In terms of the Pre-Production stage, I decided to research the 5 Stages of Grief and Sociopathic behaviour. Researching these topics benefited me greatly as I was able to use the information I found and implement elements into my script, especially to portray the Conscience. It helped me write the character in a way that came across manipulative and violent, but without being physically intimidating. The 5 stages of grief and researching in-depth about the emotions that are felt within each stage, therefore helping me to plan out the structure of my film and the emotional aspects of each stage. 

Researching about the genre of Psychological Fiction gave me many ideas which I could have used throughout my film, one of which was the ‘Streams of Consciousness’. It also allowed me to understand common elements and characteristics that occur within psychological fiction such as flashbacks, monologues and an internal conflict. Using the information I found, I decided to analyse a monologue which I am fond of - Ted Lasso’s Dart monologue (Season 1 : Episode 8). Analysing the monologue allowed me to try and use the techniques and potentially apply that to my film, such as the use of a quote by an influential writer known for inspiring many others post his death. 

As my idea was heavily based on internal conflict, finding out more about the characteristics of it and how people use it within stories helps. Using guilt and fear as the key antagonists in the personification of the Conscience, helps to create this internal conflict as it presents the conflict in a way which the audience can find clear when watching. 

I too researched the use of music and colour grading used in many pieces of media within the genre. This gave me the idea of using old mid 1900’s music to portray the eeriness of the situation, whilst also having a meaning for the point in the story. For example, “Tell Laura I Love Her” by Ray Peterson, is used at the beginning to tell the audience that the cause of the whole story was a car crash due to the meaning behind the song being because a crash happened. “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” by Hank Williams is about somebody overcoming their struggles and mental health, fitting for the end of my film as it mirrors the Man overcoming and accepting the death of their friend. 

I ended up using a cool colour temperature for my film due to the information found. Knowing a cold temperature enhances more negative emotions and creates a more comfortable setting helped me decide to use it as I felt it could have added an extra layer of emotional depth to the story. 

Additionally, I began to research about the location I would try to film in and weighed up the pros and cons of three separate locations, Downley Memorial Hall, Downley Community Centre and St James’ Church Hall. In conclusion, I decided to film at the latter due to the cheaper costs as well as me preferring the look and feel of the location over the two others. This was because of the red chairs and the older style of the hall. The older style can create a more creepy look to the film and the red chairs add to the colour theory I had in mind by using red to represent a feeling of death, blood, but also love. One thing I would do differently is to start the research before drawing up my storyboard. This is because I started drawing my storyboard with a different location in mind, so therefore messing the shot framing up when recording as I had drawn it in a way that accommodates that other location. 

In similarity with every piece of research, I created a “link disposal” in which I input every website link/reference I used into it and when I have finished the research, it allows me to Harvard Reference quicker. This benefited a lot as it made the whole bibliographies easier to complete as it was only a simple copy and paste instead of having to find the source again. 

Overall, I feel that I did a fair amount of research that all contributed to the end result of my final film. I’m happy with the topics and subtopics I have researched, especially in the grief and sociopathy documents, however in hindsight I feel that I could have done more in terms of the genre, location and technical. For the genre research, I should have analysed an example for each of the other devices in order to further inform me on the devices and would allow me to understand them in more depth. I also should have analysed or given examples of films and/or other pieces of media from within that genre to compare and contrast between my ideas and the media, it would also possibly create more ideas to use in terms of the writing and the character development.

Moving on to the Production stage. I had to encounter various issues that came up throughout both my filming dates. From the beginning of the project, I had wanted to shoot my film within the April half-term, choosing the 13th of April. In the two weeks prior preparing for filming, I finished writing my script along with my shot list. At this stage a few days before filming, I was quietly confident because I organised for my friend, who is also an actor, to act in the film and I felt I had everything planned out. However, it was until the day before filming where everything went downhill. As I had to share equipment, my original plan was to collect it the day before in order to get used to it and make sure everything works. But due to a lack of communication on both ends, I was only able to collect the equipment on the day. And at 9pm, my actor said that he was unable to make it, basically meaning I had only a few hours to find a replacement. Luckily for me I was able to find one, however due to my film being very acting heavy, unfortunately the replacement was not great for an actor. On top of that, I had only booked the hall for 4 hours, which was a massive mistake as I would only be able to film for about two and a half because my actor could only get there an hour later and set up the equipment. This meant I had to rush filming and only managed to get one angle of each shot, consequently meaning in editing, I would have very little diversity in terms of shot framing. 

