Andrew Downes created an audio review project evaluating the video game DOOM. His research focused on gameplay trailers and music to inform the types of sound effects he would use. However, he only researched one YouTube channel, limiting the variety of sources. His mind maps and proposal provided direction for the project, but parts were confusing. His script incorporated ideas from other reviews but his recorded review had significant stuttering issues. Peer feedback noted the strong trailer and sound effects but advised improving the review quality by removing stutters and balancing the volume of gameplay and speech. Overall, the project could be improved by re-recording the review portion to reduce stuttering and better balancing the audio elements.

1. FMP Evaluation
Andrew Downes

2. Production Process Evaluation

3. Research
• The strengths of my research was that I had a lot of reference points for this
work, they used a lot of sound effects I was planning on using or the types of
sound effects that I was going to use such as gameplay trailers and music the
research was also good for giving me ideas on how and what to say in my work
, it was also great because of the great reviews I was getting to listen to which
also gave me tons of new ideas. The other thing it helped me with was the
selection of my audience which was for 15-24 year olds who were from the
social type B demographic(people who are not consumers of traditional
media). The weakness of my research was that it was only one channel that I
did my research on so there weren’t many variables and I didn’t learn off any
other reviews either so this was all I could count on. I could have improved by
varying my research so then it would fit many different criteria instead of just
a few and I probably should have had something else instead of just reviews
because then I could have chosen from a large variety of products I could have
done. This could have made me go for a completely different project all
together and most of all it could have been better with more and different
reviews to get more of an understanding of it.

4. Planning
• My mind maps were good because they gave me a good starting point to see
whether or not to go with other projects I could have ultimately regretted
immediately and also gave me lots of ideas. The weakness of my mind maps
were that I put the in the wrong order apparently because I ended up doing a
review however the order was Historic event, tales, review and then it was
hobbies so then I changed my mind to do an audio play and then changed it to
being a review, this could easily be changed however it would have no effect
on my actual work.
• My experimental project gave me a few ideas because the recording was so
poor that it gave me things to look out for such as bad recording. My recording
was cut short by about 30-15 seconds because it got corrupted and my laptop
tried to fix It and other things such as wait 5 seconds before you record
anything on the recorders. I have already told you the weakness of the
experiment which made the whole thing useless it could have been better if I
had waited the appropriate amount of time before recording and also the bug
fix and clean service can edit all sorts of things left on the memory stick, if I did
these things the project would at least seem decent as the voice recording
could be heard and to it’s full extent.

5. Planning
• My proposal was alright because I first made it for an audio play however then I had changed my
mind so that the review became my project and I believe that it was a good decision to connect the
pieces of my project this was also great because it gave me much more direct idea of what I needed
to do and more detailed description on how to do it also told me the sort of audience I was going
for which was 15-24 year olds who part of the demographic social type B this helped immensely
when creating the piece the weaknesses of this however was that it was also very confusing to
some and so others thought it made practically no sense what so ever when it was clear to me. I
could have improved this by going into further detail and describing what it is before I start which
would lead it to be comprehensible. This would have no effect on the actual piece however it
would lead to a cleaner piece of paperwork.
• The pre-production was alright because it gave me ideas of what to use and how to use it. This
helped the project by giving me ideas of where to put things. However it didn’t help in the way that
I put down way too many things I could have used and this ended up confusing me so I ended up
using a basic idea of game trailer and then gameplay with talking in the background, also this ended
up confusing me because I thought I had to include all the audio pieces into the final project I didn’t
know it was just to come up with different ideas.
• The script was good because I pretty much took 6-7 other reviews included the good ideas and then
put it mostly into my own words however my actual review/ speech was poor however because I
constantly stuttered however many times I decided to try to record it. It was also painful to edit the
actual review when it came down to editing it in the multiband compressor and just in general it
was ridiculously difficult to edit to make it sound better than it was even though I did make it a little
bit better than usual.

