Evaluation
- evaluation -
This is the evaluation for my CMP project Catalyst that ran from the beginning of March to the end of May 2022. It covers my thoughts from the very beginning of the idea back in early 2019 all the way to final days of editing.
Date started: 15th of May 2022
Medium: Written word, podcast, photos
thE brief
The CMP was for us to illustrate the skills we have been building over the intensive course we have been undergoing for the last eight months. We have gained a level of experience in both the technical aspects (a range of cameras, different lighting techniques, sound design and recording, editing using software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition) as well as the thematic side (conventions of genres, demands for different mediums, character and plot building).
It was open reign what we could create for our creative media project. We looked at past examples of work that included photography exhibitions, short films, documentaries, music videos and animations. This was helpful for us to not only gauge what was expected from us but how creatively free we could be.
There were three grades we could achieve in the course.
Pass - A pass would be awarded if you show limited understanding and knowledge of the medium & subject you have chosen.
Merit - A merit would be awarded if you show reasonable knowledge in your chosen medium & subject and an adequate set of production skills.
Distinction - A distinction would be awarded if you show a thorough and comprehensive understanding of both the medium and subject you have chosen. It should reflect in your research and production, and you should be able to articulate your ambitions and purpose behind the project.
eVALUATING Context
REFLECTING UPON MY IDEAS
I had a wide range of ideas that spanned multiple different mediums from radio drama to short film to music video. I spent a while debating what idea I was going to choose as I wanted to make sure it was the right idea for me. I wanted to consider my intentions before embarking on a particular idea.
Horror Film
My first idea was a donnie darko inspired horror about a boy who has dreams of a young girls death. Throughout the short small elements of these dreams begin to creep into real life. He soon figures out these weren't dreams but premonitions.
Crime Teen Drama
My third and final idea for my CMP is to create a teen crime drama inspired by an old project of mine called 'Catalyst.' It tells the story of lifelong best friends, Chester and Calvin as their relationship becomes strained after the disappearance of Emily Garret, a good friend of both of them.
Music Video
It will be a music video inspired by the trippy, surreal, Lynchian-Americana style of the music video for Acid Rain by Lorn. I would like to make the video in this style as it has always been one of my favourite music videos for its continuous shots and slowed down action.
There were many pros and cons to the ideas which I had. For example, as much as I would've liked to create a Donnie Darko inspired short film, the logistics of filming a short set in November in May would have been ridiculous. The music video would pose its own challenges with my limited knowledge of dance choreography. The only project that seemed wholeheartedly feasible to me was the second option, I've got plenty of scripts to place me in an advantage in pre-production and I already know how I want the final film to look. Eventually, after some deliberation, I partnered up with my classmate Nia and we decided that we would create Catalyst together.
Anachronism then, Catalyst now
Since 2019 I've been writing and rewriting this story. It's gone through five main phases: Anachronism, Catalyst, Catalyst II, Catalyst III and finally what I've dubbed 'CATALYST SR', the 'SR' standing for Social realism. This is due to the fact that since first writing Catalyst it has strayed away from the classic teen crime drama it first adopted for a more realistic social realist approach. The reasons for this are two-fold.
Throughout the various rewrites and readthroughs of the scripts, I soon began to realise that Emily, the girl who goes missing and essentially sets Chester and Calvin on their journeys (the catalyst, if you will) was actually becoming more and more irrelevant. I had less interest in talking about her and the scenes began to revolve more and more around the relationship between Chester and Calvin. This was then backed up by a fantastic interview I had with film teacher and social realist expert, Jules Becker, which I've expanded upon more in the research section.
It's interesting because although I think the Catalyst I've created now has become so far removed from what I originally intended for it to be, a teen-crime drama, it is still a lot more concise, clever, nuanced and just better than what it would've been if I had crammed irrelevance into it.
EVALUATING MY research
I certainly think I had a difficult time with my research. The main reason for this is that while I was doing my research, my ideas were constantly changing and growing which meant there was research I had already completed which became irrelevant and useless (such as the Kayleigh Haywood research) and some research I found myself scrambling to expand upon because it had become a bigger part of the story, such as the addiction. While I believe the secondary & production research was pretty difficult, I had quite a pleasant time with the secondary.
REFLECTING UPON Primary research
For my primary research I did two elements of investigation. I had an interview with a man named Jules Becker and sent out a poll asking questions relating to genre. I found my primary research to be the most successful area of research that I did as it effected the final outcome of my project the most.
Polls & Surveys
The poll was rather simple, it was just to get a gauge of my audience and their opinions on the drama genre. The issue I found with the research is that I only sent it out to my classmates and followers on Instagram, this meant that the demographic for the results were exclusively teenagers aged 15-23.
While you could argue this is actually a good thing as the demographic for my film is young adults from the ages of 16-22 I personally would have liked to have more of a variety in the final results however considering it serves my final film well.
Jules Becker - Social Realism
The second part of my primary research consisted of an interview with film teacher and social realist expert Jules Becker. This man is nothing short of genius and gave Nia and me so much wisdom and guidance towards our final project. He gave me an in-depth history of the social realism subgenre and how it has changed cinema. He informed me of the narrative conventions as well as the technical practices. This was all extremely helpful even if the interview took place a day before filming. The ending was actually quite different to what it ended up being. Originally Calvin was going to leave but it was going to focus on Chester as he sits on the stairs holding the keys however Jules made an interesting point that if we are to start with Calvin then we should also end with Calvin as it serves the cyclical story structure better. And I completely agree with him. The start and the end are actually almost identical; they're both long takes on Calvin as she is walking however each one has a very meaning to one another.
