My Final Film
Primrose

Evaluation

Research

For my final major project for second year, I created a short coming of age feature film. The synopsis follows a teenager called Neo, who is going through a small existential crises while on his way to a party. When it came to research and initial ideas my aim was to gather enough broad and thorough research, from a range of relevant sources like the internet, books, series and films, that would all support the development and creation of my film. I started with my contextual research into the coming of age genre, to better understand how i could make my film a comign of age. The genre itself is rooted in a bildungsroman, a term used for novels in where a character has an epiphany and goes through a form of emotional growth, they are changed by the end of the film. I decided that my characters epiphany needs to be them coming to terms with how they feel and accepting it. Neo feels like he has to have everything figured out, but after a conversation with a friend he realises that he doesn't need to know everything or have to have everything figured out right in this moment. I began watching various coming of age films for visual and narrative inspiration. I was very inspired by woman director Andrea Arnold, particularly 'American Honey 2016', it is visually stunning and was the main inspiration for the visual look of my film. Arnold's use of handheld shots, reflect the instability of her characters which immerses the viewer in the film, I also incorporated her use of cutaway shots to the characters surroundings, it adds and sense of reality as to were we are. I did this when filming the party scenes in act 3, and captured shots of drinks on a table, I also did this for the opening shot of my film, which is a handheld shot of trees. The films colour palette is punchy and bright, we see the world through the eyes of an adolescent, everything is colourful and full of vitality. I wanted to bring this element of vibrance to my own work, for my film to be a small reflection of youth, the saturation of certain scenes is brighter and eye catching, I wanted the colours of the party lights in my third act to pop and be saturated, for the trees in central London when my character is feeling lost to be bright. I accomplished this by colour-grading in postproduction (making colours more saturated and focusing on contrast), and when filming I used coloured gels for lights and light from practical sources like the television in my friends living room that I filmed my party scene in.

Euphoria, a HBO series about teenagers, was very impactful in terms of cinematography and lighting. The series beautifully captures intangible emotions with colour and lighting, something that I wanted to do when filming my party scene, to use different filters for lights, to try and convey the same type of emotional realism that euphoria does with colours. This contrasts to my research into Robbie Ryan, a director that has also worked with Andrea Arnold. Ryan is known for using natural light in all of his films, mainly because most of his work is socially realist so the lighting had to be naturalistic. I wanted to bring this same sense of naturalism to my film, half of it would be set outside so i had to use natural light. However this meets my stated aim of me wanting my film to be realistic and not glamorised or romanticised like most other coming of age films. My use of natural light brings a greater feeling of naturalism and social realism to my film, which makes the audience feel more able to relate to my character because, he is just a normal teenager. The relatability of teen films is what makes them so popular, because we were all young once and know whats it's like to not fit in or want to be popular or date, we find comfort in a character going through something similar to us and struggling with their identity and adulthood. In this case, my character doesn't know what they want to do with their life.

Another source of ideas and inspiration came from my research into the french new wave, and the movements use of unconventional filming techniques and visual styles that broke the rules of conventional cinema at the time. I was particularly interested in the movements use of philosophical dialogue and spontaneous approach to editing and filming scenes. What I looked at in the french new wave is evident in my film when it comes to dialogue, particularly the conversation that my main character, Neo, has with his friend in a bathroom at a party which leads to his epiphany. It makes my audience active viewers when watching my film because they actually have to think deeper about what my characters are saying. I enjoyed the freedom the influence of the french new wave gave me when I was filming parts of my film, particularly the dialogue scenes. Why should I establish a dialogue scene with a long shot when I could just begin with a medium close up, like I did in the opening of my film. I also filmed most of my footage handheld, to give my film a less structured feel and be more naturalistic, (in the same way that Andrea Arnold uses handheld footage to immerse her veiwers). Going deeper into my contextual research, I explored the existentialist film genre in relation to adolescence today, which is also evident in my choice of shots and dialogue. Most existentialist films that deal with deeper life topics, use a lot of long shots to connote loneliness or being lost, (we see this in A Ghost Story and Lost in translation) I used various long shots of my character sitting alone on the London underground in the second act of my film, to show how lost he is in his own thoughts and confusion, linking to the theme of my film, which is that my character feels like they need to have their life figured out at their young age.

Pre production

My Pre production began with me structuring the narrative of my film, and creating a timeline of events. As mentioned in my technical research, I struggled with developing my storyline because I was trying to apply full feature length film act structure to my short film. This would confuse me at times and make me feel pressured to have certain events in my story happen at very specific moments in the timeline which just wouldn't work. I realised what I was doing and simplified what I had to do. In every story, even a short one, you have three acts, a beginning middle and end, as long as I had two plot points and my character learnt something about himself by the end of the film then I was on track, and my storyline was still structured and effective.

