.
My Film Studies coursework consisted of the creation of a short imagined film which required me to research the conventions of my chosen genre, planning my production, deciding what I wanted to achieve and actually creating and editing the short film. Although the option of working in a team was available to me I decided to work alone as the director, cinematographer and editor of my short film however I did, of course, use actors within my film. All of the planning and research was uploaded to a blogging platform, Blogger, and the URL is http://lnc-film-a2.blogspot.com.
My aims were to create a film in the style of a suspense thriller to appeal to a target audience of 18-30 year old, middle class females with an intellectual leaning and feministic views; to use cinematography, editing and sound to create tension within the audience; to create an audience alignment with that character of Roselyn despite her immoral actions; and to effectively foreshadow plot elements using intertextuality. My narrative consists of two criminals who come home after a fourth successful bank robbery. When Roselyn is in the kitchen making cups of tea for them both she listens to a voicemail message left for Smith from his ex-girlfriend wanting to know if they were still going to run away together with the money. Roselyn is distraught and decides to kill Smith by poisoning his tea with rat poison. When she brings it through she begins acting suspiciously and Smith asks for some biscuits to get her out of the room while he inspects his tea cup. He knows something is wrong with it and so switches the cups. When Roselyn returns she drinks from her cup and pretends to be dying. This causes Smith to gulp from his switched cup in triumph however it turns out that Roselyn had pre-empted that he would switch the cups and initially gave herself the poisoned tea cup. Smith is laid dying as Roselyn explains her actions to him and once he is dead, she lays a rose on his body.
The reasons for the character names of Smith and Roselyn are also important. I called the male character Smith because I really wanted to do everything I could to make sure audiences did not empathise with him and a name like Smith suggests an anonymity about him as it is the most common last name in the UK and is a popular alias for people trying to hide their true identity for whatever reason. I called the female character Roselyn for a simpler reason, the root of the name is Rose and I wanted to hint to the audience that like a rose she has thorns. However I didn’t want to be as obvious as to just call her Rose, so I called her Roselyn, shortened to ‘Ros’ by Smith, a more mature version of the name.
I began my project by first outlining my genre, a thriller, or more specifically a suspense thriller, and the narrative type, ‘The Spider and The Fly’ (or ‘Circe’) in which the antagonist lures the protagonist into a trap. After this, I began researching my chosen genre, looking for key features and conventional macro features which I would intend to emulate in my own film. I found that thrillers utilize the elements of suspense and tension often such as in Hitchcock’s films Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) and Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock). I also found that thrillers are characterised by portraying an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder by showing society as a dark and dangerous world rife with corruption such as the city of Gotham in ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008, Christopher Nolan). The genre, especially suspense thrillers, also utilizes a lot of literary devices such as plot twists, red herrings and cliff-hangers, such as in ‘Inception’ (2010, Christopher Nolan), which uses all three throughout the film, most notably at the end of the film in which the viewer is left wondering whether Cobb is truly in the real world or if he is still in a dream world. Another feature of thrillers is that they often involve romantic love triangles that end up leading to murder, a feature I utilized for the majority of my plot, Roselyn murders Smith because he was cheating on her. I chose to use a male and a female for this reason, while making the female the lead character, something that has more common these days but was virtually unheard of in mainstream thrillers of the past, for example Vertigo (1958, US, Alfred Hitchcock). In another effort to challenge the conventions of thrillers, I actively tried to avoid any possibility of the character of Roselyn being subjected to the ‘male gaze.’ It would have been easy for me to make Roselyn appear to be a femme fatale type character to give a clue to the audience of her ultimately murderous nature but instead I dressed her in shapeless clothes and didn’t allow my actress to wear much make up.
While my actual narrative was from entirely my own imagination, I did draw influence from three specific films that dealt with similar themes but I was mainly influenced by their micro elements when dealing with specific scenes. Such as in Kill Bill Volume 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2004, USA) when Elle has just set a poisonous snake on Budd in his trailer, she sits and leans over him as he dies, but for the first few shots she is upside down to the viewer, putting them directly into Budd’s position below her. This allows Elle to look extremely dominating and is an effect I used in my film, when Roselyn explains to Smith how she tricked him. The effect is extremely disorientating to the viewer as well which again puts the audience in Smith’s position as he would most definitely be feeling disorientated as he lays dying on the floor.
