Meeting the brief - How well did you meet the brief? Did it meet your standards of success?

 

Due to the circumstances I faced when creating this short film, I believe I met the brief quite well. I completed the brief within the deadline given and also represented the theme of mental health too. The brief required me to choose a topic matter out of three options, being memory, mental health and travel. I then had to create a media product evolving around my chosen theme. 

 

I chose to create a short film, as I have a passion for filmmaking and aspire to work as a film director in the future. I also wanted to challenge myself for this project by taking on many roles, which concluded the following: director, writer, actor and part time cinematographer. I wanted to do this because I felt it would give me a taster of the varied careers that work with one another when collaborating on a film. It also gave me an idea of the responsibilities that come with each role and will help me explore my filmmaking experience by seeing which role suited me best and which one I felt most comfortable in, as this will allow me to decide on future projects, what role I would like to obtain and progress in. 

 

After reflecting upon each role, I enjoyed writing and directing the most. I felt that being both the director and actor was incredibly straining as it prevented me from using my full attention and energy towards one job, which meant my performance and direction lacked due to my split mindset of worrying about lines and direction. I found writing to be stressful at times, due to writer’s block, however once I created the foundation of my narrative, I found forming the characters and setting to be very exciting, imaginative, but most of all expressive, as I could draw from inspirations and incorporate my passions into parts of my script. I found directing to be pressurising, but also equally as enjoyable as writing, this is because it allowed me to bring my ideas from paper into real life. For me, directing this film was quite surreal as I have never shot a short film with dialogue before and watching it come alive was interesting, even if it was poorly written, it was an experience that has taught me a lot about collaborating and communicating.

 

To continue, my representation of my chosen theme, being mental health, did meet my standards of success, this is because I felt comfortable with researching the subject matter and thought it was an accessible theme to draw a narrative from. As mental illness has affected many of my friends and loved ones, I wanted to use this theme to my abilities by shedding light on the matter and decided on addiction as I already have a personal interest in wanting to understand the science behind the disease and thought this brief gave me the perfect opportunity to utilise my interest. 

 

Overall, I feel that the quality or standard of my short film was decent, however, I do believe improvements could be made. For instance, I felt my film had no pace or rhythm and dragged on. I also believe that I could have shown a little bit more of the science behind the drug, by being more experimental through visuals. 

I found that my film’s strong point, in terms of meeting my standards, comes down to the structure. The final draft was successful in my opinion because of my new nonlinear structure and approach I took towards the narrative. I thought the nonlinear balance between the counselling scenes and flashbacks allowed to show more of the character development and helped progress the struggle of the protagonist too. 

 

The cinematography of my film I believe met my standards, considering the circumstances, as I had to use an iPhone 7 and DIY tripods to shoot my film. Although, my partner in cinematography, being my sister, was very stable at holding the phone and helped me experiment and improve some of my shot frames and ideas to fit the scene’s atmosphere, meaning etc. 

 

I believe I could have improved as a director, in certain scenes guiding my fellow actor, being my father. The acting in the film sometimes met my standards. For instance,  in some scenes, I believe my father and I’s acting was decent and helped convey the emotion, but I feel I could have improved as a director by helping express to my father what his character was feeling, and how to pronounce certain lines to emphasize their purpose. However, my father is not trained in acting, and I only have little experience, both these things I need to take into account.

 

When reflecting upon the post production of my film, I believe some of my transitions between the counselling sessions and the flashbacks were too quick, however, I felt my colouring improved as I redrafted the edit. I was satisfied with the quality of my editing, as the sound mixing of the different music and dialogue was difficult, yet I feel that the transition between sounds was smooth.

 

To conclude, I believe the film overall was at a satisfactory standard because it turned out better than I anticipated, although there are improvements to be made, this project has taught me a lot about filmmaking, collaborating and being resourceful in strenuous times.

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Affect - What effect do you want your film to have on your audience?

 

The effect I want to achieve with my audience is two main things, one is for me to shed light on addiction, by showing that it can happen to anyone, as the disease has no specific gender, race or ethnicity that it affects. I also want my film to affect my audience in showing that not all cases of addiction end badly, and show them that addicts can survive. Although my characters are fictional, I wanted them to be universal of the people who face addiction. 

