Evaluation

When I first started this final major project my initial brief was making a music
video and a short film. I started by talking about my topic and what it was
about. I knew that I wanted to express how child mental and physical abuse
can effect someone for their whole lives and how it doesn’t just get forgotten. I
talked in my brief about what sort of scenes I would want to show to express
her emotions for example having bruises appearing on her face to represent
how she is feeling. I then went on to talk about my client and what the
expectations were from them; I had chosen the UK Film Festival as my client.
They had the choices of Best Short Film, Best British Short, Best Feature Film,
Best Feature Documentary, Best Short Documentary, Best Music Video, Best
Animation and Best Student Film. Other than these different categories there
weren’t many rules and regulations that I had to follow when it came to my
production, I just had to make sure that it was in one of the categories named
above. I chose this client as I was quite free to do what I wanted when it came
to actually producing my music video and short film; it didn’t have to be a
certain length or include certain things in the production. In my brief I also
talked about my target audience of 16-20 and why I thought they were suitable
age ranges which was because I am in this age range and I know what people
these ages expect to see in this type of production and what they will actually
enjoy and find interesting when they are watching.
Overall I think from all of my feedback I have followed the guidelines and I have
taken on any feedback I have been given and I have worked from it. At the very
start of this process I really struggled to come up with an idea that was original
and that my target audience would enjoy watching and also I would enjoy and
find interesting to research. I had to ask for advice from my teachers to= come
up with an idea that I liked.
This is some feedback I had got at the beginning of the process when I chose to
email my teacher for help. Even though my idea didn’t come from this email, it
helped me to think of something that I would find interesting when it came to
the researching side along with the actual production.
 My topic research helped me to
develop my idea as I was able to
research in depth about my idea
and the effects it has on people and
this was what I had to make sure I
understood to then be able to do
my production on the subject, I
didn’t want to offend anyone by
having scenes in production which weren’t realistic to my subject. In my topic
research I looked at what is abuse and the different types, for example there is
physical, mental, verbal, sexual and neglect. I went on to find out about the
signs of the different types of abuse and this helped when it came to my
production as I wanted to use bruises on my actresses face to imply how she is
feeling from the abuse she faces. I looked into a real story from a young girl
who talks about what happened to help and how she got through it which
helped me to understand how abuse from young ages never gets forgotten
even if it stops and this is something I defiantly wanted to interpret in my final
production.
My target audience research developed
my idea as I did a focus group and
various surveys to find out what people
in my age group thought of my idea and
how I could develop it to their interests
more and I got told that my idea was
original and also to make sure that my
revenge in my music video is clear and
to have an appropriate actress to play
the role of the girl in the music video. I
took this advice on board and made sure my revenge was clear and that my
actress knew how I wanted my production to look.
 I feel like I have successfully fulfilled the brief
even with quite a few issues I faced along
the road. The constant feedback from my
teachers and my peers has helped me to be
able to complete the unit, it also made sure I
was able to constantly be improving my
work week by week.

When I was working with my client which was the CMP rules and regulations I
had to make sure:

I feel I have followed these rules to an extent, the only thing I haven’t followed
is having one scene of revenge when she is driving off in the car she has her
finger up to express how she feels towards people that have hurt her and how
she is getting back at them by driving off in the car, along with ruining it by
covering it in silly string. I feel that it works well as it expresses her emotions in
an angry way which does work well. Other than this I feel I have followed the
guidelines and have produced something that works with what I have been
asked to make.
I have followed the conventions of a typical music video in my production as I
had a lot of scenes that cut to the beat that help to tell my narrative
throughout it. For example in my production I have a lot of scenes of her
getting her revenge but then it will cut to my actress lip syncing the words and I
have tried to show her anger and frustration in her facial expressions. From the
beginning I wanted my short film to be in the genre of a drama film and to
make sure that this would happen, when it came to filming I had a lot of hard
hitting scenes that some people would find upsetting especially as I added the
sad background music over the top which helps to show what she is going
through and also how she feels. The codes and conventions of a drama film
include having a lot of close ups on the actors face to show how she is feeling
and also having real life characters living in intense social interaction, that
show their journey and progress which I think is defiantly something that my
production overall does show.
In my codes and conventions section I researched 2 music videos and 2 short
films that I thought would be appropriate for my production. The first music
video I analysed because I liked how they had edited the video and I wanted
my production to have similar editing techniques, for example the dissolving
effects and also the layering of shots on top of each other. It also had a lot of
different colours over it which is something I was planning on having in my
production however I didn’t end up having that much colour in my editing of
my production as I didn’t think it would look right especially after the short
film. I also looked at another music video which was So What by Pink and I
thought this video was appropriate for my production as it is all about revenge
and her getting back at her ex which the only difference in my production as
mine isn’t about relationships. The music video has quite a few low angle and
close up shots where we can see the anger in her face and this was something I
wanted to use in my production as it expresses her emotions well to the
audience and I could see this from that music video. There are a lot of scenes
of her ruining a wedding car and covering it in mess which can show how she is
not only angry but also really upset and that was something I wanted to
interpret in my production.
I then started to look at films/short films similar to my story, I looked at the
Netflix series 13 reasons why as it is all about bullying and what it does to a
person in the long run. I wanted to use similar shots of when the girl in my
short film gets beaten up and how it affects her. I found it really interesting
looking into this as this story lead to the girl killing herself which is what I
thought about doing in my production however I thought it would look better if
she came back for revenge instead.
The final short film I looked at was one called Remove and out of all the
production I looked at I found this one the most suitable and useful in regards
to my production. This is because the story is all about child abuse and how it
affects her childhood and what it does to her at school and how it makes her
stand out to any other child. There are loads of scenes of her in the corner of a
room crying on her own and also looking really run down and almost seen to
be wearing ragged clothing which makes her stand out. There is a specific
scene where she is getting her school photo taken and we can see her face is
looks really tired and run down and almost as if she is mentally exhausted
which I think works really well for what the story is about. I wanted to use
scenes like this to show how she is feeling and the scenes I have of her sat in a
window looking into the camera and the bruises appearing on her face day by
day are meant show how drained she is
from the loneliness and abuse she faces at
home.

