Final Evaluation

For this unit I chose to do a short film and a music video. I chose to do this as I knew
that I would get my best grade for it. I like being able to have the freedom of using
effects and shooting fast cut clips, to go with the fast-paced song.

I started by writing up my production schedule. This was going to tell me what I

would be doing on different days, it also included key dates like the pitch and final
edit deadline. This helped me structure my work and complete tasks at a good rate.
I then tried to find a client or festival to present my work to, I decided to go for a
festival instead of a client because it would mean I get to choose most of the idea. I
decided on the UK Film Festival. This festival had set guidelines, that I knew I

would’ve been able to fit and if not, I could manipulate my work so that it did. I
would fit the deadline easily as I would’ve finished my project by then so that didn’t
worry me. They also offered the largest cash prize in the Uk so if by any chance I won
I would be able to create a lot of better-quality productions in the future. By picking
a festival to submit my work to it gave me guidelines to follow which would then help
structure the outcome of my production for me. I then came up with my four ideas. I
came up with two music video ideas, one short film and one documentary idea. I
had a favourite idea which was one of the music videos about a relationship. I sent
out a survey asking what idea I should do for my final major project. I sent links out on
all my social
media, so I could
get responses
from a range of
ages. The results
came in saying I
should do a
music video on
the
snowboarding
idea. I felt quite
happy and
comfortable with
this, I had
originally wanted
to do a music
video. The
reason why I first
started this course was because I got interested in filming and editing from making
skiing/snowboarding videos with my friends. So, I felt comfortable being able to
create a production about a topic I’m passionate about. This would mean that I
spend more time on the written work as it’s something that interests me. I think that I
had completed my context tab well and made it look good and presentable. I
didn’t have any issues with this part of the work, but I did spend too long doing the
rationale

Overall, I have had very

good feedback from my
context work. I got some
key feedback from my
teacher that helped me
understand more about
what I had to write in my
project concept and
rationale. I feel that I
could’ve improved this
work more if I had read the
guidance on Vibe more
and understood fully on
what I had to write about.

For the research I found it

difficult to get started as I
didn’t know what areas of
my idea I needed to
investigate. By doing a
research plan this helped
me pin point a few key
topics that I thought could improve my idea for my production. I knew that I had a
difficult topic that I had to research into, so I think I did quite well when it came to
search for my research and finding useful sites that I could use to develop my idea.
The websites and articles played a massive part to how my production started to
develop, I managed to find lots of information
online about how my characters mood should
be displayed I felt like this was key to my
production as it was a music video I couldn’t
have any dialogue to tell the audience how
he was feeling. The part of research that I
mostly took inspiration from the articles that I
found. It took me a while to find some that I
thought really related well, and what really
helped me find more was that I already had
previous knowledge on skiers who had been
in that situation before. The articles were very
useful as I was able to understand what they
went through step by step. Being able to see
my idea happen in real life was able to really
show me how hard it was for that athlete
overcoming the mental and physical barriers
that were slowing him down in his recovery
time. I found this research so crucial to the development of my idea as this is what
helped make that emotional connection between viewer and my production.
Because of my personal skiing background, I knew how my video should look and
how I should act when injured, so this also helped me a lot in that aspect. As I am
quite active myself I found it interesting learning about the proper protocols in the
rehabilitation programme, I learnt that athletes go through fear, frustration and
depression I learnt this from a website written by a physio who monitors injured
players. After watching many ski films, I have also noticed that they can be quite
rebellious. I also really enjoyed doing this part of the research as it was topics that I
have an interest in because of this I think that’s why I worked so well on discovering
the needed research. Based on all of this I think that I worked well and efficient on
finding materials. I feel like I maybe could’ve found this information a bit sooner, but I
am happy with the amount of research that I have completed. This has helped me
be able to adapt my idea to make it a lot more realistic. I haven’t been able to
complete heaps of research but the parts that I do have are very spot on and suited
to my idea and production.

To find out what people thought of

my idea I first had to send out
surveys to people asking them
what they thought my target
audience should be I did what I
did for my context surveys and sent
them out on my social media as
last time I got loads of responses.
My first question I asked was what
gender they think my target
audience would be. 92% said
Male. I thought this would be the
case, but I sent out the surveys just
to be sure. The next question I then asked was what age is best for my target
audience. To me this was the more important of the two as it changes what sort of
production I get to do. This will also change my characters age and the props
locations and effects in my production. 20% said under 18, 18-24 said just under 50%
it was clear that this was going to be this age. I was happy with these results as I am
in my own target
audience. This
means that my
mise-en-scene will
be very simple to
complete. It also
helped me get
actors for my
production. For
the friends they
could all be my
age.

