Evaluating Feedback

 When we had finished our short film's editing process we held a focus group, we asked some people to come watch it with us and give us some on site feedback then and there, asking questions like "What did you like about the short film?" or "What do you reckon we could have improved upon it?", to gather just some feedback to note down, but we ended up even getting a comment about our choice of visual effects, to which the audience within the focus group appeared to like it and think that it suited it. Additionally the audience also mentioned was about Elijah's acting skills and how he portrayed his character in a way that actually seemed befitting for the context of the story, as well as how the story itself was quite unique and was structured quite well.

However it isn't all sunshine and rainbows, there of course being negatives to go along with the positives we were given, such as: The ending seemed a bit rushed, it skipped large chunks of the story and plot and essentially hit the audience out of nowhere, confusing them, sometimes even the sounds of the camera being zoomed in and out were audible to the audience. 

To improve the short film we would probably need to go back and re - film a couple of our shots, and build majorly more on the story as to create a less confusing ending, or just re - do the ending entirely in a manner that is still fitting yet isn't as confusing or sudden. Though our Limit of 3 - 5 minutes is the brutal factor that holds this back from being accomplishable, because either way if we want to re - film it, it wont fit perfectly in sync etc.

Overall based off of the feedback we had managed to gain, I believe our short film is actually quite decent bearing in mind the parameters we had to follow and stick to etc. The story was easy to interpret up till the ending, and it had a clear effect on the audience, the montage especially held a great effect in showing off to the audience the setting and establishing the base atmosphere, for the rest of the story. The inspiration of course for the short film was the long period of isolation and lockdown that most people had to undergo when Corona Virus 19 first hit the UK. Convention wise for the genre we had chosen ; psychological thriller, we tried to keep a basic story with bits eluding to the psyche of the character, such as the slow deterioration of the quality of the shots (the filter) and other mediums. We kept the story in a situation where anyone wouldn't expect to end up, so that it catches the audience off guard and keeps a sense of slight unease about the character's situation. As for the short film conventions, we kept the story as mentioned prior, pretty basic, limiting dialogue as much as possible however not too much that it confused the audience or kept them completely in the dark,  in addition we gave no background information about the character and ended it on a cliff hanger. 

On an individual level, I would probably have improved my editing knowledge prior to filming, to make sure that I'm fully up to such a task and have at least a bit more knowledge on techniques than I had beforehand. Though as a group both my and my peer could have improved on our timing some more, as the filming did take a fair while, we could have arranged it to take less, which overall could have made our lives a lot easier and given us more time for editing.

Focus Group Feedback

 

Focus Group Questions

 

Focus group questions

These are the questions that will ask the audience who have watched our film:

What did you like about the film?

Did you think our film fits the genre of a psychological thriller?

In terms of following short film conventions, do you think our film follows them?

Were there any scenes that you didn't like?

In terms of the effects used, do you think they were appropriate?

Were there any shots that weren't clear?

Were you able to understand what was going on in the film?

Do you think our film will appeal to our target audience, which ranges from 12-to 30 years?

What do you think we can improve on?

Task Allocation week 10

 

Strengths and Weaknesses feedback evaluation

Based off of the feedback we had managed to gather we feel as if there were some things here and there that we could use to improve, in terms of what made our film good in places as well as what bits didn't look the most appealing or fitting etc.

For strengths, our film had a great and thought out narrative that the audience were able to follow easily. The emotions that was conveyed was very clear throughout the film and the audience were able to understand what was going on and also to connect with the character effectively especially when it came to his emotions. The film was structured very well overall and it was clear when the scenes were transitioning from one to another. Music was a really good choice and used in appropriate times to properly invoke an effect on the audience. There were also some decent visual effects used, though mainly at the beginning of the film and the slow change throughout. 

However as for our weaknesses, the ending of our film left some of the viewers a bit confused as to what was happening, we feel as if we could probably have built more onto this if more time was allowed so we could actually build the story up a bit more, rather than having these massive cuts. The noise of the camera also was heard once or twice during some scenes and was noticeable clearly by the audiences. This came to be a rather serious issue, as its something quite annoying to hear.

In order to address the aforementioned weaknesses, we had decided to re-film some additional shots at the end, such as the character changing moods to display his emotions changing in a more gradual way rather than immediately from one to another. Also, a voiceover towards the end of the film explaining what the character is thinking as he kicks the chair down, to shed some light upon why he's so angry all of a sudden.

