3. Theoretical Problems
Lighting might look Hit or Miss- This is a trial and error case, when experimenting with the lighting and
different shots, I'll have to really experiment around with what looks really good and what might not pass in a
final product. In the end it all comes down to the experiment phase and how much I mess around with the
lighting there, I'll have to think of every possible light source in my room and find a way to try and manipulate it
as well as making sure I'll be able to replicate what I did when it comes time to actually making the project. So
I'll need to go into this project with a good mindset knowing exactly what will and won't look good.
Background shots could look too messy- This goes well with the last potential issue. The backgrounds are
something that I've thought about a fair bit going into this project, and I've found it best to keep them looking
simple, but not too boring. There should be just enough behind me to keep everything looking interesting and
visually pleasing, but not enough so that everything looks messy and unorganized. Like already mentioned I
only really plan on having a few posters, a few guitars, and something on my PC monitor/TV screen behind me,
anything else should really be moved or not included at all. Solving this problem is really just a matter of
moving some stuff around and making sure everything going on behind me looks good and simple.
4. Experiments for the Background.
The ideas I have work well here, there's just a few
things that I'll have to change. For one, some of the
posters can be a bit distracting, either because they
stand out too much, or because they are too
reflective, the Joker one for example is one that I'm
defienetly going to take down for the final project,
and to fix the reflectiveness on some of the others, I
can try and mess around with the focus and make the
background a bit blurier, if not then I'll just take them
down.
Another thing is how I present the background,
theres a few things lying around that I'll have to
move for the product, things like the water bottle, the
messy bed, a picture frame, and a few other things. I
don't want the place to look unprofesnial and messy,
so this is something that I'm 100% going to change
by the time that production comes around.
5. One man production means I have to work quicker- While this is true, and it does mean that I
might have to rush towards the end of production, this doesn't really mean that the product will
too much as a result. Every product that I've made before this one has been made pretty much
by me with very minimal outside influence, and while this one is of a much bigger scale than all of
other products, that doesn't mean I'm going to lose any time. I know a lot more about all the
I'm using, I already have all the research done, with notes, and I'm much better at writing scripts,
overall, I've just gotten better at working quicker, while still retaining a really good quality product.
While I do have newer editing styles I'm using here, I can just experiment around with them before I
start production, which means I save a lot of time that way too.
Only I can proofread the script which leaves room for more mistakes- This goes well with the 'self-
produced' point, while it's true that I will be proofreading the script mainly by myself, this doesn't
mean I can't just send the script over to other people and have them make sure that everything is
cohesive and makes sense, while making sure that spelling errors are kept to a minimum. I'll be
reading the script every time I finish a paragraph as well, so it's always going to be checked up on
perfected until it's finished. I need the script to be as perfect as possible, because it is such a
part of the product, so even if I'm happy with it, I'll still probably send it to a few people to make
that other people think it's good and makes sense too.
6. A lack of interviews due to Covid-19 might provide a lack of context- A lack of interviews might
sound bad for a documentary; however, I don't really need them for this product. I already have all
the information and context I need for all the situations I have planned to talk about. However, if I
need more context or information from the indie scene in particular, I could reach out to some
smaller artists for a typed-out interview, these are much smaller artists that would most likely see
what I tweet at them, however based on how my research went, this might not be needed, and the
majority of smaller indie artists have never really been with a record label so their experience
be VERY limited. So, I'm probably just going to go with the route of not having any interviews
conducted by myself in this project.
Only one shooting location due to lockdown, might make the product boring- This is something
I've already produced a solution to for other potential problems, I'm going to film at multiple
different angles in the same location, the camera is going to be placed in a few different areas in
same location, the background is going to have moving images on the monitor/TV screens, and
lighting is going to be switched up every few scenes. All of these should keep everything feeling
visually fresh and different every few scenes. I also do have to keep in mind that not every scene
segment is going to be an IRL scene, a fair amount of the product is going to be a commentary
video essay too, so I can't only focus on the IRL shots.
7. The Covid lockdown may not end before I finish the product, which could result in a lack of motivation
and missing deadlines- This is a very real issue, and something that did happen with the production of
work in the last lockdown. This time I'm expecting it to happen, though. So, this time I'm going to make a
timetable and break down exactly what I want to have finished by the end of a week. Seeing everything
layed out in front of me gives me a good boost of motivation and is a really good guide for me.
