self evaluation

i will be doing a self evaluation of my short film called 'Take and be Taken' by Taze Productions i will be referring to my pre production seeing if it was effective in the production of my film, i will also be talking about having a pre production plan made it more simple for me to produce this short and having different rolls such as producers and directors.
the shooting schedule that i created was not to detailed but it did explain what day and time that each part of my film will be filmed also it explained what part of the film would be record at that time of the day, doing this made it so easy to know where i should be at what time and what to do at that time.
i created the story board for my short film which i though was very detailed in telling the camera operator what kind of shots to do at what angle, this is very important in the production stage to have a detailed story board because the camera operator and also the director needs to have a clear understanding of whats doing on in that scene.
the short list that i made was clear for the camera operator and the director to see and understand what shorts to meant to be done and also the short list correlates with story board so if someone is confused of what shot it is on the story board they can just look at the shot list of the other way around if they don't know what the shot should look like on the shot list they can look at the story board.
the location recce i did was detailed because it had the all the information that we needed such as where it is, who to contacted for any questions, pictures of the location etc. so everyone in the production team can agree if it was suitable for the use of the short film.
the actors i hired someone i knew that would be available to when i would be shooting my film also someone that i knew personally that will be able to work to time limits, is very professional and is able to look convincing in the film.
the equipment i used was checked when i booked them out from the collage i made sure that i signed a book showing when i took out the equipment, what equipment i took out and also when i will be returning them.
my calls sheets had everything thing i needed to contact my actor and the people who were part of the crew making my short film which included their number, address, name and there email.
in conclusion i feel that my pre production was well planned out other than that fact that i didn't plan a back up plan but i feel that because of the pre production i did the quality of my short film reached the standard it did with out it it would of been unorganised and unplanned of when i would shoot if i was allowed to shoot when i was getting the equipment and when i would be bringing it back and so on. as you can see the pre production process is very important in a film production and should be done in the best quality as possible.

There are no hard and fast rules as to what makes a good short; as with features, different audiences love different films and an award-winner in one viewer's eyes will be a dull cliché in another's. Obviously there is an element of subjectivity to any short film programme as different exhibitors will set their own criteria as to what they think makes a good short, which they feel their audience will enjoy. Whilst this can be frustrating for filmmakers it isn't necessarily a bad thing, as, what one exhibitor rejects another will love and promote – so it is important not to get disheartened by rejection. In many ways it is an exciting time to be making shorts in the UK as there are wealth of different festivals, screening organisations, websites and content providers looking for short films to exhibit. Our advice would be to submit your film to as many places as possible.

However, having said that, here are a few basic tips for what exhibitors might look for in a good short film:

An Exciting & Original Idea

Original ideas are not easy to come-by but a good way of avoiding clichéd ideas is to watch lots of other short films, look out for any trends and stay clear of them (See our Related Links: Recommended Watching for places to watch shorts). Even if your idea isn't completely original try to look at the subject matter from a different angle or using a different style/technique. If you're struggling for ideas, you could try to find inspiration in your experiences or those of the people that you meet or through the stories that you read in newspapers, magazines and online.

A Strong Script

A good script is key to narrative-based short films and in many ways it's harder to write a short than a feature because you need to condense your story and develop your characters in a very short space of time. All too often films are let down by weak, overwritten or underdeveloped scripts. Before investing money, time and effort into shooting your film, it's a good idea to test your script out on friends and strangers (as friends might fear offending you) and get as much feedback as you can. See ourFilmmaking Guide: Writing a Script for more advice & ourRelated Links: Writing for scriptwriting organisations, resources and communities. If you write and direct your own films, it's a good idea to consider where your strengths lie. It's great if you can do both but if you think you're stronger at direction/animation then why not consider collaborating with a talented scriptwriter and see what results come of it?