Moreover, the equipment ended up not working or very faulty. The battery for the camera said that it only had 1 minute of power left, for over an hour, therefore causing unnecessary stress upon me, as well as 4 of 6 battery lights running out throughout recording. Additionally, one light, everytime we moved it, it would flicker. We wouldn’t even have been able to charge the battery as the charging cable was not packed with the camera. 

I remember feeling very disappointed because of this and felt that all the preparation I had done beforehand had been for nothing. I then took a few days break to assess the situation and ended up being a sort of saving grace for the whole project. It helped me reflect on the project and what I did wrong and how to mitigate the problems. It led me to decide to try and reshoot my film at a later date (1st May).

In the weeks leading up to the reshoot I organised my pre-production documents in a way that makes it clearer on the day what to film and when. It too allowed me time to plan out the structure of my filming and how I can work around the problems that I encountered the previous shoot. 

My first issue was the length of the booking. This time, I booked the hall for 6 hours, enabling me to have more time to film lines and more angles to give the visuals more variety. 

When collecting the equipment, I would need to check that I have every piece of equipment and make sure that it works. 

Unfortunately again, my main actor pulled out 3 days before but enabled me to have more time to get a replacement in. And when booking out the footage, it turned out that I had to share again and found out the day before that there was no battery, which led to me having to use an extension cable in order to get the camera working. This initially was a problem but once filming, it was easier to control than originally thought. 

The reshoot went much better in terms of the quality of the visuals as well as the acting. I was able to get a variety of shots while also following my shot list and plan. 

The biggest mistake, which partially affects the character development within the film, was filming the split screen scenes where both characters would be in the same frame at once. What I did was film the Man’s scenes at the end of that session, and then the Conscience at the end of the other. In doing this, it meant that the lighting and positioning of the camera was off, consequently making it near impossible to match the clips up. Because of this, I chose to scrap those scenes, which means that I had to get rid of the main visual of the character dynamic that I had planned. 

Overall, I am a lot happier with the turn out of my filming compared to the disastrous experience with the first shoot. There are areas which I improved on, but others where I could have improved or done something different. One scene that I am not happy with is the Conscience’s introduction. In my plan, I wanted the line to be spoken as a silhouette in the dark. What I didn’t think of is the dramatic change in lighting and how disruptive it is, for example one shot it’s fairly light but in the next it is pitch black. Next time, when shooting a scene like this, I should have shot it twice, once in light and once in dark so if I needed to fall back on it, I still would be able to use it without complaint. Due to it being a major part, I had to integrate it into my film.

Advancing to Post-Production, I began by setting all my clips in order of the script as it gave me a rough idea of the structure of the film. I then started to cut the scenes together, trying to have a rough time of around 3-7 seconds each and adjusted the audio with the events of the film. 

I added the two songs to the start and end of the film to complete the structure.

After completing the structure, I moved onto colour grading. As I have never used the colour workspace before, I used videos to help me in knowing what certain terms meant and how to achieve a real film look. Using  At times it was difficult to understand and/or get the hang of things but as I progressed, I started to get used to it. I opted for a cold colour temperature to give an eerie and uncomfortable effect to the film, fitting with the themes and tones I was aiming for. Compared to the original footage, I think the grading works well and creates more of a distinguished look. It amplifies the blues in the scenes and creates more present shadows, constructing a more serious effect. 

The audio was another issue at times. Trying to get everything at roughly the same level was tough as in some areas I would need to raise the volume but in others I would need to reduce it. I believe I’ve done a decent job at this but know that I should have made sure that the audio was all similar/the same when filming. Unlike the colour grading, I didn't watch videos teaching me into navigating me around the audio sections of Premiere Pro. Whenever I don't know how to work around areas, I should go online and find tutorials into these areas rather than trying to do it myself. By doing this it meant that the process was most likely quicker, however it means that the final product is worse. 

A problem I encountered when exporting, is that the exported product’s colour looks much more washed and desaturated compared to the preview. The cold colour temperature I went for hasn’t shown through as well as I'd wanted to. I looked up ways that could avoid this and the Adobe support website said to download a Gamma Correction LUT which overrules the desaturation when exporting a video. However when applying it and exporting it, it turned out to be a lot darker than the preview. In the end, I decided to stick with the original export.

As mentioned in my proposal, I asked for feedback from a few friends and family about the film. 

