Friday, 24 February 2017

Documentary Evaluation

Evaluation


In this evaluation I will be explaining the development of the pre-production work and how it helped us essentially develop ideas for our final documentary. I will also be explaining how the research that we gained helped understand the components needed for success is about space and the mysteries that it holds, basically explaining the obvious with in depth detail and precision. I critically explained how space functions through time and the key factors which make it such a fascinating topic to discuss. Before we began filming the documentary we came as a group and designed a few mind maps, this allowed us to craft new ideas together to form the documentary, the ideas consisted of stars, asteroids, planets etc. This generally provided us with options which allowed us to progress further, as well as how we as individuals would contribute towards the documentary.

Once we figured out how the documentary would essentially run due to the mind map, me, Max, Ali and Emmanuel decided to choose certain roles which we felt comfortable pursuing, the roles consisted of director, actor, camera man and sound man. Since this was originally Max's idea he was the director/producer plus the unique skills he possesses in CGI made the decision all the more easy. I personally decided to be the actor of the documentary because I felt that I suited the role of presenter due to my body language and voice. Ali decided to pursue the role of the camera man due to his successful work in photography & film, his we felt this would ensure successful shots throughout the documentary creating vast amounts of excitement for the audience, and Emmanuel pursued the role of sound because of his skill in editing music tracks, we felt that this would enhance the creativity of the documentary making it much more enjoyable to watch due to the rhythm, which evidently builds up the anticipation.

With the roles decided we were all set to begin researching the chosen ideas from the mind map. We started off by locating suitable websites in order to gain the necessary information on space, we found a few websites which had information on space. All these websites had information on space. However there was one website which provided information which we specifically needed, this website consisted of the moon, asteroids, galaxies, planets and gravity, the name of this website is called "Documentary Heaven". Specific details were shown to us on how they function in space, this helped us essentially find our way us come up with unique questions for our questionnaire (survey) which we would portray to the people.

Once the secondary research was officially complete, we moved on and began creating the questionnaire to deduct primary research. From the help of secondary research it made the production of the questionnaire so much easier due to the fact that it provided us with the correct knowledge of space, and also the responses from the website evidently show what kind of people were interested in the topic. Basically the responses consisted of curious teenagers aged 15-17 and adults aged 25-30 (from this knowledge we tried to balance the age in between); this helped us in terms of actually locating the correct audience to fully enlarge the success of the documentary. In the questionnaire we decided to figure out a few key factors in order to have successful results in order to identify the target audience. Age (to figure out whether or not the product is suitable for certain ages), gender (to figure out what particular age prefers this topic), culture & ethnicity (to find out if people around the world or different countries are interested) were all considered and added, this enhanced the questions because it gave us a better understanding of the audience and enabled us to progress forward with the documentary. Interview questions were also created as an alternate form or primary research. However, we decided to use this as well, we interviewed a science teacher who provided amazing facts about space, this gave the documentary a sense of professionalism because brilliant knowledge and optimism provided.

In my opinion I think the documentary turned out fantastic, because it had it all; excitement, anticipation, fun and great visuals; but there are certain parts of the video which I was particularly proud of. I'm really proud of the fact that the documentary contains high quality shots, with immaculate angles to emphasis it, such as the actor explaining key bits of the documentary along with the CGI implemented in. The CGI was a real winner in this documentary, mainly because of the smooth motions throughout the video, when mixed with the actual footage it provided much more excitement because of the uniqueness. I'm also very proud of the music that we used in our documentary, because of the fact that it gave the video so much life and enhancements by essentially giving the documentary more rhythm as went on, allowing the video to become very watchable and entertaining.

Some enhancements are definitely needed for sure. Some clips in the video lacked great quality compared to the rest, this was due to the colour correction on the camera; it made the shots look really bright, which is quite a let-down because some scenes looked amazing due to the balance. None the less it didn't really affect the video too much. The audio could also use improvements especially the voice over, it was really quiet at times, and the music overlapped the audio due to the increased volume. Especially when the drone crashed as I was doing a voiceover; it was almost impossible to hear what I was saying due to the static and mixture of audio. Another setback was definitely the interviews, the information was really good, but the interviews were just continuous, with no cut outs or filler shots making quite difficult to watch without wanting to skip to the next scene.

Once the documentary was edited and rendered we uploaded it on YouTube and embedded it on our blogs, this allowed me to receive helpful feedback from my peers. Overall they said the advert was really good and creative, however they said that it could really be improved; they considered the following: colour correction, more shots that vary, quality of some shots and the volume of the audio. I believe that the feedback provided would really help me with future projects.

Next time we film and edit we should definitely focus on the colour correction of the shots because it would make the video seem like it was shot around the same time. We should also increase the volume of the voiceover in general, so the audience can understand what is going on in the scenes. Next time we should make sure to improve the co-ordination and order of the clips, this would allow the video to make more sense, plus adding a few filler shots or cuts to the interviews would definitely be a beneficial move, as it makes the video seem much more professional and exciting. These additional corrections would enable us to produce a more professional video.­­


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