Depict Task Evaluation

Depict Task Evaluation

For this our task was to create a 90 seconds short film which is to be entered the Depict Film Competition which happens every year. Depict is an organisation that allows new and upcoming film creators to show of there work to other people and potentially get some recognition from it to elevate their careers. We were placed into groups of four for this and our piece of work was called “The Veil”, which followed the life of a boy named Charlie who struggled with depression and hid it from everyone and therefore it was almost a veil over him that no one else could see or feel. The narrative follows his struggles at home with his family, his troubles at school and with work and his contact with his friends or the lack off. For this task we had to create a variety of different of pieces of preproduction which allowed us to be able to do the right things at the right time in the way we wanted to do it, so that when it came to the actual filming we had all the information we needed right in front of us including shots, angles and such. The pre-production paper work was a lot including the location recces and talent releases but were crucial in order to start are production.  Although in some situations we didn’t rely on our preproduction as heavily as we should’ve done as throughout the process especially our storyboards which our film diverted from in a lot of aspects, but the raw outline of the film is still very much there these tweaks were made in order to create something we think would look better.

I believe the most successful part of the short film was the editing process as without it, the film wouldn’t have had half of the feel if we didn’t edit it in the right way. Especially the sounds we used which included music, sound clips but also sounds we made ourselves like the piercing screech that is in The Veil a couple of times throughout, this adds a disorienting feel for the audience. As well as I think we incorporated lighting and shadows well, especially within the bed room scene which included the swinging noose scene or the spotlight mask sequence at the end. Things that I would change if I could do this again is maybe think more in depth about the types of shots we want to shoot with different angles and most importantly the conversation in the car is only on one character, whilst the camera should be swapping throughout the conversation.

After the class watched our short film, they said it was good and enjoyed the shots and acting within, but some were confused slightly by the narrative as well as gaining an understanding for the main characters problems. A positive comment on our film was about the music and sound effects used within our production including the non-diegetic sound of the screech which caught the audience of guard as well as the music choices for scenes.