Evaluation

At the beginning of this project. We

were instructed to write up the full
context of our final major project
and come up with a finalised idea
for our preferred target audience.
To begin this process, we started by
writing up a project concept. Firstly
stating the easy details, our centre
number, name and student number
as a way to identify us for marking.
Later following the tricky parts, the rational, concept and evaluation. Like I
mentioned in my pitch, each section allowed us to explain the idea before it was
finalised. With the rationale helping me to state my previous strengths and what I
already knew about factual programming. The rationale consisted of me talking
about my organisational skills, research skills and my previous experience with
documentaries in Unit 12 and year 1 of this course. All of these skills can help me to
meet deadlines, help me complete work to the best of my abilities whilst knowing
where to go to construct a new form of documentary. The concept is a section that
allows me to talk about my chosen mode of media, what the aim is, whom the
target audience is, who I hope to interview and the length that I need to keep
under. The last section, evaluation simply is where I will improve and self-reflect on
the project through weekly blogs, one to ones and surveys/ focus groups.

In my teacher’s feedback,
she informs me to add more
to the proposal as I had over
explained the ideas that
weren’t preferred by my
responses on my survey for
context. They all seemed to
prefer the technology idea and completely neglected the others. Causing me to
change the proposal and project concept to more so aimed at my technology
idea. This was easy to construct and alter as all the ideas had the same 17-30 year
old target audience, all were aimed to teach others of a ‘certain part of life that
affects us as humans’. Which is a possible thing I said in the proposal itself. Adding
more to my proposal can also help to make my intentions clearer and help to raise
my grade in the context section of my final major project.

When coming up with my ideas, I was

struggling to come up with a third idea,
which turned out to be my target
audiences preferred idea. The first two
ideas were both similar in the area of
animals but had what some may consider
to be hard hitting topics but was pointed
out to me as over talked about or common
knowledge. Plus, not many people,
including myself beforehand, know about
technology and how it affects us. After
gathering feedback from a couple surveys, I
logged and kept track of my idea through a
mind map and a summed up synopsis of my
documentary. The original outline of the idea
was ‘The debate on whether social media and
technology is good for us. Is the internet
running our younger generations?’ This was at
first the main idea but some of my responses
mostly wanted with reasons stating they
wanted the ‘technology of today’, ‘social
media impacts’ and the impact on ‘older’ and
‘younger’ generations. My target audience did say that they wanted the ’18-24’
age range but wanted the older generation to be included in the mention. Which is
both understandable and helps to widen the information to what the younger
generation can compare themselves to or people in their lives. The next idea
development came after topic research. This was when I applied more detail to the
pros + cons as a way to evident my topic research. This was going to be certain
topics that are individually explained in my production and weren’t to be pushed a
small mention.

The next idea development came after

target audience research. My surveys
confirmed that the audience liked the pros +
cons when they voted it as their preferred
topic to shine over others. The least preferred
idea was never stated by my responses but
was slowly concluded as the history of
technology. I completely saw where this may
have come from and agree with it. To solve
this issue, I cut down a lot of my research from
the final script to avoid the chance of
disengaging my audience early on. On the
other hand, the overflow of contextual
information wasn’t necessary for a
documentary on the modern impact of social media. Which is backed up by
responses to question three of my target audience survey with responses stating,
‘focus on the present day’ and tons of other responses such as ‘good visuals’, ‘linked
interviews’, ‘talk about mental health more’ and ‘hear opinions from those of all
ages’. This was more so helpful in building up
my script from my topic research and what was
more vital to expand on close to the end of my
topic research. The main change to my mind
map was the adaption of adding a social
experiment or two to back up my information
and help to appeal to my mode of
documentary, participatory, and show my
interaction with the topic and demonstrate
how one can learn from the documentary.
Preparing the website/ production schedule/ bibliography was a key way to keep
track of all the sources and tasks would be done to complete this project. Whilst
showing my organisation skills that I spoke of having in project concept. The website
is themed to a purple, white, black and blue theme to keep a consistent theme and
prove that I have good presentation skills. Also keeping my website neat and tidy.
The production schedule was updated weekly and kept complete track of my days.
Sometimes I struggled to remember this commitment and fell behind towards the
planning stages. This was soon resolved when I was forced to arrange a 4-week plan
of filming and editing. I found that planning ahead thoroughly relaxes the situation
and helps me to comfortably move things around like I did later from the planning
stages. The bibliography helped me to log all the sources I used in my research as a
way to avoid accusations of stealing others work. Backing up all the sources can
also help me in case I need further information or want to include it in the
documentary as visual evidence. Which I have done as archive footage.