I need to make sure that I'm not overextending myself and making myself not want to work on the
Burnout is a very real thing for me, and if I'm not having a good mental health day it can really impact the
work that I'm putting out, so I need to make sure to take breaks if I feel like the work is getting annoying
and tedious.
Even though I'm going to have a set amount of work to finish by the end of each week, I'm going to
sure that it's a fair amount and isn't too much, since we have a good number of weeks to work on this
project.
If I do get burned out on one side of the production, I could just move over to another side, for example,
if I'm getting tired and annoyed with editing something, I could move over to something else like
more audio commentary or shooting more IRL talking head shots.
So, to fully get the most out of my work, I need to make and follow a fair timetable with a decent amount
work to finish by the end of a week, if I start feeling burned out with one side of production, I could either
take a break for a few hours, or I could move onto another side of the production that I feel less burned
on. I want to try and avoid falling behind, because working under stress on the final product could really
impact the quality and 'watchability' factor of the product.
8. The script could get lost in the drafts- Losing the script amongst all the other files is something that's
actually happened a lot in the past, it's always taken me so long to go back and find it as well. So for
this project, I'm going to make to different folders in the FMP folder, one for every draft of the script I
make, it doesn't matter how many there are, and I'm going to have a file solely for the finished script,
that file will be saved to my desktop so I know exactly where it is. In the case of the file corrupting, I'm
also going to make a backup folder for the final script, which will also be saved to my desktop.
Only having me on camera could get boring- All I need to do here is balance everything out well,
it isn't only going to be me talking, or on camera at all times, I'm going to have a variety of different
clips, both visual and audio, and while it's true that they won't play for very long, they will be a good
change of pace so that it isn't always me on screen.
Another simple and obvious solution for this is, don't be boring. It seems obvious but being boring in a
product like this is actually pretty easy. As long as I sound inspired and like I actually care
what I'm talking about then I should be okay. I just need to change up the tone that I'm talking in every
so often, and make sure that my line delivery fits with the tone that I'm actually trying to set, depending
on the subject matter at the time.
The style of the editing will also stop me from coming across as too boring. I just need to not force
anything and let myself talk naturally, if not a bit over exaggerated at times, it really just comes down to
the script that I'm going to write.
9. Losing footage- Theres so many different opportunities to save and backup the
footage, even on my phone I can copy the same clips and save them to different folders
my camera gallery. To avoid this situation, I've already made 2 different back up
folders where all the same clips will go, in case the original or one of the other backed
clips get lost. Somehow, if those ones get lost, I have a few back up folders on my PC as
well, under a folder that's specifically made for any of my FMP work, I don't want to lose
ANY work while this project is being made.
Not enough 'in-person' talking head shots- This is something that can be avoided
with something as simple as a storyboard and planning out notes. Making a script for
both the live action, and commentary segments will help out here to, as I can
make a rough estimate of the run time by the number of words I include. However,
the 'in person' parts WILL have more run time, since there will be some shots
that won't feature any dialogue, these parts will be short, but they'll add to the run
time. So, to avoid the issue, I'm going to make a mood board, and start drafting a
script to predict how long the run time will be. Hopefully with all this, the product should
feel balanced out and not too heavy leaning on one side.
10. Research wasn't developed enough- Make sure to take notes based on every slide of the research phase.
Plan out the most important things I'm going to talk about, and then work my way down to the lesser
important topics. To plan this out I should start making draft scripts, or even notes on my phone, if I think of
anything in particular to talk about. The idea of the research not being very developed enough came to me
the early stages of the research process, looking back on it, however I believe I should've done enough and
developed enough for me to make a product with a pretty good run time.
Running out of storage- Running out of storage can be a very real issue for me. Since I'm going to be
putting a lot of this game together during a lockdown, it means that I'm going to be working from my home
computer. Which already has a lot of storage used up on it, be it large games that take up 60-80gb, or
and assets from other projects, this is something I have to be aware of going into this project. Luckily, I do
an external memory plugged into the PC I use, so if I run out of memory on the actual computer, then I can
save everything to the external memory from that point forward. This does mean, though, that I'll have to
an FMP folder, and backup folders, in both the hard drive on the PC, and its external storage. Of course, in a
complete worse case scenario I could just delete a bigger file that I don't use as frequently, if I can manage to
find one.
Not enough editing styles- This is something that, again, can be resolved with something as simple as a story
board and a bit of planning ahead. Before production I should look at some good editing styles for the
different segments I have planned. I already know that I want to use 3D aftereffects (as well as Premiere),
I haven't used for any of my other projects, and I have a fair amount of ideas for editing with that, so straight
away that's a good amount of things that keep this project from feeling boring. I plan on making a list of all
editing techniques that I'll include, as well as all the software, as a way of keeping track of everything so that
I don't fall behind.