The first long take shows Calvin taking the uncertain plunge into territory she no longer feels safe in, the second long take shows the repercussions that both Calvin and Chester will face because of the argument. While they're both very similar shots the meaning behind them couldn't be any more different. And that's what Jules Becker suggested.
The next topic we discussed was my characters. In a short film with so much dialogue it was going to be key that my characters were three dimensional and had clear needs and wants.
This was probably the most helpful research I acquired as not only did it completely change my perspective of the film and enhance my understanding of Social Realism but actually having to explain the film and breakdown the characters to someone else who had absolutely no previous knowledge, made me actually think about the story in a deeper way.
REFLECTING UPON secondary research
For secondary research I broke down three key plot points: Calvin's addiction, Chester's Grief, and Emily's disappearance.
Throughout the time I found myself in a weird position of having irrelevant research, mainly about Emily's disappearance in which I covered the closed case of the missing 15-year-old girl, Kayleigh Haywood. I covered this case as I believed it was significant to the writing of the story however after an unexpected rewrite this made all of the research somewhat irrelevant.
The medical research was rather dense. I investigated the effects of opioids, specifically heroin, on the body. I looked at different websites and articles to get a general understanding of what the drug is before delving into the nitty gritty such as withdrawal etc. This was helpful research as I could use it to give Calvin small idiosyncrasies accurate to that of a heroin addiciton, particularly withdrawal.
Direct Influences from film and tv
These are two scenes that quite heavily influenced not only the relationship between Calvin and Chester but the scene itself. The first scene is from Malcolm & Marie (2020, dir. Sam Levinson) and shows the only characters in the film, Malcolm and Marie, arguing. I love this scene as it's beautifully and authentically written and feels so real. While there is screaming and shouting like any argument there's something special about the way they try to overtake each other, not with volume but with the speed at which they speak; and not with insults but accusations. The second scene is from Marriage Story (2019, Noah Baumbach) and shows our two protagonists, Charlie and Nicole as they argue. It differs from Malcolm & Marie as it's more volume and insult based. We wanted to try and achieve a healthy balance between the two when writing Catalyst. We didn't want it to be too insult and volume heavy however it shouldn't have felt too much like a conversation as it is still an argument.
I do believe we achieved this to an extent. It wasn't an easy scene to write as watching people yell at each other for fifteen minutes isn't interesting, but watching a relationship breakdown and be analysed is. We took inspirations from the dialogue and choreography of the scenes to keep a naturalistic approach. I believe this worked however I think we should have probably had our script looked at a few more times to get a second, third, forth opinion.
EVALUATING MY production
REFLECTING UPON Pre-production
The pre-production was delved into quite heavily. We wanted to make sure we had as many pre-planning documents as possible so we weren't struggling on the day. The key documents we created were a location recce, filming schedule, and prop/kit lists. We didn't make a shot list or storyboard as we didn't necessarily know how we were going to frame up shots or move the camera until the day of filming. This was definitely an error of judgement and while I do believe we both did enough research into long take films such as Boiling Point we still should have done more research and thorough planning before the test shots that we did that day. Once we realised that we were going to have difficulties filming everything in one take we quickly abandoned the idea and began brainstorming the alternatives. This is proof that we should have pre-empted this, regardless of how confident we were.
SCRIPT
Script CATALYST 1st DRAFT.pdfFirst draft of the first script
Script Catalyst Final draft.pdfFinal draft of the final script
REFLECTING UPON Production
Production spanned over two days and mainly in the evening as the scene takes place as night. I don't think it would be fair to say that the shoots were a mess because at the end of the day we have the footage and a final film and it looks good. I think when it came to filming each scene we were on the ball with getting it all done and didn't waste time in between shots, setting up for the next or just messing about. However there were some issues that we did encounter...
Time.
Because it was a night scene and we were shooting in April/May it obviously didn't begin to get dark until about 8.30-9PM. Now this wasn't a problem for Nia who lived there, or Alfie who drove but for Raluca and I who both got an hours bus to get there it was going to be an issue. It meant we had a lot less time to film than we would have liked, meaning less takes, meaning less choice when it came to the edit. The way we tackled this was by being as efficient as possible with our time. While it was still day Raluca and Alfie would be rehearsing lines while Nia and I consider different shot ideas then we would put two and two together so we could just get straight to filming and not worry about blocking. Alfie also offered to give us a lift half way which meant that we could squeeze in an extra twenty, thirty minutes of filming.
e993c479-abae-43ec-a544-2c4064be00c7.MP4
2. Crew
At 22.30 the night before we were due to start filming I received a text message from our sound operator who said she was unable to make the shoot since she was sick. This was already an issue since it would be a big struggle to find a replace with such late notice and to make matters worse, they were due to bring a shoulder mount for us to use with the camera, so we also now no longer had access to that as well. With such late notice, this left Nia and I in a tricky dillemma and a small panic began to arise. The solution we came up with was making a call to a friend who lived nearby who said they would help us.
3. Camera
One more significant issue we came into contact with is the quality of the cameras we were using. We originall intended to use the Sony VG30 with the 50mm however this we soon changed this and opted for Nia's nikon 3500D with a 50mm prime lens due it's quality superiority over the VG30
Test shot
Final shot
Test shot
Final shot
Test shot
Final shot
Test shot
Final shot
Evaluative Podcast: a CMP breakdown
CATALYST EVALUATION.mp4This is a podcast in which Nia and I discuss the entire process of creating Catalyst from the Context, the research, and of course the production in as much detail as we can. We discuss writing the scripts back in 2020 to how they compare now as well as the ups and downs we had during the filming process such as lack of crew, equipment, casting struggles and how we overcame those issues...