Evaluation of Production

Pre-Production – Most Successful Aspect

My most successful aspect during pre-production was researching each content idea as I was able to use
different research sources such as books, internet and my own personal experiences to gather up information on
each of my three chosen ideas. However most of the information gained was secondary. I feel that the sources I
used to get information from were quite reliable as I occasionally used expert opinions and statistical websites
which I found from using the most popular search engine ‘Google’.
Below is a link to the content research of knife crime:
http://ksmallman.blogspot.com/2010/09/content-research.html
I found this my most successful aspect as I was also able to learn a lot from what I was researching, which
intrigued me and allowed me to research more in depth.
Another successful aspect from pre-production was my treatment, both the MS PowerPoint and the presentation.
I felt that the MS PowerPoint I created was successful as it was very detailed and had all the information that I
needed in there alongside pictures and videos to make it more appealing to read. Also I felt that my presentation
was successful as I explained the information from my MS PowerPoint instead of just listing what I aim to do in
my documentary, therefore it was again very detailed and there wasn’t any major changes that I had to make
from the feedback that was given, which was quite positive.
Below is a link to my detailed MS PowerPoint:
http://ksmallman.blogspot.com/2011/02/treatment-presentation.html

Production – Most Successful Aspect

In my production phase I feel that my most successful aspect was the last week of filming as due to my rough
edit video and feedback I was told that I needed to have more interviewees within my documentary, as at this
point there wasn’t any. Due to the filming deadline that was fast approaching I knew I had to act fast and contact
the people that I wanted to interview so that I could film them. I feel that I worked very hard at this point
onwards to try and get all my filming completed before the deadline, I achieved my short goal and filmed all the
things I had to film, which Is why I feel that I this was one of my successful aspects during production as the
last week of filming I had was tough, but do able as I put in the effort.
Below is my production schedule of March:
http://ksmallman.blogspot.com/2011/04/feburary-production-schedule.html

Post Production – Most Successful Aspect

During the post-production phase I feel that my most successful aspect was taking out my pieces to camera as I
didn’t have enough of them and the ones that I did have looked strange as there wasn’t enough of the presenter
being shown in any of the filmed footage. I decided I should scrap the pieces to camera that I had and create
voice overs where possible to explain what I was doing at each point during the documentary. At first I didn’t
want to take out my pieces to camera as I thought i could get marked down due to the fact I didn’t have any,
however once I had put all my voice overs in everything fitted much better and I felt that I had made a
successful improvement from my own decision making.
Another successful aspect I feel I achieved was the music and sound effects that I put into my documentary.
When deciding what music I should use in my documentary I related back to the questionnaire I produced in
pre-production, one of the questions were about what genre of music should I used within my knife crime
documentary, most people chose grime music. Therefore I took this on board and had grime music in my
documentary as this appealed to my target audience. I also added sound effects such as a police siren as this is
related to the topic that my documentary was about.
I felt that this was a successful aspect in my documentary as it made it more appealing to my target audience and
also made in more effective and interesting in general.
Below is a link to my final documentary itself, where you can see the music and sound effects that I used
throughout:
http://ksmallman.blogspot.com/2011/04/final-documentary.html

Pre-Production – Time Management

Overall throughout most of my pre-production stage I feel that I was up to date with most of my work and didn’t
fall way behind too much. However personally I felt that with some work within pre-production if I enjoyed it I
would have it done as soon as possible, maybe even done before the deadline, which was good. Although, on
the other hand with work that I didn’t intend to enjoy much or work that I felt was very time consuming I tended
to not do it until the last minute this then made me fall behind sometimes. Also if I had missed a lesson or a
catch up session this could lead me to falling behind as I’d have to find out what was done during my absent
lesson and catch up in my own time. Furthermore looking back during pre-production I noticed that it required a
lot of effort and high quality levels of work which made it seem quite intense. Although some work that was set,
I actually enjoyed doing and made it very detailed.
Another reason where I tended to fall behind was due to contacting contributors to complete all my contact lists
I needed to know for certain to my contacts and contributors were. However I had trouble with emailing some
contributors as they occasionally didn’t reply or they didn’t answer their phones. This made it difficult however
I had backup contacts which I also used in my documentary. To improve next time I would start contacting
contributors much earlier into pre-production.
Below is a link to my final contact list:
http://ksmallman.blogspot.com/2011/02/final-contact-list.html

