Evaluation: Pre Production

Logistics 
Because I had to organized a big production, I had to plan ahead for some shots. How did I get everyone together? For my first shot it was shot at my friend Dan Parkes' house, I decided to get some shots because I was there for a sleepover and I felt it would make sense to use this to my advantage, so we spent around 30 minutes filming what was the first scene of the film. We took multiple takes as we knew that we wouldn't get it perfect first try. We shot this in October 2018. I got there by taking two buses to his house. My second filming session was done at the college that I attend, we were in class one day and I decided that I wanted to get my filming done. So I got my friends: Dan, Ryan, Phil, Ethan, Nathan and Kaine to come and film the meeting scene in my college courtyard, it was easy to get them to do the shot as I told them it would be easy and they wouldn't have to do much as only two characters in that scene had lines anyways. The next few scenes were small ones that were filmed with me and the person in the scene.

Regarding equipment: for the first scene (the one filmed in Dan's house) I didn't need to worry about equipment, as Dan let me use his camera for the scene so I didn't need to worry about not having any equipment on this particular day. With the second scene I decided to borrow equipment in advance, the day before I filmed the second scenes I borrowed a camera the day before the shoot, I also asked Dan on this day if i could borrow his microphone as the built in microphones on cameras aren't the best.

Overall I kept a good lid on the production. I used all my free time to my advantage and I believe that I was right to get all my equipment sorted out in advance so I wasn't rushing on the day.

Finance 
I didn't have a big budget (if we're being real I didn't have much of a budget) so the money I did spend had to be used wisely. Regarding equipment (cameras and microphones) didn't spend a single penny renting them out, because the first camera I used was my friends and of course he wasn't going to demand me pay a certain amount to use it and the second camera I used was borrowed from my college, and they don't charge to borrow a camera either. With Dan's microphone it was also free as we only needed to borrow it for an hour/two at most. With transport it cost a few pounds as I needed to get to and from Sunderland-Shields, it cost me £2 for the buses so that was transport costs (on weekdays I get free transport). The last thing that I needed was an SD card, this was already provided as it was my personal one, it cost me around 16 pounds which should be deducted from the budget. I did a whole spreadsheet on everything that I needed for my film and the cost.

Creative process

Location scouting/recce
What did I do? - Over a period of a few days I travelled across Sunderland and South Shields trying to find the perfect and ideal locations for my film, The Oddfather. In the end I ended up choosing to film in two locations: my friend Dan Parkes' house (located in South Shields) and the college (Being Sunderland College: Bede Campus), as they had some good locations that I eventually used for the shoot. With these locations I had to scout for any potential hazards that may occur, I had to make sure that everyone involved in the production wouldn't be vulnerable to any particular danger.

Why did I do it? - Location scouting is one of the most important parts of a pre-production. The location scouting is key as it may be the thing that saves any crew member from harm, I aimed to find every potential danger that was available in both locations. My friend Dan helped me find the dangers in his house as he'd know his house better than me so it was helpful to have him help. Like I said before this is important as if I didn't pick up on any dangers, then it could've lead to something really bad happening to someone, thankfully that didn't happen.

How successful was it? - It was very successful, as like I said above the shoots went well without any roadblocks. When a danger came up everyone involved knew what to do to combat it because we did the location scout which allowed us to be on our toes.

Script
What did I do? - Over a period of a week I wrote my script for the film. Obviously at first there was a draft and over time I made small changes, at first I wrote a script where the plot included my character being arrested after an undercover operation. However I changed the plot as I felt that the other plot was a lot more interesting.

Why did I do it? - without a script there's no film, and my outcome was to get the best script that was best for the film and I was happy to make some changes as the days went on. I was glad that I didn't stick with my original script as looking back I thought it would've made the film average, and the new script felt even better as it gave my characters personality.

How successful was it? - I believed it went very well, the reason I think this is that at the end of writing I could tell that this script was the one I was going to use, I never like to make many changes but I felt it was necessary this time. If I had another chance I would've changed my script sooner than I did.

Personnel management - as said above it was easy to organize my cast and crew (the crew was made up of the actors, but they'd be on crew duty if they weren't in a scene) as I had constant contact with them. I'm in their class and I have their social medias/details so it was very easy to tell them what was happening on a certain day which was useful and it allowed us to get things done a lot quicker than it could've been.

Resource management: I felt that I handled equipment very well, I always kept spare batteries just in case the ones in the camera ever ran out, I did so because if the battery inside ran out and we had no spares we would have to cancel shooting for the day, and all that wasted time could've been spent getting the footage. The software wasn't an issue, at college I would use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit my clips, there's no issue with obtaining it as it's installed on every computer in college, so I'd always be around it. Finally, with props I kept them safe and secure until I needed them, I wouldn't bring any props that I wouldn't use, as it runs the risk of them potentially getting lost. And I'd rather only use props I needed on a certain day than inconvenience myself.

Time management - again I felt that my time management was very good as I was never falling behind with anything to do with my movie, I filmed all my scenes in two days combined, this may seem like I rushed it but I kept reshooting until the shot was exactly the way I wanted and was satisfactory, I even asked the actors involved their thoughts, if they didn't like a shot then we'd do it again, and again, until it as right. I gave myself plenty of time to edit my clips too, I got all the clips into the software in plenty of time, because of this I gave myself plenty of time to work with the software and polish the clips.

Professional practice - I felt I followed the industry standard. I followed all the steps that a professional production would. When we'd shoot we'd quiet everyone down and then shout action, then saying cut when needed. Despite it being a college project we all treat it as it was a professional one, not letting anything be done without it being up to a standard we were happy with.

Risk management - for this you could refer to the recce/location scouts that I did. While filming if there was an 'added' hazard that wasn't noted before, we'd evaluate quickly what we'd do and then sort the issue out, that's what I did for the entire shoot: get rid of a problem as soon as it arises, I didn't want my shoot to be delayed because of one issue.

Crisis management - thankfully there wasn't a massive issue that occurred during our shoot, we were lucky that everything went smoothly and with no worries whatsoever.

General thoughts: overall I was very happy with how everything went. Before I started shooting I had my doubts as this was my first 'proper' film shoot and I wasn't sure of how everything would go, I felt like I did 'mess' around sometimes, which is something that I have to cut out next time I do a shoot, because if I want to get into the industry I can't like a child and expect to last very long. And I felt my film overall could've been a lot better, but I feel that I am being too harsh on myself, I can't expect to make a masterpiece on my first try, practice makes perfect.