Personal Critical Evaluation

EVALUATION

Overall this project I have thoroughly enjoyed taking part in. The process and reflecting on it has really helped me to develop my ways of working with other people and doing a project a little differently because of this.

I think we made a successful piece and worked hard for it. I know I haven’t put in as much effort as I could have into my blog as I hadn’t done assignments set. I hadn’t done much research due to lack of time and other things going on but have learned from this.

I also think I spent too much time editing and forgetting about this aspect of the project and there was an imbalance. So now I have learned the importance of balance when having parallel work to complete.

We were creative and have made the most out of our work as possible to make sure it reaches a good standard.

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS:

We had a bit of a swaying forward and backwards in terms of deciding who’s idea to go for. But in the end weighed the outcome up of the each subject and Sally’s subject turned out to be the most accessible person to produce about. We worked as a team to brainstorm and think of ideas that worked well for each subject and Sally’s by far was the one we could work well with.

- We then had too many ideas for Emily (our subject) and couldn’t narrow the ideas down to exploring just a few of them. So we struggled to pinpoint and make it as simple as possible but again as a team we weighed each idea up and discussed how we could produce it and was left with the ideas we have implemented now.

We then looked at Sally’s idea and started brain storming possible narratives and ideas, once meeting Emily in person I think we all realised that she had great camera presence and then we really started thinking about what we wanted from the piece and go to work on the ideas. So although our first idea fell through we managed to get our back up one on track which turned out to be the best decision anyway.

- Time was of an essence it was vital and we had to use it wisely. When organising shoots with Emily we only had 3 weeks to shoot and edit so we arranged a time to shoot and she cancelled as she had a last-minute audition.

This threw us all out of our production schedule as we had lost 3 days till we could next record with her. But we used this time wisely to hire equipment out and get familiar with it and research the setting thoroughly so we could have definite shots to explore with.  This also helped our editing process as we had discussed a rough structure for our timeline when editing.

We learned from this to be a step ahead all the time and to expect the unexpected but still have a contingency plan.

When getting feedback from the group and Ken we had to resolve an issues that arisen or improve things that were suggested. And our audio was one aspect of our project that let the piece down.

You could hear the clunking of the camera mic and the buzzing and echoes of the studio footage. We tried to adjust levels of audio but nothing seemed to work. We started to get frustrated as visually our piece was really good but audio wasn’t. So after using this challenge we tried to amend this but nothing worked. So we had to refer to Paul the sound technician for advice.

He introduced us to Adobe Audition a sound editing software. He taught us how to use it and helped us remove the bad audio we had and it worked like magic we were s happy with the results of this software.

It was like  the mistakes were never there!!

So we all learned a new software and have learned form the project how to problem shoot and how important sound is and how it can jeopardise a project if it is done poorly. So next time I will definitely be as equally focused to make sure sound is of a good quality.

UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION

This project I was shocked with how little I had a leadership role. In all my previous projects I have had the leadership role and organised but this time we all just as equally put in as much work as we could.

Because both me and Jess enjoyed editing I think I found times when I’d get impatient or found it hard to watch her edit as we approached editing in two different ways. So I definitely leaned to be more tolerant than ever before.

I personally have done editing, shot some observational footage and recorded audio.

This is one thing I really enjoyed about our group is how we all pitched in equally and ensured we all had a go at everything.

Because I had not done much research I was less fortunate than the other girls in terms of knowledge and inspiration but it was a good and bad thing. Bad because I couldn’t have a great deal to say about the style as I hadn’t been inspired by anything but good because it helped me to be more focus on other areas like editing. And not worry about the style and left that to the other members to create and I contributed a lot in editing and making editing as sharp as possible.

I did half of the editing and tweaked little parts and made the production file. We all contributed equally and can say I have learned a lot from working with such individuals and adapting to it.

Feedback from Ken after 1st shoot

After filming Emily in the studio for the fotage we would edit as her interview to refer back to in between observational shots Ken wanted to see what we had done and give feedback.