11. Experiments with different editing
styles and techniques.
These are two examples of different editing techniques. The first one I made in After Effects, I made the screenshot 3D, and made
a camera pan up it, revealing the highlighted text, I think this looks really visually pleasing and looks much better than if I had
stuck with 2D.
The second one is something else that I made in After Effects, and Premire Pro, I made the centre image rotate in After Effects and
put a green background behind it, then in Premire Pro, I took the green out, and replaced it with a live perfomance of the artist
that made the featured album, this is to be used in the background of the talking head shots. I think these all work well, but I
might need to slow down the first example in the future since it goes a bit too fast for anyone to actually be able to read.
12. Repetitive talking head visuals- This has potential to be a pretty big issue,
especially since I'm only really limited to one filming location. Luckily, though, I can
enough in this one location to keep things unique and different. Since the location is
pretty long, I can place the camera in multiple different spots every few scenes, I
on having the location being different in every different segment.
The backgrounds can be played around with here too, there's a fair amount
of space that I can work with. For a start I have two different guitars that I can place
the background, that's something that fits really well with the subject matter. I can
put images on the monitor every so often, something that's linked to the topic
being talked about. That's where one of the aftereffects ideas come to mind, I could
have a spinning image of an album's artwork as the focus, and a concert from the
artist blurred out just behind it. The video would play in the background on
my PC monitor, and doing that (or something similar) for every other artist I talk
should keep a fresh feeling around these segments.
So, messing around with some of the backgrounds, changing the camera angles,
and having muted videos that I made in aftereffects should do a good enough job
on keeping everything feeling unique, and non-repetitive
13. Experiment for talking head visuals
The audio quality doesn't sound too
great on the second example, so I might
have to either, completely scrap filming in
that area, or find a way for the audio to
sound better through trial and error, I
think having a case around the camera,
and the position it was sitting in is what
affected the audio quality, so I'll change
those by the end of the final product.
Also, the bass sounds a bit iffy in some
points, mainly I think it sounds too deep,
so altering that a bit will positively impact
the final product too.
15. Solutions to Practical and Technical
Problems
Limited Equipment– A fairly easy problem to solve. I don't have as much in terms of
equipment as I would at college, but I still have just enough to see me through to the end of
this project. The camera is as simple as taking the raw footage on my phone, and then editing
it on my PC to make it even higher quality, which shouldn't be an issue since both my phone
mic, and camera are really high quality, in a worst case scenario though, I could dub over any
audio that doesn't sound good in the editing process, because I do have a good microphone
connected to my PC. For the lighting, I can manipulate a few things, natural light, monitor light,
TV light, LED lights, and a normal light switch, are all things that I have access to, and as a
result, I can manipulate them to try and make the lighting look as good as possible.
Props are something that I have access to, to use as visual representation, it's mostly all going
to be showing key albums from artists, and if I don't have a particular album, then I can just use
the printer we have at home to print off the cover from online, and put it in a CD case.
16. Commentary audio gets desynched- This issue isn't actually too uncommon, especially with bigger projects, a
solution for this could be something as simple as saving the project every few minutes and going back to an old save,
when the issue does happen. Sometimes, though, you might have saved when the issue already happened
without you knowing. In that case it becomes a bit harder to solve, in the very worst case, I'd need to rerecord the
audio that got desynched, or I could try and re-edit the entire section in a separate premiere pro file. Audio getting
desynched is an annoying issue, and one that can be avoided by just saving a lot, but when if it happens, I need to
have a backup plan. So right now, my plan is just to make to different versions of all commentary tracks, so if it does
happen, I could just replace the desynched version of the track, with the newer, working version.
A particular scene has camera/lighting issues- This is something that I'm going to have to test out a bit before I
start any kind of production. The lighting issues can come down to the time of day that I shoot some scenes,
meaning I’ll have to schedule a slightly later time to film, luckily since it's winter, it'll start getting darker earlier. I'd
film when it's darker to avoid any sun glare that the camera will pick up, however, I still want to do some experiments
in the sunlight, to see how well I can block any intrusive light out, since only having darker shots will end up getting
repetitive. To really play around with the idea, I'm going to have a few areas of filming and see which ones look the
best, the ones that I like the most, and have the least number of difficulties with, will be the ones that I use for filming
in my final product.