I created an Instagram social media in relation to my film, Primrose, for promotional purposes, and I intended for the account to be an ongoing evaluative tool, that would also present my work to my small audience. For me to create posts showing my progression within this project and to upload behind the scenes photos and videos. However I got a minimal response from my followers. My videos/posts were veiwed and liked, which gave my project some attention from my small following, but apart from that the social media account didn't prove to be useful and didn't help me develop my project in any way. Concluding the fact that social media promotion is something that I would have further develop and explore in the future in relation to my content and brand when working on new projects.

Filming

I managed to get all of my filming done over the span of three days. On my first day I set out to film all of act two in my chosen locations in London, which were Primrose hill and St Dunstan's church ruins. I location scouted these places, because I felt that they would be visually captivating and would elevate the cinematography of my film, while also serving a narrative purpose (for example primrose hill is mentioned at the beginning of my film, and my character is at primrose hill in the final scene of the film) linking back to my initial stated aim in my proposal, which was for me to follow my own brand and aesthetic when it came to filming. Scouting further out locations was part of me being able to develop my unique creative vision for this film. Me and my two friends, Louis, the actor that was playing Noe, and Mayumi who offered to help out, were all going as a small crew. Filming Primrose really put my time management and organisational skills to use (mentioned in my peer review sheet). Spending the day in London required prior planning and scheduling, I estimated how much time it would take to get to each location by the London underground tube, and routed how to get to all of the locations using online maps, as-well as taking into account time for all of us to have a break. Making sure to always take leadership of the group as to where we were all going and when, to make sure we got everything filmed in time, which we did successfully because we kept an eye on the time.

Throughout this project when it came to helping my friends film and me filming myself, it was very evident that the weather played a key factor in all of our plans. Just as I finished filming my last scene in London it started pelting down with rain and I got everything filmed just in time, it was luck however I should have researched the weather more thouroughly before heading to this location because I could have easily not been able to film if the rain got worse. This made me take into account how serious preparation is when your working on a tight time schedule to get a project like this done by a specific deadline. Filming outside using natural light proved slightly challenging when I was filming the opening dialogue scene of my film in a wooded area. The lighting had a tendency to change which would make certain shots I had recorded different to each other, this would make editing and colour grading take longer in post production. In hindsight I wish I had bought a reflector with me when filming scenes outside as it would up the production value of some of the scenes and make certain shots look less dark. Again I am linking this to the importance of preparation and how crucial it is, especially when I had only one chance to film in London and to film other scenes with actors who were only available for a certain amount of time.

One of the challenges that I encountered while filming the party scene in act three, was filming in low light. Looking back over the footage in post I realised that it was grainy and that I should have used a light source to illuminate my main actors face, weather that be an led light or a reflector. On the topic of lighting, I set out and planned for my party scene to be bright and saturated, taking inspiration from euphoria and its use of colour, I wanted to use coloured gels. However when setting up the lights, they were not powerful or bright enough to bring out the colour in the gels properly. Me and my friends found a practical solution to this problem by playing a video of flashing colours on the flat screen tv in my friend Louis's living room. This actually created more of a party atmosphere than just having the room lit in one colour would have, and it was still linked to my inspiration from Euphoria and my goal to use bright colours to create mood. It also connotes my main characters feelings in the party scene, Neo seems to be having fun at first but then he gets too drunk and his mood drops, the constant flashing lights in the scene seem to get a bit annoying after a while and this links to the discomfort that Neo feels.

I did a peer review survey as part of my evaluation, to get feedback on what I did well and what I skills could improve in the future. Reflecting on the feedback I got, I can say that i was successfully able to make all of my crew feel comfortable while in the production role of a director. I feel like I have been able to do this because, throughout all of the projects that I have worked on this academic year, each project has given me the opportunity to keep developing my interpersonal skills and my approach to directing and managing a certain amount of people. My friends are not professional actors, so I knew that when I was on set, especially for dialogue scenes I had to run through the script with them and make sure people were familiarised with lines and characters. I liked the fact that Honey mentioned creating an actor profile. In hindsight I should have done this as part of my pre production as it would have helped my actors/friends get into character and feel more comfortable acting. It would have also been a good way to show character development and my inspirations for each character in my film. I feel like at certain times I was able to communicate and give clear instructions about what I wanted from my actors well, and I would direct the tone and mood of the scene successfully. For example during the filming of a dialogue scene I have in the bathroom at a party, act three, I asked for Louis and Honey, the actors who play Neo and Honey, to act slightly drunk, as this would fit the scene better, I also instructed the blocking of the scene and didn't hesitate to place actors where I wanted them in the shot. The clear direction made filming that particular scene quicker. Whereas when I filmed in London, there were times when I was unsure of how I wanted to film something or how I wanted to frame a shot, therefore my main actor Louis, playing Neo, would get confused about what I wanted him to do during scenes with no dialogue. This miscommunication would lead to me having to film multiple takes and spend more time at a certain location which would put strain on our filming schedule for that particular day. I'd say that even though I was able to make my actors feel comfortable, I need to be more confident and direct in the future with giving instructions, regardless of if the actors are my friends or not.