Another film I drew influence from was Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock, USA) which I have already previously mentioned. The scene in question that interested me was the penultimate shot in which Norman Bates is alone in his jail cell and after an internal monologue looks into the camera and smiles. It is very off-putting and is disturbing for the audience to be directly addressed by a murderer. I did intend to have a long shot turning to a close up in my film, like in Psycho, but filming constraints i.e. the size of the room and the lack of a dolly track meant that it would not have looked effective at all. However in the final scene Roselyn does look into the camera and engage the audience directly, however she does not smile as I thought that it might discourage alignment with her if she looks too pleased at the end of the film.
Finally, the last film I textually analysed was Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which although it has more of a comedic feel than a thriller it contains a scene dealing with a couple’s betrayal of each other and possibly poisoned food. The main thing that I wanted to emulate from this scene is the use of high angled close ups and low angled close ups to show who had the power at each moment in time during the scene. This is something I think I have successfully recreated throughout my entire film, especially, of course, during the scenes of suspicion.
I also looked into music from many different sources to use in my film but primarily music from film soundtracks by composers such as John Murphy (28 Days Later soundtrack) and Ennio Morricone (several tracks are featured in Kill Bill’s soundtrack). However, two songs that were composed by Robert Rodriguez for Kill Bill Volume 2 really stood out for me and I knew that they would be perfect for the poisoning scene and the Smith’s death scene. I then began looking into classical, romantic piano pieces from a compilation album I borrowed from my college library entitled “Myleene’s Music For Romance.” Two songs stood out for me on the album, Gnosienne No. 1 by Satie and Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven because while the songs are romantic, they are also very dark, perfect for personifying Smith and Roselyn’s relationship.
Next I had to write the screenplay for it, but as I’m not experienced in writing fully accurate screenplays I combined the script with a shooting list and worked from that which worked perfectly well for me. Once the script was written I needed to then get all my props together for the shoot.
For the props some simple, everyday things were needed to create verisimilitude and narrative prompts such as the TV set and DVD player (although in the end I used an XBOX 360); a duffel bag full of money (money is implied); a black balaclava (which both characters wore but in two different shots); a kettle, two cups, tea bags, sugar pot, two spoons and milk; a mobile phone (mine to be precise); sofas/chairs and table; a newspaper; and a packet of biscuits. The only really symbolic props were that of the rose and the rat poison, with each being a metaphor for Roselyn and Smith, respectively. However with the rose I made sure it was visible a few times during the film framed in the shot just behind Roselyn however I didn’t want to point it out too much until the final scene.
Regarding costume, I chose to dress both my characters in plain, black clothes, both to connotate their hidden characteristics of betrayal and to create verisimilitude – real criminals who had just completed a bank would most likely be wearing black clothing. For the location I decided to use my friend Leann's kitchen and living room as locations for shooting as my house was too brightly lit, whereas were darker lit and more cramped, more suitable for a thriller film. She also has black leather sofas which connotate wealth, but not extravagant wealth (Smith & Roselyn aren't foolish with their stolen money).
