The document provides an evaluation of a factual video project about the history of York. It discusses the research process, including gathering sufficient facts from different sources to make the video informative. It assessed strengths like the amount of research conducted, and weaknesses like a lack of audience research. Planning strengths included font and location choices, while experiments could have improved presentation. Time management was good considering the short timeframe. Technical qualities like editing style were inspired by other videos. While some footage could have been better, overall the aesthetic qualities successfully presented the landmarks. Factors like text timing and pacing were considered for the intended older audience.

1. Factual Project Evaluation

2. Research
Research for this project was definitely the biggest aspect of it because I needed enough facts to
choose from but also have enough to make the video knowledgeable and interesting for the
viewer. I did a lot of research on a lot of factual documentaries that include a lot of talking which
is something that my video has none of because it isn’t long enough to make people not want to
read so having a voice over wouldn’t be needed unless it was over 5 minutes. The strengths of
my research was probably the amount I did because I could of made my video anyway I wanted
because I gathered a lot of different types of facts about York which could of all been used if I
had enough time to make it. Also watching and reading different history and factual
documentaries helped me plan what type of video I wanted to make because there is a lot of
different ways you can take a historical video. My research helped my project because it shaped
the type of video I made and also let me have room to fill it with what I wanted such as Viking
history, famous buildings and war history. I would of liked to do Vikings but there isn’t a lot of
visual evidence I could use to show what they have done in York because a lot of change has
happened so doing historical buildings such as the Minster and Clifford’s tower was a better pick
because there is a lot of information to give out and also they are still standing and you can
capture them in different ways to make them look good.

3. Research
The weakness in my research would definitely be the lack of audience research in the subject but
I can have a good idea of what type of people would be watching this video because when I was
watching similar videos on the history of York there was little young people and it was more of
the range of middle age to older ages. This is probably because history could have been a big
thing when they grew up so they took to teaching people about York’s history and also making
videos about it. Also a big majority of York’s population is middle aged so this could be a reason
why this project could be aimed towards that type of group instead of the younger audience who
most likely wouldn’t find it interesting. I could of improved this by doing a survey and asking
people of different age ranges who finds the history interesting or if they saw a video about it
would they click on it and watch it. I could of also looked at different sources of videos to see
what age range the people talking about the buildings and history were and tried to draw a
audience from that typical age range. I feel if I added this type of information from the beginning
I would of changed the music on the video because it is a bit modern and more of my age
because it is a beat rather than some normal music which could be ok with an older generation
but it is more towards my age group.

4. Planning
The strengths of my planning would be my font choice, location and idea generation. The reason
my font choice was a strength is because it has been helpful during the text to make it more
interesting to look at and also the two fonts I chose were really easy to read and makes the read
not need to concentrate on some small fancy writing but its also not as bland as the default font
so it gives off a nice look. The location was a strength because it gave me ideas during the
research into the areas so having it planned out meant that I could gather information and ideas
from each area I planned to do which overall helped the script because I had the history behind
each area ready. My idea generation helped my planning because I had a lot of different ideas
but when I had the history idea in mind, the idea generation actually developed the history
aspect because York has a lot of different parts to it so the idea generation helped with finding
different history paths I could take. I would say the weaknesses in my planning were that there
was no experiments done or finding any methods that I could use to make my video a little bit
more interesting which could of effected the style and presentation of the video and made it
better with some experiments. I feel that this would of only affected the editing side to my video
rather than the actual video itself because I had minimal editing done to it which I think appeals
to the right age group anyway.

