media

1. evaluation
By Oliver Keppie

2. Context
 My finished piece in context is very different to most of the other
documentary's and videos I looked at. For example the documentary's
will have had a much bigger budget than my documentary and factors
such as this and many others resulted in my final product being a bit
different from many existing products. One of the main factors that
effected my product was the production value. Because I essentially had
no money to spend on a proper set, a team of editors, animators or any
sort of team whatsoever, my product instantly because a lot harder to
create to a professional standard than a documentary made by the BBC
for example or even a YouTuber with more money and a larger
following.
 With the 5 week creation period I had for my documentary it left me
with a limited amount of time to create animations and accumulate
clips for my product. I would have liked to do a fully animated
documentary although with the criteria I had I don’t think it would
have been possible or at least up to a good enough standard. For
example the documentary had to be between 2-5 min and include an
interview. To animate a speaking character for an interview would be
very time consuming and then I would also have to animate the whole
documentary around of this. Most animated documentary's are 3-5
minuets although they don’t usually contain many speaking characters
and the animation style is usually quite simplified. From the animated
documentary's I have seen mainly from the YouTube channel “History
Matters”) they have quite large teams working on these videos, in this
specific case its around 30 people working on 1 video, although they are
putting out 2 videos per week.
Context

3. Context
 Another bit of context which cant be ignored is the fact that most documentary's
have a whole team of professional researchers to find out every bit of information
needed whereas I had around 10 hours to find all of my research. Luckily for me I
got to choose what my documentary was about so it was easy to find information
about and was easy to narrate, whereas other production company's may have to
find out information on things they aren't as well interested in. Also one of the main
advantages making a small independent product was being able to take whatever
creative liberties I would like to some extent. It also allowed me to keep track of
everything and not rely on many people for my work.
 The only person I has some reliance on is the interviewer who unfortunately
couldn’t make it to the interview so I had to rearrange one but it wasn’t to tricky.
Where's with a large company production documentary they would probably have
the interviewee sign a contract saying when and where they will conduct the
interview. They may also be receiving pay to be in there documentary, which will
make them more likely to show up for the interview.
 The YouTube video documentary's that I took inspiration from directly inspired
things such as the animated company intro and also the animated title card. The
reason I added these is to make the whole thing look a little more professional.
Another element I picked out directly from videos like these was the slightly
humorous and jokey moments. The reason I did this is because my subject is not
exactly very serious and I think the target audience will enjoy some of the Crash
Bandicoot related jokes and Easter eggs inside of my documentary. For example the
interview name plate that pops up is also the map title card from Crash Team
Racing Nitro Fueled. There are also a few things in there that hard core Crash find
may find slightly amusing.
Context

4. Skills &Techniques
 I think I implemented quite a few notable documentary techniques such as the
voiceover, an interview, archive footage and also montages. Each one of these
techniques has a major roll in the documentary as a whole. For example if I
didn’t have any montages then the voiceover would either be a blank screen or
would be a video of me speaking. Also the archive footage just makes my
documentary have something a bit different which may not be seen in other
documentary's. This can also be said for the original animations of the
characters and the analytics that I created. I think that this adds a little bit of
originality to my documentary because usually a documentary will be all live
action or all animation, but I decided to try push the boundary with a bit of
both. I think the reason this worked with my documentary is because all
though the gameplay in the background is animates it still has elements of
live action such as the interview segments etc. My animation styles were
picked out specifically for certain parts of the documentary. The first character
was polygonal and a little worse quality because the first few games are quite
bad quality for what we have today. The second character was supposed to be
better quality because of better graphics over time and the last one is a sock
puppet character from one of the many hated cut scenes in Crash Mind Over
Mutant. My initial plan was to speak about every crash game and use the
characters for the corresponding games although I had to cut it down for time.
Skills &
Techniques

