Evaluation

End of FMP Evaluation

Before starting my documentary I had to think critically about what I wanted to make and why I wanted to make it. In last years FMP I had pre planned to create a documentary about music for my second year FMP but was unsure what the context around this it would be. I decided I wanted to set the goal of creating a participatory documentary surrounding artificial intelligence in music production. In my project proposal I outlined that I want my documentary to discuss technical factors of making artificial intelligence made manufactured music and what this could mean for artists - this was my contextual focus. For my technical focus of my documentary, I aimed to focus on using b -roll, voice overs and interviews to help make an authentic documentary. I think that these aims and goals were appropriate for my documentary as I set them to ensure that my documentary followed the codes and conventions of participatory documentary's and provide my outlined primary and secondary target audience an authentic documentary which not only intrigued them but also entertained them. 

I do believe that my aims and goals were met and achieved in my FMP and documentary as I worked with these aims in mind throughout my project. I have met the aim of making a documentary about manufactured "ai" music and how it will affect artists. I have met this aim by speaking to aspiring artists, young international artists and the owner of a record shop. This has helped me meet this aim as I have provided the audience with first hand opinions from the people who will be directly affected the most. This will help the audience gather more emotive opinions  towards the use of ai in music overall and will impact the effect that is had through watching my documentary. I would say I met some of my aims of using common documentary codes and conventions such as b - roll, interviews and voice over in my documentary. I say "some of" as I think I have used b - roll footage effectivly throughout my documentary and most of my documentary is made up of 3 interviews but I think i could have used more voice over work. The most credible section of voice over in my documentary is the opening sequence which consists of all voice over and b - roll. Other sequences which may have had an element of voice over would be where I am interviewing someone or whilst they are answering my questions to make sure the audience stay interested instead of just seeing two people talking, I have added relevant b - roll footage, meaning that the talking is a type of voice over. This is not as direct as my opening voice over is as this is just typically how b - roll works, so to use more voice over, on reflection I could have used voice over instead of  talking to the camera about my findings. Overall, I do think that I met my aims and goals that I set out for my project but could have done more voice over and altered some sequences through my documentary to meet this. 

One of the biggest success of my documentary is the opening sequence. I knew very early on that I wanted a strong opening sequence which used voice over and relevant b - roll footage ending with a motion graphic of the title. I took this as inspiration from many of Stacey Dooley's participatory documentary's. After doing lots of existing product analysis' (looking at many of Stacey's documentary's and what the opening sequences are like), I had an idea in mind of what I wanted my opening sequence to look like. I wanted it to be filled of footage from the interviews I would be conducting, locations I would be going to and also anything that would make what I was discussing more relevant. For example, as I was speaking about artificial intelligence, I filmed lots of footage of me using platforms such as Chatgpt and Udio. I also showed me searching for these different platforms and my using a laptop, I wanted my documentary to be as cinematic as I could get it to be so I think that this worked well. Another big success of my documentary was the editing skills which I worked on. As previously mentioned in my proposal, editing was an aspect of my work that I struggled with as using software such as Premier Pro and After Effects due to the complex layout and the shear amount of things that it can do (that I have not yet used). In past projects, I have always followed YouTube tutorials throughout the whole duration of completing action research and my actual edit to figure out the different effects and the ways to improve the quality of my edits. In this project I found that I did this all in the action research period and when editing my documentary I only had to use other sources once or twice. This is a big success for me as it shows me that I have really grown and naturally improved at editing which is something I have struggled with for a while. Another big success of my documentary was my use of lines. I really wanted my documentary to be very cinematic but there were a few scenes and shots which I struggled to make look good whilst filming. One of these examples was the interview with Jess, as we were filming at her house I had to respectful and thankful for her allowing me to film there. However, when setting up the shot I couldn't get any angles that looked cinematic so I tried to work with lines in mind. 

