Final Evaluation

This is my final evaluation of our final piece, 'Once Upon a Time In London'. I will look at every aspect of our film and analyze feedback gathered from other media students.

While filming we had to remember the many rules of filming including the conventions of continuity. We made sure that we followed the 180 degree rule to ensure the audience didn't become distracted or disorientated. By following the rules our film flowed smoothly and created tension at the same time. Also we had to think about what the audience would want to see from a Gangster film so we satisfied the audience with the use of violence.

Representation plays a part in our film through out. We were representing Adult men involved in crime set in modern day London. We included just four characters in our piece as we thought this would be easier to create tension rather than having lots of characters crammed into the scene. The form of realism we constructed were the use of English accents as the film is set in London. Also a deal between Gangsters would normally take place in a dark secluded area, as it did in our film. Mise En Scene, acting, dialogue and music all played a part in the construction of verisimilitude. A few of these were the acting of the characters as they were very blunt with each other, as this would be in a real exchange. Institutions which might of distributed our films could of been Warner as they have distributed films such as the Departed which is similar to ours.

The main target audience for our film were the young male audience. We decided to choose this audience because as our group is made up of four boys we thought we knew what this age group would like most. We all did lots of research into what kind of specific areas of action we were going to attempt to include in our film. I analyzed the film 'The Departed' which helped me get a better idea of what aspects of the gangster genre i thought should be included. The meaning we wanted to give to the audience during  the film was a feeling of suspense, hence our choice of non-diegetic music. Our research we completed prior to filming helped give us ideas on how to keep our film full of suspense through camera work and dialogue. 

The response we got from people that viewed our piece was an overall good response. Many people felt the snow helped add the element of mystery into the film. Another point made was the good use of camera shots. These included over shoulder shots and low and high angle shots to show power of characters in scenes. The target audience seemed to like the film ( Nilesh's and Mirzo's comment), which was our aim. All comments for our film can be seen lower down the blog page.

The use of technology we had helped us hugely. The most important bit of technology used was the digital video camera. This nifty camera was light and easily transferable helping us transport it safely around our filming set. The group became used to using the camera and filming wasn't a problem. Another part of technology we used was the editing software on the P.C's. This software enabled us to be able to cut and edit bits from our footage and put it into our desired sequence. Our non-Diegetic music was placed in at this point too. After the long process of editing had been completed we used the same software to burn our film to a DVD disk and upload the film to the blog page. The only obstructions we encountered with the use of technology was access to computers was occasionally limited and also the video camera always had to have enough battery to be able to film.

I feel our group has progressed massively from our first preliminary exercise. Our knowledge of media has increased which enabled us to produce a much higher standard of work. Time management was much improved during our final piece also aiding us in keeping up a high standard of work. We learned from mistakes made in the preliminary such as poor editing and shoddy camera shots, helping us make a much improved final piece. 

My final verdict is that the film we produced was of a high standard. From the knowledge we gained during the course and research into several films we managed to include several different camera shots. Also we though about Mise En Scene to try and give a certain feeling to the audience with the location and costumes worn. If we had a chance to improve our work i would choose to shorten certain shots and replace them with different angled shots to give more variety to the film. I think we all work well as a team and had a good laugh in the process.