When I compare my work to one of the professionals I feel like I wanted to

create something similar to the Removed short film. For example, in this scene
of my production I wanted to
show her emotions and how she
is mentally drained and I think the
shadows from her in the corner
and also the arm pointing over
help to show this.
 This scene in the professional short
film is what I wanted mine to look
like however at the same time, I
didn’t want to copy the scene. We
can see the sadness in her body
language, the run-down sinks
around her almost imply that they
are much bigger than her and I think that this shot can really show how
mentally exhausted she is from the pain she goes through daily and also her
loneliness, how she feels like she has no one to talk to about her problems.

After looking over my topic research and comparing it to my production, I feel

that I have used it well to help me produce my final piece. I spent a lot of time
finding out all about abuse and what it almost ‘means’ to some people and the
different types along with how to spot a child who is being abused. I started by
making a plan of what I wanted to research and this included:
 Child abuse
 Child mental abuse
 Loneliness
 Crime rates rising
 How to escape/get over it
 Who can help
 Revenge and how it can effect some people
I then went on to look at what
abuse is and the different types
that there is.

I found out the signs of abuse and what to look for when it comes to abuse,
this helped me when it came to my production as I knew what I wanted my
actress to look like and also what type of facial makeup to have on her for
example the bruises around her eye. The next part of my topic research was
what the effects of emotional abuse are and what they can do to a person. I
found that it can lead to health problems along with things like not being able
to know how to love which I found really sad but I could see how this can
happen because if a child is brought up not being loved and looked after they
wouldn’t know any different. I found this part of my topic research really sad
and also really interesting as I also then looked at a real story about a girl who
was abused by her step dad and how it affected her emotionally for the rest of
her life as it stuck with her forever. This first part of my topic research helped
me to understand what I was almost expected to include in my production as I
know what you would expect to see from a child who is being abused and what
it does to them. I then briefly looked into loneliness and what it does to a child
which can lead to self-harm and also excluding themselves from other people
for example just staying in a dark room all day and night and having no love or
care at home. It makes children feel as if they are worthless and that no one
cares about them which is what leads to loneliness, this is something I will
include in my production through facial expressions and actions.

The next thing I spent a lot of time

researching was all about revenge
and the effects and why people
seek revenge and also what people
feel they get out of revenge. I
started by looking at what revenge actually is. It is the action of inflicting hurt
or harm on someone who has hurt you; the desire to inflict retribution. I then
looked at the science behind revenge and I researched about some scientists
who had brain scanned someone after revenge and how it stimulates part of
your brain into thinking it is the right thing to do to someone after they have
hurt you. I researched a true story about a young boy who murdered a girl as a
form of his revenge and what happened to him in result from doing that. I
found that revenge thought to be a desire which is seen to be natural, but that
evidence suggest it doesn’t usually help heal psychological wounds but it
usually ends up in long-lasting problems for everyone and so revenge doesn’t
actually help make anything better in the long run. I felt that this part of my
topic research really helped my ide develop as my subject in my music video is
mainly revenge and so after having a proper research of the effects of revenge
and why people feel the need to get it I was able to do my production on it as I
understood the subject much better.
In my production I had scenes of
revenge for example covering the
car in silly string and laughing about
it while she is doing it. This shows
that she is happy about what she is
doing and wants to get back at the
people that had hurt her when she
was younger.

After my research I developed my idea as I wanted to show more emotional and physical
revenge when it came to my production as I though this would be a good way to show
how the abuse affected her. I feel as if I did do this in a way of the physical revenge but not
so much the emotional abuse as I really struggled to think of forms of revenge that could
affect someone emotionally. My developed ideas helped me round off each bit of work I
had done in my research as I was gradually finding different and new things to put into my
production. From all of my other developed idea sections I talked about how my target
audience
research
helped me to
understand
what my
audience
wanted to
see. I also knew that I needed to understand exactly how it felt to be emotionally abused
and how someone who is going through that would deal with it and also what they would
want to do in terms of revenge.