 

I want my film’s representation of addiction to bring hope to my audience and allow them to understand that addiction is not a choice but a disease. One of the ways in which I tried to show this was through the counselling session. The scenes between the counsellor and protagonist are to help unveil the suffering addiction brings upon the protagonist, while also giving insight as to how it can damage or even destroy relationships, especially with loved ones. 

 

I also wanted to have the ending of my film show how compassion and support from loved ones is one of the key catalysts towards recovery. I learnt this from reading and watching real life stories of addicts, from my research, and wanted to incorporate my knowledge of how real life addicts recover, into my film, to give a positive light on the matter.I also did not want a cliche ending to have my protagonist die, but instead, reinforce the hope society needs when reflecting upon this hard topic and to show that isolating and neglecting the issue only makes it worse. 

 

To conclude, I want my film to affect my audience in hope that they form empathy for the characters, whether that be through the struggle of mental illness, dysfunctioning relationships, addiction, or just a general struggle. But also for them to understand that the addict is not their disease, instead it is a part of them.

 

To expand upon this, the audience are introduced to the characters backgrounds and relationship, then slowly the reveal of the addiction is shown. I thought this was a clever way to show how addiction is not something to identify a person by, but instead learn that people suffer from it.

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Research - describe your research process, how successful and useful was it? What would you do differently to improve your research?

 

My research process was the most useful part of this project. I believe without my research, I would not be able to have even represented addiction, remotely accurately, or with justice. 

 

For this project, I wanted to expand upon my research sources, which all concluded the following: books, articles, interviews, feature films and short films. The most useful resources out of all five would have to be the books and feature films. To expand, my research covered many different aspects, such as colour grading, sound mixing, storyboarding, directing, screenplay writing and camera techniques. However, my research was mainly focused upon my theme, being mental health. I chose specifically to research addiction within mental health.

 

The books were incredibly successful as they helped me understand both the scientific and personal aspects of addiction. For instance, in both memoirs by David and Nic Sheff, they convey their knowledge and understanding that addiction has physically upon the addict, but they also express their raw and emotional dealings with addiction and how it impacted their relationship as a family. I found their stories to be very inspiring and moving, which made me want to use a similar, balanced perspective on how addiction impacts both addicts and their loved ones, using my two main characters. The other memoir I read by Judith Grisel, called Never Enough, was very useful and successful at helping me understand the biological effect addiction has on people, whether it be inheritance, environment, nurture vs nature, the book was detailed and clear by educating me on the subject matter and has taught me lots of new facts about varied drug addictions. 

 

The feature films I researched helped me expand upon my knowledge and understanding of addiction, these films concluded of the following: Beautiful boy, Heaven knows What, The Souvenir and Requiem for a Dream. I found all of the films to be useful in their unique approaches of representing the same topic. Beautiful Boy was the most influential for me because it captured a 360 perspective upon how addiction affects those who witness it and suffer through it. Heaven Knows What was useful for me by capturing a personal and intimate depiction of addiction, exploring the toxicity of addiction in relationships and the dark reality of street life addicts. The Souvenir was successful in showing how the deception and illusion of neglecting addiction can make matters worse and lastly, Requiem for a Dream reveals the inner addictions in everyone within society, and how our aspirations and dreams can overpower and delude people into questioning their morals. Each film also helped me question the different ways in which I can represent addiction, whether that be through two perspectives of loved ones, like in Beautiful boy, or to have snippets of trauma and peoples different lifestyle, like Requiem for a Dream. 
 

My research process also concluded of looking into expanding my filmmaking skills and learning more about how to shoot using an iPhone, as this was important due to my limitations of not working with a camera. Although I researched into camera angles and shooting film on an iPhone, it ended up being useless as the apps recommended to use messed with the lighting on my phone camera and it turned out that using the normal camera worked best. 

 

My research on writing scripts and colour grading was incredibly useful as both taught me new techniques. I learned new effects from my research, using After Effects, such as Lumetri colour which had colour wheels I could use to tint and grade my footage. The interviews and videos of screenplay writers discussing how they approach writing their films helped me understand new ways in which I could form my ideas into a narrative. For instance, these different techniques concluded by creating story arcs, ordering and experimenting with the order events of action to create the structure, or just to simply find human connection and draw from personal emotions by using writing as a way to reflect internal conflict with oneself.