Production – Time Management

My time management for production was quite poor as I felt that my angle wasn’t good enough for the overall
topic. I kept thinking negatively about my documentary and left a lot of the most important pieces to film until
the last week. Although the last week I did work exceptionally hard to get everything filmed, uploaded and
edited. To do some of my interviews I came into school early and use some of my free periods to go out and
film. This helped me as I was then able to complete all my filming and concentrate on editing it within the next
upcoming weeks. If I had another chance to re-do my documentary I would approach it a lot differently by
organising myself and having a plan to go by for filming. I would have included much more footage of
cutaways from interviews and general cutaways relating to my topic and overall I would start filming as soon as
I was allowed to book equipment out so that I would have enough time to re-film if needed to.

Post Production – Time Management

My time management within post production was probably the best out of the three stages as after I had filmed I
uploaded the footage and got on with editing it, I also used my time wisely as I used my after school, break and
lunch hours to finish editing. I finished editing completely 1 day before the whole documentary was due, I got
feedback one last time from some teachers where they said I should cut down a certain interview I did this and
then my documentary was complete. However if I had finished any earlier I would have made my documentary
a bit more appealing by matching all the graphics such as captions and making them all the same font, colour
and the same size. Although I was still happy with the way I used my editing time appropriately.
Below is again my final documentary link:
http://ksmallman.blogspot.com/2011/04/final-documentary.html

Pre-Production - Actors & Crew

During pre-production when contacting some contributors I found it easy on my behalf sending out emails to
people, however it started to become challenging when contributors that I wanted didn’t reply to their emails or
contact me back in any form. I then had to start phone calling people for them to consider being in my
documentary. I found this difficult as I lack confidence in communicating with people that I am unfamiliar with
over the phone. However having contributors within my documentary was essential so I had to overcome this
and by phoning people to follow them up.
Below is a link to all the contributors I contacted through email and Facebook:
http://ksmallman.blogspot.com/2011/02/contacting-contributors.html
I also asked a girl in my form class if she would be my camera operator as someone recommended her to me
because of her excellent skills in framing shots and camera angles. I needed someone to be a voice over artist for
my documentary, although as I mentioned before at the beginning of my documentary I was the presenter and
had pieces to camera although this didn’t work so I decided that as a presenter I should do the voice overs.

Production – Actors & Crew

In the production period I still had problems contacting my contributors as well as finding a day and time to
arrange with each interview that was suitable for the interviewees. However in the last week that I had to film
most of my documentary and the filming all came together. This was because I used some back up people that I
had just in case the original contributors couldn’t make that day. In terms of crew, the person who I asked to be
my camera operator was actually away some of the time that I needed to film so I thought about the situation
and instead of choosing another person to be my camera operator I decided that I would do this myself as I
wasn’t being the presenter to the camera, this worked out quite well as I didn’t have to rely on anyone else and
could get more done as I had the time to do it. To improve for next time I would contact contributors much
earlier on and arrange times when we could meet, I would have more variety of back-up contributors just in case
someone couldn’t make the day, I would actually have a couple of camera operators and use myself as the
presenter but have more pieces to camera so that it would work better. This would then allow me to have a voice
over artist to do some of the voice overs.

Post Production – Actors & Crew

In post production the only crew that was involved was mainly myself as I was the editor of my documentary. If
I had used someone to be my voice over artist this is where they would have come in, however I chose to be the
voice over artist so again it was just myself within this part of the documentary.

Pre-Production – Equipment & Booking

Equipment and booking wasn’t essential during pre-production as none of the work required equipment to be
booked out. However within pre-production I did plan ahead on the equipment that I would need and when I
would be taking equipment out. For example in pre-production I had to fill out production schedules which was
1 months planning on when we was filming, what we was doing in each lesson and when we was editing. This
allowed me to know when I would need to book out equipment as I would need to film around that time. Also
within pre-production a lot of my work involved researching which required me to have full use of the internet
and computers which I had easy access to.

Production – Equipment & Booking

During production I was able to pre-book all of the equipment that I needed on the days or weekends that I was
going to be filming as I had already planed this within pre-production. Therefore I had already had myself
organised before I had even started booking the equipment out, this gave me a head start and allowed me to
manage the equipment and booking quite well.