The preliminary- Evaluation

How effective is the combination of your main product and your film poster?

I believe my main product is successful in portraying a lot about a character in such a short space of time, I also believe that the poster, despite it's simplicity, reflects much of my created character too. As a combination, they compliment eachother, the poster doesn't give too much of the narrative plot away and the actual film consists of a suprising twist which isn't ruined by a telling poster. My preliminary was purposefully simple, as the main task of it was too evoke emotion from an audience and the purpose was to make the audience sad.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From my audience feed back I learnt that while the majority understood the ending (which was that he was getting on a train to London on the day of the bombings on the tubes and buses) some didn't understand the concept. I felt I made it as obvious as possible, by using props such as a phone with the date on it and a tube map, however in future if I were to connote an ending without using verbal communication during the film, I would try and make it even more obvious so it was completely clear. However in some aspects this may have ruined it by giving too much away. I also learnt that whilst my script was generally good and detailed that some people got lost, as I was trying to convey too much in a short space of time. I have learnt that 'less is more' and that my script should have been more concise in representing my character.

What have you learned during the course of this project and what targets for improvement do you need to set for the main task?

During this task I believe I have learnt more than in previous tasks. Perhaps my biggest achievement was learning to use the new Mac computers, this is a great advantage as I find them faster, more convinient and easy to convert files. I learnt how to do things independantly. I did this by filming it myself on my own camera, which was also useful in helping me learn to use my camera better. I also did the sound myself, recording it on one of the school cameras and converting it. I didn't use lighting but learnt through the process that I much prefered naturual lighting which made me want to use it for my thiller, although it isn't neccessarily conventional. I learnt how to write a script in monologue form so that it's meaningful and conveys a character well. I have learnt to shoot a range of shots in a more artistic way than I had before, taking the lighting and point of focus in to consideration a lot more than I previously had. I even tried to develop some of the shots so that they had meaning behind them such as using low and high angles to convey different feelings.
For the main task I have abstract ideas, shot ideas and shoot locations, however I am still thinking about my basic plot. I think I will try again to do something simple and effective like in my preliminary, however I want to focus on a female character as I haven't so far and perhaps have a definite, happy ending as mine have predominantly been ambiguous so far.