 

Next time, to add to my filmmaking and subject matter research, I would like to attend film festivals and workshops to learn how to improve in my directing and writing skills, as this would allow me to be more knowledgeable in the craft of filmmaking and improve my short films. For this topic in particular, I would have liked to speak to professionals in the field and discuss more about addiction to get their advice on how I could represent the topic in a justified and respectful manner, but due to the UK lockdown I could not complete these forms of research. However, for my next project, once COVID-19 is more contained and once film festivals are open and more events are on, I will attend ones that are targeted towards my research and that can help me grow in my depth of knowledge within my project. 

 

To conclude, my research was very vast and concluded of detailed information upon filmmaking and addiction. It was all very useful and successful in helping me represent addiction in my film, but also it helped me even form the narrative for my film. Overall, my research inspired the foundations of my film and allowed me to express my creative decisions with confidence in understanding my topic.

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The effectiveness of your workflow - What did you do well? How would you change it?

 

I believe my workflow has been both good and bad in creating this project. This is mainly due to my motivation levels as in the beginning of lockdown I was incredibly motivated and completed lots of research, but as time went on I began to become less motivated as each day felt like they morphed into one another. When I was redrafting my script, I struggled to find motivation, but once I spoke with my supervisor by running through ideas and once I watched a few films, my inspiration came back. 

 

When I was in the pre production process of my film, I was in a good and steady workflow as I enjoyed creating and coming up with narrative ideas, learning about different topics, educating myself on filmmaking and on addiction. However, I struggled on many days when trying to be motivated with my creative thinking, but watching films both for education purposes and for enjoyment helped me find a middle ground to having a decent workflow.

 

Once I got to the production stage, I found my workflow was much faster as it was the collaborative part of my project and my crew were relying on me for direction. I created schedules to help organise myself and my crew, which helped us each know what the following days consisted of. Filming took a total of ten days to shoot all of the scenes, this is because I had to form my timetable around my family's priorities, this slightly delayed my workflow, although after each shoot I would upload the footage and start editing straight away in order for me to speed up my post production process. 

 

After I completed production, I then started on my post production. When editing, my workflow was very fast and focused as I had to organise all my footage, reflect on my research and refresh my mind on how to colour grade my footage. I also had to redraft my film to improve it before I sent it off to be marked. Out of my whole creative process of making this film, the beginning of my research and the end of my editing process were the moments where I had the most motivation and best workflow. This is because, at the beginning of my project, I had lots of inspiration, options and ideas to express, and towards the end of my project, I was excited to see the finished product. 

 

The main thing I learned about my workflow when creating this film in lockdown, is that I am most motivated when being in fast environments, because when I attended college my mind was focused on work, collaborating with peers and generally succeeding. But once I turned my ‘relaxation space’ (being my home) into a constant 24 hr workspace, I struggled to keep a balance. Overtime, I have now come to understand my workflow and feel that the schedules I created for myself hugely helped me when reflecting upon what tasks needed to be done and having deadlines allowed me to strive to a completion date. 

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To conclude, the main thing that I would change about my workflow, going forward with future projects, is to be more disciplined with myself so that I don’t allow myself to become demotivated or to listen to my pessimistic thoughts. I also want to give myself time to consume films for enjoyment, as that is where I have found most of my inspirations come from and they have helped me become motivated by thinking creatively. I would also ensure that I keep schedules on everything as they help reduce my stress levels because I feel organised and prepared in starting tasks.

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Scope of the project - Did you feel challenged? Did you stretch yourself?

 

This project was honestly the most challenging project I have faced since starting sixth form. This is because I was working with my family in lockdown and I also had many responsibilities by taking on the role as a director, actor, writer and part time cinematographer. However, I am grateful to have this experience because it has taught me more than any other project. I have learned more about how to be more organised, know how to keep motivated, and most of all, I’ve learned how to persevere, cope and think creatively during pressurised times.