When I got my
results, I was able
to start my target
audience research. I wanted to see what their spending habits are, this tells me
what props I they would expect to be in the scenes. I learnt that only 23% of 18-24-
year-old smoke and only 23% binge drink. I also learnt that 18-year olds spend an
extra 17 minutes a day on their phones. From that I could tell that there is a lot of free
time with people that age. Which would also explain why they would play online
games for an extra half an hour. This information came from the BBC and was
helpful, this helped me start to plan how long I should make the short film for, from
that I planned for it to be about a minute and thirty seconds. I also researched into
social media usage, this was so seeing how much time they spend online, and what
apps they use. I found out that the most popular apps are Facebook I was happy
how the research has affected and developed my idea. It really helped me start to
visualise what I’ll be showing my target audience. What would’ve made this work go
a lot better would be if I got the survey results sooner. As I then could’ve started
analysing sooner I then could’ve started working on other work, so I wouldn’t be as
far behind.

After looking into my target

audience in more detail I then
wanted to see what my target
audience thought of my idea.
This was so I could find out what
I could do to make it better
and more suited to them. I
decided to start of with a focus
group in my focus group I
asked questions from my
survey. This focus group was
good as it allowed people in
my target audience to give me
better responses. People tend
to be quite brief when writing a response online, so doing a personal survey the
responses were more detailed, we were able to properly discuss my idea and some
ways that I could then develop my idea further. I then sent out surveys to people in
my target audience asking them what they liked most about my idea.

Here was my best response:

"How it shows the recovery and frustration of not being able to do things as good as
he could before"
This response made me then decide to show his anger and frustration in my
production, I did this by him throwing his skis and settling himself before he
attempting to try and ski again. I think by showing his frustration it shows the
audience more emotion which will then get

In my next question I asked if there was a strong emotional value to the story here is
my best response:
"The persistence of the character to keep trying to improve, following the injury.
Perhaps there is also emotional value if said character suffers from depression (not
clinical depression) when recovering and wrapped in bandages as he feels useless
and helpless without any control over his life's hobbies"
This response helped me decide to use the bandages on his leg as a sort of wall
that’s stopping my character from getting better. He then realises this and cuts off
his bandages, this is when he gets the inspiration to start training again and book his
trip. I feel that this idea has made my production have a bit more meaning and
emotional value now.
I then asked what social media platform I should post my production on, here are the results:

Responses

Youtube Vimeo Other

This has told me where I should post my production. By my target audience telling me this it
could help me try and promote my video more so that it could get more attention.

I then asked what locations they think I should use for certain shots, here is the best
answer:
"When he’s struggling with his injury in a dark room that shows anger and frustration"
This dark room idea helped me come up with a good way to also show his anger. I
used an effect that I was using at key point of my production. I used red lighting to
show his anger. I think this looked effective and helped my audience to continue to
understand how his feelings had changed throughout the production.

My final question was how they would adapt my idea to make it appeal to them
more, here is my best response:
"I would maybe focus a main part of the happy beginning of his life so that it shows a
big contrast after he has the injury"
This really helped me in my production. Specifically, in my short film. It made me
realise how much I had to try and show that he’s happy and passionate about his
sport. I will show him at a high level, so the audience understands how dedicated he
is to skiing. This really helped the emotional value to my whole production.

I was extremely happy with these responses. I got so many great ideas that I could
now use in my production. To me the most important question was about how I
could make it better for them, this is because they are my target audience and they
wouldn’t want to watch something that they feel alienated about. So being able to
match what they want to see from my production is key to me. I would’ve wanted a
few more responses but many people in my target audience are doing exams right
now and so are busy revising, however I personally feel that from the feedback that
was submitted I am going to be able to meet their needs well. If I had more
responses I would’ve had more things to change to meet their needs.
For my codes and conventions, I set out to find my genre. I sent out another survey
to my target audience asking them what genre they thought I should research into.
100% of my
target audience
agreed with me
and said that it
was best suited
to the drama
genre.
I then research
into the codes
and
conventions of a
music video and
a production from the drama genre. I found this useful as it was a way for me to
know what to look out for in the productions that I was going to analyse. This work to
me was key as without this my video analysis wouldn’t be as thorough and I
would’ve missed stuff that I have put in my own production.
From this I then picked out two productions to analyse. I pick a film and a music
video. Bleed for this, and the music video for the song that I’m using in my own
production. I chose to analyse the music video first here are some key things that
helped me in my own production:

