Chapter 7 - Evaluation, Reflection, Authentication & Bibliography

Unit 13Extended Project in Creative Media Production
Written By Owen Phillips

Project Evaluation & Reflection

  • Introduce the project in your words

    For my final major project, I decided to create a campaign video for my campaign for the Local Elections in Southport. I was given the opportunity to stand in April as a paper candidate and I took it to get a feel of how the system works and of course because I am passionate about Southport. In the process I thought that creating a campaign video would be good to boost my campaign and of course drum up enough support for the next time If I choose to do it again next time.

    What inspired me to create a video is because I saw a gap in the industry were there was people creating videos with little to no effort being put into them or generally don’t have a single glue about the film making side; So that is why I thought by adding a good campaign with a good quality film. The microphone quality could of been better, but with cheap mics - they are generally not very good quality. I did experiment with this throughout the project to make the most of them as they were.

  • List five strengths and five weaknesses in your final product.

    To start with I am going to start off with the strengths of my final product. The first strength is that the planning and script was all clear and easy to read, with it being a campaign video I thought a storyboard would be good if I was shooting different angles and shot types and with this only being simple medium shots, I thought I wouldn’t need to produce one. The second strength is that the way I spoken and the clearness aside from the mic quality was terrible was really good and I didn’t stutter and have massive pauses when I did it; my body language was really good too and with it being a campaign video these kind of things are so vitally important. The third one is that the title screen which had my name on stating who I am and of course all the branding identity to go with it which gave the video purpose and a title. The forth strength was the outro drone shot with all the text saying “Join The Campaign” and this leads me onto the fifth strength were the music linked in with the pace of the video really well and it kept the flow of the video.

    Now we are going to move onto the weaknesses of my final product. The first and most obvious one that I am well aware of because I had to deal with it was the microphone quality was absolutely terrible, they were loaned out from the college and must of been really cheap and bad quality. I have had to experiment with the levels to see if I could mitigate the problems, but it didn’t go to plan. The second weakness was when I never added any subtitles to my production so that people could read it without listening to it, it is a very common thing to add them on and for some reason I didn’t add any. The third weakness was were at the beginning I should of used the thumbnail as the intro screen because it uses the correct text font with the added corporate colour look and rather then using an alternative font and a black background. The forth weakness is that I noticed when watching back over some of the footage of how some of the video was out of focus compared to the rest and I think things like this should of been picked up earlier on and re-shot on the basis that it was a poor shot; and now moving onto the very last thing which I realised I wasn’t happy with until I watched over the video a few times was at the end of the video, it reads out a few words and I highlighted them so you could read it better and I only highlighted it to the letter rather then putting in a space at both ends to make the letters breath better.

  • Was there a theme for the ideas? Can you reference any influences here?

    The theme was mainly to provide the residents of Kew Ward and Southport in general an update over the Eastern Access Scheme in Southport and show how damaging it can be to local businesses and motorists if imposed. I mainly targeted on the Southbank Road area as that one seems to be one of the most important ones to talk about. I don’t necessary agree with stopping all of the schemes, but the point of the campaign is to try and bring some common sense into it and understand what everyone wants rather than consulting, then ignoring and then making it happen. Now let me bring it back on topic of the film itself - One part of the video which influenced me is the ending as I have seen many times that people use drone shots of Southport as a good chill ending and I felt as if I should do it and I did by rather than using a drone shot of the Pier; I used a drone shot showing the landscape of Southport and I felt that looked a lot better then showing nice shots of the Pier from the Sky.

  • What experiments and exploration did you do, What were the outcomes, How did it affect the development of your project?

    As I have stated in my weekly progress tracker, I did lots of experimentation with the type of lens whether it was for the 8 - 12mm or the 16 - 60mm and I picked the 16 - 60mm because it given me more of a wide range view and of course options for the shoot. I also experimented with which microphone I should use ether it was the clip on mics or the on-top camera mounted Rode mic. All this was experimented with on one day of shooting before I went out again a few days later to shoot everything fully. I wouldn’t say any of this effected the the development because like I have always treated any other unit it was always an experimentation process through out and for this project, things came out better then I expected and there is always room for improvement and like I have said above in the strengths and weaknesses section were I described the good and bad parts.

  • What where the key areas of development in this project? - use your weekly reflections to help you with this.

    The main key area of development in this project was I used a script to plan the whole project. The reason I chosen that way of pre-production was because there wasn’t going to be loads of different types of shot types and angles being showcased as it is a campaign video and the only shot types I really used was medium shots and a few other cutaway shots. It isn’t a drama, so a lot of the minor things that I would usually put in which I didn’t.

    The other key area of development for this project is to learn how to create a compelling script for the campaign. I’ve never done something in this style before even though I have been at the fore front of campaigns. When I started getting guidance for how to layout, It came easy to me how to write it and of course put it across in a video with the write body language too because that is vitally important too.

  • Review your proposal - what changed, what developments did you make, did you manage to complete everything you set out to achieve.

    A lot has changed since my original proposal and it was all mainly down to candidate expenditure because if I created a video for any candidates during the regulated period it would go against that persons expenditure budget, so that is why I thought we do it on me because it doesn’t matter if I spent a little bit of my allocated £1200.00 because I am doing it for myself and it would help my campaign. By the time we finished planning it, filming it and editing it; I never had the time to officially publish to be part of my campaign, but what I did learn from it was the whole process preparing it with the party and of course getting things approved as parties like see what you put online and if they can sensor certain things. The experience has been really hard work, but this is generally politics as a whole.

    Now this leads me onto if I have completed what I have set out to do and I think I have successfully done that and of course there is going to be room for improvement for my next video. I wanted to showcase a campaign alongside a good quality video and I think I have done that in the best light I possibly can do. Of course the microphone situation will need sorting out for next time if I do another one, but all in all I think I did a good job.

  • What could you do to adapt the work produced to improve and develop it?

    Like I have already said above, I would rethink the microphone situation as the last set of clip on mics were terrible and of course I would make sure that some of the shots I have taken were in focus on me rather then the floor or elsewhere. I think I would also add subtitles into the video so that when the video is muted, you can still follow the video without listening to it fully. I would also use the thumbnail of the video as the intro screen as well because that keeps in the corporate image and it uses the party colours as well rather than using a blank screen with alternative text.

  • Is the final work appropriate for the needs of the project? Does it sufficiently answer your brief?

    I think it does after a long think about how to plan it out, film it and then to edit it. Creating something like this is not a half an hour job; when you actually get stuck into it, it can take 3 to 4 hours at times and this did take that amount of time because of the experimenting process in the editing stage is also vital too. Not many people think that playing around with the features and stuff is important when it really is because you want to know what to know what your editing and I find this part the most fun. At the end of the day, I think all of this experimentation and the final product meets the needs of the brief and like I have said, there is always room for improvement and I think my video can be made better after my reflection on it above.

    Authentication Document

  • Final Product

Owen Phillips
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