 

One of the challenges I faced when creating this project was keeping organised, as I sometimes felt unsure of how I should structure my planning for my production and post production, as the changed deadlines shifted my schedules. To overcome this challenge, I adjusted my schedules and made sure I kept in contact with my mentors to know of any changes. 

 

Another challenge I faced was my lack of equipment, this was a huge issue with my film, as I had to use my father’s phone because the microphone on my phone is broken. However, this was not the main issue when discussing equipment, the problem that came with shooting on an iPhone was the lack of stability, focus and lighting adjustment. I could not loan a camera, tripod, dolly etc. from the college, due to lockdown. To overcome this issue, and to improve missing these essentials, my father and I created our own tripods using a lamp and bed frame. To adjust lighting, I had to adjust the white balance in post production by increasing the exposure, and to adjust the focus I added a blur effect on the background of some footage in post production too. 

 

I was also challenged when having to direct and act in my film, as having to both guide my fellow actor and cinematography while having to be in the mindset of my character all became very straining and tiring for me. The only way I worked through this challenge was having the support of my family, as they reassured me and helped whenever I asked to have an extra hand discussing shot types, pronouncing lines, practising lines etc. It has also taught me that I would like to not act and direct in my future projects as I find it distracts me from focusing upon one job, and I missed being behind the camera when filming. 

 

Lastly, the other challenge I faced was updating my blog while simultaneously shooting my film. I found balancing my written and practical work hard as both were very time consuming and having to make sure I documented enough of my research and production, I found it to be very challenging. The way I worked through this was by keeping to my schedule and making sure I gave myself enough days to focus on just my blog, so that I did not overwork or burn myself out. 

 

To conclude, I believe I did stretch myself with this project as I persevered through my challenges and made sure I completed my tasks on time. I also stretched myself through my reimaging of my script, as doing so transformed my visuals and structure of my narrative, but also improved it. It would have been easier to stick with my previous script, however, I wanted to better my work and challenge myself to produce a more improved, higher standard project.

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Management - How well managed was your time? How did this impact your final piece?

 

I believe I managed my time quite well, considering my circumstances and change in deadlines. Overall, I tried to keep on top of my time by meeting deadlines. The way I did this was by creating schedules for myself that list out when my tasks are due and how I will layout my day, consisting of the hours of work I need to complete in order to fulfill my responsibilities. These schedules impacted my massively final product, this is because without them, I would probably be behind schedule and would have rushed my editing process, meaning the final cut would not be at a satisfactory standard. 

 

I do believe l could have improved my management of time when it came to my research, this is because I had more films to add to my research, however, I ended up spending too much time with my production and editing that I didn’t give myself enough time to update the research on my blog. I believe this issue did not impact my final product, as the films I watched were clear in my memory and ended up not inspiring any of my ideas for my film anyway. Although, I do feel my research would be more richer in information on feature films about addiction, if I added them in. 

 

To conclude, I believe I did manage my time well, and I have learned from this project that the more I plan and prepare my film, the more enjoyable the filming experience will be and the better the film’s outcome will be too, as organising is hugely part of making a good film because it helps quicken the shooting process and allows for a more time to experiment with adding in ideas.

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Autonomous learning - How did you cope with being self-dependent? What did you learn about yourself? Where do you need to improve? When were you tested? How did you overcome issues by yourself?

 

I believe I coped with being self-dependent quite well, again, considering the circumstances. Although I feel that I could have created a better film if I wasn’t restricted to just filming in either my home or an empty field. I also would have loved to collaborate with peers in my class as I find sharing ideas, experimenting with styles of filmmaking is always exciting, refreshing and insightful. However, due to the circumstances, as this was mainly a self-independent task, I feel I did well to keep persevering through my writer’s block and demotivation. 

 

I did struggle with finding inspiration when reimaging my storyline, as I found staying in my home in lockdown became uninspiring as I could only look at a screen to find inspiring sources. Although, I do not believe this is a bad thing, I believe I would be more inspired by being in a social environment and having discussions with my peers and mentors. 

 

I also found having to direct and act in my film became terribly challenging, as I had to rely on myself to make sure I was saying the correct lines, pronouncing them correctly by keeping in my characters mindset, while also directing my father and cinematographer on how I wanted the scenes to playout both emotionally and visually. 

