2. WHAT WAS THE THEME OF YOUR PROJECT
AND WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO IT?
The theme of my project was all about sustainability. When I went away with the Aruba
experience trip, I was with one of the sustainability leaders that talked about what she
wanted to do with the future of York College and what we are doing at the moment.
She was very enthusiastic and I saw an opportunity to do an interview with her and her
co- worker and thought that it was a project I could film within college hours. Its also
something that I have been interested in the past in secondary school so i had some
previous knowledge on the topic. After deciding sustainability would be the project, I
started to create a clear idea on how I wanted it to look. I knew I wanted to create a
educational factual documentary, with 2 interviews and filler clips of college. This
overall made me more motivated to complete the project in a small space of time.
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3. WHAT RESEARCH DID YOU
UNDERTAKE AND HOW DID IT
HELP DEVELOP YOUR
PROJECT?
In my research I had a look at the six different types of
documentaries which gave me an idea of the different genres.
For each type of documentary I researched, I had a look at an
example, and different conventions that made them classify
them into that genre. I did a brief look a what you could find
on the York college website about the sustainability of York
college and what they are doing.
The research helped me have a starting guide of what I
wanted to create and what I didn’t. It helped me know what
conventions to follow if I wanted it to fit into a certain genre of
documentary. It overall just made my planning process easier
as it gave me a clear idea of what I wanted my project to look
like. Looking examples helped me see those conventions
applied into work, which made me be more open minded to
try some things that I would have usually avoided.
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4. HOW DID YOU DEVELOP
AND IMPROVE YOUR
IDEAS THROUGHOUT
THE PROJECT?
If I look at my idea development, I really didn’t know what I wanted to
create. I mind mapped a lot of my interest and hobbies, or subjects I had
knowledge on and wanted to base it around them so that I had a starting
point. Before I went on the trip, the idea that I was leaning towards was
doing a project on someone specific, or about how a film was made. I
had constantly been struggling to come up with who I would interview for
most of my ideas. I feel like the trip gave me to not think about the
project and forcing myself to come up with concepts I didn’t like. Once I
came up with my concept after speaking to Charlie, my confidence
gained within the project and everything else came very naturally. The
idea developed very simpily and I had a clear idea of what I wanted my
project to look like very soon after the conversation. It also gave me 2
people to interview which was one of my concerns. The idea of the
concept took the longest part of developing my ideas so once I had that
figured out, I was happy to move onto the next steps.
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5. WHAT WAS THE OUTCOME OF THE
PROJECT/TASK?
The outcome of my project was a factual documentary about the
sustainability of York College which is four minutes long. It has two interviews
with clips of York college campus to brake up the interview. The interview is
filmed on a tripod that makes up a medium close up shot while the filler clips
are all hand held shots.
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7. HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THE PROJECT BEFORE
YOU STARTED?
I was initially quite excited about being able to create a video factual project.
I then found it difficult to come up with a concept as I have a lot of outside
hobbies and interests outside of college, but didn’t have experts I could
interview anyone on. I started my research with having a concept to see
what types of different documentaries I could create which made me
nervous about time management because I knew I was unavailable for 2
weeks for my planning process. So before I started I was excited about
being able to create a video based project, but apprehensive about doing in
so little time.
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8. HOW DID YOU FEEL
WHEN THE PROJECT WAS
COMPLETED AND WHY?
I was overall very happy with it. Especially due the
fact that I had a short time frame to complete the
production and came out with 2 great interviews. I feel
relieved that I finished the product to a good standard
and I'm happy with how it looked.
The interviews went really well in terms of topic of
discussion and I was happy with my background
layout. I feel like after the project I was more aware of
lighting and the white balance of a camera as my two
interviews look different even though they are filmed
20 minutes apart.
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9. WHAT WERE THE GOOD POINTS ABOUT THE
PROJECT/TASK AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN
FROM THEM?
CAMERA LAYOUT
I w a s h a p p y w i t h h o w
m y c a m e r a w a s s e t u p
w h i c h c o n c l u d e d i n
g o o d l i g h t i n g , a
m e d i u m c l o s e u p a n d a
g o o d b a c k g r o u n d .
INTERVIEW
QUESTIONS
I f e l t l i k e m y i n t e r v i e w
q u e s t i o n s m a n a g e d t o
g e t a l o t o f i n f o r m a t i o n
o u t o f m y i n t e r v i e w e e s
w h i c h a l l o w e d m e t o
g e t e n o u g h f o o t a g e f o r
m y p r o j e c t .
FILLER SHOTS
M y f i l l e r s h o t s w e r e a l l
o n e t h e m e o f t h e
p r o j e c t . I f e l t l i k e I
c o v e r e d t h e c o l l e g e
c a m p u s a n d t h e s u b j e c t
m a t t e r t a l k e d a b o u t i n
t h e i n t e r v i e w s
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10. WHAT CHALLENGES DID YOU FACE AND HOW
DID YOU RESPOND TO THEM?
TIME
SCHEDULE
My production time was
significantly cut down
Response: I made sure I had
a solid plan of what I wanted
my project to look like after
my production trip.
COPY FREE
MUSIC
I felt like I didn’t have enough time to
browse the copy free music to try so I
felt like a lot of sounds didn’t fit the
aesthetic of the product.
Response: I got a 2 nd opinion to help
me decide
LOST FILES
W hen I first uploaded my interview
documents to my laptop I was using to
edit, I only uploaded them to the
editing software and not the device or
OneDrive.
Response: had to get hold of the SD
card I used and reupload all footage .
