Unit 13: Extended Project in Creative Media Production - Evaluation

DISCLAIMER: I confirm that the attached portfolio is all of my own work and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself.

The film I have created for my final project is a coming-of-age film called 'Changes' and will be premiering at the Ufilms Film Festival on Thursday 24th June 2021. The film follows two best friends, Katie and Gemma, spending their final day together before Gemma moves away. This is a personal, comedy/drama, that discusses the themes of friendship, family, adolescence and growth/maturity.

Since joining the Film and TV Production course at Stockton Riverside College in 2019, I have finally found my passion and love of writing and directing and this is something I want to continue and expand my knowledge on through my education and into, hopefully, my future career in the film industry. As writing and directing are job roles I feel the most comfortable in and wish to continue, I wanted to take on these creative lead roles for my final project and before I continue my filmmaking journey at university. This is my most personal film yet and my hopes to create and produce a successful and perfect independent style coming-of-age film is an understatement. I wanted to be able to show that I can beat my nerves and become confident in my work throughout all stage of production, making sure I was organised, managed time wisely and communicated effectively with my cast and crew. Of course, before starting the project, I did have my doubts as I have never been happy or satisfied with any of my previous work, but I wanted this project to be different, to sway me and tell me that I am capable of becoming a successful Screenwriter and Director in the film industry, and excelling and improving my skills and abilities.

Pre-Production

In the very early stages of the pre-production phase, even before coming back to college after the half term, I was struggling to use my creativity to come up with a story that I felt was worth telling, and something I thought was interesting and entertaining to present to an audience. As I continued to find an idea that I liked and wanted to develop into a 10-15-minute short film, I started to think back to some of the filmmakers that I admire, and their films that I love and admire and that have influenced my filmmaking abilities and style. The main films I thought back to were 'Lady Bird' (2017), written and directed by Greta Gerwig, and 'Booksmart' (2019), directed by Olivia Wilde. These are both coming-of-age films that solely focus on teenage girls growing up and worrying about their futures. This is something that I am dealing with, myself, at the moment, as I am now leaving college and getting ready to start the next chapter of my life at university, as well as remembering my past friendship with my best friend. Luckily, this then spiralled into an idea which is now my short film, 'Changes', named after the David Bowie (a huge inspiration of mine) song of the same name. 

Although I had come up with an idea and started to expand and develop it to then be able to write a screenplay, I did really struggle with it and started to worry about the film. Eventually, I was able to write an outline of the story and be able to construct that into a piece of visual storytelling, but I think why I hit so many brick walls and had so many blocks in my creativity was because I wanted it to be perfect. As I have stated before, I want this film to be perfect as it is my final piece at college and it is the most personal story, and film, that I have written, and plan to direct, yet. It's nerve-wrecking and worrying what people will think of it and it's my priority for an audience to be able to relate to the story's narrative, themes, and characters, as well as making sure it is entertaining. I did also worry that each stage of production was then affected by my writer's block as I then had to manage my time, wisely, as I had finished my screenplay at a later date than I had planned. However, this didn't affect the production too much, yet there was some negatives and downsides trying to manage the time I had left to plan and organise the film, as well as when I would be filming and editing the project.

I made sure that I managed my time wisely and effectively, making sure I had all the paperwork I needed to be able to plan my production successfully. I made sure I was organised with all of my paperwork and that the quality of the paperwork was up to the mark. I think I did well to get all my paperwork done in time for the start of my production, on 22nd May 2021, making sure everything was in my production file and was easily accessible and neat to be able to help me understand everything I needed to do during the production. 

I was also really lucky with the actors I was able to cast for my film, Sadie Paterson (who also created the poster, above, for the film) and Kate Whittaker. I hadn't worked with Kate and Sadie prior to 'Changes' and I'm quite upset I didn't as I think they are amazing actors. During their auditions, they blew me away, especially Kate who pretty much embodied the character of Katie. They were able to show their comedic and dramatic abilities and skills, as well as approaching the story and characters in a naturalistic way that is hard for most actors to do. At this stage of production, in the middle of May, it was tough to find any actors to be part of a project as they had already been cast in other people's films, as well as working on their end of year plays for the Performing Arts course. I think I was extremely lucky to be able to cast Kate (Katie) and Sadie (Gemma) in the film and I was so excited to work with them. They are both very professional performers and they were very interested and passionated about the project.