Camera and Lighting Evaluation

 

Exposure control is the way you would determine how the camera should appear, in terms of lighting. It's pretty easy to utilise and set up, as with most cameras you can just go to the settings, navigate to exposure and set it to your preference. We used this as it was hard to determine how bright or dark some shots were bearing in mind the days we filmed it was rather Bright and it made it hard to determine it properly. Though during our editing process, we decided to put a colour filter on the video to slowly show the change of the character's deteriorating mental state, at the beginning however we used it during our montage mostly to show age, and the change of these once populated areas into a ghost town essentially. With this choice in mind however, we still kept the brightness from the real footage to keep it clear what time of day it is, (Day time) which helps to further aid our goal with the exposure and lighting, in making it seem much more abandoned and different to what it might normally have been.

One of the features that were used in the short film is the camera lenses feature. To do this effectively though, we made sure that the exposure of the camera was clear enough to capture the image on the set / scene. As for Editing, we changed the colour of the video by adding a filter to give it a distorted look and much more aged look. This editing choice enhanced the camera setting as the colour change makes it look as though it were taken after a much longer time after the prior scenes.

Shutter speed is another camera setting that we had utilised. This determines when the camera sensor will be open or closed to incoming light on the camera lens. The shutter speed specifically refers to how long this light is allowed to enter the camera. For the footage that we filmed, there were some shots where it was 1/50 - 1/100 seconds. This was used for a variety of our different shots. Same with the change that we implemented for the exposure control, we also added the same colour filter to convey a form of distortion and also that aforementioned age. This enhanced the  effect that it gave off, making it look as we had intended and also show how unpredictable things can be within the future.

Natural lighting was one of the main lighting techniques we used in the short film. In a way for us to achieve using this lighting, we simply refrained from editing the lighting of the scenes at the locations; we didn't use any features or settings to edit the lighting, keeping it natural and completely unedited. But when it came to editing for the montage scene, we changed the colour of the video, placing the "combat" colour effect over it. We kept the brightness of the video as we wanted to present what time of day it is as well. 

Ambient lighting was another lighting type that was used in the short film. This was another lighting technique that was achieved easily as we used the light that was already there with only minor tweaks to the settings. When it came to editing the final version, we kept the lighting the same as we wanted the audience to be able to sympathize with the character. In terms of the speed, we sped up some of the shots slightly, mainly when the character was picking up the notepad as to save some time as well. This was when filming, as I was acting out the character, I did take a bit of time doing some certain actions and as the brief required the film to be between three and five minutes, we wanted to make sure that we had enough time to include all the significant shots in it without error, and ended up filming a lot of extra that we later removed.

Key lighting is another lighting that was used in the short film. This was a lighting technique that was used in the film mainly for the last scene. In order to achieve this lighting, we turned off the lights on the backside of the room and kept the lights on at the front side of the room so that when it came to editing the final version, we could the colour of the visual to the same "combat" colour effect, in which we could display how the character's mind has gone out of control and how he has gone insane. With this choice, I felt the enhanced lighting would convey the character's state same with how the lighting effects slowly seemed to deteriorate as each scene passed, especially due to the character being alone for so long.

Focus Group Video

 

- The film was very well put together

- Acting was really good in the film

- Good choice of background music

- Nice visual effects used 

- The ending wasn't clear enough to the audience (we explained this to them)

- Noise of the camera shifting heard at times

- Appropriate transitions used 

Short Film Final Edit

Soundtrack or Incidental Music

 

Overall we used mostly a combination of saddening and more sorrowful sounding music. Mainly to introduce the film in the montage scene, the park scene where the character opens up to the audience, breaking the fourth wall a little and the end scene where the movie came to its end. The overall purpose of this was to set a more solemn tone for our short film and make it display the emotions of the character in his situation clearly, in case he doesn't open up about his feelings, though he does.

Another bit where we manipulated the sound was the last scene, where the audio was too quiet and we had to raise the volume a little, even add a fade to some music we added that we thought was fitting for it, all so we could both hear the little bit of dialogues here and there, and also still retain the audible music.

Export Format

 

In terms of our export format, our one was H.264. This is a video format that can be used to upload videos and recordings. We used it mostly due to its higher quality in comparison to the other alternatives.