The footage we shot was a voiceover piece and a few head shots to refer back to her.

FEEDBACK:

- The humming of the air con in the studio was picked up and needed to be removed: we didn’t notice this as we were so use to it but listening back after being told abut it we noticed it even more.

The solution to this was simply using adobe audition to extract the sound and Holly knew this as she’d experience a similar problem in a previous project. So we weren’t too worried aotu resolving this.

- For the interview we used the camera mic and it was intimate and we were close enoughto pick her voice up. Ken didn’t like this as he explained it picked up unwanted sounds liek the hollow acoustics of the room reflects in her voice

Our solution to this was using this advice to learn from for future projects.
- Ken also highlighted that now our voice over is over we really need to focus on getting well shot footage of observational cleaning footage. And to make it as atmospheric as possible to sharpen the spraying sound of the furniture polish and to play around with lighting to make it suitable.

With this feedbac we were really happy with as it could’ve been a lot worse but it was minor adjustments to improve on it has helped to reflect back on what we have done and how we could improve and enhance our work form now on.

Obs footage DONE!

Our observational footage was now done. We were extrememly happy with what we had recorded and captured.

I think the feedback form others and criticism has helped us to produce a more potent piece. We have focused and things we would usually be laid backabotu and made sure every aspect of the production (sound. visually) was as sharp as possible.

We experimented alot with shots and bounced ideas of each other on what we could produce to reflect atmosphere in Emily’s cleaning and after a few mess arounds had some really good shots.

Now all it was is showing what we had to Ken.

FEEDBACK

The feedback from our observational footage of Coombe Abbey Hotel :

- He liked our visuals, strong picture

- He liked establishing shots of outside area to break up piece of the interior hotel room

- Have a structure of visuals to give the project a strong foundation and make it visually aestethic

- More close ups of Emily so that the audience can relate and meet her properly earlier on in the documentary

-  Add a visionetter to make the edges of her in the studio darker again to make it more atmospheric as he said it looked like we had tried to glam it up by brightening the whtie background of the studio.

Considering how much we’d done and thoguht Ken would give alto of major criticism to ensure our piece to be the best it could be again we were really happy with his response. It was little adjustments we could work with to improve our work but these little adjustments made a big effect on the way the documentary looked so we were grateful for the reflection.

We know have to go and edit the changes.

Going for the final idea

Our Group existed of: Sally, Jess, Nina and Holly

And we discussed our final idea before going out and shooting the interview to get ourselves on the right level of understanding of the perception of our documentary,

We discussed:

- style of our documentary to be.

- what we wanted to include as content of the production and we came to the conclusion of:

• Emily’s current situation by how she hasn’t yet fulfilled her dream of becomign a performer.
• She works as a maid in a hotel to earn a wage.
• Struggle to find work and how her industry adds to that struggle
  
• The contrast of her being a maid and wanting to be a performer
  

We decided the main outline of the 3 minute documentary would be her contrast between both of her jobs and the struggles she facing to reach her dream of being a performer!!

1st production meeting

We discussed the following ideas at our meeting. Next we will develop these ideas and see if they actually work well. Who knows maybe it’ll lead to other ideas…

Filming the TV when she is on it. Audition tape – hello my name is, hand held? In dark room (tarnation)
Interview – Locations, Studio, set up as audition piece. Professionally lit, white back drop, exposing lighting. Nothing in background. Interview questions, her replies to over stills and clips that we get. Coombe abbey, establishing shot, (pride and prejudice, sees pemberley) switches to observational, oppositional, wow to how boring it actually is for such a grand place, un-glamorizing. Actual observation shots, nicely composed shots viewing her non intrutional. Dull lighting, drained, shadowy, candle light, natural through windows mirroring the unnatural light of staging.
Archive footage – pictures of younger, on stage, dancing? Any videos if possible. Professional rather than amateur. Head shots. Pop idol footage, boot camp etc. Footage of possible audition this week. images shown on TV, so it feels more like your watching it back with her. TV light on her face, TV over her shoulder, TVs out of focus.
Graphics – basic speech following text.
Reconstruction – Using the conventions and codes of an audition to introduce our character.
Music – Emily, humming a tune naturally.. Using footage and singing on some clips. Scales?
Emily’s audition number as the title – represents that she is one out of millions of people searching for the job of their dreams.

