My MeVid Evaluation

The task given to us was to create a small video no more than 3 minutes that basically described and highlighted my life, so by the end that of everyone watching they would have a clear idea on what exactly I was like. In this video, I had to make sure that many elements in my life were highlighted, for example, my hobbies and interests, a little about my time on the earth and perhaps showing one of my talents. Before even filming this video, I had to ensure that I had a shooting script in which held all the details toward my filming, such as the camera shots, what I was going to say, any different shots that I was going to film or any voice overs that I intended to use.

The shooting script took a long while to make, mainly because it was essential that I got the timing right, or the video would end up being too long, therefore defeating the purpose of trying to get as much of my life as possible into one video. Every scene had to be very precise in terms of timing, however one thing that I should have thought of was ensuring that even though the times had to be precise, they should have also been more realistic. I say this because through a lot of filming, giving myself around 3 seconds to say one sentence was not realistic enough therefore I went over, this meaning I had to either change what I said or I would have to change the shooting script, which became very inconvenient. Because of this, in the future (in terms of voice overs), I think it would be a good idea if I recorded myself before writing how long I would give myself to say something.

This is an example given. I only gave myself 4 seconds to say the dialogue however when I filmed this, I was given the issue of running over 4 seconds, no matter how many times I tried to speed myself up. This is a skill I would need to improve in pre production.

However, something that I definitely improved in pre-production compared to the last task we were given was time management. In the last task that we were given as a class, my group had definitely left last minute decisions and planning too late, therefore when it was time to film, we couldn’t get everything done. This time, though, because I managed to get planning all done in good time, if there were any changes that I needed to make whilst filming, I was able to make them without too many complications which really helped the final piece. Time is very important to keep in mind. Not leaving enough time could equal into rushing of work, therefore not being able to complete it the best of one’s ability.

In production, doing the ‘Draw My Life’ feature was very challenging, so I had to practice a few times with the camera and without the camera before I had my final piece. The idea was to draw out the significant moments in my life and to either voice-over or write some text on the side to explain what I was drawing. This was done by firmly placing a whiteboard down and using a whiteboard marker to draw the pictures. If the whiteboard moved then when it came to editing, taking out unnecessary scenes wouldn’t work since the continuity would be wrong, so making sure that it was secure was definitely essential. This improved my planning skills and my test shots when I let the camera roll and I drew a few random things back. I looked at the shots back and saw if the whiteboard needed adjusting, if the pen was thick enough, if the camera was focussing correctly, etc; and if any of these things were not working then I could adjust them and try again until the shots were perfect.

Another production skill I had to master was learning how to get the right height or angle of the camera on the tripod. When working in groups, if anyone wasn’t too sure on how to do something technical with the camera or the tripod, we could easily just ask another one of our group members and the problem would soon become sorted. However, when working on a solo project alone, when one was totally in charge of their own piece, it was important that if a problem with the camera or the tripod occurred I would know how to handle it without panicking. Luckily, no problem actually occurred, however it still took some time until a suitable camera angle was found.

After actually filming, it was time to start editing, which was easier than the first task since by then we had already gone through the edit workshop, so we were all confident with using iMovie. When editing, skills like adding text were used quite commonly. One problem with this was definitely that iMovie seemed to shut down every time the text selector opened, which meant a lot of time was wasted, however when I kept persisting and shut the Mac down and reopened it, the problem appeared to be resolved for a little while before it went straight back to shutting down again. It wasn’t only my Mac, though. In the future, for my next project, I will remember that the Mac’s appear to be slightly delicate with the text future and will aim not to include too much of it in order for the problem not to occur again, and so that no more time is wasted.

Another thing I have improved whilst editing is cutting down of scenes. Altogether, my original un-cut footage was a little over 15 mintues, which then had to be cut down into no more than 3 minutes and no less than 2 minutes. Therefore I could not use all of the scenes I had, obviously. However, most of the scenes I shot were duplicates of each other, just each one was done a little differently, so that I could choose the one that I preferred when editing them together. Cutting down the scenes started off as rather easy, since it was obvious in which scenes I wanted to use and which ones just weren’t going to work. However, as the editing progressed, it became harder and harder to cut down the footage that just wasn’t needed. What I discovered was, by just taking something as small and select as 0.5 of a second off a picture could make all the difference, which made things a lot easier by being very precise with what I cut out. If I really didn’t need it, it would just have to go.

Some of the skills I have learnt whilst filming my MeVid that would be useful would be time management and pre planning. Whilst making a music video in particular, the order in which some sequences would have to be in would be essential to plan before filming, or the whole project could go wrong. Therefore, planning out all the durations of the different scenes that I would need and even deciding on location would definitely be useful in my music video project.

