Wednesday 10/2/21 - Final Evaluation

My main goal for this project was working around lockdown, all my previous projects had little to no planning if lockdown started again and in the case of the altered states project it meant drastic changes to my original ideas. As a starting point for this project I used my storyboards from Altered States, I wanted to use the work that I had spent the last couple months planning instead of starting from scratch.

For memento I wanted to create work that reflected my experiences and felt like it had a piece of me, I wanted my work to feel like it had a part of myself inside whether that was through the narrative or the style. This is because it's one thing I like about filmmakers, when the work feels really connected to them it feels more interesting to watch. Almost like a glimpse at the world through their eyes. Initially I was going to create a short film about the experiences in lockdown, I had a solid idea for this planned out and it worked well for the restrictions in place. However, after researching Derek Jarman I felt like I wanted the film to cover something more personal to myself and other's who had experienced it. I decided to make a film about the experience of the death of a loved one as it's something I've been through and many family and friends of mine have been through. I made it to give a small insight into the process of it all and give an idea of what it might feel like for those going through it. My goal was to hint at this theme throughout without ever explicitly saying the meaning, I left subtle hints throughout to show the audience and let them put things together or even find their own meanings.

Overall I feel like I achieved this with the end product, whilst it was far from perfect I worked hard and pushed myself outside of my comfort zone to create this. I originally felt uncomfortable filming myself as I prefer doing the work behind the camera, but it was something necessary and I feel like it helped to reach my goals. If I didn't have the confines of lockdown I would have focused further on the cinematography and overall quality of the film, despite this I am very happy with the outcome. I would have also spent more time to give the film further depth into the narrative as I couldn't include every planned shot.