I thought my communicative skills with both my cast and crew were good as everyone was on the same page and I made sure everyone understood what their role was, as well as making sure to answer everyone's questions, whether that be a concern or issue they had or a genuine interest in the film. I do have to say, I could have tried to be more relaxed and calmer during pre-production, as there were a few times I was worried I wasn't managing my time effectively and that I wasn't going to be able to make my film. Scheduling is not a strong skill of mine, and it was difficult for me to be able to set dates and times for the shooting schedules and call sheets. I also had to bear in mind that there were many people, on my course, in the same boat as me and were struggling to schedule shoot days, as well as taking many of the free time slots on the schedule. I had a small scheduling problem a couple of weeks before film, where I had planned a schedule, thinking all the actors were free any time, which they told me they were, and it immediately crumbled as two of the actors, Kate and Katie Greer (Jackie) weren't free on two separate days. This caused a lot of stress on me and my teacher, Kelly, had to give me a pep talk reassuring me I was going to be able to get it all done and that we just needed to re-schedule, which she helped me with. I should have kept my cool and not get stressed as I have in past projects, but as soon as everything was fixed and back on track, I was fine again. 

Once I had my schedule finished, I could then focus on the rest of the paperwork and get prepare for production over the next couple of weeks. I knew it was going to be a small shoot with a small cast and crew, however I was still nervous about how everything was going to turn out and whether the film would be a success or not. 

Production

For once, in the past two years of this course, I actually thought production was very successful and I was proud of the work I had achieved, with the help of my cast and crew. Of course, every shoot day was different and I didn't always stay calm. In the past, when I become overwhelmed, especially whilst leading a project, I completely blank and I'm unable to get my head around what we need to film next or how to solve a problem we face during filming. Yet, this only happened a couple of times during the whole of production which was an improvement. 

On the set of this film, this is the first project that I have felt comfortable in a leading role, as Director, and confident. I was even more surprised on the first day of filming that I didn't completely shut down and felt very at ease and relaxed onset. I think it helped that Kate and Sadie were great performers and I didn't need to worry about their deliverance and preparation of lines, as well as their physicality and movement. I have also worked alongside Amiliyah on every project I have done, and for her to be the Cinematographer on this film, getting amazing shots, really helped boost my confidence and be able to direct everyone with ease. 

The first time I felt quite stressed, and almost went into panic mode, was during the third shoot day. I think the reason behind this is because I had a bigger cast and crew to direct, as Tom and Katie (Jackie) were involved in this shoot day. Although it was only two more cast and crew members, it was still difficult for me to think straight and focus on the production as I was now worrying about how the film was going to look as I had started editing on the same day. However, everyone was able to help me stay on track and communicate with one another, making sure I cleared my head and stayed focused on the shoot. Although, this one time where I lost confidence and felt incapable of being a Director did knock me down a bit, I was able to continue and strengthen my abilities and grown my confidence again on the final shoot day, which was out biggest shoot yet. I thought everyone worked so well as a team, making sure we all communicated with one another, as well as getting along with each other and being professional and patient.

I was also really happy with all of the performances throughout the film, everyone was so strong and, again, very professional. I was especially impressed with Katie's acting abilities as the character Jackie. Although she found it difficult to perform, getting very nervous in front of the cast, crew and camera, as well as forgetting her lines a lot, she was able to get back on her feet and put on a great performance. I thought she was brilliant as Gemma's mum, and I could see her confidence grow each scene we did. I thought it was a great opportunity to be part of the film as she has always wanted to act, and the role of Jackie was perfect for her acting debut. I was also happy that everyone welcomed Katie, onto the set, with open arms, helping her through each scene and reassuring her that she was a great performer. 

I'd say the main problems we faced during the production was time management, weather and lighting.

Time management was tough, depending on the day and scenes, as we also needed to reschedule certain shots in certain scenes as I would completely forget we needed to do them, due to rushing and trying to get everything done. This was also due to actors, mainly Sadie, being late on some occasions, waiting for them to arrive and then get changed into costume and sort their hair and makeup out. We filmed overtime on shoot days one and two, and luckily this didn't effect anyone's schedules and we were able to get a lot done, however, I would have preferred if we finished filming on the set times on each individual call sheet and shooting schedules.