Audio levels

 

At the beginning of the film, We added ambient music to set the tone and theme properly for our short film. With this added, we then decreased the sound of the audio from the video, so that the audience could actually hear the music. We additionally also, put a fade out at the end of the music track so that instead of it cutting off completely, when the first scene airs, it can slowly decrease the volume. With this audio put in place, we wanted the audience to question what was going on and what had happened to these areas, thus initiating an enigma.

Another part where we had  manipulated the sound was the park scene. As the wind was far too overpowering to the point the original dialogue we recorded wasn't enough, so we had to do a voice over and place those lines around about where he says them, however this was an annoying process as we couldn't get the timing perfect for this bit.

Export The final edit

When we finished editing the final version of the short film, we exported it. To export it, we shared it as a master file. Before we uploaded it officially, we checked the setting of the video to ensure that each section was accurate. We put the format as a video and audio. We then ensured that the video code was H.264. This was so that the final version could be clear. 

We also saved it with an audio file format of QuickTime movie. This would be so that we could watch it over there to see how it looked on a full screen. When the settings was checked over, we then saved the video in our folder so that we would know where it is when we upload it on YouTube. The video opened up on QuickTime Player straight away when the uploading was finished. 

Sound Effects

 

For our short film, we added some sound effects here and there, sprinkled in where they were fitting. We felt that the use of a sound effect would create our intended impact to a greater effect and more efficiently. One of these sound effects that we added was a bean bag on a chair falling, which helped to really get the kicking scene right. This sound effect was placed on the timeline the moment where the character kicks the chair and the chair falls backward. This sound was used for when the chair with the and coat hits the ground in order to shock the audience and catch them off guard more with the character's erratic and unpredictable actions and behaviour and also to properly display the character's anger. All to connote how far off the character's mind has gone, and how he has gone truly mad with loneliness, to the point his friends were hallucinated there right beside him... and he didn't suspect a thing until the very end.

Graphics and Special Effects

 Effects:

This is an image of the montage. The visual effect has changed the colour, making it more dim overall and fit the themes of the programme more.

Time code - 0:04

This is a graphic which shows the timescale of the short film, and also to additionally act as a splitter between scenes, to smoothen the transition over the duration of the 'Experiment' mentioned.

Time code - 0:23

This is a colour distortion effect that we used. The purpose of this was to convey what the character sees, displaying that he thinks that there are people there and that he is going insane. This would convey to the audience that the character's mind has degraded to the point of more negative emotions and insanity, using the other characters to act as hallucinations to properly show this.

Time code - 4:12

These are the credits at the end, showing those who participated and helped out within the production and post production of the short film.

Time code - 4:58

This is a blur effect that was used for the last shot before letting the final graphics appear to end the short film, leaving the audience in suspense at a cliff hangar, where they can barely distinguish anything visually.

Time code - 4:52

Transition:

This is a static transition that we used to transition for each scene. 

Time code - 4:58

Sound manipulation

At the beginning of the film, we used some ambient and background music to properly convey the theme of the short film, With this added, I now decreased the sound of the audio that was from the video and slightly increased the sound of the music so that it was audible for the audience. I also, put a fade out at the end of the music track so that instead of it cutting off completely, when the first scene airs, it could have a more smooth way that it dissipated rather than jump cutting off randomly. With this audio put in place, we wanted the audience to wonder what is happening, which in turn helps to form a sort of enigma, a set of questions that the audience may be wondering and wanting answered. 

Within the park scene the sound was all over the place, the wind was so loud when we had filmed that it made the character's monologue unable to actually be heard, so we muted the scene and recorded a voice over, however we struggled to get the timing perfect on the voice over, we did our best.

Another sound manipulation was when it came to editing the last scene. The scene was originally just dialogue, however, we felt that the scene would end well with some music playing. So we added a piece of music called 'A dog in the boiler'. this music we thought was more fitting in showing the character's current emotion at the time, especially with his fit of rage and anger, kicking the chair. When we first played the music with the scene, it was a bit difficult to actually hear the conversation that Tyler was having with his 'friends', and so we stretched the grey button across the soundtrack, so that when the music starts playing, it would fade in slowly and more gradually, making it seem much more natural, rather than the music suddenly appearing and deafening the audience who may have been listening in closely, meaning, that we could actually hear the bits of dialogue before the music reached its normal volume.

Post Production Software Tools

 

The software we had utilised throughout our editing process was Final Cut Pro.

