Task 6
- 2. Effectiveness of research. What could have been better? 0 For my research I looked into different documentaries on of the documentaries I looked at was ‘A Beautiful Struggle’. I chose to look at this documentary for the style it was presented. I didn’t want my final outcome to be just one continuous video I wanted to have photos pop up. One of the ideas I liked from this video is that they chose key words that the interviewees said and had them fade onto screen. I wanted to include this idea within my production but I couldn’t find an appropriate area of my video to put it in. 0 I would have liked to look into more documentaries for the presentation style so that I could have something to reference to when editing my final video. I think that it would of made my overall video look a lot more interesting.
- 3. 0 With my research I think I could of done more than I did. I would’ve liked to have looked at documentary styles in more detail, things such as camera angles or set up. 0 I looked a lot into the director Lucy Walker. I found that the majority of films/documentaries have quite a deep meaning behind them. One of the shorts I looked at was ’The Lions Mouth Opens’ I looked at this one specifically because it follows one woman's story which is the approach I took for my film. If I did my research again I would've wanted to look into more of Lucy's work to see if I could find more similar work ideas to mine. 0 I also looked into Asif Kapadia’s documentaries. Having looked at Kapadia’s work in a previous unit I am already aware of the styles of documentaries he produces. With his documentary ’Amy’ all of the footage he used was found footage. I liked this idea of using other cutaway footage, but after going through home videos I couldn’t find any footage relating to the interview.
- 4. 0 Other research I did was surveys. I wanted to survey the people close to my age range to find if they would be interested in the style of film I'm doing. I found that most people would be interested in a film like this from the answers I got. However I think my survey could have been done better. I should have gotten more of an age range of people to vary the answers. 0 I also did some online research. I looked at documentaries from the BBC and ITV. From looking at these I research what sort of people would watch these style of documentary. I would have liked to have talked to people who have seen the documentary and ask them what they liked about it.
- 5. Methods used, missed opportunities? 0 When filming I asked the person being interviewed to be as natural as possible when telling this story. Using this method, I think that the outcome of the video looks natural and not rehearsed at all. Which is the look I was going for, I didn’t want my video to look scripted because I think it would take away the realism of the story that is being told. 0 I think the missed opportunities for my film is having more than one person telling the story. Because the story is about one main person who touched many lives it could’ve been better if I included multiple people. I think by doing that I would've broken up the one video with multiple people. The issue would be getting everyone to Harrogate to film
- 6. Final concept? 0 The final concept for my FMP is a pilot episode for a documentary series. I decided this because I would like to do a full documentary series like this in the future and I wanted to see what a pilot episode would look like. I want to have the main story include a lot of mini stories that the person watching could relate to. I want the way the film comes across to be as if the audience is being told a story by the interviewee.
- 7. Planning, what went well…what did not? 0 I think the overall of my planning went well. When planning where to shoot the main interview, we kept running into time issues. There wasn’t a set time for when filming was going to take place until a week and a half before hand. This was an big issue because I feel like everything was quite rushed, such as planning travel. 0 When going to film at filey, that turned out quite well. There were no issues when out filming apart from the camera battery dying. But we had finished filming by this point. 0 When planning who was going to do what, I found this easy because I knew what everyone is good at and I was able to utilize their skills. 0 When planning what I wanted my main shot to look like I struggled, I didn’t know if I wanted it to frame the person being interviewed or have them off to one side.
- 8. Production, what went well…what did not? 0 When planning when to film there was quite a few issues with the date for when I wanted to film. Some people couldn’t make it due to travel issues. However, the filming would have been cancelled anyway because there was work being done on the house. 0 During production I faced quite a few issues on the technical side. When I was fist set to film I had everything set up but when it came to recording audio, the only thing it would pick up would be static. I tried recording the audio through the camera but it wasn’t as good quality. Because of this I had to re-schedule filming for another time.
- 9. 0 This was quite inconvenient for people within the production some had to take time off work to fit the new date. 0 Another issue that I faced during production was that the SD card I had was already full when I went to film. Because of this I had to take a while out of filming to clear what I didn’t need off of the SD card. 0 Filming the title sequence went really well. We got the shot I needed in only about 3 takes, which didn’t take long at all.