REAL LIVES: 1585 100 word synopsis

Emily Jane Brookes is a young aspiring actress recently graduating from drama school in 2008, with dreams and aspirations of becoming an actress on the west end this extremely talented woman is having to deal with the reality of how the recession has hit the entertainment industry now more than ever. Emily is having to cope by working as a cleaner part time to support her while the industry is at a low. Racing from a London audition and back to Coventry and donning her cleaner’s outfit, this is a documentary about how she feels about her situation that so many other actors face.

Ken’s Feedback 1

After pitching what we had finalised as the outline and written a treatment, shooting script, story board and other pre production work we pitched the idea to Ken.

He commented it to be:

- a positive idea

- character was a good subject and idea and would work well

- main aim is to keep it simple as her story is parallel narratives our solution to this was to keep the archive footage we wanted to include just at the beginning rather than throughout. Also by filming her observationally in her job as a maid cleaning so its intriguing for audience to watch

Sally met Emily

Sally met Emily our subject and said it went well.

Emily was in the know and understood what we were trying to put across to our viewers.

She was enthusiastic which made us enthusiastic!

Sally went through the interview questions and Emily replied really well and had some great answers!

Emily’s websites are as follows:

Casting call pro page: http://www.uk.castingcallpro.com/view.php?uid=174518

Spotlight website: http://www.spotlight.com/interactive/cv/973701929745

This could be used as archive footage which is what we wanted for the beginning

19TH NOVEMBER

We shot the interview footage of Emily after briefing her of what we expected and what we wanted to get across. It went really well!! She responded well and was good on camera looked aesthetic too.

We amended the lighting so it was well lit and not too dark or with heavy shadows. We wanted the light to really reflect an atmosphere so we spent a while getting the dedo lights perfect.

We wanted to record her responses so we could edit whatever was relevant into the final piece. We ended up recording 40 MINUTES!! The girl could talk which was positive it gave us more to work with.

Feedback after pitch to Ken

Once we’d pitched our idea of doing a documentary on Emily Brookes and presented our storyboard and treatment Ken gave his feedback:

We explained that we wanted the majority of it observational and it to keep flashing back to the interview in the studio and have voiceovers over photos of when she was younger acting.

We also explained we wanted it low lit to add to the atmosphere in the hotel and have action shots of her cleaning e.g. hoovering ,dusting.

FEEDBACK TO THIS

- keep it simple

- don’t make it profile like more observational content

- get the message across and not too much use of archive

Researching group idea

We all went for Sally’s idea.

Emily the actress: she was easy to access was willing to take part, the story about her was suitable and she seemed to be a really good character.

Emily is an aspiring actress recently graduated but hit by the current climateof emplyment and is finding it hard to survive against capitalism.

So for our documentary on her I wanted to focus on the contrasts of her life to survive. She works part time as a cleaner of a hotel and this is a way of her making her living as well as auditioning and trying to find her dream job.

We wanted to highlight these aspects as much as possible and visually have the obvious contrasts of her glamorous thrive to being an actress to her real life being a cleaner and show footage of cleaning.

The content of the documentary will be her explaining her story of ho hard it is to be successful and fulfill a role as a performer in the current recession.

Originally we all decided we wanted to express this through photos but with feedback from Ken it was advised photos would get boring and not set the actual atmosphere. So we developed the idea of doing an observational styled documentary and observe her cleaning with switching close up shots of her talking about how it has affected her. We can reflect ehr ambition of being a performer and working in a hotel as a cleaner through different lighting to suggest the difference.