Intro to Me: Evaluation

With my video completed, it was time to look back over the process and evaluate to see what went well and what i can do better in the future.

As soon as I saw and read through the brief, I had an image of what I wanted my film to be. Rather than sticking to the supposed simplicity of the brief, I wanted to see what filming and editing skills I could muster in the early stages of this course. To write this evaluation, I have referred to the Gibbs Reflective Cycle.

To begin, I decided that I wanted my film to mainly use voice over which would play under quick images and videos of myself and friends, hobbies, favourite film and TV, etc. This led to my starting plan in which I just wrote any detail I wanted to mention in a list so it was all clear on a page rather than just drawing from my head. As a result, to plot out the order I would mention these details, I organised this into a rough storyboard, establishing the segments of my film. As it could only be 60 seconds, I realised I was better off with a voice over so I was able to present any finer details about myself in video, obeying the basic premise of film being show don’t tell.

After completing my storyboard, I drew up a timetable of when I could do my filming which all went to plan. I was able to meet some friends on the local common and use my family in another segment. Although I was using voice over, I still wanted to appear in smaller parts of film as its purpose was to outline who I am. It was easy to film myself with the setup I have available at home. The rest of the film would be comprised of existing photos and videos from my phone over the last few. I thought this was crucial as these presented my everyday self rather than staged acting to inform the identity of the film. I edited my audio track first, realising I didn’t want my favourite song playing the entire way through as there would be singing as a distraction from the voice over. Therefore, I found a separate track from adobe and embedded my favourite song about half way in.

In terms of a witness, I didn’t want to sit down with a friend or family member and take an interview so I decided to reach out to about 15 friends and asked them to each record themselves saying their name and something about me which is used to create the closing 10 seconds of the film. I also wanted to showcase my current skills with editing so I toyed around with a segment of switching hoodies. This came during the filming process rather than in the planning stage. I produced this segment as I thought it summed up my personality to end the film: I am a big fan of hoodies so I have a large collection of them, each with its own significance to a hobby or otherwise that I could showcase. Finally, I have also learned basic animation over the years and wanted a nod to that in my video. This came as a simple stick man animation to illustrate my town. This was also a decision made later into the process as I didn’t know how to present my town as the videos and images I took didn’t seem to fit.

As an evaluation, I enjoyed the experience of making this film as I have never had the right situation to do something like this but have some of the skills necessary to do so. However, had I done it again, there would be a few changes. Although I like the charm of the animation, I would try and find another way of exploring my home village to give it more emphasis. There were times when making this film was more challenging such as trying to work more professionally with my friends and may issues when editing in terms of software crashes and converting file types. Having said that, I felt that it was worth it in the end. I think I could have added slightly more dialogue to say a bit more about myself as it is still fairly vague. My script was very short and I did improvise a few extra lines when recording to try and make up some space. I also think I should have thought more carefully about the shots I was taking and how they fit into the wider film. If this rose up in the future, I will definitely spend more time at the beginning planning before jumping in with a tight filming schedule that didn’t allow for many takes. Pre-production is a very important stage that I fairly skipped through so when it came to editing I was dropping shots in and trying to work out where they would all fit. I did however take more shots than I needed to give myself many options. Overall, I am very pleased with the finished result as I believe it represents me well.