Final Evaluation

This Unit I was asked to produce “a visual product that meets professional
standards”. Right at the start of this unit I knew I wanted to create a narrative
based music video for "Waiting Room" by the band Fugazi. I wanted to show
the progression and mood change of the character from a controlled state of
pain to fits of rage as he unleashes his wrath on the objects surrounding him.
Visually, I wanted to experiment with a variety of different shot types to really
get across the character's emotions and motives to the audience.

To see what my peers thought of my production, I created a survey asking six of

what I thought were the most important questions during the analysis stage of
my evaluation. These questions were:
- Were the themes of boredom and frustration easy to understand?
- What did you think of the cinematography in my production?
- What did you think of the editing techniques used in my production?
- What was your favourite aspect of my production?
- What was your least favourite aspect of my production?
- Do you think the song choice was well suited to my production's narrative in
my production?
In response to the first question, the answers really varied with several
contrasting ideas about which themes were easier to understand. Four of the
most informative pieces of individual feedback are shown in the screenshot
beneath.
It soon became evident from the survey that a lot of my peers had different
views about each element of my production. Generally, the rest of the feedback
was truthful and therefore constructive. The aforementioned survey responses
allowed to me to judge how effectively I had stuck to the outline I had set
myself in the brief.

As shown in the screenshot above, my teacher was able to provide me with as

much useful feedback as I needed. While I was conducting some of my topic
research they provided me with several links to websites which cover the
themes I had aimed to cover in my music video. This was a great help because
at the start of the researching process I really struggled to find useful websites
which I could base my secondary research off.

I have chosen to enter my music video to the UK film festival, I believe that I
was able to stick to the rules set out by the competition that were listed on their
various websites. My production met the required run time and featured nothing
that could be “grossly indecent” deeming it a success in the eyes of my chosen
festival. Before I started planning my production I wrote about the social
context to give myself and other more of an understanding of the themes. The
social context writing also allowed me to ensure that any sensitive topics or
themes covered in the video were for entertainment purposes only and meant no
harm.
The research process consisted of several different smaller areas with the
biggest ones being topic as well as codes and conventions. I looked into the four
main codes and conventions of a music video within the punk/hardcore genre by
analysing four different videos. Specifically, I researched Mise-En-Scene,
Sound, Editing and Camera techniques. This helped me to pick out exact things
in the genre which I thought were important and should be included within my
production. Specifically, I wanted to make use of dark outfits which I picked up
on while analysing the mise-en-scene of the four music videos I watched and
analysed. I would say that this research was successful and most definitely
helped me to make the production fit the codes and conventions correctly and to
a professional standard which I would say I did.

Another key part of the research stage for my production was looking into my
topics, (of) boredom and frustration. I looked into these themes as they are the
key feelings the main protagonist in my music video portrays to the audience.
While doing so I learnt all about the ways to display themes of frustration and
boredom. I found this information helpful when it came to planning my
production. While I was shooting I made my actor read through some of my
findings in order to help him get into the right mind state.

Right from the start, my production was riddled errors both theoretical and
practical. In the first week I really struggled to come up with an idea for what I
wanted to do putting me behind schedule from the beginning. Thankfully by the
second week I had caught up with most things and it stayed like that for the
majority of the research and planning process. Another problem I faced was
while completing my pitch presentation. I think perhaps this was the biggest
flaw throughout the entirety of my production, I had not spent enough time
practicing it and was not confident in showing it all to an audience.

Since this unit began, I would say that I have progressed significantly. My
researching skills have improved as demonstrated specifically in my target
audience section where I conducted primary research through the form of focus
groups and surveys. Also, my secondary researching methods have gotten better
as shown in my topic research. In my opinion, this is definitely a useful skill to
have and could potentially separate me from the crowd when it comes to seeing
future employment.
Another thing I believe that I have improved throughout this unit is my editing
ability. After struggling to shoot a successful dolly zoom in my music video, I
was able to use a warp stabilizer to make the clip lot a whole lot smoother.

Comparing my production to the Spike Jonze “Sabotage” music video I

researched would to me seem like a gross overestimation of my skills. However,
since my budget was essentially nothing the technical aspects of the two music
videos differ dramatically. If I was to remake my production with a large budget
it would be a fairer comparison and there would be much fewer differences.
Jonze’s use of several different lenses to develop the character’s personalities in
his production is an example of a skill I attempted to recreate that I was actually
fairly successful with. Jonze utilised a variety of angles to make each Beastie
either appear taller or shorter based on the position of the camera. If the angle is
looking up on the actor, they are presented as having more of a sense of
dominance. In my production, I attempted this technique on numerous
occasions, specifically within the first sequence featuring Toby shown in the
screenshot below.

I wanted the angle to be low and shaky to build up tension while matching the
menacing riff at the beginning of the song. Overall, I’d say this was done well
and this frame is one of my favourite shots of the entire production because the
dark lighting matches Toby’s colourless outfit but contrasts with his blonde
hair. This reminds me of the frame below taken from the “Sabotage” music
video. It has a simplistic background allowing the character to be the centre of
the shot, even if they are not in the middle.
If I were to complete this unit again, I would be sure that I took the necessary
precautions in order to stay on track each week and manage my time
appropriately. This is because I let silly mistakes hold me up during the
planning process especially. For example: If I were unable to finish a piece of
work, instead of moving on to the next task and coming back to the original task
to improve/finish it off, I would often find myself hassling over the same piece
of work for days without making any subsequent progress. This was particularly
true for the storyboarding process. Despite knowing in my head exactly how I
wanted each frame to look, I struggled to put pen to paper as I wanted the whole
thing to appear seamless and perfect. I would also probably allow myself more
time for filming as I took issue with several of the scenes in my production that
were just minor technical errors that could have been so easy to rectify if I had
been given enough time to re-shoot and re-edit. For example, the second
sequence in my production was supposed to be about how the girl had sent the
boy a message that led to him smashing up the waiting room. From my
feedback, it became clear that the majority of this audience didn’t make that
connection. This could’ve been made more evident to the viewers through the
use of visual signposting to drive the narrative. For example, I could have used
a clock on the wall to show that time had passed in the waiting room scene.
Originally, I had planned to do this however it slipped my mind when it came to
hunting down the rest of the props.

To conclude this evaluation, I would say that overall my production was a

success in its entirety. The context work set me up on the right track and
allowed me to realise the type of music video I wanted to make, while the
researching tasks helped me to improve my skills and retain key information
which undoubtedly shaped the final outcome of my production. Despite not
being completely happy with how the music video itself turned out, overall it
was a success as I finished what I set out to do in my proposal. I have also
improved my editing ability significantly. Looking back to the beginning of the
course, I have most definitely progressed and attained skills that I can use for
many years after.