Actually filming my short film was relatively problem free except for one minor hiccup along the way which was that my actor portraying Smith decided to drop out unexpectedly which really left me in the lurch. I then rewrote the script to have the film be about two female partners in crime instead of a couple but after feeling it would be too damaging to my overall aims of what I wanted this film to be, I managed to talk to the actor and convince him into returning to his role of Smith. Apart from that, everything else went smoothly and I shot the entire film in five separate days of filming. Three of those days were conventional filming however one of them was recording my sister’s voice on speaker phone (as she was in Whitby at the time) reading Smith’s ex-girlfriend’s lines for the voicemail message which was simple enough and one was filming an actress, Jenny, reading her lines as the newsreader in my college’s green room, chroma-keying the footage in Premiere Pro, then playing the footage on the television during shooting at Leann’s house. Although it meant a little more work I’m glad I did it as it added greatly to the verisimilitude and the believability of the broadcast because it was actually being played on the TV within the scene. I also showed clips from the film Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994, UK) on the television screen to foreshadow the upcoming betrayal and suspicion. The first scene in which David is questioning Alex about whether he knew that Juliet planned to run away with the money is played on the TV just before Roselyn discovers that Smith is planning on running away with the money with another woman. When Roselyn returns from the kitchen with the poisoned tea ready to trick and kill Smith, another scene can be seen on the TV from Shallow Grave in which Alex is pinned to the floor by a knife in his arm which Juliet begins hitting with her shoe to drive it deeper into him, effectively leaving him for dead. I would say these two elements of foreshadowing are very effective, however only to those media literate enough to pay attention, and to those who have actually already seen Shallow Grave, something of a cult hit and not very mainstream. That being said, that is exactly the type of audience I am aiming to attract with my short film as I have previously stated.
Luckily all of the editing was very straightforward, and I stuck to just using straightforward cuts for the entire film, excepting a fade in and out for the opening and ending of the film, respectively. However I did also use traditional film syntax and abided by the axis of action rule. I wanted to make sure that my film used continuity editing to make it as realistic as possible. I also used fast paced editing when Smith’s and Ros’ suspicions of each other were at their highest to generate suspense and tension in the audience.
I also made an extended title sequence during the editing process but couldn't use it because it made the overall length of my short film go over five minutes. It was slightly disappointing that I couldn't actually use these titles as I feel they get the audience focused and ready to watch my film whereas now my film simply begins with the news report and has the titles overlaying the first scene. The main difference with these titles and the ones I overlaid in my final film is that these titles were synced with the music so every new bar is given a new title which is conventional when considering title sequences for any genre of film. Also for the actual title itself of 'RAT' I used a Wipe effect to split the title up and have it come together from two sides to create the title in the middle. This is a direct homage to the title sequence of Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) designed by Saul Bass which used the exact same style. The two shapes coming from the left and the right sides of the screen don't make sense on their own, however at the end of the title screen they have come together and the audience can understand what it says, therefore it has connotative meaning; that being that at the beginning of the film you may be confused but it will all become clear in the end.
Although editing the short film together was entirely problem free, the same cannot be said for actually managing to export the project as a playable video file. Therefore I wasn’t able to upload any form of rushes to YouTube after each session of editing which is extremely regrettable. I initially thought it was because I had transcoded the original .mov files taken from my Canon EOS 550D into compressed .mp4 files, despite having done the exact same thing with no exporting problems many times before, however after consulting my college's technical advisor, seeking advice in forums and actually contacting Adobe for technical support it seemed as though there was nothing that could be done besides filming my project's output preview in Premiere Pro with one of college's HDV cameras and then making a new project for it in Premiere Pro, something that would severely degrade the overall quality of the short film itself.
However, when all hope seemed lost I thought I would try reinstalling my operating system, Windows 7, on my home computer and then reinstalling Premiere Pro and see if the project would then export successfully and to my surprise it worked first time, thereby eliminating the need for an extremely degraded quality recording as a substitute.
I believe my overall production has been very successful, as my audience feedback attests to. To gain my audience feedback I asked my tutor, Tim, to show my short film to one of his AS Level classes and get them to fill in a questionnaire I had devised. I was determined to get honest feedback from people I did not know, which I do not think I could have gained if I had simply asked my friends and classmates what they thought of it because there would always be some bias in the results. Fortunately my short film was received very well, attaining an average rating of 3.9/5 for males and 4.2 for females when asked how much they enjoyed my film. Already I can say that my aim to have my film appeal more to women than men has been successful.
The next question I asked was, “Was the plot easy to follow? Why/why not?” I asked this because I was worried that the film may have been too complex for some audiences to follow, however based on my feedback most people could easily follow the narrative, the exception being two audience members who didn't understand who left Smith the voicemail message and why Ros actually killed Smith. In retrospect, although the majority of audience members did easily follow the narrative I would've made these aspects of the plot more clear if the short film could have been longer than five minutes. However I did receive good comments about my use of the news report at the beginning of the film as it provided many background details to the story.
