my production.
Throughout my production I have had many ups and downs from idea generation to editing
my final piece. Although writing up my research went very well overall, I had many objects
to overcome especially with the website’s which I would be getting information about and
Harvard referencing with. For
starters, I would have to search
up the things that I am looking
for which was quite difficult
because I didn’t know what
questions I should be asking
and how to ask them, it took up
a lot of my time not only finding
what to search but also finding
the right website to be looking at and also then finding the right paragraph on the website –
this was very difficult as I am not good at English in general as I have dyslexia so trying the
find the right things to write and search was very difficult; however I did get into a rhythm
and was able to understand what to search and write about and how to link it back to my
idea and to develop my idea more. I made sure to write up all of the websites I looked at and
used in my research and Harvard referenced them to help my teachers and I understand
where I got this information and where it is coming from. I am very happy that I wrote up my
bibliography so well as it also helped me understand where I am getting this secondary
research from and how it has affected my idea into a proper story – this was a huge strength
in my production because in my last projects I hadn’t Harvard refenced many of the websites
I had looked at so then after my research I had to go back and re-search it up and try find the
website I used then Harvard reference
from that which made it a lot more
difficult and made sure not to do this
this time but I also had a few weakness’
with this at the start not knowing what
or how to search up the information that
I needed to help me in this project.
Moreover, I found that researching into
the specific films which would be helpful
with developing my production but
choosing the right films that link with my
idea and not just small part of the film
that links and the rest of the film is a
totally different genre all together. I did
this in a couple of my last projects talking about ‘happy feet’ when I was doing a mystery
film which is a completely different genre as well as I wasn’t doing an animation either –
which compared to this project I tried not to go off task and stick to the films which would
actually help me and not waste my time with a researching into a film which wouldn’t help
me. In other project’s too I would also go off topic and then change my whole idea
completely into something which I didn’t even want and the for my production to fail in
thew topics and genre that I wanted because I went off task – such as I made a short film in
another project and wanted to make a heartfelt story about using harsh substance but
turned into the character just taking these substance’s and showing no remorse for this and I
realised after making the film that it didn’t work and from that point I knew I didn’t want to
go so off track with my idea that would completely change my idea. I understand that
researching into films and websites to develop my idea to make it better but I didn’t want to
develop my idea so much that I would make it worse instead of better. I wrote down the
films I wanted to research into to make sure I didn’t go off genres or topics and did this too
with my topic and target audience research. I looked mostly into Jumanji as that was the
main film which I was sort of basing my idea off of. My story is about these 2 friends getting
sucked into a video game and trying to get out which sounds like the film but I just wanted
to use the lighting in the film and a couple editing techniques within the film. Talking about
lighting, the scenes before they go into the
game is very dark and dull not only because
they are in a dark room but also to show the
difference between the real world and the
game world which I found very clever and
wanted to showcase this in my production
which I did do with making the real world
tungsten and dull and then in the game the
lighting is green, happy and exciting to show the difference between the two worlds – and
for the audience to understand what is going on between scenes and understanding the
story more and really like this idea of showing the difference between worlds and using
lighting to portray this. With these two pictures you can already tell with the lighting that
the first picture in a scene before the game is dull and boring with the greys and dark colours
compared to the other picture of the characters running in the woods with the lighting being
colourful and green. I thought that after
researching into the lighting of Jumanji
comparing the real-world scene and the game
world that the lighting changes and is what I
wanted to show in my production as it is a
clever and subtle way to show the editing skills
and how they reflect with my production
becoming better in this way. With the editing
side I wanted to try have my characters getting
sucked into the game I knew I wouldn’t be able
to make it as realistic as the film does and the
skills but I think when editing I made it look
good with the disappearing editing skill I
showed and you can understand that they are
getting sucked into the game nether the less.
When it came time to go out and film, I was so
scared because this is my final project and I had never used these specific actors before so
beforehand I was stressing a lot, making sure everything I needed was with me, I had my
scripts ready and anything else.
I knew I was ready and had got everything ready the night
before but something felt off and I wasn’t what it was – when
my actors turned up to my house, I had a sense of relief and I
think that’s because they turned up and was ready to act which
made me feel ease. The start of the day went really well and am
so glad it did because the afternoon didn’t go as well as my
other actors decided not to turn up which made me angry and stressed all over again - I
managed to film other scenes which didn’t need my other actors was I was still stressed
about it all. Luckily my other actors showed up the next day so we finally got to film which
went very well apart from the wind but apart from that it did go well and was able to finish
filming or so I thought. When I got back into college, I was looking through my footage and
found that a scene didn’t get filmed which was very annoying as it is a big part of my
production and adds a lot of effect so I had to hire out my work place again and film the
scene but luckily it was quick and went very well so was able to finish this and able to finally
edit. It was a very stressful couple days because this is very important and I really wanted it
go well and even with a few mishaps on the way I also managed to work with my stress and
turn it to adrenaline and filmed everything in 2 days and a bit thankfully. One of my biggest
strengths when it came to my production was my editing as I really like editing and it does
good and I enjoy it; apart from this one edit. For some reason premiere pro was being
incredibly slow and wasn’t sure why, I would render my edit multiple times and saving it to
my usb but my edit would still be confusingly slow. It took me double as long as I thought it
would to edit everything and by my deadline, I was very stressed that I wouldn’t finish and
was trying to rush to finish whilst try make everything perfect – finally I finished and I could
breathe and it felt so good that I had finished everything because I was stressing and
panicking so much over the 3 weeks of filming and editing but I did it and so thankful for it.
But my time management does need a lot of work just because I was stressing so much over
it all and next time I will need to work with my time management because I will be stressing
again – I planned
everything from the
research deadline to the
editing deadline but my
research deadline felt a lot
more relaxing than my
editing just because my
premiere pro was being so
slow that meant my
schedule moved back and
made me loose time and
having to try finish quicker
than I would have liked.
But I am very happy with my production overall even with the rushed deadline.