5. Skills &Techniques
 One of the skills I used in my piece of work was by
controlling the flow of the documentary with some music. For
example in parts of the documentary where I wanted more of
a fast pace or there was faster gameplay I would add a little
more speedy music. Or music which corresponds to the game
that is being played. I also used the original crash bandicoot
music to evoke a little bit of nostalgia at the beginning and
create a bit more excitement within the viewers.
 I have also used a bit of my editing skills to put in sections
such as the interview and the parts where I animated a
character in. This can be seen at the start where the pixel art
crash spins across the screen. Some other editing skills I
used were simple glide in and out transitions for the
characters and the audio fading in or out. I also used a few
simple techniques such as cutting to the beat of the music
and to corresponding clips of what I was speaking about just
to make the video a little more informative and also less
boring.
Skills &
Techniques

6. What Iwant tolearn?
 If I were to learn some new skills to improve my project I would
most likely try and improve my animation and give the
characters a little more life and movement to them. I would do
this by creating different layers for each component and then
creating my animation in After Effects where I can move each
limb and asset of my character individually. This will jut make
my characters look a little more realistic and make them more
human like instead of being just a still image with a moving
mouth.
 I would also like to improve my preparation skills. This is
because after writing a script for a day I then recorded it and it
came to over 15 minutes of audio and our limit was 2-5 which I
slightly went over anyway. Next time I will make sure that my
script will be the correct length by doing readings of it
throughout the writing process and make sure that my script
doesn’t go on for too long. I will also make a more in depth
storyboard with the timings that each major action or
movement in a scene will take place. I will also try to make a
better time schedule with more detail about what I am going to
do each day an dhow long I'm planning to stay on each section.
What I would
Improve

7. How did the
project go?
 Overall I think that the project went quite well. Since I
am most focused on animation I wanted to incorporate
as much animation as possible without creating my
whole documentary as an animation. I think that the
parts of animation that I managed to get into my
documentary work quite well and they don’t look out of
place.
 At the start of my project everything was going
smoothly, such as in the planning and research stages.
Although I had a slight change of plan when I went to
record my narration and it came to around 15 minuets
long. This forced me to adapt and change my planning
to get a shorter script that still made sense. This had a
slight impact on my animation as I had to cut most of
the animated character line from the finished product.
Overall I think I managed to handle this sudden
change in plan quite well and I adapted the script to be
a 3 part series by modifying the beginning and end of
my script and only talking about the PlayStation 1
games.

8. How can this
help me in the
future?
 In the future this will help me by allowing me to get on
top of my planning and really think out what and when
things have to be done by. If I were to have a repeat of the
problem that I had overcome in this project in my FMP it
may result in not only the loss of a few hours but the loss
of 10s of hours. That is why I have learnt that I will need
to plan every small detail of my production and produce a
strict schedule and regime to make sure my FMP
production weeks go as smooth as possible. I also think
this will stick with me up through university because it is
a lot more independent so my planning skills will have to
make sure I have everything set for success and to be in
on time.
 I think that the more factual approach will help me keep a
more serious tone of animation which is what I'm thinking
of doing for my FMP. Although I prefer comedic cartoons I
think that it would be a good practice to try and
incorporate a bit more emotion into some of my other
pieces in the future. Although this piece isn't very thought
or emotion provoking its still one of the most serious
pieces I have done and is definitely the most informative.

9. Client needs
 I think I managed to achieve the clients needs quite well.
The criteria asked for the documentary to contain an
interview and be factual. My interview, instead of being a
conventional full interview it was cut in-between clips of
the gameplay and narration to back up the points that the
narrator was saying. I think this made my documentary
stand out a little from the crowd a little more.
 I also tried to pack as mush information into my
documentary as possible within the time limit, this is why
my product is slightly longer than it should be. I think for
people that don’t know about the game at all or even a
little, then it will be very informative and leave them with
a pretty good idea of what the game is. I also think that
even for more hard core fans there may be a bit of
information they may find interesting or maybe some
opinions they can relate to, or things they can laugh at.
Overall I think that the content of the documentary is
helpful to most if not all of my target audience although it
should interest nearly all of my target audience.