Weather was also another problem, as the weeks we filmed, the forecast was always showing low temperatures, grey and clouds, and a high chance of rain. We were lucky that it never rained during filming, however the dark skies didn't really fit the atmosphere and setting of the film, and also affected the lighting on camera, especially when we were filming scenes indoors. There were many instances where there was overexposure in shots, especially in scenes 1, 2 and 7, and this was something I was going to have to try and correct in the editing process. I was still unhappy that we weren't able to find the light reflector, as someone had been using it and we didn't know where it was now, either misplaced or lost. I think the light reflector would have helped improved the lighting quality of shots, however we weren't able to find it and had to work around the issue as well as we could. 

Although there were a few issues, I was really proud about the work everyone was able to achieve. I was so happy with the shot Amiliyah got, they were all gorgeous and were shot exactly the way I had imagined them. I think another huge success during filming was that I was happy about my work for once, and actually enjoyed being on set and having fun with all the cast and crew. I loved, almost, every minute working with everyone and it was such a shame it had to end. 

Post-Production

The editing process is my least favourite part of filmmaking and it was especially nerve-wrecking for me during this project as I wanted the film to look good and I didn't want to mess it up. There were quite a few issues throughout the editing process, many involving continuity errors, some we were able to reshoot and many we weren't, as well as awful lighting in some shots. I am not confident in my editing skills and abilities whatsoever and taking control of piecing the film together, making sure all the cuts and transitions were clean and smooth, as well as dialogue and sound, causes me a lot of stress. It's usually in post-production that you find all the issues and imperfections and there were a lot I spotted. It took me a lot to become confident in my work, and as soon as I went into the editing process, I lost all of it. 

There were a few moments in the editing I was happy with and proud of. My favourite aspect of the whole film is the music, with two original songs written, and a cover of David Bowie's 'Changes', performed by Eve Bond. It was great that Eve could be part of the project as the film is loosely based on the friendship we had before we moved away from each other, as we both lived in Dubai and then moved to the opposite ends of England. The songs she created and developed were absolutely gorgeous and I was so pleased with her work and creativity. It also made the film that extra bit special and personal as this is, sort of, our story that is being presented to audiences, and for her to be part of the film and journey was incredible. 

I was also pretty proud that I was able to piece the film all together, even if the cuts and transitions weren't perfect, I was happy that the story came across well on screen. Of course, I still wasn't happy with a lot of the sound, colour grading (especially shot with a lot of light exposure) and rough cuts between shots, I was happy that I had achieved my goal and I felt it was a success. 

In conclusion, I felt that my execution and final cut of the film 'Changes' was a success and presented to me how much I had changed and improved as a Screenwriter and Director. I now know I am more than capable of taking charge on a project and working alongside a cast and crew as effectively as possible through communication, reassurance and patience. I think my main concerns, something that I could have done better if I were able to do this project again, was take care of lighting problems, as well as hire an editor to be able to do a better job than me. I don't have a lot of negative thoughts about the film as this is my final piece and, for once, I feel like I have grown and matured as a filmmaker, and this is something I am even more excited to continue and expand throughout the next few years at university. 

I am also happy that coronavirus wasn't able to get in the way this time around as the past two years have been really tough for everyone. The many lockdowns we've had have had a huge impact on my confidence and filmmaking abilities, however, during this final project, I feel I was able to build all that confidence back up and conquer the nerves and fears that I originally had about this project. I feel like I've done a pretty good job and I wouldn't have been able to do this without all of my peers and my teacher, Kelly. I have had a rocky during these past couple of years on the course, whether that be having a lack of faith in myself, creative differences with peers or because of a global pandemic. However, I was able to push all of that aside and just focus on my work and feel as if I have finally surprised myself and built-up confidence in my work. I am going to miss being at college with everyone and working alongside them, but now I am moving into the next part of my filmmaking journey and I am so excited to further my studies and expand my knowledge.

'Changes' - Short Film

'Changes' - Short Film (FINAL)