Evaluation of Final Major Project 2019

 

Introduction

 

The film I created was called School Reflection being a remake of an older short film I created many times a go at college, the films plot followed a young autistic being a neurological condition meaning that the way that he sees and perceives the world, is somewhat slightly different than how are common person my handle certain situations, the lad who is currently going through secondary school has been struggling a great deal on fitting in, with people taking in his most unusual behaviour as him just being naughty kid, but it’s really just missed understood.

 

The short film what are loose autobiography based on my own personal experience at school, I myself is on the autistic spectrum, and I created the film by the media of 2D animation what’s the only voice being present being a narration been done by myself.

 

The animation was achieved by sketching many of the images digitally, on a program called graphic and animating the pictures with Final Cut Pro and editing software, which allows the users to keyframe images enabling that of creating animation.

 

How I determine success

 

The success of my film from my point of view relied on if it was able to fully educate people there were unaware or had little knowledge about autism, and the film was able to aid as a great understanding of the autistic spectrum, but Oso a film that people on the spectrum or families with loved ones or people that can relate identify with autistic people, if they could get something out the films well, if I was successful in both of these regards that had succeeded as to why set out to do, trying to please to different audience one with a lack of knowledge of autism and those individuals with walk have connections to the symptom.

In order to meet the film both ways, I had to analyse as to what worked about the original, keep those aspects into the remake, but oh so expand upon certain elements one such case that I can recall my mother said when she’s saw the original what that I should’ve spelt out autism on the screen so was clear to viewers of what the young lad character had, as the topic of autism isn’t brought up again for the rest of the video so I found it mandatorily to make the topic autism a far much more great deal, and try to extensively introduce the audiences to autism as what it is so everybody’s catch up to speed, I always like to ensure on whatever video I’ve created, to give the audience context so they know the background of what the topic of the video is about, and to make people aware of what autism is I would extensively described about it so people got the idea that this video is all about autism.

 

 

 

Feedback.

Gemma s film review.

 

 

I spoke with Gemma about my film, the same lady I interviewed who is an Autism Specialist at college.

Gemma said: I feel that Harry has achieved his aim of producing both a useful educational resource which makes people think about Autism and the difficulties it can present, but also uses Harry s own experience and unique perspective which gives it a personal and authentic feel.

Gemma also mentioned that by explaining in simple terms what Autism is, a neurological condition, and by emphasising the unique nature of Autism on each person makes the film both useful and informative rather than purely an autobiographical piece.

We discussed the characters journey and whether it works as a stand -alone piece as a story. Gemma felt that the fact that within the chaos the character still managed to progress to finding strategies for self -calming even in a very stressful environment which hints at what is useful for people on the spectrum but also somewhat liked the rebellious and unique response that the character had.

I asked Gemma if she agreed with me about the age demographic for my film which I had determined would be appealing to Teenagers but the content is suitable for all so would give it a U rating.

Gemma felt that was a fair assessment and that the film could be watched by anyone but would most appeal to teenagers and people working in education or with a personal connection to Autism.

Gemma commented that her favourite individual element of the film was the way in which I used music/sound and the darkening and sense of foreboding in the animation style to represent overload and shutdown which happen often in difficult environments ie school for Autistic people.

I was concerned about the scene where the character gets grabbed by Mrs Sugar and reacts by biting and running away. Gemma felt this reflected the poor handling of the situation by Mrs Sugar and the characters desperation to get away from her rather condoning biting your teachers!

Gemma also commented that this idea could be expanded to use real experiences and situations as part of an Autism learning resource about specific topics, for example some footage from the original relates to language people use and misunderstandings, this could be used by Gemma or others working with Autistic people to explore the reasons for the misunderstandings.

Overall Gemma feels that this is well animated, interesting and well delivered story and content and a good balance between factual and emotive.

Even better than the first school reflection which was amazing to start with!

 

Rhiannon’s Review

 

But I wanted to get a point of view from a teacher that had little knowledge of autism, and  see how exactly through there own eyes do they view the video, on how well does it educate the notion of autism and how well does it stand up as a short film.

