FM3 Reflective Analysis

The reflective analysis should be approximately 1000 words (or equivalent).

You should give the title, genre and a short synopsis of your film.  Next, you should explain what your aims were before you started making it, particularly in terms of film language (micro features - camerawork, editing, sound, mise-en-scene).  You also need to explain your role if you were in a group.

The reflective analysis should select key micro features of the sequence and demonstrate how they make meaning(s) and aim to provoke response(s) in audiences.  You can refer to influential films and techniques you have encountered when watching and studying film.  You should use some audience feedback to assess how successfully you have been in creating meanings.

The analysis will be presented in a digital form such as a blog.  You may type your reflective analysis and add it to your blog with screenshots from the film, or you can record a 'director's commentary' and edit it over screenshots and video from your film and upload it to the blog.

Here is quite a good example although it's a little long.  This could have been improved by adding feedback:

Reflective Analysis
My film ‘Gamer’s Thoughts’, is a short drama film which I wanted people to interpret it in their own way. The film is about a boy named James who is pressured into holding on to a real gun that his friend has obtained. Stubbornly James agrees to this and stores it in his pocket. He arrives home and goes to his room to play on his games console. After time passes he gets angry at the game because he is losing and we are taken inside his mind. Inside we see newspaper headlines and bold violent words which get faster and faster until we are taken out of his mind and he then as a result takes his own life with the weapon.

I started this project with an issue that I always had on my mind, this issue being about media violence through computer or console gaming and how it is portrayed by the media. Once I decided on this theme, I based my film around the issue. As someone who has enjoyed playing console games all their life I inspired myself to make this film because I feel the way gaming is represented is far too negative. Every time I read about someone committing a robbery, assault or something as serious as a murder, the first thing I would notice is that the media automatically try to start pushing the blame on to music lyrics and the electronic games the perpetrator has played. This occurs frequently and almost seems like gaming alone is becoming a scapegoat for people’s aggression and blame of tragic events. I really wanted to get people thinking about whether it really is the violent games we play or the music we listen to that causes us to suddenly want to go out and commit a serious crime or take our own life, or is it solely just the media over-emphasising things and then causing a moral panic in society? During planning stages I thought carefully about how I wanted the film to be heavily based around meanings rather than story. I wanted people to actually question their own thoughts or someone else’s about the given issue. I also wanted to emphasise how serious this issue is with the character actually committing suicide at the end. 

Camerawork
Camerawork played an important role in my film. At the start of the film it almost seems like we are following the character on a small journey until he reaches his home. Throughout the film recording I did not use a tripod as I felt that it would give the audience an uneasy feeling if the camera was a little more unsteady. This allowed people to connect to the character because the character is feeling uneasy himself after retrieving the weapon from his friend. Keeping to the theme of feeling uneasy I used canted angles which also emphasised the character's unsteady feeling. I used low angle-shots to show the character walking and to show that he is tired when he gets home (shown when he goes into his bedroom and lets out a sigh of relief as he sits down). I also used close-ups on the character's face to show his emotions and how he may be feeling. My most successful part of camerawork was the long take where we follow the character from when he takes the weapon out of his pocket all the way to him committing suicide. The camera starts by framing the character's face after he slams against the wardrobe, you are given a short amount of time to study the character's emotions and how he is feeling at that moment. The camera then lowers down to his pocket in which you witness the gun being pulled out, the camera really emphasises that the gun is in his hand through an extreme close up. The camera then does a mini arc and the gun leaves the frame. I wanted the audience to be more concerned about the character's emotions rather than the gun. The camera then rises back up to the character's face then tilts and the audience begin connecting with the character again. At the moment of connection between audience and character, the gun is unexpectedly and rapidly returned to the frame and shockingly the character shoots himself.

Editing
When it came to editing the film I had to make sure that I created meaning and made sure people didn’t lose track of what was actually happening during the film. The most significant parts of editing in my film definitely had to be the constant flickering of a gaming controller that gradually got faster as the character made his way to his bedroom. This showed what the character was thinking of doing when he actually got to his room. I also felt that the editing of being inside the character's mind was successful because i used a red colour palette and I felt this represented the characters angry emotions at the time. Also the way the words progressively sped up showed how the character had started becoming more aggressive. The third significant part of editing in the film was the suicide at the end. The film does have quite a slow pace to it and I ensured this was the case all the way up until the point where the character commits suicide. When this happened I made a hard cut to black and edited the sound effects of a gunshot and violent drop of a body hitting the floor. This really created a hard shock to the audience.

Sound
Sound was extremely important when it came to making my film. I actually decided during the making process of the film that I would completely rule out any form of communication between the character and any other person, giving the impression of being lonely and being bottled up with emotions. The only time we hear the character speak is when he gets angered by the game he is playing and shouts at the screen “Just die!”, which is a hint at what might be coming and is also quite a violent and dark thing to say. The fact that the film has a silent feel to it throughout also allows the audience to reflect on how the character might be feeling as they watch. The main reason for the silent feel to the film is that it gives more impact to the sudden ending where the character commits suicide. The gun shot was made to be loud and thundering so that it really startled the audience and shocked them in horror, almost as if it is lifting them out of the sombre mood of thoughts they are having while they watch.

Mise-en-scene
I carefully thought about the overall look of the film when it came to misc-en-scene, I really wanted to emphasise how normal the boy's life was. He lives on a nice street, in a nice house, has nice clothes and does not seem to have any family concerns with money. Even when we see his bedroom we are shown the walls which are a positive blue along with shelves holding model cars, computers etc. It is clear to the audience that money is not a concern to the character. The fact also that the room is so bright and enlightening also makes the character's death so much more tragic to the audience. I did also run into problems with continuity, as the bedroom was changed around between shoots. I got around this problem by using close-ups which did not show his surroundings.
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