 

I found the research and narrative forming to be quite fluid and organic when forming and creating my film, although I had to push through my demotivation and had to organise my planning, I did find that being self-dependent when in pre production worked very smoothly. I believe when completing my coursework, working self-dependently is best for me as it allows me to focus and concentrate better than doing written work in a team. 

 

I learned from this project that I am more resourceful than I thought I was, as I would never have imagined creating a tripod from a bedframe and lamp, to use as my camera equipment replacement for my iPhone. I also learned that I am not comfortable acting and directing as I struggle to balance the responsibilities of both roles without lacking energy or focus on either one. Another thing I learned about myself from this project is my ability to persevere through challenges while working creatively and practically through a confined space and using my initiative. I found that my ability to create during this period to be very interesting, as I would assume that I would have very little inspiration, however I found watching films and reading novels became hugely inspiring and showed me that I can find motivation through other art forms and artists. 

 

I believe I need to improve upon my soft skills, particularly my teamwork and leadership skills, because if I want to direct, I must advance in expressing my ideas to my crew and help other people understand my direction and vision. I found with this project, I struggled to evoke exactly what I wanted from my actor and cinematographer. As they felt sometimes misguided as to what actions they needed to complete and found my way of directing at times disorganised. To improve upon this, I will be researching personally into different ways of directing and learn from professionals how I can improve on my social skills when filmmaking. 

 

I also need to improve upon my mindset, as I can easily fall into a self-deprecating state which is not helpful for others or myself. Especially when filmmaking and directing, as I need to inspire and build trust with collaborators, and being insecure or self-conscious can bridge a distrust, which can ultimately destroy the chance of a project being successful. To improve upon this, I will try to push out my negative thoughts and focus on seeing my work in a positive light, and make sure I strive for an optimistic mindset when working on a project. 

 

Reflecting back on my project, I was tested in the beginning, as the COVID-19 lockdown prevented me from having more freedom with who I can collaborate with and what locations and equipment I can gain access too. I overcame these issues by adapting to my environment, being my home, and worked on how I could devise a narrative and short film using the resources I already have access to. 

 

I was also tested when redrafting my narrative and script, as I had to transform my blocking by adding scenes, readjusting dialogue, and generally I had to reshape my film. However, this was for the best as my previous draft was poor in standard and quality, as it lacked in context, empathy and character development. I overcame this challenge by myself, as I reflected upon my research and saw what other elements I could incorporate and use to improve my film’s storyline and representation of my chosen subject matter. I also watched films that inspired me to shift my script’s structure from linear to non linear.

 

I was also tested when I had to adapt and change my timetable repeatedly to fit my new deadlines. I overcame this issue of pressure and disorganisation by creating schedules to follow, which acted like checklists as I crossed off each day and the task I had to complete as I went along. I found this useful and will repeatedly use schedules in future projects. 

 

To conclude, I believe I coped generally well with working independently and I found it to be a very educational and insightful project to work on, especially as my circumstances taught me more about myself as a creative and how I can improve upon my own soft skills, towards becoming a filmmaker.

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 Pride - are you proud of your work? What will you do with your work now?

 

Overall, I am quite proud of my work as I am glad that I completed my short film within my given deadline, especially under the circumstances of lockdown. However, I am not incredibly satisfied with my film as I felt it lacked in pace and rhythm, I also feel it could be a lot shorter if I chose to have my scenes be more purposeful, as I felt some of them came across as fillers. For instance, I felt the bench scene where David tells Kat about his promotion worked in my previous script, but once I redrafted my script, and reflected upon the scene once I edited it in post production, I found it to be quite meaningless and just added time to the film. I also found some of the dialogue, particularly the second to last scene, to be very poor and did not end up sounding as good as I intended. However, this has taught me that I should improve upon my writing skills and read more scripts to better my writing in dialogue. 

 

I did like some aspects of my film, for example, I liked the flashbacks of the outdoor lakes and fields as I found them to work nicely alongside the music I chose and captured a nostalgic atmosphere that I wanted. I also liked the bath scene as I found it fun to edit in post because it allowed me to be creative with my visuals and experiment with using a voiceover with complimentary imagery. 