Good Acting

Unless your friends are actors or demonstrate acting talent, it's a good idea to avoid casting them in your film. Even one bad actor in a film can really let it down and destroy the viewer's belief in the reality that your film is seeking to create. There are lots of great actors out there who are willing to work for reduced fees to learn their trade and make a name for themselves. You can find actors through advertising on the message boards of filmmaking communities (see the Filmmaking Communities Section in ourRelated Links: Filmmaking Organisations & Communities or via online casting sites such as The Spotlight. For more information on finding cast see our Filmmaking Guide: Cast & Crew or see the casting section of our Related Links: Production

High Production Values

Whilst digital filmmaking has had the positive impact of making the process more accessible and affordable, it's important to ensure that you still apply the same production values that you would if you were shooting on film with a crew. Many low-budget shorts are let down by poor sound, lighting, camera work and editing and/or by directors who are trying to do it all by themselves without anyone else's input. Filmmaking is predominantly a collaborative process and it's much better to find crew who are specialising in these areas who can offer different skills. You can use the message boards of filmmaking communities (see the filmmaking communities section in our Related Links: Filmmaking Organisations & Communities) to find crew to collaborate with. If you're new to filmmaking, one of the best ways to learn the skills required is to assist on other people's films. Also check the message boards for call outs for volunteers from filmmakers. However if you'd like more formal training you can find out about training or film schools in our Filmmaking Guide: Training & Development and find links to organisations and resources in our Related Links: Training

Make It Short

As a general rule, the longer your short film is, the harder it is to keep the viewer's attention. This is especially true of online viewing – for instance on Film Network the average time that a viewer spends watching a film is 4 minutes. Note – exceptions to this rule is documentary, which viewers will often watch for longer. Many festivals don't accept short films that are over 30 minutes long; a long film will really have to impress the programmers for them to include it in their screening, as it means they will not be able to show so many films in their short film programme. One filmmaker told us about a film he made that was 26 minutes long. He applied for festivals all over the world and was rejected by them all. A year later he re-cut the film to 10 minutes and resubmitted it. His 10-minute cut was shown at numerous festivals worldwide and was broadcast on a digital channel. Very short films, especially romance and comedies, can be popular with distributors and buyers as they are easier to programme and can be sold to multi-platforms e.g. online, mobile, VOD etc.

Strong Beginning

Most programmers/distributors will be inundated with submissions and so your film has to grab their attention from the very first shot. The harsh reality is that if your film doesn't pique their interest within the first two minutes, in all likelihood they may not sit through it till the end. Don't waste time on lengthy introductions and credits – spark their interest in the story as quickly as you can. Credits at the start can distract the viewer (especially if the direction, production and editing are all by the same person!) so leave them out unless you have it written in an agreement with one of your cast. Similarly if your film starts with a long establishing shot where nothing really happens, viewers may switch off before you get to show them your great plot and idea. If the pace of your film is naturally slow and ambling, make the shots as rich and enticing as possible to draw the viewer in. Note – a good editor can really transform a film. If you're directing and editing your own film you might be too attached to certain shots to know which bits to chop out to make your film a stronger, more coherent piece. In big blockbusters, scenes that have cost thousands or even millions can be chopped if the studio/filmmaker feels that they are not integral to the final edit of the piece.

Avoid Repetition & Punchline Twists

Whilst sometimes a repetitive scene can be used for comedy/dramatic effect (Groundhog Day being a classic example of where this can work), if you are not careful it can end up being repetitive and predictable. Comedy is notoriously difficult to pull off in short films – if you're looking to make humorous shorts then it's a good idea to test your idea on an audience (why not post a short clip on a site like YouTube or MySpace and see what feedback you get?) or to cast your film carefully and get a funny actor. Be careful of one-line gag/punchline films. Some shorts can do this to great success but many often fall flat. If you've got a great punchline twist then consider making it short and snappy as viewers might be disappointed if they sit through 7 minutes for one joke at the end, especially if they've already seen it coming.

Exciting New Techniques & Style

Even an average plot can be made intriguing by an exciting new technique or style - whether it be a new kind of animation, camera work or art direction. Try experimenting and developing your own style. Note – having said that, beware of style over substance.

Other Resources

For an alternative viewpoint on what makes a good film, see the Short Film Manifesto written by Philip Ilson, short film programmer for London International Film Festival and London Short Film Festival (formerly Halloween).

Related Guides

See also our filmmaking guide: why make a short film?

Help us improve the Filmmaking Guide

If you've spotted a factual error or have a suggestion for an organisation or information that we should include, then please help us improve the filmmaking guide

the things highlighted are the things that help me when i am writing my short films it explains things like how to come up with a good idea and how to develope them 

primary research

My short film Hook

 The hook of my short film is the flash back they keep unfolding the boys character and you want to know more about him and the fast pace editing will draw the viewers of the ages round 13-18 to be more interested in the short film and the end will leave them wanting more and thinking what could of happened to the him and the other characters.