I think that this is a success as I have tried to do the best out of a bad job and look for something technical to improve the cinematography even in situations where I don't think I can make it look very nice. This is something that in last years FMP I wouldn't have thought about so it shows how far I have come within my work. 

A skill I used and developed in my FMP which helped me accomplish my project was my editing. As I previously mentioned I really struggled with editing, this was from the simplest things such as fading in and out sound and shots and adding text. In this documentary I chose to use after effects to create a motion graphic title - again this is something I would not dream of doing but tested it in my action research and then reflected on it to improve it. I felt that the text needed to format closer together so when making my graphic for my final edit I did this. This shows how I have developed my editing skills over time. It is beneficial for me to develop my my editing skills further as I want to go into digital music marketing in later years and learning how to use software like Premiere Pro, After Effects and Photoshop may be crucial to the job role.  Another skill I have developed in this project was teamwork. In all of my past projects I have maintained mostly a director role where I have been able to film shots myself and tell people what to do. For my participatory documentary, I was in front of the camera and had to explain to my camera operator for most of the documentary what I was wanting/thinking for shots. This is where we had to communicate as a team to ensure that I got the shots that I needed and that they maintained a level of cinematography that I was hoping for. Developing my teamwork and communication skills is incredibly important and beneficial as this will help me in later tasks and jobs so it is good that I have been able to experiment in this product.

Overall I would say that I have met my goals and aims for my FMP and I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to work on different skills and working with others. I think that my performance in my documentary was strong. When filming and recording voice overs I wanted to keep all of my scenes relevant, informative, interesting and entertaining. When editing I did feel that there was a point where I felt that it was very repetitive but I just had to stay motivated - which was a good mindset to have and keep. 

Whilst filming my documentary there were a few problems that I ran into that I had to overcome. There were a few days of production which I had to film by myself due to peers also being busy with their projects. This meant that my shots weren't as visually pleasing and aesthetic to the audience as I had hoped for them to be. One of these moments was my interview with Jess as it was only the two of us there at that time and also where I make the ai song. When I had someone who could film, I was able to get better angles, lighting and also cinematic shots so these two moments I do feel brought down my documentary ever so slightly. Another problem was based with the camera themselves. On my first day of filming, I aimed to film the opening sequence b - roll, my interview with Jess and also my interview with Dean. In the camera back I was given two battery's, one was charged up and one was half charged. This meant that later on in the evening I was unable to film the interview with Dean on the camera like I had hoped to. I overcame this by filming the b - roll and interview with Jess, instead of doing the opening sequence as this could be filmed later on, and screen recorded my interview with Dean and filmed shots of me talking to him on my phone. Whilst this was not ideal, it wasn't an issue. 

For the future I could ensure that the battery's are fully charged up and that I also have a camera battery charger with me. This would help as I could charge them before filming and if they run out I could take a short break to recharge them. For filming with others I could have maybe found one of my friends or family and trained them up on the basics of using the camera so that in the two circumstances where I needed help I had at least 1 person with a small amount of experience. 

An aspect of my documentary that I think could have gone better is making it shorter. In my research I conducted a survey for my secondary audience (the audience that would be watching it more as a documentary instead of my primary audience who may be watching it as music production is what they do and is one of their interests) to find out what they look for in documentary's. All people that responded said interviews are what they would expect to see in a documentary's so I decided to conduct three interviews - one with a primary audience member, one with a secondary audience member and someone who may be affected by the adaptation of ai in music. Whilst I still think this is a good way to gain more feedback and opinions, my overall documentary was longer than it should be (I was asked for it to be around 8-10 minutes). I did cut some questions and answers out if I deemed them irrelevant but it is still very longwinded. A short documentary should be kept to around 8-10 minutes as it means that the audience remain focussed and interested in the subject and I think that this could be a flaw in my documentary. Another aspect that I would have liked to touch on more was the human emotion that is lost with ai. In my interview with Dean, he did briefly mention this but it is something that I think I should have mentioned more as viewers could empathise with this. 

