Reflection & Evaluation

In my movie 'Poor Guidance' I aimed to make a comedy, sitcom and adventure genre film. This is supposed to be a 12 because it has violence and in some parts, cussing. The cussing is few but it is still there which makes it a 12A+. I went for a 12A+ because I could add more variety and freedom to the script than a PG. I had the fight scene toned down from buying fake blood because I knew it would boost the age rating up a lot. I decided only clean punches and only two of them also Biddy's knee to the face was going to be met with a comic book like sound when it hits Dan.

My influence for my film was Quentin Tarantino and a number of wide shots he uses along with high amounts of medium shots. He also is famous for not using much of a set. In Reservoir Dogs, he uses one place to set his film so I decided to take inspiration and not go away from college. For example, in my movie the lunch scene could have been anywhere, the fight scene could have been in an alleyway which would have added more of a dark side to it which could have made it look better but no. I stuck with keeping it inside the college. The reason was, for the inspiration and for the fact it fits with the story a lot more. Also, Quentin Tarantino made Kill Bill which was the theme song at the end as a reference to his inspiration. In the fight scene, I used a comical hit sound for Biddy's part of the fight when he knees Dan in the face. I added this for both comedic and for the effect of the audience in an intense scene with a lot of violence and punches. So to instead go for a knee to the face for comedic effect instead of going for the original kick idea was the basis of this choice for the fact of that it represents that he doesn't mean to be violent.

5 weaknesses:

In my movie, obviously, I didn't aim for weaknesses but there are always some.

1. The audio could have been better in some areas. For example, outside it was quiet in some areas and could do with the audio being closer even though I edited the audio using 'audio gain' in Adobe Premiere.

2. The lunch scene. I could have pieced the script together better but I'm sure after all it makes sense and in my feedback I was told that the film makes more sense if you watch it a second time around which is the same with any movie.

3. In some of my shots, the lighting is very dark but this was solved when I read a book about DSLR's and ISO. Then after reading the information I needed, my problem was solved.

4. The starting scene could do with more explanation since this could confuse some people in the way that they are straight into it with the 'Call of Duty' game being the main subject that not may people will get.

5. In the lunch scene, some of the shots are out of focus and this frustrates me since all I needed to do was move the lens part to the side a bit more.

5 Strengths:

1. Outside my shots looked very good in quality

2. The comedy worked with when Biddy knees Dan in the face and the comic sound plays. I know this by having seen everyone's reaction to it.

3. The fight scene was well edited along with the whole film. This was also the case when I looked at my feedback

4. The ending is very rewarding and the music helps with that. Although music help the concept of the story more but adding suspense, tension, excitement etc.

5. The actors did a great job and I couldn't have asked them to do more. This is the case in every great movie but they really did a great job.

My key areas of development shown in my plan was my progress to shoot my film. There was a lot in my script and I'm very happy that I got it done in the time that I did (3 weeks). 3 weeks was also the amount of time I set for myself to shoot the film as well so I'm happy I stuck to my plan. I like the fact that I was able to move things along swiftly through the scene to scene. My camera work with some of the shots helped with that. Between each scene, I would go and place the camera and jump on set and give the camera man (Sam Jones) specific instructions. This was very much organised in the fact that everything that was in the script which was the most important parts was all in my film.

When I showed my film to my friends and peers they said that they liked it a lot and everyone laughed once or twice which made me happy considering the film is a comedy. There were a few inquiries as to how Dan ended up so I told them that he most likely recovered like Kylian did. The inspirational part was the fact that they overcame the bullies and look how happy and proud of themselves they were at the end! This is an inspiration for any age and any viewer since it was a moment that made a lot of people smile as well which was very re-assuring.

If I were to do this project again, I would most definitely re-do the dark scenes, especially now I know how to fix them. This has been nagging me but I can live with it since it would not be the same with the actors' lines and how they said them. I like how it turned out nonetheless though. I feel as if I did myself proud in the overall project. The darker scenes were not amongst the complaints of the film so generally it made no difference to the viewers, only to me.

When I looked back at my Statement of Intent I see that I was always going to want to adjust the ISO so I did. Yes, in a sense completed everything I wanted to in terms of the script and how the film was edited. But then as I have said before the ISO could have been adjusted and that would have solved a lot of problems. This is the only thing I did not accomplish fully, since everything else was achieved. The majority of the project was based around comedy and I wanted to achieve laughter which I did according to the viewers.

When I studied the Sitcoms, 'Friends' and 'Gavin & Stacey' I looked mostly what the meaning and importance of a laughing crowd is like. I realise now that I never needed the laughing track since I did an experiment with the idea and I quickly found out that I was better off without it since it would just seem obviously fake because I had not crowd. The question I kept asking myself is, what would it be like with a track now I've made it and using the inspiration of Quentin Tarantino of staying in one place, would it have worked? But it was then that I realised not. Simply because of the music I added in. When you look at 'Gavin & Stacey' it has music and it is better than 'Friends' in the respect of how it's made, I like the fact that it has music over a laughing track as well. It might seem as though I have an unfair comparison because Friends is American show and Gavin & Stacey is British, which means they are set and made very differently. I think that my film leans on the Gavin & Stacey side of things when it comes to being shot and being made in editing, but the comedy is a little bit like Friends.

All in all the project went well. The viewers enjoyed it and that is what matters at the end of the day. There of course could have been a few tweaks to make it better but that is life's code, mostly. I think that it went better than expected to also, because there is barely any negative comments about the film. I think that is important and most of all the feedback that was given to me was solved when I was editing. "The audio is very quiet" said one of them so I boosted my audio gain up. Things like this were dint in orders to help improve the final product. As I've said before, The ISO could have been improved upon but mostly it was okay.