5. Time management
I feel that I managed my time well during this project considering we had two weeks to complete
our production rather than 3-4 weeks like last time. I finished everything on time and I am ahead
of schedule if I manage to finish this evaluation before Friday so that I can work on other things
and come back to this if I need to update or fix anything I missed in this power point. If I had the
same amount of time like the other projects I would of added some more footage into the video
and maybe looked at some more complicated effects to add to the video to make it more
entertaining and also more informative to the viewers. I also could of spent some time working
on different aspects of the history such as Vikings because I could of focused on different
landmarks and not the easiest to record and talk about. I feel that extra time would of helped me
make a better video because I could have more time to research different things to add into the
video and also more in depth facts of the areas which could have been interesting to people who
may have never heard or known about certain things in that area before. I could of also recorded
some more footage because what I had wasn’t the best because of the weather and how windy
the day was and I had no tripod. I also could of tracked all of my text to fit the video but I realised
after the first one that it would take to long to do all of it and decided to try place the text where
it would still look right and also move with the video which I think worked as well as it could.

6. Technical Qualities
My video was inspired by a small video about York and what you can do when travelling there for
two days. It has a voice over which talks about each place in detail which mentions the date it
was open or how old it was, if it’s a famous place in York, the amount of visitors it gets and also
what it has to offer and why you should visit while you are in York. I felt that because it had so
much information to give off in a small amount of time the voice over works well with the video
and makes sense to do it but with mine, I had a small video with dense but easy to read facts so
text on the screen was the right choice to do while creating the video. Also the way they
recorded York was another inspiration that I got from the video was because they did slow
moving videos through the streets and did long shots of different shops and buildings which gave
it a nice slow pace and made the video enjoyable to watch because it was smooth rather than
fast and not being able to keep up with the videos. So I tried to make my video have long shots
which give off nice views and looks of the buildings so people can fully see the building and also
learn about it which was what that video did. For the editing I turned the vibrancy and saturation
down on the high Minster and Clifford’s tower footage because it was too bright for the rest of
the clips, so making them fit with the other clips was something I wanted to do.

7. Aesthetic Qualities
I think that my video looks good but sometimes has short clips where it could have been better,
such as when I recorded the Minster from very far away and it was windy so the camera was very
shaky and that’s why I only included like 2-3 seconds of footage from that video. Other than that
small footage I think all the other clips show the buildings very nicely and gives off the
impression that it needs to. I also made breaks in the text to make sure people can see the
building during the facts so that it can sink in the true history of each landmark. The colours
vibrance and saturation may have been turned down a little bit but it still gives off enough colour
to show off York and make it look nice. One of the Clifford’s tower videos show off a lot of grass
which gives off a nice green which contrasts with the grey sky and this makes a nice background
to the text being given. I think they way I would improve my video is by having all the clips on a
sunny day which would have been hard on the time limit we have and also it being winter. I
would of improved some visual aspects by using editing to fit with the style of history such as
maybe some animation or visual facts to go with the text facts but I would probably do a voice
over to go with it. I would do this by learning some techniques on using animation or visual
cartoons with videos and see how you can edit them to work with the video but that would take
some research and learning with experiments which I didn’t do because we didn’t have time.

8. Audience Appeal
For my audience I mainly had to guess what type of age range I was going for because I didn’t do
research on it. But after I was watching videos it got pretty obvious who I was making the video
for because the videos that had York’s history was mainly middle aged to older ages. So when I
was making the video, I had to think about different types of reading speeds because I know
people read at different speeds so I had to get the timing down for the text to fit with everyone
and also not take up to much time. The music I used is a bit youthful which could be bad for
some people as it could annoy them because they don’t like that type of music or they could feel
that it doesn’t feel right with what I am presenting them. So I decided to go for a chill type beat
which isn’t intrusive or very loud and annoying which I think would be bad for the age range I am
going for. I also slowed down some of the sky footage of the buildings so that it adds a little bit
more time in the video and also it lets people read the text and then get to see the building they
are reading about in fully view. I also tried to make the transitions slower so that it doesn’t feel
like you are having to rush and get everything in a once so people can relax while watching it. My
only concern is the text can be sometimes a little small but that could be different considering I
have only watched it while I was editing it and it was on full screen. But overall I think the age
range I wanted to go for has worked and they would like what I have made.