I then asked “Did you feel that the soundtrack added to the tension and mood of the film? Why/why not?” because the choice of soundtrack was very important to me as I wanted it to create the exact right tone to the film and every response to this question was positive so I think I succeeded. Some comments were that "the music built tension well, the piano music (Moonlight Sonata) towards the end got more intense as the situation got tenser" and "the song (Do I Look Pretty?) increasing in volume and oomph when the girl poisons the tea was effective." This proves that my aim of creating a tense atmosphere in the film was also achieved.
When I asked them, “What genre would you say my film is? -Romance / Thriller / Horror / Comedy / Drama- Why?” the majority of my participants correctly thought that my film was a thriller, 14 out of 21, however the other 7 responses felt that my film was a drama, but based on the subject content this is an easy mistake to make. Although thrillers tend to focus on crime, murder and infidelity, dramas also do these days, and because of the film's domestic setting this is probably why it was confused as a drama by some of the audience, although one of them did state that they thought it was a drama “because it was dramatic.”
Finally I asked them “Why do you think Ros laid a rose on Smith's body?” The reason I asked this question was because I was worried that the main reason for Ros laying a rose on Smith's dead body would go unrealised by most of my audience members and as it turns out, it was unrealised by all but one participant who remembered that Ros' first line in the film was stating her displeasure at Smith choosing a dead rat for their calling card and telling him he should've picked a rose. Therefore at the end of the movie, her laying a rose on his body is the audience's way of knowing that the rose is her new solo calling card. If I were to shoot the film again I would most likely make more out of Ros' wish for a rose to be their calling card, but because at least one person understood it without being told, I am glad that I included it. However, the majority of comments did state that the reason was to show a sarcastic love for him which was also my intent just not my primary intent.
All in all, I think I fulfilled my aims and what I wanted to get out of my short film
and am very happy that it was so positively received by my target audience.
Word Count: 3363 words.
Reflective Analysis
My Film Studies coursework consisted of the creation of a short imagined film which required me to research the conventions of my chosen genre, planning my production, deciding what I wanted to achieve and actually creating and editing the short film. Although the option of working in a team was available to me I decided to work alone as the director, cinematographer and editor of my short film however I did, of course, use actors within my film. All of the planning and research was uploaded to a blogging platform, Blogger, and the URL is http://lnc-film-a2.blogspot.com.
My aims were to create a film in the style of a suspense thriller to appeal to a target audience of 18-30 year old, middle class females with an intellectual leaning and feministic views; to use cinematography, editing and sound to create tension within the audience; to create an audience alignment with that character of Roselyn despite her immoral actions; and to effectively foreshadow plot elements using intertextuality. My narrative consists of two criminals who come home after a fourth successful bank robbery. When Roselyn is in the kitchen making cups of tea for them both she listens to a voicemail message left for Smith from his ex-girlfriend wanting to know if they were still going to run away together with the money. Roselyn is distraught and decides to kill Smith by poisoning his tea with rat poison. When she brings it through she begins acting suspiciously and Smith asks for some biscuits to get her out of the room while he inspects his tea cup. He knows something is wrong with it and so switches the cups. When Roselyn returns she drinks from her cup and pretends to be dying. This causes Smith to gulp from his switched cup in triumph however it turns out that Roselyn had pre-empted that he would switch the cups and initially gave herself the poisoned tea cup. Smith is laid dying as Roselyn explains her actions to him and once he is dead, she lays a rose on his body.
The reasons for the character names of Smith and Roselyn are also important. I called the male character Smith because I really wanted to do everything I could to make sure audiences did not empathise with him and a name like Smith suggests an anonymity about him as it is the most common last name in the UK and is a popular alias for people trying to hide their true identity for whatever reason. I called the female character Roselyn for a simpler reason, the root of the name is Rose and I wanted to hint to the audience that like a rose she has thorns. However I didn’t want to be as obvious as to just call her Rose, so I called her Roselyn, shortened to ‘Ros’ by Smith, a more mature version of the name.
