Evaluation & Reflection

Applicant day:

I was invited to applicant day for Royal Holloway and I was able to look around the campus. This helped me get a feel of the University and of my chosen course will be and got to see some of the professors that take the course. 

 When I first got there we were handed a timetable for the day, a lanyard and a map of the campus so we could get around. 

As we had some time before the first session we chose to look around the campus. I saw a few accommodation option as I indent to move out of home rather than commuting 2hours everyday to university.

The accommodation that we had a look at were Butler, Runnymede 2 and Founders. I liked Founders the least as they include sharing the toilet with other roommates, which is something I wouldn't be comfortable with. As well as the building inside felt little rundown and I got a feeling that frequent problems might happen when staying in this accommodation. I preferred the other two accommodations way better and they seemed like they fitted my needs better than Founders.

A professor took taster lesson on screenwriting as well 

Weeks 1-3:

During the first few weeks of my project, I focused on developing my initial  ideas and deciding what type of narrative I wanted my short film to follow. Before starting the FMP, I already had a personal book of ideas that I had been building over time and from this I selected three concepts that stood out to me the most. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to create a film that felt emotionally driven and visually engaging rather than heavily dialogue based. I was particularly interested in creating a film that relied mainly on VoiceOver and visual storytelling, as I had explored this style during my previous FMP and let more confident using it.

As I developed my ideas further, I decided to combine multiple themes to create a hybrid concept. the two ideas that connected most naturally were emotional guardedness and red string theory. I was drawn to the idea of the red string because I have always found theories about fate and human connections interesting, I felt that combining this with the idea of emotional guardedness created a stronger and more meaningful narrative, as the main character's fear of trusting others causes her to overlook a genuine connection.

During this stage, I also revisited a metaphor I had previously written alongside my guardedness idea and I decided to continue experimenting with it throughout scriptwriting and filming to see if it would strengthen the narrative. I think one of the strongest decisions I made early on was keeping the story subtle rather than overcomplicating it with excessive dialogue or multiple plots.

Mood boarding became one of the most useful planning methods during these weeks as it allowed me to organise my visa ideas and begin developing a clear tone and aesthetic to the film. I also created a presentation containing my ideas, carried out early research into materials and symbolism linked to the the red string theory and developed a timetable to help me stay organised throughout the project. Looking back, I think maintaining more consistent weekly documentation would have helped me track my progress more effectively, however these early stages were important in helping my progress more effectively, however these early stages were important in helping me establish a clear direction for the rest of the project.

Another important decision I made early on was keeping the cast relatively small. During my previous FMP, I avoided working with larger group because I was concerned that managing multiple people would be difficult, which resulted in me filming and acting in most of my project myself. Reflecting on that experience helped me recognise that this method limited how much attention I could give to cinematography  and directing. As of this, I decided that for this project I would work with small cast and crew instead, allowing me to focus more fully on filming and overall quality of the production.

Looking back on these early stages of development, I am glad that I created a timetable and visual planning material such as mood boards, as they helped me stay organised and maintain a clear vision for the project throughout production.

Week 4-7:

During these weeks, I focused mainly on developing and adapting my ideas further through presentation work, pre-production planning, scriptwriting, filming preparation and directing. While preparing or my presentation, I realised that I did not want the concept of the red string to feel too obvious or unrealistic within the film itself, I instead wanted the film to more heavily on the emotional guardedness of the main character while keeping the red string theory subtle and symbolic rather than constantly visible throughout the narrative. 

Although I was still uncertain about the metaphorical elements I wanted to include, I decided to keep them within my presentation and continue experimenting with them during the production. Reflecting on this now, I think allowing myself to explore these ideas rather than removing them immediately helped the project develop much more naturally.

Alongside the film itself, I wanted to create promotional posters. I knew from early on that I wanted the title of the film to become a strong visual identity for the project and almost act as a logo throughout both the marketing and the film. Initially, I planned to make the red string much more visually obvious within the poster, however over time I realised that making the symbolism more subtle created a more mature and cinematic outcome. Instead of heavily relying on visible red string imagery, I decided to allow the use of red typography and smaller visual details to represent the concept more naturally.

During pre-production, one of the most important decisions I made was booking an Airbnb location with the cast. Emotionally, this setting was important because it represented the main character's "safe place" and comfort zone before meeting somebody new. Before choosing the location, I created mood boards showing the type of warm and modern environment I wanted. Fortunately, the Airbnb matched both visual aesthetic and atmosphere I planned for. However, before filming I was concerned that the space would appear smaller in real life than it did online, especially as I needed enough room for filming. I was also uncertain about how the hallway leading from the entrance to the living room would look, as there were no reference images available online. Looking back, I was fortunate that the Airbnb worked visually within the final footage.

Writing the script became easier once I already had a clear summary of the story and themes I wanted to explore. However, one challenge I faced was making moments of silence feel emotionally engaging rather than awkward. Creating annotated shot lists became extremely helpful during this stage because they allowed me to visualise individual moments more carefully and think about camera positioning, pacing and body language before filming.

Directing the cast was also an important learning experience. As most of the cast had little to no experience acting within a short film, I made sure everyone had access to the script before filming day and understood the emotional tone I wanted from each scene. During filming, I often demonstrated movements and reactions myself to help communicate expressions, tone of voice and body language more clearly. One aspect that worked particularly well was the subtle facial expressions from the main character, which helped communicate the guarded emotional state of the character without relying heavily on the dialogue. However, because it was many of the cast members' first experience infant of the camera, there were moments where maintaining serious expressions became difficult, leading to additional takes being required. Despite this, I think the relaxed environment between the cast also helped create more natural chemistry on screen.