In terms of the camera issues that could arise, I just have to be careful with where I place it, I don't want it directly in
the sun, and I should also keep it away from anything that could create a 'buzzing' noise. Basically, I should
experiment with the camera beforehand, so I know what will, and won't work.
18. Footage/audio gets corrupted or isn't saved- Having an entire file being corrupted with premiere pro
isn't completely out of the question, it's actually a fairly common issue, which is pretty bad because it
corrupts EVERY save file, and you can't just go back to an older one so easily. So to
and losing all my work, every so often I'm going to fully back up everything I've done, so I'll duplicate
save file, and put the backed-up file onto a separate premiere pro file, this way it'll be much harder for
to lose any work that would otherwise get lost.
Source footage gets lost or corrupted- The footage being lost isn't much of an issue, as already
mentioned, I'm going to save everything related to this project in multiple different files on my computer,
both on the built-in storage, and the external drive. Now having the source footage being corrupted,
that's something that could be more of an issue depending on how far through the project I am. It's
something that I wouldn't notice until I watch the product back, which I only really do when I've fully
finished a segment, doing it this way saves time. However, if I were to lose something due to corruption,
could probably be able to recover the clip by downloading it again, if this doesn't work though, then I
should make a backup list of videos to use, in case this issue does end up happening. Some of these
backup videos may end up working better with the product than the indented video anyway.
This works well with another issue, which is 'There isn't enough source footage to fit into the final
product'. This shouldn't be an issue at all, now that I have the plan of collecting more videos than I
need for this project. Not too many more, but enough to make me feel comfortable with going ahead
the production. This is obviously something that I should go ahead with quite a bit before production.
19. The editing software might break down- Something like this actually happens with every project I
work on, after a while the software will start slowing down due to the amount of assets on the
this has happened with both Premiere Pro, and 3D After Effects. I do have a solution for this one as
an issue that I've encountered a lot of times, I'll put all the assets I still haven't used into a folder, then
I'll fully export the work that I've done so far, and then add the exported video into a new and fresh
Premiere Pro timeline, from there I can carry on working with the assets that I saved to a different
folder. This method can be time consuming, but I've found that it's the best way to carry on work,
still have a final product that looks like it was all made in the same timeline. I might have to do this 2
different times, just because of the scale of the project, but I know that it's an issue that will happen,
and I already had a solution to this problem before I even started work on it.
Audio could sound too distant in the IRL shots- This is something else that can only be solved by
experimenting and trial and error. I'll have to record sample clips, all taken at different distances,
then try and hear out which one works better. Then when I find out which one does sound
better, I'll mark out a spot to stand on, and stay there for that entire section. I will have to do this with
every other filming spot I'm thinking of as well. If somehow the audio still sounds too distant with this
method, I can always make myself louder in the editing process, while trying to get rid of as much
noise as possible, and in a worse case scenario I would just have to try and dub over
what doesn't sound good with my microphone, trying to make the speech look as natural as possible,
this would be really time consuming, though, so I want to try and avoid that particular method.
21. The camera could lose focus- This could turn out to be a really time-consuming problem, it
depends on when I would notice it. To try and stop the issue happening outright, I'm going to have
pretty simple background, with only a few things that really stick out, like guitars, PC monitor, and a
few posters, and I'm going to be standing/sitting pretty far in front of all these things, so the focus
should never really get lost on me. If the focus is lost, though, I'd just have to reshoot
whatever doesn't look good, since there really isn't any way to fix that in the editing process. Since
the camera I'm using lets me look at what the audience will see I should be able to see if it loses
focus, though. So, with all that in mind, the camera losing focus shouldn't be an issue, but if it does
happen, I should be able to stomp it out as soon as it happens, and if not, then I'll just have to re-
shoot what I lost.
Equipment, such as my monitor, or microphone could break- I added this issue because a few
weeks ago my main microphone broke after it fell from a high shelf, I got a new one, but the
took well over a week and a half. If this new one were to break, it could set back the production of
project by at most two weeks, so if it does happen then I should use a 'placeholder' mic, I have one
on a headset that I could use to fill in the gaps until I get a replacement mic, and from there I could
re-record all the commentary, and if that mic doesn't work then I could use my phone and transfer
the voice files onto my PC via email. Another risk is my monitor going faulty or breaking down
production, if this were to happen then I would have to connect my PC to my TV screen via a HDMI
cable, this would make certain things harder to see, and it could slow the PC down a bit, but it
would be the only viable solution until I got a replacement monitor.
