Evaluation – By Chantelle Walker
During this project, I produced an interactive video with audio that was accompanied by research, planning and contextual analysis along with attempts of problem solving throughout. Along with making an interactive came a lot of preparation. While planning my film, I had to create a storyboard, draft script, a pitch for my film and other pieces of written work that helped to make my film making process more smooth. While doing this project I also kept a production log which allowed me to document all the work I had completed in the weeks and gave me the opportunity to evaluate my work as I went along.
When coming up with an idea for my film I struggled coming up with something which I felt would allow me to show off my skills and have a great overall look. I made a mind map that was full of different ideas. I finally decided on the idea of doing a film that involved two girls who, like many people today, spend a majority of their time taking photos of places and mainly themselves. The concept of my film was to show people that in this generation we are blinded by technology. Many things around the world happen and even straight in front of us, yet we might not of even realised because we are fixated with our phones and don’t actually look up. I wanted to highlight this issue as I think it’s very relevant to most people.
In preparation of our interactive videos we all sat together and watched many different short interactive videos that were all different genres. This helped show what interactive videos were all about and how they are structured. This was also very helpful in our project because it allowed me to understand how to get across a message in a short amount of time and for it to be meaningful and clear to the audience. Throughout the whole project I always went back and viewed different interactive videos to help remind myself what I needed to do to make the theme and message bold. As well as watching videos we got set two essays which we had to complete in order to give us more help and understanding of the project. One of the essays was an interactive media essay. In this essay we had to discuss traditional and new media along with interactive media and the advantages and disadvantages of them all. Researching these helped with the project as it gave me a real insight into to the different media types and what audience they appeal too. The second essay was a film sound essay. For this we had to research the main sound types which included foley, atmos, and sound effects. We then had to analyse these sound in two chosen films. This research helped as it gave me a better understanding into the importance of sound also what type of sounds to use when creating a certain atmosphere.
Within the duration of my project I did encounter some problems. One of the issues I faced was planning times too film with my actors when they were both free, this having to also coincide with the weather. I did not want to film when it was raining because this would have a major effect on the audio and is not what I had planned. One of my actors was in school and the other actor went to college. I figured the best time to film was after college and school had finished. Due to me and one of my actors having work on the weekend it made it more hard when it came to filming. However, we did overcome this and managed to get all the filming done in time with plenty of remaining time of the project to spend on editing. While filming the main block of the film, one of my actors fell ill. This meant that I had to adjust my storyline a bit in order to let her go home and rest and then to also to make her departure to seem like part of the film. I managed to do this rather easily and when watching the film back I believe you cannot notice any changes were made. Another problem was that when filming the first few opening scenes, it was a windy day. I did not think it was windy enough to have a big effect on the audio, but it did. I then decided to have the first half of my film with no dialogue in, instead I put in some sounds to make up for this. I was worried that it would look strange having the first half with no dialogue then the second half with lots of dialogue. But there was not much else I could of done unless I had more equipment with me.
Throughout this project I think my skills have improved. I especially believe my editing skills have been massively developed. Before this project I didn’t realise how much work does go in to editing and I now appreciate that it’s a lot of hard work. I am now able to include a certain piece of audio from one clip and overlay it over multiple clips to make the audio seem more interesting and edit in clips that make it look more appealing, as opposed to a whole shot for the duration of a conversation. Along with practical skills development I believe my organising skills have also improved during this project as we are the ones that needed to plan and arrange everything. I managed to get everything done and felt organised throughout the project.
In addition to this I also got a lot more comfortable with using the appropriate equipment. At first I wasn’t very confident knowing that I had to do all the filming and thought I would of struggled when it came to using the camera. What I noticed was that some of my scenes came out very clear and then some came out a bit blurry. Although I am more confident with the camera now, I still need to learn more about how to adjust it to fully suit what type of work I am doing. If I had learnt more before the project started I think my film would of came out better as all the scenes would have been clear and not blurry at all.
Along with all the research I did throughout the project, it helped to teach me what conventions are needed in films to attract and interest your target audience. For my film my target audience was 12 and over. I decided on this target audience because I felt it was appropriate for the content that was going to be involved in my film. I do think my film appeals to that target audience because I think my film is relatable to people of that age. It’s relatable because it’s what they are experiencing. My film involves mystery and drama which is what I think appeals to my target audience because it’s intriguing. I was hoping to make the audience feel like they are in the situation along with the characters, I want it to challenge them and make them question what they would do in that same situation.
With peer feedback that I got I am confident that I know what I need to do in order to improve next time. I got told that my filming was good and that the camera shots helped to involve the audience. Although my camera shots and angles were good, it was apparent that some of them did not flow into one another as smoothly as the rest. This is something that I would need to improve on, I would do this by being more careful and putting more thought into how I position my characters in order to make it look like it was all filmed in the same time frame. I got told that the storyline was clear and interesting. The choices were relevant to that situation. Another thing that I needed to improve on is the sound. Although the sounds I used were appropriate to what was being shown on screen at that time, some of the natural ambient sounds made the production look less professional.
I agree with all the feedback I got given. What I think I should of done different is that with the first few opening scenes I filmed them without a tripod. This became very clear as when showing the establishing shots they appeared unsteady. Although this could be fixed when editing I still know it’s something that I could of done better. Another thing that I wish I did was take equipment that allowed me to record voice overs and edited them in which would of let me block out the wind.
I think the sound in my film is where I could make the biggest improvement. All the sound in my film is appropriate for what I have filmed but I was not impressed how they came out overall. At the beginning is when I particular did not like the sound. I was unsure on what music to put in the background and what else to put in to make it more interesting. In the second half I mainly kept all the original sounds in and think it worked really well.
Overall I am happy with how my film came out. I specifically like the scene where one of my characters woke up in the middle of the night and is looking at her-self in the mirror stressing over whether she has made the right decision. I used short clips to add together to build up the tension. I also like the lighting in this scene as it’s lit up by candles that she blows out at the end.
Chantelle's Blog 