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Date and Time Activity
Wednesday 4th January Confirm interview for next day, book
equipment, and confirm questions
Thursday 5th January 12:15 – 1:00
1:30 - 3:00
Complete 2 interviews
Film extra filler footage
Friday 6th January Tour around York college grounds with camera
and filler footage
Wednesday 12th – Friday 14th Start and finish editing project
11. WHAT WERE THE NEGATIVE POINTS ABOUT THE
EXPERIENCE, AND WHAT COULD YOU HAVE DONE
TO IMPROVE THEM?
I think that a negative experience about doing the project is feeling so rushed
because of the lack of time I had to complete the project. That wasn’t down
to anyone's fault so I don’t believe that their wasn’t anything could have done
t improve that but it is something I will consider for my next project.
I also didn’t enjoy not having a clear story line before my interview. Due to
the lack of resources that were available during research, I was fully relying
on my questions to allow have good responses so I could follow a story line.
I think to improve that I could have had more conversation with my
interviewees prior to my interviews.
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12. HOW WOULD YOU RATE THE FINAL PIECE? [THINK
ALONG THE LINES OF POOR, SATISFACTORY,
GOOD OR EXCELLENT...
Overall on a poor , satisfactory, good or excellent scale, my project slots on
with good. I am personally happy with my final project but I know that there
are also negatives to the project. It followed all criteria that was asked of
which makes me put it In the category of good. I'm also very happy with my
interviews and how they were filmed. However, the documentary was slightly
long, and the structure of the documentary could have felt more like an
advertisement project. I think if it had a storyline then it would have followed
some more conventions of a documentary that I did research on.
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14. WHAT ELEMENTS DID NOT GO WELL AND WHY
COPY RIGHT MUSIC
I feel like my music may be too loud for
people to hear my interview conversations.
Also the battle of trying to find the right
music for the project which resulted in
music I am not 100 percent happy with.
STORY LINE
I felt like my project turned into an
advertisement project for the sustainability
foundation rather than to raise awareness.
This was my own fault for not going into my
interviews with a solid story line and relying
on the interviewees answers. I do think the
music plays a part in that as if I picked a
different song, it would seem more
documentary like.
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15. HOW DID YOUR SKILLS DEVELOP DURING THE
PORTFOLIO?
I developed my editing time and felt like that I am more confident using
premiere pro. I also feel like it has made me more aware to the importance of
lighting ad white balance. It is something that I didn’t used to think about, but
now I am more aware of it and something I will consider for my future
projects. I did develop skills to take out a successful interview. This including
setting up the interview, creating the questions and then successfully asking
them and getting engaging responses.
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16. WHAT MEANING AND
MESSAGES DID YOU WANT TO
CONVEY AND WERE YOU
SUCCESSFUL?
My aim was to show the lack of awareness of
students knowledge about our future of
sustainability of York college. Now I feel like
that is something I covered in my project,
however I don’t feel like my project is going to
necessarily gain anymore awareness unless
posted on different social media with the right
audience watching. I feel like my project has
gotten the group to think about expanding
their plans to help gain awareness.
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17. WHAT FEEDBACK DID YOU GET FROM YOUR
PEERS AND VIEWINGS?
HANNAH W. – CREATIVE MEDIA STUDENT
Overall Hannah liked the project. She felt like I had good interview
questions which resulted in good answers. She also felt like the filler
footage was relevant to the topic. The constructive critism given was
about the music being too louds so the voices were unclear in some
areas.
I agree with the positive and negative Hannah gave me about my project.
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18. WHAT KNOWLEDGE HAVE YOU GAINED THAT WOULD HELP
YOU IN THE FUTURE TO IMPROVE YOUR PROJECT? ALSO,
WHAT KNOWLEDGE FROM ACADEMIC LITERATURE AND
PROFESSIONALS HAS HELPED AND WHY?
I have gained interview and journalism knowledge. I feel like it has shown me
the importance of research, and interview questions. However I think that
setting up meeting prior to interviews could be more beneficial to me which is
something I will take in the future. The advice from my tutors of not over
thinking everything and work with my interviewees was very useful as it
taught me more about bouncing off other people. It also shows reflection of
my mindset before I started my project versus the end of my project.
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20. HOW COULD YOU DEVELOP YOUR SKILLS FOR FUTURE
PROJECTS? PLEASE IDENTIFY THE APPROPRIATE
RESOURCES AND COURSES. FOR EXAMPLE, WEBPAGES,
TUTORIALS, BOOKS, SHORT COURSES AND QUALIFICATIONS.
I enjoy watch studio binder videos so I think if I watched some videos from
them about the importance of camera angles and building tension, I could
benefit from that. Also watching more documentaries myself, as well as
watching a range of different genres of documentaries. I feel like prior to this
project, I haven’t watched a lot and the once I had watch, all were within the
same genre. i think looking at the difference between the structure of Netflix
documentaries and BBC documentaries could be interesting. They both have
the same layout throughout all of the ones they create, but a different layout
to each other as companies. It would be interesting to do some analysis on
them. I feel like doing all of this could benefit any future project I make as I
would have gained knowledge and skills to plan a documentary following
common conventions.
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21. WHAT PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES COULD YOU DEVELOP TO
ENSURE YOU ARE WORKING AT A PROFESSIONAL LEVEL
I think working with camera and controlling multiple cameras at once could
benefit any future project and help me work at a professional level, I also
think working a long side other people would help as this project was very
induvial, but having someone to bounce ideas with, and help doing the
production could help me in the future of a profession level.
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