Fiction Adaptation Unit: Critical Reflection

With the essay and the film finished it's time to evaluate myself and my work.


First my film. I am very happy with it; Adam did a great job and fitted the role of the Narrator perfectly. Mark also did a good job and Mike and Ren were great. I like how the film turned out despite not being able to use the studio space and the limiting size of the shed. Out of all of the films I've made on the course this is definitely my best work.

My directing was a little off, I know I'm not a very confident person and I wish I was a little more commanding instead of walking on eggshells in fear of coming across as rude or too demanding. This is something I feel I can get over with more and more experience. On the other hand though I was very surprised with how well I coped working with an actor; it helped that Adam was a nice guy and committed but this has been something I've been dreading since our first unit. I wasn't looking forward to having to contact a complete stranger but I'm glad I did it. The experience will make me more comfortable in doing this the next time round.

My essay went better than expected, my history with written work isn't great but these past few essays (for both first and second year) have been decent. I found it relatively easy to write it and the feedback was easy to understand and follow.

Overall I think this unit has been of a good quality, easily my best work out of everything I've produced but it's not without its flaws:

1. My film has a bit of grain/noise on some of the Subconscious shots: this is something that couldn't really be helped but it's a learning curve. In all of my projects I've ended up with grain so this is something I feel I should read up on a lot more to fully understand how to prevent it.

2. My essay's conclusions feels a little lacklustre. It might just be me though trying to fault it but it seems like it just abruptly ends and doesn't really conclude as much as it could.

3. This has already been mentioned but my directing could have been more like a director. Instead of saying "could you" and "if you don't mind" I could have been more confident sounding in a "this is what we're doing" way. This will hopefully improve with time and experience though.

So with all that said I think I can rest easy knowing I've produced some solid work and not something just put together for the sake of handing something in. I'm pleased with my skills as a writer, director and editor and are things I want to continue to do and improve in whatever way possible.