My characters have developed throughout the process as I have done a lot of

research into character theory and this has helped me to understand what I
want my characters to be like. For example I knew that I wanted to express my
victim’s emotions through her body language and I got this from looking at
victims in other productions and I looked at how they reacted towards issues in
their lives. I reflected this in my work when it came to my own production as I
had scenes of low angle shots to show her facial expressions and what she is
doing in that scene.
When it came to choosing my actresses I felt that Chloe for my short film
played the part well as I think that she has a lot of sadness in her eyes and I
could use this in my production to express as someone who gets abused and
has a very lonely life. I thought that Myriam worked well for my music video
even though she was my contingency actress as she worked well with me and
she had the anger in her face when it came to the revenge and this is what I
wanted it to look like so we could see what the abuse when she was younger
has done to her in the long run. Costume in my music video wasn’t really an
issue however in my short film I got my actress to wear all black to show how
she is run down and very plain and simple.
I practised two test shots of different camera angles that I wanted to use in my
production and this helped me as I knew how to hold the camera and how I
wanted it to look in my production. If I hadn’t had done any test shots I
wouldn’t have known how to hold the camera in a way where the light doesn’t
make the camera view dark. This is because after looking back at my test shots
I could see that they were quite dark and this was because I hadn’t adjusted
the camera settings to lighten it. If I hadn’t had done test shots this could have
been an issue when it came to filming my actual production.
During this process I have faced many problems along the way but I have
managed to find ways round them all. I started the project not having a clue
what I wanted to make all I knew was that I wanted to find it interesting and
actually enjoy researching about as I knew I would be spending a lot of time
talking about it and researching it. It took me a lot longer than everyone else to
come up with a final idea that I knew I would enjoy learning about which for
me was a worry from the start as I didn’t want to fall behind at the very
beginning. I did finally come up with my child abuse and revenge topic and it
was a subject I knew I would find interesting to research and I would enjoy
talking about it because it’s such a huge problem for many young people
growing up.
Another issue I faced which was a huge problem with regards to helping my
idea develop was trying to get 50 responses from surveys. I sent my survey out
on as many social media platforms as I could and I even made an Instagram
account with links on it to the surveys but I just couldn’t get all the responses
that I needed. The way I overcame this was working with what I had from the
surveys and just asking my peers and my teachers what they thought about my
idea and how I could develop it. Another thing I did to help this was doing my
focus group as that meant I was getting a lot of feedback on how I can improve
certain aspects of my planned production and how I could potentially make it
better.
I did at the start find it difficult when it came to researching about revenge, as I
didn’t know what sort of things to look into but then as I got more feedback
from my teacher and she helped me onto the right path to understand what
sort of thing to look at and this helped me as I worked off that. This meant that
my topic research could develop a lot and also my understanding of it.
Another huge issue that I faced was being let down by my main actress on the
week on filming my music video due to family problems and so I had to wait
out the 2 weeks of Easter until my contingency actress came back from her
holiday and I had to just squeeze as much filming as could in before it was too
late. This added a huge delay onto my filming and editing process and meant I
did fall behind on it. How I overcame this was by editing my short film to the
point where it was almost finished and only had a few extra things that needed
doing to it.
During this process my skills have developed in many different types of ways
from my independence, to my time management, to my people skills working
with a young girl who I’d never met before, to my editing skills. I feel this final
unit has helped me to understand what I want to get out of this course which I
hope could potentially be something in the industry whether that’s an editor or
just someone who works on set, it has helped me to decide what I want to do
with my career. I feel that my skills when it comes to Premier Pro are constantly
developing but on this project more so than ever because I didn’t leave myself
long to edit but the time I had I used well and experimented as much as I could
to produce something I was proud of. When it came to filming my short film I
was working with a much younger girl who I’d never met before but the filming
all went to plan and we worked well together as she listened to what I wanted
it to look like and she helped my short film look the way it did along with the
music video.
I feel as if my production was quite different to the productions I looked at in
my research as I wanted mine to be more relatable to my target audience
which I felt it was. I think that my production (the short film) had a similar
impact on the audience that the Removed short film I analysed in my research
did as it had the hard hitting scenes and the background music which helped to
tell the story. I feel like production can’t really be compared to the ones I
researched as they have different storylines how I feel I have used premier pro
in a professional way just like the productions I researched were and I have also
used appropriate actresses which are a key part of making a production look
good.
If I were to do this unit again some things, I would change would include
staying on top of my work from the beginning and trying to come up with an
idea sooner than I did this time. I would also improve my time management
when it came to getting all theory work finished so that I didn’t miss anything
out.
I also think if I were to do this again I would hire professional actors for my
production so I could book specific dates in so no one could let me down last
minuet and set me back on my editing. I would also use better locations and
have more interesting props. For example, for my music video I wanted to have
scenes of her covering a classroom in a fire extinguisher and also use smoke
bombs for her to walk through, but due to costs and not being able to cover a
classroom in a fire extinguisher it couldn’t happen like I had hoped it would.
I have found this unit very eye opening and at the same time very hard work
and quite stressful but alongside this I have enjoyed my final few months at
college and learning about a subject I have never really looked into before. It is
now a topic I would want to get involved in outside of the classroom and find
out more about face to face with people who work around this day by day.