I started my research on facebook and i came to find that most of the people who like horror are teenagers and the gender is just a bit one sided towards the male side. i went on to looking on there profiles and looked at some of the films they like and post and most of them are teen based. so using that information i need to think about  basing my short film around teens of that age.

my film is about a teenage boy that perviously had some sort of psychological problems and has killed a number of people. he now been freed after a number of years and he is walking home. a group of boys see him and start to follow him to attempt to rob him and to a normal person on the street you would think that it is just a sad boy trying to get home. as the boy is walking he stops and starts to twitch, which is when he is having flash backs of when he was in the physiatric hospital and when he was at his worst point in time killing his mother and father. when the boy finally catch up to him and attempts to rob him he goes back in to the state he used to be in and then it cuts to backness then all four boys are on the flour dead and he walks away with a smile on his face but still you cant see his face.
in the horror playlist this channel 'ponysmasher' is the most viewed and subscribed out of all the videos with 65,210 subscribers. when i was going the videos that the channel share and post they are a mix of animated and short horror films that seem to be very popular. looking in the short film that have been posted and most of them are adult based. so most of the characters are mainly adults so they are not really teenage based on this particular channel. when looking in the comment section i came to find that most of the comment are coming from users who seem like they are 'adults' and most of them are male users. 

so looking this makes need to change some of the things in my short film to suit the wider audience so that i can get more views instead of isolating one section of my audience. 






The next channel i looked at was called future shots which also shows horror film but they are much more popular having 261,129 subscribers and on the video in the horror playlist having almost 

20,000,000 views on a short horror film. on this channel from the looks of the videos they are posting there seems to be much more child actor

unlike the other channel, so this may imply that this channel has a wider audience who watch and share the videos. 

when looking at the looking at the comments you see that most of the people are adults that are talking about the short films  






my idea was based on a character in a Tv Soap called Eastenders 

Eastenders shows to get about 8.26 million views a week which shows to be quite popular in this country.


Is on at pre-watershed time so its audience share is much wider so it is for the whole family   

Funding

Kickstarter is a vibrant community of people working together to bring new things to life.

Friends, fans, and inspired strangers have pledged $2.2Billion to projects on Kickstarter, funding everything from homemade postcards to Oscar-winning documentaries.

Kickstarter is an enormous global community built around creativity and creative projects. Over 10 million people, from every continent on earth, have backed a Kickstarter project.

Some of those projects come from influential artists like De La Soul or Marina Abramović. Most come from amazing creative people you probably haven’t heard of — from Grandma Pearl to indie filmmakers to the band down the street.

Every artist, filmmaker, designer, developer, and creator on Kickstarter has complete creative control over their work — and the opportunity to share it with a vibrant community of backers.

“Kickstarter is one of those platforms that gives you space to work with people who know you, love you, and support you.”

We built Kickstarter to help bring creative projects to life. We measure our success as a company by how well we achieve that mission, not by the size of our profits. That’s why, in 2015, we became a Benefit Corporation. Benefit Corporations are for-profit companies that are obligated to consider the impact of their decisions on society, not only shareholders. Radically, positive impact on society becomes part of a Benefit Corporation’s legally defined goals.

When we became a Benefit Corporation, we amended our corporate charter to lay out specific goals and commitments to arts and culture, making our values core to our operations, fighting inequality, and helping creative projects come to life. You can read our commitments in full below.

this is the way i will be getting my funding for my short film. looking at the text above it explain how kick starter works and how you would go about getting the funding you need for your projects

skill & roles

Timmy - Timmy will be in charge of all the budget costs and funds. he will source everything we need from the cameras and lights to the costume and makeup he will quote them then he will be responsible for finding the funds for it then bring to us his findings and prices so that we can all come to \an agreement.