It is clear from my blogs that I was the main character for three of my friends's final major projects and I used my friends as actors for my short film. Due to the current climate and the still slow fade of corona virus in the uk, we were not able to work in very large groups with other people in our class for our own safety therefore we worked as a close knit group and utilised each others skills to help each other with all of our projects. We lended each other equipment and offered to be actors and runners on set when needed. Working with this small crew/team gave me an insight into how important good connections and communication is in the industry and what it would be like to work on a set. Each person has a delegated task and a niche that helps the group progress as a whole. Every production role plays a part in a bigger picture.

Editing & Post Production

I wish I was able to film Primrose a different format. I filmed Primrose in AVCHD which is a lower quality video format, my camera Sony a7ii can film in XAVCHD which is my particular cameras highest quality. However to film in an XAVCHD format I needed a different SD card, one that had a larger amount of megabits per second, to be able to film better quality footage. I was on a tight schedule and was not able to have the new sd card delivered in time to film. I am still happy with the final product and how the footage of my video came out, however in the future I would not film in AVCHD again because I have a high quality format I can choose instead.

Colour-grading is still a practical skill that I need to familiarise myself with further. I only know the basics of how it works and when editing I simply made basic corrections to the footage like adjusting the saturation, contrast, highlights and shadows. I was able to achieve an even look across all of the footage using adjustment layers however when working on my own footage in the future I would need to teach myself colour theory and colour correction properly, through platforms like youtube and online classes and courses.

As mentioned earlier I had a problem with filming in darker lighting during the party scene for my film. Footage came out grainy which lowered the production value of dancing/party scenes in my opinion. There is no easy way to fix this in postproduction so I decided to leave the footage as it was and proceed with colour-grading. In the future I need to bring reflectors and my led lights when filming darker scenes, this would illuminate my characters more and make the party scenes less grainy and dark. Therefore I need to be more prepared and think ahead when it comes to technical details and equipment, when I am to work on future projects again. Going back to the party scene, I struggled editing it together in premire pro, because I had not recorded enough footage of extras and my main character Neo dancing at the party. All I had was small sections of a few second clips that I could cut down to the best and most usable part. This links to Another detail I should have paid more attention too, it was the fact that Wiktoria, the actress/my friend that played Rene in the opening scene of my film, was not meant to be in the party scenes dancing because in the script she is not able to go to the party. I had dancing clips that had Wiktoria/Rene in them which made it even harder to maintain continuity. I had to crop footage and scale clips smaller in premiere so it would cut Wiktoria out of the shot. This would also tamper with the quality of the clips, and in the end I had to make the dancing sequence at the party shorter than I wanted it to be because I simply didn't have enough footage to make it work and match the vision I had in my mind. From now on I need to always make sure that I film enough footage and multiple takes of shots and scenes so I don't struggle in the editing process. In the moment one thinks that they have enough filmed or are happy with one take or shot, but it's always safer and smarter to have backup footage and options when it comes to post production.

Conclusion

When I started this project I set out to use it as a way to develop my practical skills further, while making sure to communicate my research and visual inspirations into my final film. I wanted to deliver a piece of work that reflected my practical knowledge when it come to filming and writing, as-well as a film that would be visually striking and showcase my own personal aesthetic and filming style. From the dialogue inspired by Andrea Arnold and the French New Wave, to the shots stemming from existentialism. I know that the broad research I put into this project is evident when watching my film and it is seen in my progress and development that I recorded in my weekly journals. Proving that I have stayed grounded in my initial aims and ideas. I am happy with my final film. Working with a close group really put into perspective the importance of communication and how it plays the key part in making a production run smoothly, practising my interpersonal skills is something that will hugely prepare me for the beginning of my career in the film industry, which is built on networking and good relations. Throughout the creation of my short film, I was able to confidently put my interpersonal skills to use as a director and leader within a small crew, always making actors feel comfortable and staying self motivated and organised whilst filming in order to meet time schedules and meet my deadline. I can confirm that I see my way ahead as a producer in the film industry or a creative director for fashion photography more clearly now, after being able to build a creative project that gave me a small taste of working in the industry by making me experience being in charge of a small amateur crew, whilst developing my project visually and technically from the very beginning. I now know where I stand in terms of what I like and don't like when it comes to production roles and what i'd be successful at on a film set. The self motivation to always look for new ideas and overcome practical challenges also play a part into me meeting my future goals that include finding an apprenticeship/work experience and expanding my photography portfolio.