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For this project, I have uploaded my film onto YouTube as unlisted, this is so that those who look at my blog can learn about my pre production process, production process and post production process, and then finally they can watch my final cut. I do not feel comfortable sharing my film publicly, but in the future I will submit my short films to film festivals in hope that they breach a wider audience than those who just visit my blog. I will also be setting up a personal blog for my filmmaking and film research which will present this short film!

 

To conclude, I was proud of completing this project and I am thankful that it has taught me more about filmmaking, collaborating and more about myself as an aspiring director. Although, I do feel my final product could be better in terms of quality, pace and dialogue.

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Skills - What soft skills have you developed? What hard skills have you developed?

 

In terms of soft skills, this project has helped me develop my leadership skills, teamwork skills, time management and creative thinking. My leadership and teamwork skills have progressed due to my role as director on this project, as I had to direct and express my vision for my film to my crew and as this is the first time I have used dialogue in one of my short films. This has allowed me to learn and grow in explaining my reasoning for my creative decisions, such as dialogue by helping me convey my ideas and thoughts to my crew and give understanding to my artistic vision.

 

My time management skills have developed from this project, as I have had to be resourceful in my thinking and have had to find ways of organising myself in order for me to hit deadlines and complete tasks, during these pressurised times. As I have previously spoken upon in my other answers, my use of scheduling has allowed me to progress in my time organisation and management skills. 

 

My creative thinking skills have progressed tremendously with this project as I have had to draw influence from online sources and books, as I am restricted as to attending events or film festivals because of the UK lockdown. I have had to use my initiative and consume varied types of sources to help fuel my motivation, which have inspired many of my ideas for this project. An example of this is my creative decision to have a non linear structure for my film, I was mainly inspired by one of my research sources being a feature film called Beautiful Boy. I liked how the film used flashbacks as a way to introduce the characters' background and relationship and I was inspired to do the same through my main characters. 

 

In terms of my hard skills, I have been limited to developing  them due to the fact I have shot my film on an iPhone and my film didn’t include any VFX. However, I did develop one of my hard skills being in colour grading. I have very little experience in colour grading and for this project I wanted to expand upon this hard skill, using the program After Effects. To progress in this skill, I researched videos on different techniques and ways in which I could grade my footage. I chose to use an effect called ‘Lumetri Colour’ which allowed me to change the saturation, tint, shadows, fade, contrast etc. of my footage. I also researched into how colours affect the audience by enhancing the emotion through the use of colour. 

 

To conclude, this project helped me develop many soft skills that I will continue to develop as I create and work on more projects. Although I did not develop my hard skills as much as I would have liked to, I still progressed in my colour grading and would like to continue improving and learning new ways of colour grading and how it plays a part in filmmaking.

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Future - What are some changes you will make to your mindset towards future projects? 

 

Some changes I would like to make towards my mindset are for me to be more focused on having an optimistic mindset and to not let my self-deprecating thoughts prevent me from being creative or working with and building trust with peers and crew members. I would also like to change my mindset when approaching my projects, as I felt that I put too much pressure on myself at times. In order for me to improve my mental stress towards future projects, I want to create a schedule and checklist of targets for each week, so that I feel more prepared and organised working towards a completion date of my project. 

 

My mindset is one of the biggest challenges I face, as I find it very easy to fall into a pessimistic perspective of myself and my work. I am aware it will take time for me to build my self-esteem and confidence, yet I am determined in doing so, as it is vital towards pursuing my career aspiration as a filmmaker.

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To conclude, I have been very content with the progression and development in both my hard and soft skills that making this film has given me. I believe a huge part of this is because I coped well when facing challenges. Creating this film has allowed me to feel more confident in my work, as I now trust more in my decision making. I believe that this is due to the fact that many of the changes I added to my film ended up being beneficial to the outcome. An example of this is seen with my redrafted scripts, as the more I evaluated the story, the more it improved. After finishing this project, I'm satisfied with my outcome, because at some stages I questioned whether it was feasible to create. Reflecting upon my own internal feelings towards myself, I feel more confident  that I was able to challenge myself and exceed my expectations of this project.