 

I spoke to Rhiannon who is a make up teacher at my local college, where she has got a cousin with autism but doesn’t see her that often so knows very little of the diagnosis, we sat down and watch the video and at the very end she gave me back feedback, she said as a teacher she found it so insightful to understand the point of view of an autistic person on the things that she does, that both teachers and students can get a great insights out of the video, she O so saw it at a professional level and greatly advise from me to contact other companies that specialises into autistic charities as a possible promotion piece. Being such a personal story with a lot of emotional elements two minutes, she enjoyed the slight bit of comedy within the storyline to further help with the overall mood and tone of the story, balancing it out and much more serious moments with the light-hearted moments.

 

She had oh so recommended that this would be a great foundation for a series if I wanted to proceed onwards on creating more short videos like this, as she fell like that it would be a brilliant subgenre for there to be more education tools such as this short film, to make people more aware about the diagnosis of autism.

 

Another teacher who I saw the rough-cut was Nemo one of the teachers from my course, while he does exactly have any loved ones with autism, he does have students and has done somewhat of the partial research into the autistic spectrum, when he view the video he found it deeply powerful and emotional, but he could partially relate to it himself not because he’s on the autistic spectrum but mainly down that he can recall similar experiences back at school as he had some horrible teachers like Mrs Sugar, and a similar bullying environment, he commented upon on how anybody of any age could relate to the video, as anybody that’s been from school life probably has had a similar experience such as what was unfolded in the video.

 

I asked my Learning Support Assistant James to take a look at my final project. James works with people with autism across college, mainly in English and Maths. James’s favourite aspect of the film was the music and sound effects. He liked the music when the main character finds himself outside. James says the music is calm and soothing, reflecting the characters mood. The blue and green are calming colours and they show a complete contrast to the character’s feelings. The dark brown and black backgrounds earlier in the film show a blank and uniform world where the young man stands out against the grimy background. This indicates to James that he does not fit in his school. This seems to be more a reflection of a school environment and the assumption that pupils will follow certain rules.

 

James thinks that the animation is aimed at a younger audience because the characters have distinctive shapes. His favourite scene was when the animation in the outdoors phases out and you see the character drawn on a sketch pad. James likes the return of the cat without animation. He feels the final scene represents end of a journey the character has been on, who now to be in a happier place. The calm music reflects the end of a chapter and a feeling of hope for a new beginning. James feels that the film accurately portrays the problems autistic people may find in education. The problem is that school’s expect people to be uniform and fit into boxes but they don’t. The issue is the environment and not the person with autism.

 

Ideal Goals

 

Upon looking back on my original ideas and ideal goals for this project was to create a very affectionate and moving short film that can help aid people to understand about the autistic spectrum. I also wanted to create my own animated short film with the techniques I have learned this year in order to create my own masterpiece of film of all the skills I know and show to people what I can truly do as a film maker. Looking at the success and the feedback of my short film, teachers that work with and support autistic students, and those with the symptoms themselves were perhaps the ones that found it the most affectionate and moving, relating to the subject matter and the challenges that the young autistic lad had to go through during his time at school.

 

I theorise that since the young lad does not have a name that is called out in the film, and is not defined by any personality traits, more people found it easy to connect and identify with him. There was one young lad on my course on the spectrum who said that the film was his favourite out of all those made by the class. Several people with connections to autistic charities have seen and recognised the film and have requested that they be able to share the video to try to get the word out there to make people understand about the autistic spectrum. Another colleague on my course who is not on the spectrum and with the exception of me and the other colleague on the spectrum has no connections with anybody with autism but he was greatly invested in the project by hearing the pitch alone. The young man never grew up in a similar situation to mine but still found it to be an informative short film to create as it was very eye opening to him to understand about the other children he wasn’t quite so acquainted with at school. A teacher here at the college who watched the video, who is not on the spectrum nor has any family on the spectrum, was still able to identify and relate to many aspects of the video such as the horrible students and the grumpy teachers. A make-up teacher called Rhiannon not on the spectrum, but working with students who are, found the video to be very eye opening to her, giving her a better understanding of pupils on the autistic spectrum.

 

Determining from the feedback from individuals with connections to autism, they overall found the video to be greatly identifiable getting more mention in the pop culture with autistic character. But then for those with no connections, I was able to successfully inform people as to what autism is, giving them a broader understanding but also the video was broad enough where they could personally relate or identify with the young lad either that or able to sympathise with the character meaning that it was successful standing up as its own independent film that doesn’t need a prior knowledge of autism to be enjoyed. It was greatly rewarding for me, given how personal the story was. I am also glad to have created an animated short film that I can call my own.