6. Time Management
• My time management was not good because whenever I had spare time I
didn’t do any extra work like I usually would this in the end set me back
quite far in the project and then also when I was stuck at home because of
the snow I couldn’t do any of the production but I also didn’t do any work
on the paperwork either however I did finish the project on time except
for exporting the actual project because I ended up saving the audio and
the speech in two different places and so made it difficult to get too. The
project could definitely have improved with more time however I don’t
know how exactly I would improve it probably by splitting of the gameplay
and the review cutting those pieces down into smaller chunks and differ
the volume of both however this would mean I would have to extend the
time period allowed. I would also try to do a lot more review recording to
see whether I could try to make the review without stuttering.

7. Technical Qualities
My piece of work has a lot of things in common
with the IGN reviews as seems as the both reviews
start with a form of introduction and when it comes
down to the actual review there is gameplay in the
background and there is the review on top in both
however when it comes to taking pauses in mine
there are no pauses in the speech unless I was
trying to find the next part of the script as it was a
massive script it took along time to get around the
picture of the script however the IGN review took
breaks intentionally and made the gameplay
volume increase and then decrease again when
they start to talk again which sounds much better
than my useless stuttering at random also it makes
it sound as if I’m scared or something weird. And
then when it comes down to the outro I didn’t have
one because I was already over the time limit as it
was however IGN has proper outro even though it is
small it does make it sound much better than
leaving it on a cliff hanger.

8. Aural Qualities
My work does not sound appealing or good
because of the constant stuttering throughout
the piece even though it wasn’t too creative
either I believe the audio in the background was
the best piece of my audio project I would only
really improve the recorded review and try to do
it again without stuttering constantly throughout
the whole thing and that would already make the
project ten times better than it is now, the
strengths of the project was the trailer and the
gameplay in the background of the review which
were both edited with the multiband compressor
which made it sound almost better than the
original however as you know my weakness was
the worst thing to be weak the actual review
which I should probably do again because of it’s
poor quality.

9. Audience Appeal
I believe that I would have appealed to my target
audience if I hadn’t stuttered all the way through it
however though I did end up saying everything I
needed to say in the review but it sounds really
awkward when you listen to it, well as I said the best
bits were actually the trailer fight like hell for DOOM
and the gameplay of DOOM in the background of the
review. I also looked at many different trailers for
DOOM but none of them had the sounds of the
demons and gore nests as well as having music
perfectly grafted to the skeleton of the piece and
then when it came down to the DOOM gameplay I
just transferred the gameplay into an audio file for
my project and the actual review was rubbish but it
was done in college with one of the voice recorders.

10. Peer
Feedback

11. Feedback 1
• What did you like about the product?
– Trailer at the start was probably the best bit.
– Sound effects were alright
• What improvements could have been made to
the product?
– Make the Gameplay in the background louder
– Also try to edit the review to try and get rid of the
stutters.

12. Feedback 2
• What did you like about the product?
– The music
– The trailer was also good
• What improvements could have been made to
the product?
– Make your own intro
– Include breaks to catch up with yourself.

13. Feedback 3
• What did you like about the product?
– The trailer sounded as if it was supposed to be there
– The sound effects were also great when it came down
to the background
• What improvements could have been made to
the product?
– The trailer sounds really tinny
– There is some overlap with the speech in the
gameplay and the review.

14. Peer Feedback Summary
• What do you agree with from your peer feedback?
– I agree that the music is good and it is also a good trailer
and sound effects I also agree that I need to make the
review sound as if there were no stutters, also there is
some overlap with the review and the gameplay and so it
mixes and sounds awkward and is hard to listen too.
• What do you disagree with from your peer feedback?
– I don’t think that I need to make my own intro or need to
involve compulsory breaks in between and if I did I would
need way more time to say everything I wanted to say
about the game, I don’t believe that the editing I did to the
trailer made it sound too bad I thought it made it sound
gravellier, there weren’t too many sound effects in the
background.

15. Peer Feedback Summary
I would change the review recording try to do it again and again until I don’t stutter or at
least try to get the stutters down to a minimum and then also try make them stand out to
the rest of the review so then it is easy to edit out the particular area, however I feel as if
I could have done some other things such as make my own intro and include breaks in
the review however I could only do this if I had more time and or if I had made a shorter
script or maybe even if I got rid of the trailer but if I got rid of the gameplay it wouldn’t
sound quite right in the review. I also needed to spread out the speech and the gameplay
differently so then the voices didn’t mix and make it difficult to listen to.