 As shown above, this had included some tools that we had at our disposal, the select, allowing us to pick out specific clips. The Trim, allowing us to shorten or lengthen some scenes, position to move around the clips, range selection would be to select specific sections within clips that we want. Blade to split sections into multiple clips, zoom which magnifies specific bits and hand, which is used as a grab feature to move things around.

There were the select tool which was used to select certain features. We used this to select the videos that we wanted to edit, along with choosing the option of visual effect 

The trim was used to make videos shorter or longer. When we were editing our film, there were some shots which we wanted to cut down, so we used this tool to cut the videos down. For the park scene, there was a shot where the actor is speaking. The shot seemed to be too long, so I trimmed the end part of the shot down slightly. 

Position would be used to place things where we wanted to. This was mainly for when we made our draft, in which we placed them in a specific order. Whenever I wanted to change the position of a clip, I used this tool so that it wouldn’t change the order of any other clips on the timeline.

Range selection would be to select a specific element from a video if we didn't want the full thing. When we were placing our videos on the timeline, there were some parts of the shot we wanted to keep and some we didn’t need, so we used this tool to allow us to choose a specific moment. This was also used for videos on the timeline, which made it easier to edit, rather than just having to select a specific part of the clip from the video file again. 

Blade would be used to split sections. There were some shots used where we wanted to place some things in between. This was mainly for the montage scene where there is a shot of the corridors. We used the blade to split the shot in half so that we could add a fade transition to make the shot be a bit quicker.

The zoom in tool would be used to magnify the timeline. This helped to see the videos clearly, along with seeing how long it was. This tool was also beneficial as we were able to zoom closer to the videos on the timeline, making it easier to edit any small bits of certain shots.

The hand tool was used to Grab a feature and move its somewhere else. When we wanted to install shots onto the timeline, we used this tool to drag each shot filmed and place it where we wanted to put it. This was mainly used as a scroll on the timeline. When I wanted to edit a specific section of the film, I used this feature to scroll to the specific part so that I can make changes in that area.

Edit Decisions Log

 

Clip Sequence  Number	Basic Transition	Visual Effects	Audio Editing	Sound Effects	Graphic/Text
1	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a	Name of film overlaying montage
2	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
3	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
4	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
5	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
6	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
7	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
8	Fade to shot no.9	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
9	Fade	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
10	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
11	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
12	cut to	Combat colour effect	Adding Ambience music and decrease volume of video	n/a
13	Static transition to next shot			n/a	Typewriting graphics - "Isolation - week 1 - day 1 - experiment status: initiated"
14	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
15	cut  to next shot	Normal		n/a
16	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
17	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
18	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
19	cut to next shot	Normal	Increase volume slightly	n/a
20	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
21	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
22	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
23	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
24	cut to next shot	Normal	increase volume slightly	n/a
25	cut to next shot	Normal	decrease volume slightly	n/a
26	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
27	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
28	cut to	Normal		n/a
29	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
30	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
31	cut to next shot	Normal		n/a
32	cut to next shot	normal	Increase volume	n/a
33	Static transition to next shot	Normal		n/a
34					Typewriting graphics - "Isolation - 2 month - week 3 - day 4"
35		colour correction	decrease volume	n/a
36		colour correction	decrease volume	n/a
37		colour correction	decrease volume	n/a
38		colour correction	decrease volume	n/a
39		colour correction	decrease volume	n/a
40		colour correction	decrease volume	n/a
41		colour correction	decrease volume	n/a
42		colour correction	Voiceover	n/a
43		colour correction	Voiceover	n/a
44		colour correction	decrease volume	n/a
45		colour correction	decrease volume
46		colour correction	decrease volume	n/a
47				n/a	Typerwriting graphics - month 7 - week 2 - day 1
48		colour correction	Adding Ambience music	n/a
49		camera filter	Adding Ambience music	n/a
50		camera filter	Adding Ambience music	n/a
51		colour correction	Adding Ambience music	n/a
52		camera filter	Adding Ambience music	n/a
53		colour correction	Adding Ambience music	n/a
54		camera filter	Adding Ambience music	n/a
55		colour correction		n/a
56		camera filter		n/a
57		colour correction		n/a
58		colour correction
59					Typewriting graphics - Experiment A status - closed subject A status decreased, subject B status - Rogue Subject C Status - Breached enclosure A
60