evalutation

Scacco matto. Directed by Giampietro Fossemo.

In this essay, I will evaluate me and my groups short-film entitled Scacco Matto, which is about a turf war between two gangs; but is played through a game of chess, this adds a psychological edge. I will be assessing my proposal to the final idea, my production skills, and my own contribution to the film.

In my original proposal, the idea was quite similar as mine was about gang turf wars with a psychological edge. But my proposal had betrayal inside the gangs. Our single camera drama’s plot was about two gang’s territory war, but played through a game of chest; which is psychological. The chest pieces represent the members of each gang member as the two gang leaders battle it out on the board to win. In my proposal, the two gangs were going to be street gangs (looking rough and intimidating) but in our final film one was a street gang and one was a mafia’esk gang, wearing smart attire; this gives the film more variety and in-depth story as the characters are different and behave to their according gang. In comparison to my proposal I think the final idea is much greater as the story is more in portrays the characters personality very quickly which adds to a more in-depth story and that the difference in the two gangs makes a good contrast and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats with the action-packed scenes. While my proposal was going to be more psychological and follow one character throughout their endeavours; it would have less action scenes and be slower pace.

The short film came out decent but not to my standards. The whole story was understandable but sloppy in the methods of cutting and raw audio as some of the ‘rules of six’ were not used correctly such as rhythmic cutting; some scenes were cut to quickly or slowly which made the sequence look fairly sloppy. Apart from this all the other rules were executed. The VFX made the action scenes come alive, which made a huge impact to the story but could have been done better, such as colour correcting the blood to match the lighting and the scenes colours, as it looks out of place. However, the gun shots were done well and realistic showed by the exposure and muzzle flashes used throughout the gun shots. Furthermore, the colour correction is too dark in some scenes as one of the editors did not adjust it from scene to scene, this leaves the levels of the colours too dark and you cannot see some characters facial expressions. Improving all these parts of the film would lead to the final product being very professional and would also give it that edge that it needs.

The production skills of our team had some strengths and some weaknesses. The strengths of our team were that we were very motivated in executing the story and got to filming quickly over a various amount of days. We also had people that contributed in the outfits and spent money to make the story feel more alive. Furthermore, I think personally our teamwork and workflow was good as we had set roles within our group such as three different editors and actors which allows us to work more effectively and efficiently. Some weaknesses are time management, even though we filmed early; it took us a long time to get around to editing as we were busy with other issues; this made our editing rushed and not what I could be like if we spent more time on the film. Another weakness may be a lack in experience, this may be shown in our editing and camera work.

My contribution was in SFX (sound effects). This role was very important as it allows me to aid emotion with music and sound but to also heighten the flare of some of the action sequences. Without the sound effects certain scenes would be very dead and lacking intensity. Personally, I think I did well in executing the action scenes, with the gun shots, build-ups, impacts and character sounds. All this combined make the scenes feel alive. Somethings I could improve on would be that I could widen my use of sound effects and use different SFX for different scenes and also add more SFX that aid the scenes.

In conclusion, I think the film does meet the needs of the audience but could use some improving such improving the rhythmic cutting technique. However, the story is very inducing and has detailed character representation for what it is, which allows for a more gripping story. Therefore, I think this film does meet the needs of the audience but does not meet the standards of me personally.

Elliot Ede