- 10. Post-production, what went well…what did not? Finish filming Import recordings Footage Import into new premiere Audio Connect specific audio and footage together Trim each segments to the required length Put the audio and footage in correct order Color correction Sound correction Import title and credits sequence Add footage effects Add audio effects Add footage transitio ns Add audio transitio n Import title and credits sequence Export full video Upload video Post-production fin 0 This diagram shows how I did pre-production after filming. 0 After I imported all of the footage I had to go through and sync up the audio. This part didn’t take that much time because during production I
- 11. 0 used a clapper board before each take so that I would get a spike in both sets of audio (recorder and camera) doing this made it easier to sync up the audio. 0 Before each take I didn’t say what the take was (e.g. set 3 take 4) so when it came to finding the right take it took a bit longer. 0 In my film I'm using some images I didn’t want to just use a plain image so I decided to add a polaroid border to the image to have it stand out from the video. Adding a border to each photo took a while to do. I then wanted to have some movement within the photo (parallax) so I had to re-edit all of the photos. This took me a while because I'm not very skilled when it comes to using photoshop. 0 Getting all of the footate and audio in order went really well and importing the rlevent photos went well also. However, some parts of the interview I couldnt find any rlevent photos to go with the video because if this, I think that the video looks quite plain in some places
- 12. How you dealt with TECHNICAL problems? 0 During production I didn’t face that many problems. The biggest one I did face was the first time I went to film. Everything was set up but when we went to use the audio recorder all you could hear was static. At the time we didn’t know how to fix this issue. So to deal with this problem, we planned when we would film again. 0 While editing the film early on premiere pro kept crashing. To deal with this issue I would have to re-start the application. Usually this works. However in some occasions it would still crash and I would loose and editing day. If this occurred I would take the day to do some written work.
- 13. How you dealt with MANAGEMENT problems? 0 The managemental problems I dealt with was mostly to do with timing. I was the one who decided when we would be filming so I would have to check with everyone if that time would be suitable for them. 0 I also dealt with travel. I was in charge of booking the correct train tickets for the crew. As well as getting directions for filming locations and finding a parking space at the locations as well. 0 I also looked into facilities we would need at the different locations, (bathroom, food and drink).
- 14. How you dealt with EMOTIONAL problems? 0 I didn’t really face any emotional problems throughout my production. The only issue I found was with the storyline itself and the way that it has been protreyed.
- 15. Does your product meet your intentions? 0 Overall I think my project has met my intentions. The story was told better than I thought it would be. I liked the overall outcome on how the video looks. I'm happy with the music choices I made, I think they fit really nicely where I chose to put them. I don’t think that the music drowns out the person speaking, but compliments what they're saying. 0 I would of liked to have included more graphics/ and or images, to make the video less plain.
- 16. Clear outline of job role 0 Everyone who worked on my project had a clear understanding of what their job role was. Even though throughout production, job roles would change and we would help each other with different tasks if need be. The people that I asked to help me with my project did a really good job.
- 17. Audience Feedback 0 “I really like your opening title shot I think that it really draws in the attention of the audience.” 0 “after you telling me your full idea of a documentary series with the same idea as this I would really like to see more stories from different people.” 0 ”I do like how the story is portrayed, but I would of loved to seen some home footage to back up the ideas.”
- 18. Clear instructions 0 “Before filming started we talked through what would be happening. Which I think was done clearly. I had been prompted with what I was going to say and that made me feel more confident when going in front of the camera. The filming took part in my own home which was even better because I was in a comfortable environment.” 0 ”I knew what my job was going to be straight away I'm always driving her around. I was pleased to have known the parking was looked into before driving there.” 0 “Yes my job was perfectly clear before and during the filming process. Also my instructions were very clear and I knew perfectly what you wanted me to do and changes to the plan were easily understood.”
- 19. Problems/issues 0 “The only issue I found with myself is that I kept looking at the camera during each segment so we had to re-do it. I did think filming took longer than I thought it would do.” 0 “The issue I found is that filming takes longer than I thought it would so I found myself with nothing to do while everyone else was off filming” 0 “There were initially a few technical issues at the beginning but these were quickly sorted.
- 20. Management style 0 “I think the management style was good but I feel a bit biased answering that because were related.” 0 “I was informed of the date and time well in advance of when we would be filming with was good for me because if I needed to I could of taken time off work.” 0 “Support was always available when one of us needed guidance. You managed the situation well, managing to keep yourself, myself and the interviewee calm throughout most of the filming.”