Completed short film

Reflecting on my finished short film, along with comments given from my classmates, I am overall very pleased with the response and comments that my short film had. in both my opinion and classmates opinion, it proved to be a very informative piece that flowed well and was interesting. I had comments of it being framed well and being visually enticing with regards to interviews and the montage, and that it had a good balance between the funny vox pops that were informal and the interviews that had more a professional stance and were more formal.

Technically throughout the levels were mainly consistent apart from at the end where I had a glitch in the audio being slightly louder than the person that was speaking.However the cuts of the shots and the blending of the audio were seemingly timed well and the shots were framed in an interesting way, having a more visual impact on the audience.

Aesthetically my piece was colourful and the interviews all had a similar colour to them created by the lighting that was used. Some shots needed colour correction because of the lighting conditions when filming being poor, however everything was visible and worked well with the content of my piece. Usually i would use a consistent style and am being fond of shots being black and white or desaturated, however with this piece I believe the natural colours and lighting work well because some shots that are very colourful juxtapose well with shots that are quite bland and have no variation in colour.

My film is 7 minutes long so immediately conforms to one of the codes and conventions of short film by not being feature length. It is of a documentary style which comes under the spectrum of short film, and is subject specific. My film does not have a specifc target audience because that is not how short film works; the content is very subjective and really would only be of interest to a select amount of people, however could potentially be of interest to those who I would never have aimed my film to. I personally think that if I had to give my film a target audience it would be for those who love heavy metal music through all ages or for those who are studying either anthropology or things music related, as it is both about culture, the way people think, and the music that creates a culture within people.

Things that could be improved in my piece and that people would have liked to have seen are as follows:
*A voiceover or concluding sentence at the end summarising my findings of why people love or hate metal.
*I think I could have interviewed someone who is solely against the genre of rock and metal, perhaps someone religious who stereotypes metal as being associated with the devil or bad things.
*Also slight technical glitches such as levels of some music that could be toned down.
*Also more shots of my granddad actually drumming and saying more about the subject.

As I have produced this film on my own I believe I have achieved an awful lot in the amount of time given as I have managed to film interviews, cutaway footage, and edit the whole film by myself. I think that the organisation of the whole process was done quite well and that almost everthing went to plan. I would have liked to have gained more interviews from established industry persons such as the manager of Spinefarm who unfortunately I couldn't get due to him being on a tight time schedule. However I still aim to continue this project and expand on it.

Evaluation of targeting an audience

Overall my Rockumentary is very subject specific, therefore attracting quite a niche audience, however it could prove to be interesting to those of a broad music taste, to both groups of people who both love and hate metal. My piece aimed to be of interest to those who love metal, but again also those who dislike metal and want to learn more about it.

Some people in society are very dismissive and judgemental of some genres and have complete misinterpretations of what is actually behind the lifestyle and genre of Rock and Metal culture. The content of my Rockumentary is again subject specific and targets the subject of why people love or hate metal. Although the majority of opinions are very biased as they are drawn from metalheads themselves, I have also gained unbiased knowledge and opinions from a music teacher who is open to all genres of music, and is appreciative of metal even though it isn't his preferred genre.

The music within my piece is predominantly metal and quite fast-paced, maybe attracting a younger audience and those who are more open and subjective to hearing the music that complements the content of my documentary.

The types of audience for my Rockumentary may also come from where my film is distributed. For example, Future Shorts distribute and exhibit films at music festivals and music events that may collect a wider audience from people who love music, music industry experts, and other people involved in these events.

Other portals that I will distribute my film on will be all social networking sites, Youtube, Vimeo, and even submitted to some short film sites such as Coffee Shorts.

Feedback from audience- Questionnaire.

These are the questions that I am going to ask the year 12's to gain feedback for my piece to contribute to my evaluation. I am hoping the questions will highlight the positive and negative aspects of my Rockumentary and be beneficial for me in the future to improve this piece when I make the full-length one.


Bearing in mind the predominant audience for my film is people who like Rock and Heavy Metal, do you think it is informative enough to make people who dislike metal to have a more thorough understanding of the genre?


Is my video edited to a good standard and pace that will keep the viewers interested? What works well and what doesn’t? I.e. Soundtrack.


Do you think the design of this DVD cover is relevant and conforms to the style and content of my piece?


What have you learnt from this Rockumentary and what was your favourite part?


Do you think it would be good for distribution at music festivals or music related events?

Rockumentary- Final version

How does my film fit the codes and conventions of short film?

Overall I believe my short film adheres to the codes of conventions found in most short films that are produced. It is a 7 minute long documentary, that is quite heavily focused on the editing to make the content be portrayed in such a short amount of time, and is aimed to teach something.

By having a lot of quickly cut shots and mini montages within my short film, it fastens the pace and makes it more intriguing to the viewer. However long interviews within the film are made more interesting by having cutaway shots and trnasitions between different shots of the person rather than one long shot.

Overall I believe I have made an effective short film and am very pleased with the outcome.

Editing process of Rockumentary

Overall the editing didn't take half as long as I imaged it to be. I believe I edited efficiently and effectively still with some minor alterations to make, however because I was on my own in a group it allowed me to have freedom in what and how I wanted it to look like visually.

I didn't come across many problems when editing however did have to do some colour correction and adjustments of brightness and contrast when editing dark shots. However because it wasn't a particular complicated piece there wasn't much to do that was complex editing as if it would have been if it were say a horror piece or an avant garde short film.

I managed to add in credits easily from Photoshop and I converted music formats to be able to use in FCP however that was really the most technical part of the editing! Otherwise it was mainly just short cuts of shots and fade transitions that contributed for the most part of the edit.

I firstly used only one song for the Rockumentary throughout, however realised it became slightly repetitive, however when I decided to change it to have two songs it wasn't as effective so I am going to change it back but maybe have a few variations in what parts of the songs I will use.

Filming and preparation of Rockumentary.

Overall the filming of my Rockumentary went extremely well. The organisation aspects of about 90% of footage went to plan however I did not get 2 of the interviews I wanted in time, however will hope to do so when I do my feature length version.

I managed to get a lot of cutaway fotoage from clubs and pubs and in Camden, where I even gained permission to film a timelapse from a roof which looked very effective in my piece. I easily gained permission from places in Croydon to film footage and they were very welcoming of it. My production schedule went relatively to plan and I was filming almost every day throughout the holidays. I liked the setup of my interviews and believe the lighting did them justice and were good shots. Although some shots were hardly visible when I shot in the Black Sheep Bar the first time, the next time I took a camera light and it gained much better clearer results.

Overall I am happy with the quality of my filming however wish I had gotten certain interviews with the camera light as opposed to having to adjust the clarity within the editing.