 

 

Film Festivals

 

Another goal of what I wanted to do was that I wanted to start creating films that I could enter into film festivals and ideally they would like to see films that are completely original. In the past I have created dozens of videos but do rely on copyright material of some form or another, this is the first short film I have created where every aspect is originally made for the film even including the sound score and soundtrack. Admittedly one can tell how amateurish the music does sound, as it is rather simplistic with not many layers going on, and the music is rather scarce in the actual film with many of the moods and feels within the film relying on the sound effects to bring across the atmosphere of the scene than using actual music. However, the music does serve its purpose in a small capacity and I do feel the film still works with its current sound score, though admittedly any future projects should look towards using better structured music if I do wish to carry on creating original music for myself. While the film itself was simple and the simple music did work in its favour if I do create any projects in the future with a more complex plot than this one then it would be ideal to further grow and expand the music to sound on par with the film. Likewise this film’s animation one has greatly improved upon what I have done previously and I have found more ways to cut corners and get the process of animation done faster, such as now I am able to do about 30 seconds to 1 minute of animation a day. And while the animation is simplistic it fits along with the storyline I can admit that more can always be improved upon for the near future as in the animation it was more reliant of seeing facial expression and the visual imagery to go alongside it rather than any complicated movements as we don’t see a full body walking shot within the animation. The film still flows nicely and isn’t awkward, but if I were to create a film that would require something with a lot more complicated movement featuring action, for example any Rocky or Rambo type film, the type of action and choreography that would be needed, I don’t feel that the same animation quality seen in ‘School Reflection’ couldn’t meet those expectations. I think another thing that would be mandatory for me to learn would be to start learning to edit on some of the equipment that is available at the college as they are typically the industry standard and while the equipment I use to animate at home is still pretty good it’s still not the kit that most professionals would use. And so if I was to create another animated project at college it would be mandatory I think for me to start to learn to use their equipment.

 

 

Any Regrets or Disappointments

 

The segment at the end and the beginning they were very hastily place together, as they initially went scripted or planned out, so the time while producing and photographing those segments, the goal was just get them films very little forts was placed in, on any other extension that the segments could be improved or expanded upon, instead copying what came before them, which was in the original film were segments that were practically identical, in terms of meaning and the type of shorts, I do feel like in some respects that the opening statement of this one was better photographed, as in the original film it was just the settee room what a couple of toy pencils jotted around everywhere, but in this new one I do feel on what was photograph just been the shorts other whole play placed out on the floor, along with some pencils pens and etc looking more and part of how a studio would photograph that sena, but because that was a last-minute idea to include that segment I do feel there is more time was fought about that segment it could of cannot the new opening that could’ve have the same meaning but could’ve done something in a different segment, as the ideal of this project was to remake but improve upon from the original score reflection film, but because of the rash nature I didn’t stop or pause and what aspects and assets should be left in and what should be improved upon.

The segment at the end was one of the last segments that was actually scripted in the script, and was oh so one of the last ones animated as well so the amount sketches that needs to be scripted out when not sketched, I initially wanted to have that segment in live-action with a animated character but a advice from a teacher recommended to keep with in continuity that it should really be animated, so the backgrounds of the nature reserve didn’t look or feel as grand as I initially hoped, and the element of the cats was on the very last sketches I did, I didn’t even greater refs get as to why wants the cats look like look at the final luck and being the last shot of the animated segment I don’t think Looks is cute or as fluffy as it should’ve then, the cat does appear to look a bit more rough.

Another element about the ending was that in my test animation the young boy was originally supposed to transition into colour, but I didn’t feel like that the colours I gave the boy in the test real looked a bit to Gerrish on him so I wasn’t very confident incurring in the boy, but looking back on it now he does stick out like a sore farm.

But I think the biggest disaster out of anything with the project was the mindset that I can work on more for different projects at once, during early development of the final major project I was planning out my documentary project where if we going to next term that would be what we taking place, unfortunately I realised it was taken up more time than it should’ve done and by the time that I finally switchgears it had already made massive consequences into the production of school reflection, as I had planned out a holiday trip to Scotland well it’s on some segments of the documentary and I have yet to prescription them, and knowing that is more than likely that I was going to be back at Scotland any time soon I concentrated on that, so the biggest thing I learnt while doing my FMP project nobody does three projects at once, unless somehow you have the powers of superman.