I began my project by first outlining my genre, a thriller, or more specifically a suspense thriller, and the narrative type, ‘The Spider and The Fly’ (or ‘Circe’) in which the antagonist lures the protagonist into a trap. After this, I began researching my chosen genre, looking for key features and conventional macro features which I would intend to emulate in my own film. I found that thrillers utilize the elements of suspense and tension often such as in Hitchcock’s films Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) and Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock). I also found that thrillers are characterised by portraying an atmosphere of menace, violence, crime and murder by showing society as a dark and dangerous world rife with corruption such as the city of Gotham in ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008, Christopher Nolan). The genre, especially suspense thrillers, also utilizes a lot of literary devices such as plot twists, red herrings and cliff-hangers, such as in ‘Inception’ (2010, Christopher Nolan), which uses all three throughout the film, most notably at the end of the film in which the viewer is left wondering whether Cobb is truly in the real world or if he is still in a dream world. Another feature of thrillers is that they often involve romantic love triangles that end up leading to murder, a feature I utilized for the majority of my plot, Roselyn murders Smith because he was cheating on her. I chose to use a male and a female for this reason, while making the female the lead character, something that has more common these days but was virtually unheard of in mainstream thrillers of the past, for example Vertigo (1958, US, Alfred Hitchcock). In another effort to challenge the conventions of thrillers, I actively tried to avoid any possibility of the character of Roselyn being subjected to the ‘male gaze.’ It would have been easy for me to make Roselyn appear to be a femme fatale type character to give a clue to the audience of her ultimately murderous nature but instead I dressed her in shapeless clothes and didn’t allow my actress to wear much make up.
While my actual narrative was from entirely my own imagination, I did draw influence from three specific films that dealt with similar themes but I was mainly influenced by their micro elements when dealing with specific scenes. Such as in Kill Bill Volume 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2004, USA) when Elle has just set a poisonous snake on Budd in his trailer, she sits and leans over him as he dies, but for the first few shots she is upside down to the viewer, putting them directly into Budd’s position below her. This allows Elle to look extremely dominating and is an effect I used in my film, when Roselyn explains to Smith how she tricked him. The effect is extremely disorientating to the viewer as well which again puts the audience in Smith’s position as he would most definitely be feeling disorientated as he lays dying on the floor.
Another film I drew influence from was Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock, USA) which I have already previously mentioned. The scene in question that interested me was the penultimate shot in which Norman Bates is alone in his jail cell and after an internal monologue looks into the camera and smiles. It is very off-putting and is disturbing for the audience to be directly addressed by a murderer. I did intend to have a long shot turning to a close up in my film, like in Psycho, but filming constraints i.e. the size of the room and the lack of a dolly track meant that it would not have looked effective at all. However in the final scene Roselyn does look into the camera and engage the audience directly, however she does not smile as I thought that it might discourage alignment with her if she looks too pleased at the end of the film.
Finally, the last film I textually analysed was Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which although it has more of a comedic feel than a thriller it contains a scene dealing with a couple’s betrayal of each other and possibly poisoned food. The main thing that I wanted to emulate from this scene is the use of high angled close ups and low angled close ups to show who had the power at each moment in time during the scene. This is something I think I have successfully recreated throughout my entire film, especially, of course, during the scenes of suspicion.
I also looked into music from many different sources to use in my film but primarily music from film soundtracks by composers such as John Murphy (28 Days Later soundtrack) and Ennio Morricone (several tracks are featured in Kill Bill’s soundtrack). However, two songs that were composed by Robert Rodriguez for Kill Bill Volume 2 really stood out for me and I knew that they would be perfect for the poisoning scene and the Smith’s death scene. I then began looking into classical, romantic piano pieces from a compilation album I borrowed from my college library entitled “Myleene’s Music For Romance.” Two songs stood out for me on the album, Gnosienne No. 1 by Satie and Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven because while the songs are romantic, they are also very dark, perfect for personifying Smith and Roselyn’s relationship.