From the music video the main thing that I implemented in my own production. Was
the use of fast editing, I noticed how throughout the whole video there is fast cut
footage. I didn’t think that it was that effective, so I decided to mainly do it around
the drops and towards the end of the song. I felt like this was quite unique in my
production and in my opinion, it seemed to flow a bit quicker. Especially when the
slow clips contrast with the fast cut footage with all his mates enjoying themselves
I also think that I used the costumes in my production. I noticed in the video that
they all are wearing casual clothes, when filming I told my actors to wear basic
clothes nothing too flashy. This would then allow the viewer to relate more as they all
seem normal. I think that I had well matched my work to the professional work that I
had looked at in my analysis.
I found the thing from the short film that helped me the most was the use of colour.
To mimic this in my own production I changed the white balance on my camera so
that I will be able to get different lighting in some scenes. The scenes where he is
learning about how bad his injury is, I want to make sure the viewer understands how
sad the moment is. It also emphasises how bad or good some moments are. When
he is training and getting better the lighting is going to be quite orange and warm
and when the scene is sadder the lighting will be cold and dark. This colour
phycology is very effective. I have use it in previous productions and it looks good. I
also looked a lot into different shot types. I noticed how a new location is shown in a
wide shot where the viewer can see the room more, this gives them a better sense
of what is going on. I think that the different shot types I have used in my production
are good. I have a wide range of shots from wide shots to close ups to far away
shots. These different shots give off different feelings, the wide shots set the scene.
The close ups show determination and that’s what in focus. The long shots show how
my character doesn’t feel involved in everything.

I was pleased and excited to get to use these conventions in my own work as I felt
together they really did change the whole mood of what is being shown to the
viewer. I feel that the work I have done is effective and precise and will be well
shown within my own production.

I feel that my production has really shown my topic off well. The reason why I think
that this has worked so well was because of my topic research, to me the topic
research is what helped me the most to start putting my production together. Being
able to look at the rehabilitation programmes for injured athletes, really allowed me
to understand and appreciate how much effort and time goes in to getting an
athlete back up and active. I think that I’ve shown this determination well when he
starts training to try and get fitter again so that he could compete again. I also feel
that by looking into the phycological effects of an athlete being away from sport for
so long has really helped in how my production looks and really helped give it that
emotional appeal. This was shown when I show him looking depressed, I tried to
show this by him looking bummed even when all his mates were round to cheer him
up. I also showed him sat down with the mountain scene rising within him. This was to
show how much he misses the sport and how the sport is a part of him. The research
that I investigated that teaches me about the fear factor was probably the research
that helped me the most. As during the skiing section, I could show his nervousness.
He will then be reminded by why he did all the training whilst he’s taking a time out
sat down.

The articles that I investigated was the most important part of my topic research to
me. I was able to read up on how each athlete got injured and then what they did
and how they managed to cope when getting fit enough to perform again. A great
video I found was the Few Words video about a skier called Candide Thovex, he
broke his back and was told he’ll never ski again, he then trained hard and is now
able to ski at a high standard still. I feel like I have taken most of my ideas abut how
he was really demotivated and depressed from this film, so to me this research really
helped me decide what footage to show in the short amount of time in my music
video.

In my production I had six characters. I played the main character in my production,

which at first, I thought would be quite stressful as I knew how I wanted it to look but
not my camera operator. But whenever I needed some filming done I made sure
that I explained well what sort of shot I wanted and how to do it. I can up with a
good way of completing this, I would film the scene I wanted using the camera
operator as the actor they would then watch it back and mimic what I filmed. This
method worked well, it also kept me on my toes as well, as they would sometimes
ask questions about something that I may had forgotten. Being the main actor in my
production meant that I had to edit all the footage of me, to me I found this quite
hard and uncomfortable as I didn’t think that the acting in the shots looked good
enough. But after getting feedback from teachers and peers I realised that it was
just because I knew I was acting and so it didn’t feel real enough for me.

For the physio scene I used my mum. The images that were on display of the x-ray
were pictures of an injury she got mountain biking over the summer. She knew where
all the points of where was affected by the fall. This meant that her acting was good
as she was just telling me about her injury. This made the conversation between the
physio and my character feel a lot more real. I think this added to the emotional
effect by having actors that were well shown and didn’t look awkward behind the
camera.

For the party scene I invited some friends round that all knew each other and got on
well, this made the atmosphere feel more of a social gathering than a fake scene
just being recorded. I feel that this really helped as the footage I got of them having
a laugh wasn’t scripted, and I just captured what was happening that night. I think
that this made my characters feel a lot more relatable as they didn’t seem stiff or
faking it. By creating the environment that I did this scene went smoothly. This was
the one that I was thinking was going to be the hardest as I did think it would look
real enough. But thanks to my selection of actors this was all able to run smoothly.

