EVALUATION

My short film is now completely finished I am quite happy with the way it has turned out despite some minor problems and setbacks I have had. On a whole I don't think my short film is that bad as I think it portrays everything I set out to do when I first had my idea for this short film. The look of my short film is quite different compared to conventional short films as it is a stop frame animation although for this particular narrative I think it works quite well as it adds to the quirkiness of my film. I think more time should have been spent on working out the lighting as some of the pictures are too light and make the character look too washed out, which make the film look very amateur. Another way my film can be improved is the background music as I think it works well to a certain extent but can be improved especially the bowling alley sound effects as they don’t look as if they are synced properly to what going on in the film. My short film changed slightly from my original planed storyboard this was due to a number of reasons my main problem being able to get the locations I wanted. I also cut some scenes out such as the park scene as I thought it would make my film far too long and the audience would lose interest in my short film and I didn’t want that.

I think my film will entertain quite a wide ranged audience of quirky people who like light hearted films as that is just what ‘Chuckles and Me’ is. The whole atmosphere of the film I think the audience watching will like as it is just simple and nothing to dramatic and heavy it is just a fun short film of which I don’t think there are many like it. My narrative structure I think the audience will like as the voice will engage them as it tells the story as you see it. My short film is a stop frame animation and i think the constant movement of each frame will keep the audience attention.

Working individually helped me produce a better short film as I only had myself and no one else I had to rely on and I only had one actor for my short film so everything was kept small and the fact I used a digital camera to shoot my short film on so there for it was a lot easier to do and allowed me to achieve the effect I wanted for my short film. As my film was a stop frame animation and is made completely of digital stills I found the edit quite easy to do although quite time consuming as it needed rendering quite a fair few times, it also took me quite a while to sort out the timings of my short film and figure out the durations of each image as at first there were far too many images and it was too fast therefore making the whole film not look like stop frame at all and it just looked very glichy so after I solved this problem of working out which images to cut and the duration I was happy although adding the music and voice over didn’t take long it was still quite tedious as I had to sync the voice over of which wasn’t long enough for my sequence of images so I have to slice and paste it and change the order of what it was saying as well as trying to make it make sense as best as I could. Once this was all done my short film was complete and I was pleased with it.

After researching in to short films I was highly influenced by Michel Gondry and his original short film, this is how I changed my straight way of thinking and decided to do a film with such an unusual narrative. Although when doing the ideas generation exercises the main idea for my short film came from a post secret post card that said ‘I still talk to my child hood bear’ and from them I developed my idea in to what my final film is now. Another short film called ‘Sukumvit Road’ of which was made by a Brit school student; inspired me hugely as it was from watching the stop frame in this that I decided I wanted my short film to also be a stop frame animation as I wanted a similar atmosphere as to what that student had achieved with her short film.

Overall I am quite happy with the way my short film has turned out however I know if I was to do this project again I know what I would be doing differently. I know I would definitely be working individually as I preferred doing so. I think for this particular project my planning was a lot better than previous projects although the smaller details like the music choice I could have taken more time with. Despite these things I am proud of my short film and thoroughly enjoyed making it.

Who is my target audience and how have I reached them?

My film hasn’t really got a target audience in terms of age as it is suitable for people of all ages.  I would say that it is really for people who like quirky little films with little meaning. As my film is just quite a silly film that is just happy and make people feel happy.  The music used really enhances this feeling.

What were my other influences?

The short film called ‘Sukumvit Road’ made by a Brit school student influenced me quite a lot as it was after watching this I decided to make my film  a stop frame animation which I think worked very well with my narrative.

How have the short films that I have studied/researched influenced my own production?

I don’t think I was majorly influenced by most of the short films I watch as quite a lot of them were quite serious and had further messages within them. I also already had an idea of which I had had some deep thought about prior to out video production lessons.   I think that is why my short film I totally the opposite to most of the short films I watched as I just wanted to be different which is why my film is quirky and just a bit silly. Although I think the reason I had the courage to produce a film that I have is due to watching the crazy work of Michael Gondry of which I found slightly mad but very funny and after seeing he’s work I think I was a little influenced to work in my original idea further to make a interesting quirky film, keeping a quote by Michael Gondry in mind which was ‘Every great idea is on the verge of being stupid.’

How does my Short film conform to the short film codes and conventions?

·My short film conforms to quite a few codes and conventions of short film. Quite obviously the length of my short film conforms as it is going to be just under three minutes long and usually short films are thirty minutes or less. Short films are often shot on a low budget as more often than not is it amateur directors just starting out there career which is the reason for their short films and my short film is very typical as a short because it was shot on a very low budget I think to actually shoot it cost me £3.00 for the arcade location and that was the only real expense. The whole idea of my short film is very typical of a short film as short films can just be silly little ideas that are made in to short films and that is exactly what I have done as the narrative of my film isn’t to be taken too seriously at all as it is just a silly story of a boy who loves his childhood bear.  I have made my short film in to a stop frame animation which is quite unusual for a short film but not completely un heard of in short film, the stop frame animation and the voice over  I think works very well for my particular short as it fits in with the character and he whole weird story. Short films can sometimes be less genre specific and I think that is what mine is as there really isn’t a genre I think it can be put in, its in a random genre of its own like so many other short films. It is very typical in short film for there to be no strict boundaries at all my short film proves this and shows that absolutely anything can be made in to a short. 

The Edit

I have now completed the right stop frame animation look for my short film as it is all now at the correct speed and there aren’t too many frames. I had to cut quite a few images out completely it was quite disappointing as it had taken so long to get every single picture however  it only improved the whole look of my short film so I didn’t mind too much. I have also added some music of which I found on YouTube it seems to go really well with the animation as it gives the right atmosphere I wanted although I need to find out if I can actually use is as I’m not sure if it is copyrighted if it is I will just have to carrying on my search to find the perfect background music as the voice over will be talking over it anyway. The stage I am at, at the moment is really the audio stage as I have recorded my voice over of which I got Justyn Hollett to as he had the best sounding voice of which I thought would match very well with the character in the pictures all ready. I recorded the voice over on a HD camera with the shutters down and then I just took the audio of the tapes when I log and captured it. Adding the voice over to the animation is quite tricky as at some points it seems a little fast and it is vital I add some pauses in somewhere. Ii is confusing to do as I am slicing and changing places of some of the voice over so to make it sound right like it all matches is hard but with a lot of concentration and time it should be perfect.  I have started to think about the titles I want and have looked at various fonts of which I thought would match the quirkiness of my short film. I want title of the film (Chuckles and Me) to appear on the first images and  I want to animate it and make it move slightly just to be a bit different and to catch the audience attention straight away.

Titles

As my short film is nearly complete I have started to think about titles. I want something quite simple-nothing too fancy. I am thinking about just have the name of the film on the first picture of Chuckles and Tim sleeping I then want to maybe try and animate it to make it 'ring' as the alarm clock is heard in the back ground. Here are a few fonts I have looked at for the titles of the short film.