'The Eagle' - Final Evalution

For my Final Major Project (FMP), I decided to make a British Gangster film heavily inspired by the work of Guy Ritchie. My film follows the character of Harry, a London gangster, who is told to retrieve a bag of money by his boss, Frankie, but he decides to keep it for himself and go on the run. Things go south, which leads to chaos and destruction.

The film is inspired by the style of Guy Ritchie, so I have used techniques such as voice overs and narration, jump cuts, witty characters and names, cliffhangers, comedy and flashbacks to try and capture the genre and its conventions. Ritchie also explores themes of greed, loyalty, betrayal and violences to try and capture the gritty and dark activities of a gangster. My reasoning for making this is because a British gangster film offers a captivating blend of realism with fiction, transporting the audience into a world where loyalty, betrayal, and comedy collide within the backdrop of London. My goal for this film is to celebrate the complexity of the British gangster genre, inviting viewers on a thrilling ride through the criminal underworld. During my time making this film, a lot of things went well and I have learned a lot of new things, but I have also encountered many problems and errors in my planning and pre-production. Overall, I am very happy with how the final product turned out and how my influences and research has also impacted it. 

I think my research and pre-production has had a massive impact on my final product. I did a lot of secondary research on real gangsters such as The Kray Twins and The Peaky Blinders to try and get inspiration for characters and plots. One event that influenced me massively was the death of George Cornell at The Blind Beggar, where notorious British gangster Ronnie Kray shot him in the head. The event was very small but led to Ronnie’s arrest a few years later. The killing influenced the ending of my film where Harry ends up killing Frankie. It was a very simple ending but by using music and close ups it became very intense and enjoyable. In the pub at the time of the shooting ‘The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore’ by The Walker Brothers was playing, so I decided to have that playing in the background after Frankie gets killed. I learnt about this event when doing primary research after I decided to book a tour in London about famous London Gangsters and the filming of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The tour was run by Lock Stock actor Vas Blackwood who told us a lot about the Kray Twins and their history. The tour started at The Blind Beggar Pub which is where Vas told us about the event. As Guy Ritchie is my main influence for my film, I researched a lot into his style and why he uses them. His main filmmaking technique he uses is narration and voice overs. Guy Ritchie uses them as he sees no point wasting 10-20 minutes introducing a character, when you could use narration to get straight to the point and introduce the character within the first 3 minutes. In my film, I have the character of Harry to narrate the film as he is the one who keeps the money and wants to get out of the business. I decided to use the narration technique to try and connect Harry with the audience at the narration provides an intimate look into the mind of the character and his thoughts. For example, a lot of the time during the narration Harry likes to give his opinion on something or someone, like his boss and why he wants to leave the business.

During the final screening of my film, I got a lot of amazing feedback on what I did well and problems that occurred throughout the film. My film received a lot of positive feedback with people saying, ‘One of the best short films ever’ and ‘Well... that was BRILLIANT’. The most common thing people said was the diverse use of cinematography and camera angles, especially in the opening scene. The wide range of shots made the film intense and exciting with someone saying they ‘loved the shots that gave us extra information about the different characters’. Cinematography is probably one of my strongest points in filmmaking as I know how to use different shots to tell the story, but I think I need to add more cinematic shots that are really nice to look at with great composition and colours. Another thing that people loved was the editing and the style that I went with. With Guy Ritchie being my main influence for this film I decided to make the film a lot like this within the edit. Ritchie uses things like jump/quick cuts, spilt screens, innovative title sequences and narration to make his films entertaining and enjoyable. I used a lot of these techniques in my film and the majority of the audience loved it, with people saying ‘it had a consistent theme and style, the editing was on point and the editing style was very clever and well done’. 

One thing I didn’t expect the audience to like is the comedic side of the film, but from the feedback I got, most people loved it. I added a quite a few comedic parts in the film such as Harry and Freddie driving a Fiat 500, but didn’t expect everyone to find the other parts funny. Someone said ‘the comedic parts didn’t take away from the serious side of the film’ whereas others found it funny and hilarious from start to finish. I was very glad to hear all this great feedback about the comedy as I was not expecting it to do this well. Finally, the film was almost 20 minutes long, the longest one at the screening, but most people found the film very engaging and gripping with someone saying they never got bored watching it. This means the pacing of the film was very good as some people found it intriguing and interesting.  Some other positive feedback I got was it was very professional, the film contained effective foley sounds and that the soundtrack and acting was great.  

The majority of my feedback was very positive feedback but of course, I got some negative feedback which will help me for next year to become a better version of myself. The main thing, which was mentioned, which I am also not happy with, was the wind problems. All the scenes that were filmed outside the house were by a main road, meaning we had the unwanted noise of the cars and the wind. I tried my best to remove as much as I could in post-production by adding music and layers of ambient and foley sounds. In some scenes it did work such as when Freddie picks up Harry, but it didn’t work in the scene where Tommy is on the phone with Frankie. When the phone call ends, the wind picks up and is a struggle to hear Tommy. I did add a song in this scene but sadly, it didn’t make a difference. I think if I was to refilm these scenes, I would use a wind blocker to try and remove the possible distribution of wind noises. To stop the noise of cars going by, I would try and film the scene at a quieter time like in the evening or the early hours of the morning. The second piece of negative feedback I got was some of the lighting was jarring due to the change of exposure. I didn’t notice this until it was mentioned but now looking back in the film, I can see what the audience mean.

These two shots are right after each other, and you can clearly see the difference in the light. If I was to reshoot these scenes, I would definitely research into how to light a scene probably, so this error doesn't happen again.  

During the production of my film, I encountered many problems that delayed the filming process. For the first two days of filming, the camera had the auto focused turned on, which led to the mic picking up the noise of the camera focusing. In some of the shots, you can clearly hear it, but I tried to cover it up with a denoise effect and music. I did change it to manual focus after the first two days, but using auto focus for the first few days was a rookie mistake from me and I will not be using it next year. The main problem I had whilst filming was around the actors scheduling.  Obviously, all the actors used were volunteers, with the majority of them having to find time to film their own projects as well. I found this very challenging and there were a few occasions when I had to reschedule at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances. The other part I found challenging was managing the actors on set and this is an area where I will look to improve next time round. I need to ensure that they arrive on set on time and in the correct outfit if they are bringing their own clothes. Trying to keep them engaged throughout filming is another area where I will look to improve, but at this stage I’m not sure of the answer to this issue but will look to improve it in some way. 

Looking into the second year of college, my goal is to work on my lighting and audio skills due to the problems I had with this project. I will do this by watching videos on how to improve these skills and will hopefully show improvements by doing multiple test shots. I would also like to improve my english and script writing skills as I feel like the script for this project wasn’t the best and felt a little bit flat. I will do this by reading books and film scripts. For next year's FMP, I am unsure on what I would like to do. This project was very long and took a lot of time away from my own life, so maybe I will make a shorter film which doesn’t take as much time away from my own life. I am very fond of the crime/drama genre as the last two films I have made were in that genre and have been very fun to make and watch, but I would also like to explore some new genres such as horror, cinematic and action. I am looking to continue filmmaking over the summer, and would like to make a cinematic short film when I go on holiday to Greece. The video will contain nice shots of the country which are appealing to the eye. I have also been asked to film my Uncles wedding in September, which will give me an opportunity to improve my camera and editing skills.