In the music video production, being different and being original is a huge part of it. I think the ‘Draw My Life’ sequence that I used to open up my MeVid was quite different, a few YouTubers have done it before but it was still quite new. Finding something new and original to put in the music video to make it more entertaining not only to watch, but to film. Therefore originality is another key which the MeVid helped everyone to bring out. Because this video was only about ourselves individually as a person and no one else, individual personalities could shine through which would be quite useful in the Music Video.

In the year 13 documentary, I think films and music are ones that I would develop. I would definitely go further into those topics. For films, I think if I filmed outside of a cinema it would really set the tone for the rest of the documentary since location is very important for documentaries, especially when they’re relevant to the topic.

For music, a rough idea is to see which music tastes are the most popular in terms of music sales and which are most popular in terms of views on YouTube, since I find it rather interesting that some songs can be absolutely hated but still get the most views on YouTube.

Of course, my strange obsession with One Direction and a few other YouTuber’s I think would be very interesting to create a documentary out of. Altogether I think that would be quite fun to film and in terms of filming I don’t think it would be too hard to find a location since my whole bedroom wall is covered in posters, as proven in my MeVid. Screenshots coming soon.

My MeVid (Jada Wright

My Shooting Script.

Evaluation of Continuity Exercise

The main plot of our short film was that Taylor was being stalked by someone unknown. She comes out of the bathroom and checks her texts - there is a next from Josh who tells her to come to Media. She walks up the staircase and there is a hooded figure following her, little does she know. She walks into the room and then gets another text, but from someone unknown. It tells her that she will find out who they are soon. Taylor is therefore confused and leaves the room, however whilst shutting the door behind her, she turns around and comes face to face with the hooded figure who then quickly claps their hand over her mouth and the scene ends.

Using the 180 degree rule was essential when filming our short film. If this wasn’t used correctly then it would have confused the audience on what exact angle they were watching. Therefore my group would have to use it correctly, especially during the conversation scenes between two people. During scenes 2a and 2b, Taylor (who was in charge of the camera) had to make sure that she followed the eye lines of the two characters as they looked at each other whilst having their conversation.
However when editing the footage afterwards in the edit workshop my group realised that actually we had broken the 180 degree rule and therefore when watching it back it became confusing to the eye to truly understand. Therefore we had to reshoot most of the scenes that we had originally used and it was essential that we kept the 180 degree rule in tact.

Rule of Thirds were also used whilst filming the conversation scenes. This is a grid that sometimes is on the video camera screen whilst filming which would make sure that the main character focussed on would be the main source on the screen. An example of this on the story  board is scene 2 in which I am sitting at a table and because of this I am the only person in shot and where I am positioned does indeed show the Rule Of Thirds. This is used to make sure that the main person or object that is focussed on in the shot can clearly be seen and that they are easier for the audience to follow, especially when they are in some sort of motion. If this isn't used this could easily confuse and disorientate the audience if they are not able to follow the subject of the screen.

Some of the challenges included not having that much time. Taylor, who was the main character of the short film, was not in on one of the days which means that we missed out on some filming time, since it just so happens that we had filmed all of the scenes that did not include Taylor previously that week, which meant unfortunately that the one day we had left to film all of Taylor's scenes and to properly polish off our short film we couldn't film anything. Therefore Josh and I were stuck, so we decided to film some establishing shots of staircases and corridoor's to perhaps set the scene a little more. However even though we believed that these wouldn't make any difference and that we would not use these shots, we found out whilst editing that these definately did come in handy, and that they were best used to pad out the scenes and therefore worked very well within our storyline. To avoid this next time, we would have to plan out our stages of filming a lot better to make sure that a disaster like this didn't happen again.
Another challenge would be the fact that we were originally planning to use another person from our year in our short film, therefore we had written him in the storyboards and planned what he was going to do and say. However we then found out that we weren't allowed to use anyone else since that would mean pulling him from his lesson. Therefore we had to think of a quick solution so that we didn't waste time and that our storyboard would still make sense on a whole even if we changed one of the scenes. To prevent this from happening again, we would have to make sure of our guidelines in the next project in order to avoid disappointment.

Whilst editing, I found a few things that we did very well. The main one was that we had left many seconds to filming before and after the scene actually started. The reason this worked so well was because when it came to editing, leaving a few seconds between the end of one scene and the beginning of another made the whole short film look a lot more realistic. For example, there was a scene where Taylor was walking up a staircase and there is a figure in black walking behind her, then the scene after that is Taylor entering the classroom. Now, because we added a few seconds after Taylor had left the shot in the scene with her walking up the stairs, and also left a few seconds before Taylor had actually approached the door to open it, when editing this all together it appeared as if Taylor had truly walked down a corridoor and then come to the door. It just looked very realistic and altogether we were very pleased with it. The moral of that story is to overshoot everything.