Based on feedback, I think I got a lot of positive feedback as people said that they liked
different parts of my film which shows me that different parts of my film appealed to
different people which is what I wanted to achieve throughout my short film. This is
a lot different from my other productions in the past as people would only like a
certain part of my film and I made sure that in this project I would try make different
with multiple parts appeal to different people so that my whole film would be
interesting and not just a little part of my film which I think I have done and am glad
that I know about this with my feedback from the people who watched my
production. I also got a lot of contrastive criticism from my feedback which I
knew would happen because there were a couple parts in the scenes which if I had
more time I would change and make better but I am still glad people said about this and
not have lied to me, I am glad that they gave me truthful feedback as it helps me evaluate
my work and to see what I can change in future projects. Such as Millie’s green screen as I
forgot to film her at the location of the tied-up scene and because I didn’t have enough time
to refilm her at the specific location, I had to have a backup plan of using a green screen
which also didn’t go to plan as I didn’t use a proper green screen so it looks very grainy and
pixelated. Moreover, in the pub the volume is quite loud with the guards coming into the
pub – I think this happened because I was layering all of the sounds together but wanted
each sound to be heard and because of this I kept turning each of them up a volume to
make sure you can hear it – I think if I changed this when I was mainly editing this scene of
my film would have been more liked but I am glad that people said about this and I was able
to go back on premiere pro to change this and turn the volume down. I think with this
feedback compared to my other projects feedback I have listened to people better and
actually taken onboard the feedback instead of just agreeing with them which I think shows
a lot of development in myself and my work which I am very proud of myself for being able
to do this.

From the start of this project, I told myself that when developing my idea, I cannot go off
topic too much and completely change my whole idea to something different which I didn’t
want to do in the first place. Now looking back from where I started off to how much I have
done to finish my whole production I definitely think that I have achieved my goal and I am
so produced of my accomplishments and
how I have achieved in this time and am so
happy I have got this far and created my best
production I think I could in this time and am
so proud of myself for this.

Throughout the few months doing my final

major project I have developed so many
knew skills such as how to research and plan
properly and not get distracted by simple things and learn to continue writing whilst
remembering to reflect on my past work and how me writing is going to develop and change
my production to where it was then to what it is now. Such as in my other projects I haven’t
been able to write a lot of words and research so closely into things about my idea and then
not get the right things I wanted out of my productions so I made sure to research at
everything I think would be important and dive in deep to everything I want to research. I
have also developed my story boards to the extent of camera angles and understand with
every story board what is going on and I think I Definity did that even with my bad drawings
but I tried to make realistic frames instead of stick figures which I had done previously just
because I couldn’t be bothered and I thought to myself that I should try as it is my last
project. I also added colour to understand what things are just like this picture to the side
shows that someone is running through the woods without even reading the
action/dialogue part which is what I have done very well in developing these skills and it
shows in these frames. I also think this really helped me with
my production as I could see what I wanted to film and this is what I tried to film and if you
watch my production, I think most of my story boards would fit with my film. I also believe I
have learnt lots more through editing even with me liking it the most out of my whole
production schedule I can still learn a lot more and watching tutorials and tips on how to do
certain things I think I have succeeded in this department most because I like it the most and
still continue wanting to learn more about this. Especially with colour gradient I took a few
days to figure out what colour I want for my production with testing out different colours
and gradients, and I was able to get a good colour which looked really good for my emotion
which I wanted to evoke throughout my film without making the colours look pixely or not
real looking. I think I found the perfect colour which fitted with the clips and fitted with the
emotion of my whole production which is really what I wanted to succeed at. I think this
really worked for my production and am glad I took a lot of time doing this and it developed
my skills to a knew level just by looking at the colour correction in my production. Going
forward if I do choose to go to university for find a job in the film industry, I think these new
skills that I have encountered with be put to good use if I go into the industry or take a
course similar to this one. But I defiantly know that the skills I have been developing through
my two years will help me get to the next step in my career and be useful as well for my
future.

From the start of this project, I told myself

that when developing my idea, I cannot go
off topic too much and completely change
my whole idea to something different
which I didn’t want to do in the first place.
Now looking back from where I started off
to how much I have done to finish my
whole production I definitely think that I
have achieved my goal and I am so
produced of my accomplishments and how I
have achieved in this time and am so happy I have got this far and created my best
production I think I could in this time and am so proud of myself for this. If I did this all over
again, I don’t think I would change that much overall. I would
change my audio in my edit and make sure that it is quieter
beforehand and listen to my edit out loud without
headphones before exporting it to YouTube and my website
as this was my fault and did not do this – it also shows that
using headphones has a slight difference in volume compared
to watching it out loud. I would also have an extra day with
enough time to edit properly to re-film anything I don’t like or
need to re-shoot just like Millie’s green screen and would
actually have either behind an actual green screen or in the location her character is set
because I think this part of the scene seems a bit stupid and funny just because of the
editing which makes it look bad and not suspenseful. In conclusion, I wouldn’t change
anything because I really like my production as it is funny, action and adventure which are
the genres I wanted to portray also with the topics of real worlds, friendships, video games
and right and wrong it’s showed in my film and which I am so glad for and helps the whole
narrative come together well.