I think that all the characters I used in my production were well suited to my
production as I wanted to show a theme of friendship. By all being friends, it didn’t
feel awkward for them having to act together and have a laugh. As I had an
interest in skiing before this unit I had watched plenty of ski videos, and seen how the
skiers get frustrated and act, I was then able to mimic the way they act and seem
genuinely aggravated. Even though I had no choice of using another actor in my
production I feel that I was the best suited actor for it anyway due to my previous
knowledge.

I didn’t face too many problems in this unit, the main one throughout my written
work was just that I was falling behind on some of the work. But during the filming I
did struggle when it came to film the skiing part. As I had to film this part in February I
didn’t have time to plan any shots. So, each day I would come back after filming
and not have enough footage. I spent about three days trying to get enough
footage. But in the end, this wasn’t enough footage as I wanted to do fast editing.
This meant that I had to cut down the footage that I had filmed. After I did this I had
a lot of room where I had to add footage. It was lucky that I used to film my previous
ski trips, so I had plenty of good footage to drag into my production that fit well. In
the end I think the skiing section looked a lot better than before the fast editing.

Another problem was trying to film the scene where I get the mountains to rise within
his body, I attempted this double exposure about three times before being forced to
stop. I didn’t know how I could make the footage look right. The last attempt that I
asked my brother to move my mum’s car, so we could use the headlights to light up
the scene. He then crashed into my dad’s car. Both cars then had to be sent to be
repaired this meant that I didn’t have any adequate lighting that could fill the whole
shot. I then just had to colour grade my clip so that the darker areas were dark and
the light areas lighter. This didn’t work for me, so I tried taking the clip into after
affects and drawing an all-white background, I then realised that this method would
be very timewasting as I would have to do it frame by frame. I found the way round
by playing around with the colour and turned it into black and white. This work well
enough were you could easily see what was going on in my shot.

I also had one more problem with one of my scenes. Where I wanted to do a gif
effect with an all-black background with the subject being lit by a red light. I
couldn’t find a way to get it looking good on my camera though, as with some
settings the scene was so dark you couldn’t see anything, or it was so bright you
could see the background. I tried with the settings for about half an hour before I
decided to shoot the photo some place else. The final photos didn’t look bad, but
they weren’t the original scene that I wanted to shoot.

Apart from these there weren’t any other problems that I encountered that I felt
really hindered my production, there were times that my laptop was being slow but
if I just left it for a while it would sort itself out.

I feel that I was

able to match the
frustrating moods
when they weren’t
at the level they
were at before
they got injured. In
both productions
the cameraman Is
quite a distance
away from the
actual event this
shows how angry
the character is. This long-isolated shot shows that even his mates don’t want to get
involved in how
the feel. This
shows the
amount of
passion that
both characters
have for the
sport.
Another comparison that I
spotted in both productions
was when they are both
looking out watching other
people skiing/ riding. This shot
really shows the desperation
in both characters. In mine I
have a short clip of the
mountains play inside of my
character. This is mean to act
like his motivation so
whenever he is feeling
weakest he can rely on that
feeling to motivate himself. In
the production I researched into you can see his face, for this that is all that’s
needed for the viewer to see what
he wanted. However, in mine his
face is hidden by his helmet so I had
to show another way to show what
he wants.

If I were to do my whole final major project again I would make sure that I stay on
top of the work and not let myself fall behind as much. I would also allocate a full
day on the weekend to be able to catch up with any work that I maybe hadn’t
completed to the highest standard or something that I missed. I would also make
sure that I would’ve completed the weekly blog every week even if I was behind on
other work. I don’t think there’s much that I would change to my production apart
from maybe making it into a short film. In this unit for the first time I felt really limited
by the length of the song. I had so many ideas that I wanted to add into it to make
the story better, but I couldn’t fit it all in. I then had to pick the scenes which I
thought would explain my story the best. I chose to do editing as my specialism and
in this project, I didn’t feel like I was able to fully show off my full knowledge and skill
in what I can do. I was still able to use quite a few effects, but I didn’t feel like I could
add anymore to my project without overdoing it. I also had a good narrative and I
didn’t want to lose it with all the editing distracting the viewer.

Even though this final project has been very stressful and fun at the same time I have
really enjoyed being able to produce a professional looking production. I also feel
that this last unit has really tested my patience and time management. Time
management is something I have always struggled with and even though I still did
fall behind I am getting better. And this is all practice for when it really matters in the
future.