Starting with what went well and what people enjoyed, one exclaimed that it was “powerful and meaningful”, while others praised the acting, music choices and tension. They said that they were able to understand what the character experienced through the acting and writing. I consider this a success as before and after I finished the film, I wasn’t too sure how the messages and tone of the film would come across through the writing especially, so receiving praise on the writing makes me glad and can help me to start improving it in the future. 

The music used the start and end too received praise as some said “it was contrasting to what the rest of the video was about” and claimed that it made them feel “Uneasy” due to the deeper meanings. This was exactly what I hoped for by using both songs. ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’ being about a car crash, would help to set the scene and introduce the audience to the situation at hand. And ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ being about someone overcoming their mental health, linking it to the stage of acceptance, provides more depth and by the feedback I received, it looks like both songs achieved what I hoped they would. Lastly, a common piece of feedback was that people thought the tension and suspense was used well. 

When asking about whether the film achieved my target audience of 17-24 year olds, a majority voted “yes” in response to the question. Some of the comments regarding it said that it helps educate the audience on mental health and how guilt and other emotions can consume a person and in doing that, creates an awareness of the situation. One interesting response I had on this front was that the message is relevant as it “relates to many 17 year olds learning to drive and using an actor from the same age range helps propel the message more effectively. This is interesting to me as it is a message and theme which I hadn’t thought about before. But in hindsight, I take this as quite a large achievement as it shows that some people are able to take their own message out of the film, therefore making the film a more adaptable piece of media as different people are able to take out different things after watching it. 

The next question was whether the 5 stages of grief storyline was easy to follow throughout the film, meaning whether they were able to tell when each stage happened and how it was portrayed. To this I received a 50/50 response between them understanding all 5 stages and 1 or 2 stages were confusing to follow. I did expect this sort of response and was not surprised when I saw that it was the anger stage that confused people. This was most likely because of the key scenes I had to cut out due to them not being good enough for the film. One option someone gave was to “visually show each stage through text”. Judging from this, I perceive that they mean something similar to what happens in ‘Everything, Everywhere All At Once’ where they use text to show the start of each chapter throughout the movie. In my opinion, I don’t think this would work well for the current film as it is quite fast paced and each chapter would last varying lengths, which may remove some of the immersion. However, I understand the comment and feel that if I rework some of the story into more coherent “chunks” relating to the stages, it would be able to work and help with people's understanding. 

After that, I asked whether the tone, atmosphere and dialogue helped the film fit within the psychological genre I was aiming for. To that, it was a majority answer of “yes” or “mostly”. Some said that the mix of light and darkness helped create a contrast similar to media in the specific genre, while another exclaimed that to improve, I could have used more external sources such as weather to further show the mood of the film. I partially agree with this statement as I feel I could have used different aspects to create the darker tone rather than purely the dialogue and the lighting. But on the other hand, I think that it may ruin the idea of the story taking place in one room to reflect and show that everything is taking place in the character’s mind.

Moving onto technical aspects and how it could have been improved, most responses were aimed towards the lighting in a few scenes. One said to block out the external light sources from the windows and door and use more artificial light to create more of a glare or glow. And another mentioned that there were too many shadows at times. Both of these I can agree with as during editing some of these light sources would interrupt the grading of the scene, leading to some shots not exactly matching up like I hoped it would. The shadows are important for the film as a whole, but I understand that I may have gone a bit overboard with them and perhaps should have prioritised using them in more powerful ways. 

Another aspect touched upon was the audio. I had some responses saying that in some scenes there is an echo and in others, the dialogue is slightly quiet. Again, I understand the critiques as I've mentioned before that the audio wasn’t the same for each clip so I had to manually change it to get it somewhat similar.

In conclusion, I feel like I have learned a lot throughout this whole experience and had a lot of highs and lows over the past few months. It’s helped me massively in terms of a filmmaking point of view, but also a personal side too. I now know more of the extent that people go through to create short films and other similar media and how much patience you need. On a personal level, it has helped my confidence and my independence to a certain level. Having the dilemma of the first shoot experience had me reflecting and having to think more deeply about what I had to do next, something which before I wasn’t really expecting much of. In doing this, it has led me to create something which I can be proud of. As a borderline perfectionist, it has allowed me to understand that things will almost never go exactly as planned, but by taking time you can choose to use it to your advantage. 

I am content with how I have handled all the pre-production side of things such as scripts and research. However there are things to do with the production phase which I know I would have to do better, on a planning scale and technical scale. 

My final film isn’t perfect on any level but using what I've learned, the experience and the feedback I have been given, I understand how and what I would have to do to develop on this idea and make sure that I continue to improve my filmmaking skills.