Depict! Short Evaluation

Evaluation

As a mockumentary, the short is emulating the style of a documentary, so we used a handheld camera throughout, without aid of a tripod. Due to this, the camera wasn't as stable as it would be in a feature film for example, giving a sense of natural and spontaneous behavior with the character on screen.

We kept the scenes fairly natural, removing the camera bag and any other equipment used for filming. The locations we picked best suited what we needed for each scene. The house had a fairly large living room, so a body could be on the floor and then dragged. The office looked professional and suggested that Death worked in a building with other office workers. For the interview, all was needed was a white wall and a chair, however it was done last-minute and so a more quiet location wasn't found.

The short contains basic edits, as a fly-on-the-wall documentary wouldn't necessarily have transitions, on-screen graphics (aside from text), etc. In terms of continuity, we tried our best to keep objects in the same places by trying not to touch any objects that didn't need moving. If we did need to move objects for any reason, we made sure that we moved it back to its original location before filming the next shot.

For the most part, the short didn't have any music, to help fit in with the documentary style. Also, we didn't edit the sound captured by the camera much, as it helped create the feel of a fly-on-the-wall documentary that doesn't use much equipment and doesn't use much editing, aside from basic cuts.

The feedback we got on the short was fairly positive. People said that there was good humor and that how it was shot was very good in emulating the documentary style of a mockumentary. However, improvements such as sound quality were suggested as the voices weren't all one level throughout.