Next I had to write the screenplay for it, but as I’m not experienced in writing fully accurate screenplays I combined the script with a shooting list and worked from that which worked perfectly well for me. Once the script was written I needed to then get all my props together for the shoot.
For the props some simple, everyday things were needed to create verisimilitude and narrative prompts such as the TV set and DVD player (although in the end I used an XBOX 360); a duffel bag full of money (money is implied); a black balaclava (which both characters wore but in two different shots); a kettle, two cups, tea bags, sugar pot, two spoons and milk; a mobile phone (mine to be precise); sofas/chairs and table; a newspaper; and a packet of biscuits. The only really symbolic props were that of the rose and the rat poison, with each being a metaphor for Roselyn and Smith, respectively. However with the rose I made sure it was visible a few times during the film framed in the shot just behind Roselyn however I didn’t want to point it out too much until the final scene.
Regarding costume, I chose to dress both my characters in plain, black clothes, both to connotate their hidden characteristics of betrayal and to create verisimilitude – real criminals who had just completed a bank would most likely be wearing black clothing. For the location I decided to use my friend Leann's kitchen and living room as locations for shooting as my house was too brightly lit, whereas were darker lit and more cramped, more suitable for a thriller film. She also has black leather sofas which connotate wealth, but not extravagant wealth (Smith & Roselyn aren't foolish with their stolen money).
Actually filming my short film was relatively problem free except for one minor hiccup along the way which was that my actor portraying Smith decided to drop out unexpectedly which really left me in the lurch. I then rewrote the script to have the film be about two female partners in crime instead of a couple but after feeling it would be too damaging to my overall aims of what I wanted this film to be, I managed to talk to the actor and convince him into returning to his role of Smith. Apart from that, everything else went smoothly and I shot the entire film in five separate days of filming. Three of those days were conventional filming however one of them was recording my sister’s voice on speaker phone (as she was in Whitby at the time) reading Smith’s ex-girlfriend’s lines for the voicemail message which was simple enough and one was filming an actress, Jenny, reading her lines as the newsreader in my college’s green room, chroma-keying the footage in Premiere Pro, then playing the footage on the television during shooting at Leann’s house. Although it meant a little more work I’m glad I did it as it added greatly to the verisimilitude and the believability of the broadcast because it was actually being played on the TV within the scene. I also showed clips from the film Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994, UK) on the television screen to foreshadow the upcoming betrayal and suspicion. The first scene in which David is questioning Alex about whether he knew that Juliet planned to run away with the money is played on the TV just before Roselyn discovers that Smith is planning on running away with the money with another woman. When Roselyn returns from the kitchen with the poisoned tea ready to trick and kill Smith, another scene can be seen on the TV from Shallow Grave in which Alex is pinned to the floor by a knife in his arm which Juliet begins hitting with her shoe to drive it deeper into him, effectively leaving him for dead. I would say these two elements of foreshadowing are very effective, however only to those media literate enough to pay attention, and to those who have actually already seen Shallow Grave, something of a cult hit and not very mainstream. That being said, that is exactly the type of audience I am aiming to attract with my short film as I have previously stated.
Luckily all of the editing was very straightforward, and I stuck to just using straightforward cuts for the entire film, excepting a fade in and out for the opening and ending of the film, respectively. However I did also use traditional film syntax and abided by the axis of action rule. I wanted to make sure that my film used continuity editing to make it as realistic as possible. I also used fast paced editing when Smith’s and Ros’ suspicions of each other were at their highest to generate suspense and tension in the audience.
I also made an extended title sequence during the editing process but couldn't use it because it made the overall length of my short film go over five minutes. It was slightly disappointing that I couldn't actually use these titles as I feel they get the audience focused and ready to watch my film whereas now my film simply begins with the news report and has the titles overlaying the first scene. The main difference with these titles and the ones I overlaid in my final film is that these titles were synced with the music so every new bar is given a new title which is conventional when considering title sequences for any genre of film. Also for the actual title itself of 'RAT' I used a Wipe effect to split the title up and have it come together from two sides to create the title in the middle. This is a direct homage to the title sequence of Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) designed by Saul Bass which used the exact same style. The two shapes coming from the left and the right sides of the screen don't make sense on their own, however at the end of the title screen they have come together and the audience can understand what it says, therefore it has connotative meaning; that being that at the beginning of the film you may be confused but it will all become clear in the end.