Daniel - Daniel will be the one to look for locations and do risk assessments i chose Daniel to do this job because i know that he has an eye for a good location and he is the type of person to always want to check things out and i think that he will be able to find a good location and not only that he will make sure with all the power he has will get the location so that our short film will look as good as possible

1 min short film

re sub timeline

The Lumiere Brothers

Auguste and Louis lumiere where sons of the well known portrait painter Antione lumiere. They where both very talented in science based subjects in school, later on they started a business making and selling photographic equipment. when the brother where experimenting louis discovered a way in which they can develop photography it was called the dry plate process in the year 1881 and at this time he was only 17 years of age.
In the year 1895 The two brothers created the Cinématographe which was a camera, printer and projector, this was the first demonstrated at a scientific meeting.
With this creating the first movie screening in
the grand cafe in paris which was a long continuous shot of workers leaving the lumiere factory, which to us seems quick simple and boring but in that day it seemed as if it was magic.

Georges Melies

In the audience of the first screening of 'workers leaving the Lumiere factory'  George Melies well known for his magic and illusions in theater he saw much potential in the development of film. so he tried to by a Cinématographe but was refused by the Lumieres, so he then bought an English projector called the Animatograph and created his own camera.
After some months of him creating the Animatograph Georges started making films as part of his stage shows. in the year 1896 melies was out filming a car when his camera jammed and when it started working again the car was replaced with a hearse and when he played it back it seems as if the car disappeared and was switched with the hearse within a blink thus creating the 'Jump cut' which he went on to use in his films creating disappearing and appearing acts.

Edwin S. Porter

Edwin Stanton Porter was a film pioneer, most famous as a director, studio manager and cinematographer with the Edison Manufacturing Company. in the year 1895 porter joined the Vitascope marketing company whilst he was there porter was central in the organisation of the first projected movie show in new york on 23rd April 1896. after he continued to use his engineering skills in the laboratory at Edison's. after a while porter ended up leaving and became freelance working with the eden musee theatre in 1898.
in 1901 porter became the head and go to camera man at skylight studios in new york after some time being inspired by melies film trip to the moon porter had a go at making his own film called life of an American fireman which used fused both stock and actual footage to make a scene which was very smart because the juxtaposition added tension and release to the film making it very dramatic. porter also used a technique called called a temporal overlaps which show action happening at to different angles but not in real time it is almost like a relay but from a different angle.

D.W. Griffith

 D.W Griffith was a film actor, theater actor and director he worked as a play writer writing many plays due to his love for english lit. Griffith came to see that no one was really using his plays so after an idea from a friend he started writing scenarios for films and even sent one to Edwin S. Porter but he rejected it. so he went on to creating his own films making a name for himself with the film birth of a nation which changed the way films where made because that was when things like close up came about and the creation of continuity editing also creating the 180 degree rule, he used the close ups to show facial expressions oh a character but after a while Griffiths found it hard to get employment after the second world war because of his rascal views.

 

Lev Kuleshov

kuleshov was a russian and soviet filmmaker, one of the founders of the worlds first film school, the moscow film school. kuleshov created a technique called the kuleshov effect which usses the effect of juxtaposition.through his reseach he found out that depending on how shots are assembled the audience will attach a specific meaning or emotion to it. In his experiment, Kuleshov cut an actor with shots of three different subjects: a hot plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, and a pretty woman lying in a couch. The footage of the actor was the same expressionless gaze. Yet the audience raved his performance, saying first he looked hungry, then sad, then lustful. thus creating the kuleshov effect.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was born in London. He first worked in engineering before entering the film industry in 1920. Hitchcock was known as an Auteur as of the way he edited his film and how he broke continuity. Alfred Hitchcock made a film called psycho in 1960. this film deliberately broke the rules of continuity. he used different shot types that created a sense of suspense after a career of doing this he was named the master of suspense.The film Psycho, the Shower scene was very interesting as Hitchcock applied 3 of the 5 montage tecniques. they were called Metric,rhythmic and intellectual montage. 

Sergei Eisenstein

Eisenstein was a student of Kuleshov. He developed a idea in which shots can be made into a sequence through intellectual theory and he also discovered how the shots can be put together for the soul purpose of manipulating speed and time. thus creating montage which was in completion with continuity. 

 

pre production portfolio

Shooting script from Nigel Chiteme

Shot list 1 from Nigel Chiteme

Storyboard 151020102411-lva1-app6891 from Nigel Chiteme

Shootingschedule 151103113218-lva1-app6892 from Nigel Chiteme

9 150928085639-lva1-app6891 from Nigel Chiteme

Healthandsafetyriskassessment 151103113342-lva1-app6891 from Nigel Chiteme