I am pleased with how my FMP has turned out.

 

I have reflected upon, analysed and evaluated all the different areas of my FMP project in detail in the other Evaluation and Reflection Sections, so I will keep this as a overview, picking out particular areas of note.

 

Analysing

The process of my FMP has had challenges, for example all the location issues. But I am pleased that I kept going, I didn’t give up and I was eventually able to film in my preferred location of the woods. This has given the film the creative feel, style, and format that I wanted, as I discuss in my Final Film Evaluation. The challenges, such as the location issues, gave me the opportunity to practise overcoming anxiety to complete the project. Things will always go wrong, even when making real films in the industry. Taking the time to practise analysing situations, as I have done frequently over the course of this project, working out why I am reacting a certain way, then finding ways to react the way I would prefer, has been a very useful process, and very successful and effective. It is a skill that I will continue to practise and make use of as required, in the future.

 

Timing

Another area of challenge was Timing. I put a lot of thought and effort into my time schedules, both the daily and weekly ones. I found that doing this helped to focus my mind on the breakdown of the various tasks that make up my FMP, and because of this, doing a daily and weekly time schedule was very useful.

 

However, for a few reasons, I found it challenging to stick to these time schedules. These reasons include:

1. Location Scouting – due to the coronavirus pandemic lockdown rules, location was always going to be more of a challenge than usual. However, I live right by a wood that is usually pretty deserted, so I felt that it would be easy to film there, in hour long chunks if the coronavirus rules dictated. However, pretty soon this wood got very busy, presumably with people exercising, meaning that I had to explore other options that I had had as backup, for example my garden. But then it seemed that all of our neighbours were sequentially starting noisy outdoor building works, with chainsaws, drills and cement mixers. I ended up spending a significant portion of time trying to find somewhere to film that I could record audio successfully, which started pushing the timing out on my schedules. Eventually, after even more location challenges, I ended up able to film back in the woods, albeit in a different part to my original plan. It turned out to be a great location, and I'm delighted with the footage, but by this time, it was having a serious effect on my schedule, despite my best efforts, and despite me having deliberately built in lots contingency time.

2. Research – I have explained in my early blogs, how I have had to rethink the way I had planned to do my research for this project, since it is research heavy. I did learn useful information about how I learn best, however it was another issue causing a delay.

 

I could take the view that the extreme situation of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown is unlikely to occur again, so future location scouting should not have quite such an effect on timing. But then again it might. So, I believe instead that I need to work on finding ways to manage my time better to enable me to stick more closely to my schedule. On the other hand, my film was still finished on time, so that is good.

 

Regarding research taking more time than I anticipated, I believe that my research into my learning style has already started to help with that, although I do still need to find a method, that is workable for me, to ensure that I record absolutely everything in my Bibliography. My Bibliography does still include about over 100 references, and they are in Harvard format, so, again that is not as bad as it could be, but I would prefer to be totally accurate and include everything.

 

 

Areas for further development

Some areas that I have enjoyed, that I will take away from this to develop further are

1. Learning better how to shoot my films using Manual settings instead of Automatic. I enjoyed the flexibility that this gives you in terms of controlling the exposure and depth of field of your shot, however I need more practise to become skilled at it.

2. I will experiment more with ways of affecting the lighting outside with diffusers, reflectors and whiteboards. I didn't get to do that for this film, due to lack of crew and equipment. I had a large piece of white cardboard, but not enough crew (due to coronavirus pandemic lockdown rules) to hold it anywhere, and no other way to position it However I learnt about it as part of my research and really want to try it in a future film. I enjoyed positioning my new lights to get the subtle and natural shadows effect that I wanted. However, watching YouTube videos on how to work outdoors with sunlight produced some amazing differences to how a subject is lit, which I would like to make good use of in the future.

3. I will find out how to make equalising work on my set- up, since it wouldn’t when I tried it. From researching it on YouTube, it looks like it can make a huge difference to audio, with more flexibility that the Premiere Pro pen tool that I currently use.

 

 

Some things that I feel went well and that I am particularly pleased with

 

Creative Decisions

I found I was able to be more creative than I had expected. This is my first time making a documentary/informative video rather than a fiction film, and as I have discussed elsewhere, I had assumed there would be less opportunity for creative decision. However, as I have also discussed in other evaluation documents, I was wrong, there have been loads of opportunities to make use of creative techniques to improve my video, like semiotics, choice of costume/outfits for the subconscious effect on the audience, background, positioning of me in frame and how I move (or don't) when I'm speaking to camera, the list goes on. I enjoyed using all the creative decisions to improve my video.

 

 

Test Filming

I did much more test filming than I have done for previous projects. This is a part of the process that has been very helpful and useful.

 

I did do a lot of test filming for my Toast advert, and that was instrumental in me changing my plan and filming a different advert to my original plan, ending up with a better advert. And I took test photos at the location for my Neo Noir Interactive film, which were helpful, However, for other projects I haven't really done test filming. I tried to analyse why. I concluded that it is simply because I didn’t think I could go to the location to do it, whereas my test filming for my advert was in my kitchen.

 

So, I believe the solution is that I need to see and ask if I CAN go the location beforehand, or chose locations, like the woods here, where I don't have to ask anyone.

 

It has been so helpful to be able to look at things on screen to see if they are actually as I imagine them or not. I had concerns about filming in the garden, and my test filming enabled me to see in a more concrete way that my concerns were justified. So, I am very pleased that I did test filming and I intend to try to do it more in the future.

 

And for this particular project, at one point I really thought I was going to have to use my test footage in my actual film, due to a combination of not being able to film where I wanted to when I wanted to i.e. in the wood, and also due to potentially not having my dad available as crew for real filming. So, had I not done so much test filming, I could have ended up without a film, or with a very watered-down version. So that's another reason why in this I'm glad I did it, however I'm also glad I didn’t have to use it.

 

 

Opening and Ending Shots

I'm very pleased with the opening shot particularly with how the text effect of the disappearing letters works to grab the audience right from the start. This opening got particularly enthusiastic feedback from the friends who I asked to watch it, including several "Wow!"s, which was very encouraging. I had wanted to pack a metaphorical punch with my first shot, and it appears from the feedback that I succeeded. I had thought carefully about it, linking the camera movement in the opening shot to the subject being camera movement, one of those creative decisions that I mentioned that I am pleased with. I also deliberately chose to make the final shot a reference back to the first shot, but not a repeat of it. I wanted it to feel like you came full circle, but in a subtle way.

 

Not having made a documentary/informative style video before, I hadn’t realised that there is still so much scope for the creative process, considering all the same things as you would do with a fiction film. I do think my strengths still lie with fiction films, but I have enjoyed the challenge of making something so different to what I have made before, and seeing where I could apply my skills to give it a different edge.