EVALUATION OF SHORT FILM

In this document I am going to evaluate the short film Dollz which I and my team created. I was given the role of the producer, and in this project I have learnt 3 important things during the process of managing and organizing a short film and the first thing I learnt is that Time is crucial; If one doesn't work and keep it will be very difficult to meet deadlines and a lot of money will be lost therefore one will have to take every second that passes during production time crucial. The second thing I learnt also is that pre-production work must be done in other for the production work to go properly for example getting props ready during pre production is very crucial and will save time to get them before the actual production date rather than getting it on that same day and wasting more time getting props instead of shooting. The third thing I learnt is that the producer must make sure that everybody does their Job when they are meant to or the responsibilities of those people will fall on him and he will either have to fire them or have the whole production ruined and huge lot of money will be lost as deadlines will not be met.

When it came to problem solving issues me and my team we were very good as we all came together to tackle and solve the problem at hand and then moving on to the next task an example was when at the last minute one of locations got cancelled instead of us giving up at that moment we easily put heads together and was able to secure a new location for our shoot on the same day.

At the beginning of our pre-production the roles was divided between everyone on the production team and everyone knew what their roles were and what they had to do.

Our shooting schedule was done around the times we were allowed to shoot on our locations that we were able top secure and these times worked well for us which made our shooting schedule very realistic and easily able for us to work around and it was detailed as we had what times and how many hours we will be shooting and at what location it also contained the materials required for us to carry out our shoot efficiently also our shooting schedule had contingency plans as well included in it in case we needed to do re shoots or pick up shots and also contained who was needed present and also what materials and times we will be doing so. The only weakness we had was that the story board and shot list wasn't done early enough so that drew back the shooting schedule as it needed to have the shot list numbers of the shots that we were going to shoot on specific days and that couldn't be done until the shot list was ready.   

Our storyboard was detailed enough to cover a 1 minute short film  but if worked upon would cover a 5 minute short film, the storyboard had to worked on few times because it wasn't detailed enough and also had to be worked upon because the idea was change at most times and 95% of our shoot went according to the story board but the reaming 5% didn't because we had to change our location at the last minute as the one we were meant to use was closed down. The storyboard was very meaningful and help us to carry out parts of our shoot effectively and the storyboard was done in such a way that we could easily followed the only problem was that the story board didn't contain the rule of thirds but the camera operator was able to work around the camera to produce the rule of thirds on the screen of the camera that made us shoot but overall it was a good story board it made it clear what directions the characters were walking it was easy for someone who doesn't know about the production to walk on the scene and will understand the whole concept by just looking at the story board.

The shot list contained relative information such as the shot types and and the shot list was also reflected on the shooting script which made it easier for us as we knew what shot we were supposed to use by looking at the shooting script  which refereed us to the shot list where most of the information, the other good thing about the shooting script was that it also helped out in how we were going to compose the shots there by saving us enough time and we could also go back to the shot list whenever we were stuck for example we were at the train station and we wanted to do an establishing shot and other pickup shots and we didn't really have an idea of what composition of shots to use but when we looked at the shot list it gave us the shots and compositions that we were meant to us for our establishing and pick up shots. Towards the end of our shoot we had to twitch our shot list because one of our locations that we were meant to use was called off and we had to improvise and use the new location that we got, apart from that overall the shot list was good and very effective.

When picking up our location we looked into various things that could make it difficult for us to film in those locations which were lightning and background noise,  firstly we were able to secure the permissions to shoot on each location that we used which made it easy for us to shoot because we didn't have a case where we were kicked off a certain location because we didn't have the permission to shoot there, we also consider the noise factor in our locations especially in the train station we knew that we would consider a lot of noise from the train and pedestrians walking by so we made our script in such a way that we avoided dialogue and due to that we didn't use the sound from the original footage from the train station but ion the office in other to add some realism to it we used the sound from the original footage because it was more quite and the sound could be easily picked up by the camera also we had our own lighting kit which we didn't have at first and ruined our first shoot because the light in the office was ridiculous and also the lights from the train station  so we had to re do those shots.

We were able to secure actors for our shirt film during the pre production processes and was able to get them to fill out all the documents required and they were well prepared fro the role that they were given but when it got production stages we couldn't use them because they were busy on the week of our filming doing exams therefore we had to improvise and we decided to chose two people between the group who could act and they both played the role that they were allocated to perfectly well mostly because we had the main idea of the short film already imagined and what characters were meant to do. Because we got an early notice that our actors won't be able to act those elected between our crew had a day to rehearse and also we had a bad shot and we had to re shoot the first bit of the short film which gave them more experience in what they are meant to do because they have have done it before and seen places that they made mistakes it was easier to correct.

In our group before we started doing anything we made it clear what everybody's role was and I the production manger made sure that everybody did what they were meant to do and during the pre production process everyone did what they were able to and also during production everybody took responsibility of their roles in other to ensure that we met our set deadline.

We were able to get all the equipment that we needed except the lighting pack which the school ran out of but we got it before the end of our shoot, for our cameras to ensure that they dont run out of life we had two battery packs and a charger to charge the used up battery while the we use the other we did the same for the lightning pack and we made sure that our tri pod was working perfectly fine. We checked the battery life every time we set up to shoot and also during shooting. We also made sure that the camera and other equipment were working perfectly fine before we used them in our shoot.

The call sheet was very effective which made us know what time to get to our locations and it also made sure that people were there on time and it also help the crew to getting to the locations as it also had the locations and pictures of the exact location of the locations on the map.
Also the call sheet contained the numbers and the emails of the crew members which made it easier for us to contact each other or pass across information. The call sheet made it a check list for us to know what equipment we needed and if they were on set and also the people needed on set as well and made it that everyone and everything was present at the set.

Overall the management of the production process was 95% effective as we were able to meet our deadline and get all our things organised before and after production. Next time I will improve my pre production documents by adding in more contingency plans so that we will also have back up plans in case the main plan doesn't work out instead of improvising on the spot.