10. Audience
Appeal
 I think that this would appeal to people around the
ages of 15-30s. I think this is because it will be very
nostalgic to people that played the original games and
will therefore hopefully be something they would enjoy
watching. I think it would attract the younger side of
this target audience scale because people like me (even
though I played a little as a kid) will just be interested
in this type of game or just enjoy playing the games. I
think my documentary has certain aspect such as the
quite non serious tone even though its giving out a lot
of information, its more of a fun way to listen to all of
this. I think my documentary is visually exciting and
gives the viewer a lot to look at whilst the narrator
speaks.

11. Feedback 1
 What did you enjoy about the final documentary or think worked well and
why?
 I felt like the editing was well done, it was only spotty in a couple of places but it still worked well to
pace the video.
 Very nice transitions, they complemented the editing a lot and worked very well as they were all
crash themed.
 The video is very enjoyable and very informative. If there were some more improvements it could be
a highly professional YouTube video
 I liked the showing of the models behind the scenes and the effects, I didn’t even know how they did
it so its good to finally understand how they do it. A lot of these techniques can be lost to time.
 Great use of music, it complements the video.
 The graphics (text and graphs) were nice but they could still use some work and cleaning up
 I am no way ripping on this, because it is very good. The negatives I have stated are just there to
learn and improve from.
 What do you think could be improved and why?
 I liked the intro, but I feel like it needs improvement. I couldn’t give any direct suggestions because
Intros I make are usually made in industry standard 3D software rather than Photoshop (which I
assume it was made it) I think the main problem is the retro pixel look, it can work well however it
may need alterations. There also doesn’t need to be 2 intros.
 It takes 10 seconds to start. I would shorten this down to maybe 7 seconds at most. The start of the
video is most important to get right because you need to capture the audiences attention
 The green screen needs a little cleaning up.
 I'm not sure that the PNG interviews work.
 The video is 1280 × 720 rather than being full 1920x1080 which is standard HD. This negetivly
impacts the visuals.
 The voice sounds very bored. I can certainly understand that the actors dont have much practice (I
dont either) but it is important to have a certain amount of energy in your voice.

12. Feedback 2
 What did you enjoy about the final documentary or
think worked well and why?
 The use of the game graphics as examples of gameplay were well cut
and fit the tempo of the speech.
 The unique characters that popped up from the bottom of the screen
to give commentary made the video seem more unique and they were
well created and animated.
 The use of the green screen was really smooth and looked
professional.
 What do you think could be improved and why?
 I think the biggest issue with the video is the audio, as the voices
throughout are all at different levels of volume and clarity. The
narrator was kind of hard to understand over the background music
and spoke a little too fast at the start of the video.
 Some of animations could have been made smoother as they had a
very choppy movement.

13. Feedback 3
 What did you enjoy about the final documentary or
think worked well and why?
 I think the final product ended up very well, the music works very
well with the footage you have collected, represents the theme
perfectly
 I love the retro feel of the product, really takes you back.
 The small animations that you have used work well and fitted them
theme very well.
 The graphics included are well designed and work well.
 What do you think could be improved and why?
 You could have had made the narrator have a bit more emotion in his
voice as this hook the audience in more .
 I'm not sure if its just the way its been exported, but the camera
quality of the interview is not s clean and focused as it could be.

14. Feedback
analysis
 I agree with most of the feedback I have been given by the people
who have viewed my product. Some parts of criticism I agree with
are the voices of the narration and characters sound very boring.
If I were to improve this in the future I would get actual voice
actors to do the voices.
 I also agree that the intro could do with a little bit of working as it
is too long and the initial pixel art intro looks a bit rushed. To
improve it I would put more thought into it and maybe create an
intro with a lot of retro pixel art characters to show what the
documentary series is and reflect it more in the first opening
section of my video, instead of having a generic pixel art intro.
 I also agree with most of the positive feedback such as how the
music compliments the video and that the flow of the video is
controlled by the gameplay and audio. Next time if I were to
improve this documentary I would change the intro, get voice
actors, get a better lighted green screen, add more life to the
animations and fix the quality of the interview.