I originally planned out from the script to have the other voice actors making the film feel more like a conventional film, the main character  still would’ve of spoken he still would have been heard through narration, the given how chaotic the production had came during mid April I decided to abandon the voice actors and just Head onwards and do the whole thing through narration, I didn’t have any time to go back on the script and rewrite it, so use the script more as a rough guideline and reworded many of my lines while recording them.

 

While doing one last big push over one weekend to get the edit finalised, some re-recording of lines have to be last minute to make them seem flow better for the actual short film, and notably you can hear a peasant audience different during the beginning segment where some lines sound less accurately than others, I initially wanted to do one last order you tweak up before I published the video, but at the time of the final week my tutor was trying to get my film and another student film into a film Festival and greatly advised me to publish the video so we could do so, and I didn’t really want to go to the process of uploading out then uploading another version with the final edit I intended, it would’ve only been a very small minded change just within the audio, and uploading to versions would of just been confusing to any of my YouTube users.

 

A YouTube series that I was going to do while making this short film was a block series showing the progress of the film, uploads were richly consistent being released usually run about Friday or the weekends, but as I got more invested into the animation process the blog had stopped, I miss you had the opportunity to make some more videos about the progress by we skipped over some steps I didn’t want the series to be out of order, but looking back I think I should just make those videos anyway because the lack of videos are far worse then a video series uploaded in the wrong order.

 

Writing is an aspect that I really struggled with and know that this is my final major my tutor insisted that the wording and pronunciation and spelling had to be top-notch, I usually have learning support assistants come with me to help me a in the spelling, but unfortunately one of them had to drop out for other commitments and yet when I do get once a week, I eventually realised that it is just going to be far more quicker for me to get the words out if I did than myself by using a device I can speak into and it types up the words, this machine isn’t perfect very occasional misspellings so I do apologise if reading this lengthy protects is not the most professional, but it’s like a wheelchair user attempting to do sports they may be good in some aspects but They will be successful and other aspects, they can only do the best that they can do.

But did hold out on writing out some things for little while in the patience for my learning support assistants, but after waiting a certain length I decided just to do it myself I just wish I good done a lot of that a whole lot sooner.

 

 

Summary and Conclusion

 

While I did list off some mistakes I did while producing my short film, the way I measure success is it doesn’t matter oh what goes behind the stage but it’s what’s on stage that counts, and I think my final piece I’m very pleasantly plays with the finals results, last year I had created a short film for a final major project that was far too ambitious than what I could film so I never got finish, right to reuse the assets for another purpose like a film trailer for my final piece, but I am glad this time round I can say that I have this time round succeeded in creating a short film, and not one that’s meant to be silly like an action film but instead a meaningful and powerful film that anybody of any age or background can empathise with, which to me means that my film was successful.

And dear my writing I’ve done this time round has been more than I’ve ever done before in the past, then any other individual project it gives me great confidence that I have now laid down a foundation for where I can grow and expand upon for my upcoming projects to come, creating a short film and having the experience into what makes a affectionate moving story, and while the way I’ve worked has been the most professional at least now from the foundations I can work to make that better.

 

My next goals for my upcoming projects is now since this is my first short film where every element is my own creation including the soundtrack is to continue this by present something far more complex then this time round, which I think should be the next ideal step.

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I would love to pass my ( School Refection) SHORT FILM on to the Consultant Dr Kelly, who firstly confirmed my Diagnosis of my condition of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (A.S.D.)

As I think it would be wonderful to see one of her patient’s, on how they have been able to develop and learn that took in the disability and turned it into a positive thing through this film, I feel privileged that my condition of being on the autistic spectrum a celebration, of being able to create a vision, I’m understanding through my passion of animation I’m storytelling through a camera lens, no longer inhibited by my lack of reading and writing, that I can finally illustrates to people the many issues I had to overcome while growing up, and animation has enabled me to positively project all the wonderful skills to the world.

 I sincerely hope I can deliver my story of hope to others with this disability, as a celebration of hope and ability to the world  of arts.

And hopefully with my film the autistic community might be one step closer the people to understand us a little bit more better.

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