A recourse that could have been beneficial to use that I did not have access to was more studies on ai in music. As it is a relatively new concept with website's such as Udio being launched within the last two or 3 years there is not that much to look at. When researching I did a whole section dedicated to artificial intelligence and the affect it has on people and music but in the grand scheme of things that was not as much secondary research as I had hoped for. This could have benefitted my documentary more as I would have been able to provide better and more detailed statistics and studies on ai and generative ai - overall helping me create a stronger and more informative documentary. 

I feel that I was quite effective when needing to overcome any problems or challenges that I faced asI knew that I simply had to just continue and find ways around it. For example, on the days where I didn't have a filmer to record my documentary for me, I asked for a tripod as well as a camera that had a swivel screen so that I was able to look at what the shot looked like before I began and adjusted it if need be. This was beneficial as it meant I didn't have to waste any filming days and could continue to work on my documentary. If I chose a different day to film I may not have had the correct time for editing as I spent more time of filming ect.  Another way that I was effective to overcome problems was how I prioritised what I could use the camera battery on. As I mentioned previously on my first day of filming I needed to film two interview's, b - roll and footage needed for my opening sequence. When I realised I did not have enough battery to film all of these I had to prioritise each thing. This benefitted me as I was able to effectively film my footage and manage the time I had to complete it. 

An element of planning and preparation which I think I could have changed to have a better final outcome would be to have pre planned when I would be filming by weeks not days. I filmed my documentary over the time span of 2 weeks. I filmed on 4 days and gave interviewees about a weeks notice for filming. Had I have pre planned further with multiple weeks if not a months notice I would have had more chance to find someone with experience using cameras to help me film. I think that having someone film shots for me I would have had a better documentary outcome as it would have been more cinematic due to hand held shots and someone being able to actually look at what the camera is picking up and assess what works well and what may need to be changed. 

A key lesson that I learnt from my project is that if I am not sure about how to set my own goals it is to look at existing products and take features and aspects that I like. For example, when starting out my documentary I was slightly unsure what I was actually capable of and had seen so many participatory documentary's that I loved so to gather ideas, goals and aims I watched several participatory documentary's so that I could set my own self goals. I found that this is a key lesson to learn as I can use this method in lots of different work - looking at pre existing things and taking inspiration from that. Another key lesson I have learnt from this project is to remain motivated. As this is my final project from my two years at college, when starting knowing that we had 11 weeks to complete it meant that there were often times were I was unmotivated and thought that I had lots of time left but this was not a good mindset to have. So I tried to keep myself as motivated as possible so that work was kept to a high level of quality and I had enough time to meet interim deadlines. A final key lesson I learnt from this project would be the importance of conducting large amounts of quality research. In my past few projects I would say that I have really thrived in my research but in this project I felt like I had an element of pressure depending on my research as documentary's should be factual and credible. When finding statistics to share in my documentary I often tried to back up statistics by using primary and second form of research. For example, I would conduct a survey and based on the statics and answers I would see if I could find any pre existing data to match this. Overall, these key lessons have helped me to set realistic and beneficial goals, remain motivated whilst working and get valid statistics and research. These all benefit my documentary as it increases the quality of my documentary. 

I can use skills that I gained in this project in the future as I have strengthened my editing skills (which will help me as I want to go into digital marketing so many use similar software), communication and teamwork skills (which will help me as a life skill. I will need to use effective communication and teamwork at uni and also in work environments) and have also made a documentary which I had never made before so have learnt lots about documentary techniques such as lighting, interviews, voice overs and sound.

Overall, I am very happy with the way my documentary has turned out. Personally I think that it is a new and intriguing concept, I think it feels more personal with it being a participatory documentary rather than a common expository documentary as it follows me and my research. I enjoyed making this documentary as it was a step out of my comfort zone and created something fresh and unseen and this is what is really important to me.