Although editing the short film together was entirely problem free, the same cannot be said for actually managing to export the project as a playable video file. Therefore I wasn’t able to upload any form of rushes to YouTube after each session of editing which is extremely regrettable. I initially thought it was because I had transcoded the original .mov files taken from my Canon EOS 550D into compressed .mp4 files, despite having done the exact same thing with no exporting problems many times before, however after consulting my college's technical advisor, seeking advice in forums and actually contacting Adobe for technical support it seemed as though there was nothing that could be done besides filming my project's output preview in Premiere Pro with one of college's HDV cameras and then making a new project for it in Premiere Pro, something that would severely degrade the overall quality of the short film itself.
However, when all hope seemed lost I thought I would try reinstalling my operating system, Windows 7, on my home computer and then reinstalling Premiere Pro and see if the project would then export successfully and to my surprise it worked first time, thereby eliminating the need for an extremely degraded quality recording as a substitute.
I believe my overall production has been very successful, as my audience feedback attests to. To gain my audience feedback I asked my tutor, Tim, to show my short film to one of his AS Level classes and get them to fill in a questionnaire I had devised. I was determined to get honest feedback from people I did not know, which I do not think I could have gained if I had simply asked my friends and classmates what they thought of it because there would always be some bias in the results. Fortunately my short film was received very well, attaining an average rating of 3.9/5 for males and 4.2 for females when asked how much they enjoyed my film. Already I can say that my aim to have my film appeal more to women than men has been successful.
The next question I asked was, “Was the plot easy to follow? Why/why not?” I asked this because I was worried that the film may have been too complex for some audiences to follow, however based on my feedback most people could easily follow the narrative, the exception being two audience members who didn't understand who left Smith the voicemail message and why Ros actually killed Smith. In retrospect, although the majority of audience members did easily follow the narrative I would've made these aspects of the plot more clear if the short film could have been longer than five minutes. However I did receive good comments about my use of the news report at the beginning of the film as it provided many background details to the story.
I then asked “Did you feel that the soundtrack added to the tension and mood of the film? Why/why not?” because the choice of soundtrack was very important to me as I wanted it to create the exact right tone to the film and every response to this question was positive so I think I succeeded. Some comments were that "the music built tension well, the piano music (Moonlight Sonata) towards the end got more intense as the situation got tenser" and "the song (Do I Look Pretty?) increasing in volume and oomph when the girl poisons the tea was effective." This proves that my aim of creating a tense atmosphere in the film was also achieved.
When I asked them, “What genre would you say my film is? -Romance / Thriller / Horror / Comedy / Drama- Why?” the majority of my participants correctly thought that my film was a thriller, 14 out of 21, however the other 7 responses felt that my film was a drama, but based on the subject content this is an easy mistake to make. Although thrillers tend to focus on crime, murder and infidelity, dramas also do these days, and because of the film's domestic setting this is probably why it was confused as a drama by some of the audience, although one of them did state that they thought it was a drama “because it was dramatic.”
Finally I asked them “Why do you think Ros laid a rose on Smith's body?” The reason I asked this question was because I was worried that the main reason for Ros laying a rose on Smith's dead body would go unrealised by most of my audience members and as it turns out, it was unrealised by all but one participant who remembered that Ros' first line in the film was stating her displeasure at Smith choosing a dead rat for their calling card and telling him he should've picked a rose. Therefore at the end of the movie, her laying a rose on his body is the audience's way of knowing that the rose is her new solo calling card. If I were to shoot the film again I would most likely make more out of Ros' wish for a rose to be their calling card, but because at least one person understood it without being told, I am glad that I included it. However, the majority of comments did state that the reason was to show a sarcastic love for him which was also my intent just not my primary intent.
All in all, I think I fulfilled my aims and what I wanted to get out of my short film
and am very happy that it was so positively received by my target audience.
Word Count: 3363 words.
