Evaluation of Final Product

Having done the film, I am pleased with how it has finally come out. I think that the whole film has worked as a story and for a group piece I feel that we have completed this with minimal errors. Though I may not have been there when the idea was created and when the final editing was done, I like the idea and having been heavily involved in the pre-production I have understood the story and been able to film it to a standard I think would make a good piece with the pre-production that had been done.

Some of the problems that we have faced have been with editing such as the continuity. At one point you see our main character pick up the wand and then place it on to the book, the wand is placed on the book to the right and then when we see the close up scrolling down the page we see the wand is facing the left, as it has flipped. This is an error we see which we were going to re-shoot but unable to due to taking the spells sheet home when I went on holiday and they couldn't then use it.

Alongside this, when the group watched the video back we got some feedback from peers in the class, one person said that the eye-line matches and the reaction shots to the spells failing really got the audience involved with the main character. When planning, we wanted to get these kinds of shots in the short film as this gave depth and could create connections between the audience and the main character. As you can see in the two images below this was an interesting eye-line match that we made as we had the main character peer over the top o the book, not only that but it was at a low angle because it also seems like a point of view shot from the wand, and that's why he looks over and then the next shot is at his eye level, as an eye-line match and you see the wand, I found these shots to really work well and be at interesting angles.

Not only that but similar with the reaction shots, we had a shot of the spell failing, such as the glasses just sitting in the case not moving, and then we went back to a low angle shot of the main character and you can see that he is disappointed that the spell didn't work. I liked the use of these shots and going from high and low angles to show perspective of being the object or the character and these really helped with identification.

Having these pointers said, other members in the group said that as a whole the editing was really well edited and the continuity was good (of course other than that minor error). I am happy with this kind of feedback as in my eyes I found the editing to be an important role, in fact the most important role at telling the story. Another piece of positive feedback is that the 180˚ rule wasn't broken which I am pleased to say as this is a main thing in editing and filming to not break, and we didn't, so I am very pleased.


Another factor is camera work, as this is also another important area in filming our short. When asking for feedback about the camera work, it had been mentioned that it was really interesting and smooth, especially (linking with editing) the eye-line match shots and the angles that were used. This kind of camera work was used to encourage connections between the main character and the audience. A piece of negative feedback was about the last shot. Even though it was people's favourite shot, there were a lot of issues with it, as mentioned the shot was too quick, such as not being able to read the books and also when the camera moves back you don't really notice that the box had disappeared.


Mise-en-scene is another component to reflect on when looking at our work and I think that our setting was nicely chosen as we were looking at books and the library was relevant. There was feedback given that the costumes used at the end very well picked as they show that they are ridiculous clothing items that wouldn't be worn daily and therefore worked well when the friend was confused. Alongside that there was also the floating glasses. A peer said that the way they were made to float was done well and really fitted the piece as they looked like they were floating. This was created by green screen but still, I think it does the job, though I am not happy with it as I think it looks a little tacky and is too far in the top right of the screen.

Sound was a factor that needed to be one quite well in our piece as we wanted to have the ambient sounds of the library throughout the entire piece, and we did this quite easily and just had the levels adjusted depending on what else was going on in the film. There was a wide range of feedback about sound.
Some of the negative feedback that was given was:

• Voices aren't very powerful and seem to bland
• There were echos on other parts of speech, making it seem like it was still in main characters head
• There was no music (maybe some could have been added on credits)

Even those this feedback was given, I understand where they are coming from, though I didn't hear the other echos on the voices I personally feel that the spells could have had more oomph in delivering the words as they don't seem powerful enough to portray that he really wants to make these spells or that when he is angry at the friend, he doesn't sound angry at all. There is no range in the voices and how each one is spoken.

There was also positive feedback given about the sound, such as:

• Voice over was created well, as it had a kind of echo
• Ambient noises set the scene

These points were good to hear as the ambient noises played an important role (as mentioned above) and I found that the voice over at the start was my favourite part as it really did sound like it was in his head, this was created with an effect when editing the sound to make it feel more realistic.


If there were possibilities to fix some areas if the feedback was given before the piece was finalised and finished then I would re-shoot that last shot again and make it less shaky and more stable at a slower pace so that everything was seen and the shot would be smoother and work well. Alongside this I would also re-record the voices so that the delivery was better and the actually sounded interesting and real instead of bland. Finally, I would have also taken on board the other negative points and tried to sort those out so that the piece flowed better and there were no continuity errors. Having said this, I have found the whole experience fun and I am pleased with the final outcome as it has worked and the majority of the short is okay. I am happy to have produced this and feel that all the pre-production work that we made has fitted to this and turned out pretty much to the point of how we planned it.