Evaluation of Final DepicT! Product

Random Acts

For this exercise we had to produce a short film which lasted around roughly 90 seconds for a film competition called 'DepicT!'.

Our 90 second film is about random acts of kindness which are made by a few members of the public, if you watch the film it will become a lot clearer to what our idea consisted of.

Below is a copy of our film: 

Our first scene shows George coming out of a classroom, he then turns his head to see a group of rowdy teens walking down a corridor towards him, as he sees this tense/action music begins to play, he is instantly worried/scared by the teens and begins to head in the other direction. The camera pans and follows him walking away quickly.

This is the shot of George looking at the teens

This is the  long shot of the teens waling down the corridor

The next shot is a CU Low angle showing George

After this scene of events, the teens begin to catch up to George, at this point the scene becomes very tense, and this leaves the audience thinking about what could the teens want or want to do to George. All is revealed when one of the teens catches up with George and places their arm on him to catch his attention, at this point there is a match in action. George turns around and the teen hands George something, the camera then pans down to the teen with his wallet in his hand.

Here is the shot of the teen handing George the wallet:

Once George has the wallet he smiles worryingly, because he does not know how to react this 'Random Act', happy upbeat music then begins to play then he walks away in slow motion and then heal-clicks as he walks away. 

We then see a side on medium shot of George walking through a park and coming across a bench with a young girl on it.

The establishing shot uses a 'fade in' edit on the title; Random Acts. We initially chose to use a black font, but after discussion we came to the conclusion that using a brighter shade would stand out more and therefore be more effective. The title of the production itself allows the audience to have a slight insight into what the short clip is about, however it still leaves room for their imagination, and doesn't give away any moral clues beforehand. 

The camera shot and angles used in this scene work well with the tension and ambiguity of the script. In comparison with the title of our clip, the music used in this scene also leaves room for the audience to create their own version of events leading into the following shot. 

Overall, the editing of this short film is well thought out and consistent. Given our time frame, I think that we worked well and edited the bits that were necessary to the best of our abilities. If we were to repeat this task, I think that given more time, the editing would have been more precise and of a better standard. The end credits is my personal favourite bit of our editing- with the colour consistency on the speech bubbles, and the speed of the transitions between each specific credit. 

If we were to have more time and re-produce this clip, I would place a shot between these two, to show that George is playing the same character, as there is no transitional shot to show that he's changed costumes, and this therefore may lead to confusion for the audience. 

The sound throughout the video is consistent with the footage that is shown, and although we had to dub a lot of our dialogue, I believe that the sound is still synchronous with the movement of the specific characters lips. There is one point, however, when the geek is talking to the girl, where there is no sound played what-so-ever, and so if I was given the chance to repeat this task, I would at least add some ambient sound into that short piece of footage. We wanted to ensure that the tone of the music fitted in with the mood and overall tone of the footage that was being presented at any given time, hence why some of the soundtracks jump from tense and dramatic, to happy and celebratory. As an example, when the youths are following the 'geek', the music is of a deep tone and carries connotations of tension and nervousness. It then changes, however, to upbeat and happy, when the 'geek', and therefore the audience, realize that the youths were only trying to help and make a 'random act' of kindness.