When asked to choose a client or competition, I had possible options for both. The
client was originally going to be the Cat’s protection league after emails and phone
calls. However, the feedback from my survey proved otherwise and pushed me
towards my technology idea. I clearly couldn’t find a client suitable enough for this
extravagant of an idea decided to source the ‘UK Film Festival’. Choosing a client or
competition that would be realistic within my original idea and the time scale of
work I can produce. Also, one that is cheap, realistic to compete in and is local to
the UK to keep traditional. The competition is set to showcase multiple choices of
films that are welcomed from all over the world to ‘celebrate the cultural diversity”.
The rules and regulations at the time were short and appealed to me as I didn’t
have any idea of how I wanted this project to finish in duration or quality. However,
the lack of rules also had more of a chance of fitting my college brief’s rules and
regulations. Which is both similarly no profanity, a 40-minute time limit and had to be
completed and submitted before July. I believe that the simplicity of the
competition is very easy to follow. Considering that it’s not necessary to swear in a
technology documentary and the length is now 30 minutes. Compared to the time
limit. Lastly being cheap and affordable for a student like me.
 When researching the history of
technology, Key Events, Dates and
Key People. I made sure to include
them all in a timeline to organise the
information and keep track of what is
appropriate and where in terms of
the past and the present. I have
learnt so much from this side of my
research and felt it has taught me of
the history before going into major
modern information so that I can
understand my topic better. Most of
the timeline was centred on this
digital technology timeline that told me of all the key events, dates and inventions
throughout the past 80 years. At first this seemed like a good idea but soon became
too much to research and ultimately was
difficult to track sources down for the
societal development for each decade.
The 40s and 50s were very similar in
research, with some still not applying
themselves to the new industrial age and
keeping to traditional stakes with war and
conflict. One main quote I can choose to
back up my point is “the technology was
declining and being slowed down by social
issues. Yet these social issues are war”. The social issues also included the great
depression where many couldn’t afford to carry the development to technology. As
interesting as this information is for my documentary, I felt like it was well known
information and would have been useless to today’s younger generation as they
may not be as invested in the history of our world as they use to be. If you want to
find something out, you use google and find the answer in seconds. The 60s, 70s and
80s almost bring a smoother and more accepting social justice that has affected the
way we fight social issues today. With many in these ages protesting, rioting and
outwardly expressing themselves more confidently, this new age was translated
through fashion, club culture and later the new introduction of computers and
phones. These developments shifted
communication and how we connect
with one another. I thought that the key
inventions would be self-explanatory of
the modern progression and the mention
of key dates and linked interviews would
be more engaging to watch. For
example, the Tim Berners Lee interview in
my interview explaining his attitude
behind how the world has adapted to
his invention of the World Wide Web.

Technology is the most updated modern privilege most people would rather be
engaged towards. Many didn’t want this information compared to pros + cons.
Survey responses in target audience responses can evidence this. With ’22.2%’
choosing pros + cons as their preferred category over the others.
My modern research shows a
more interesting side of digital
technology, with the introduction
to social media networks and
mobile phones + iPads etc. These
devices are things that my target
audience have most likely used
or grown up with and they would
be intrigued to hear of the issues
that come with these devices.
Most of my survey responses and specifically my focus group have mentioned the
want for me to focus on ‘mental health’ or again the focus of ‘pros + cons’ as some
have said that they didn’t know much of them and would want to more open to
hearing them. Some survey responses
said ‘if you show mental health effects
it will be shocking’, ‘I think people are
reluctant to admit that social media
and technology is responsible for the
rise of mental health issues, and even
other societal issues’. One issue I had
found in this section was struggling to
finish the research before deadline. I
overcame this issue by taking my work
home and sticking to a checklist that
helps to prioritise importance on time
to research other sections such as the
pros +cons.

The Pros and Cons of Technology is next section and the most important piece of
research to complete like many had wanted in the previously mentioned survey
results. To appeal to my target audience of 18-30 and their want for me to
investigate the impacts on all
age ranges, I sourced the
general pros + cons and the pros
+ cons for kids. The sourced
videos helped me to back up my
next points that I found from a
separate website. I even used the
kid’s news report in my film to
demonstrate that my research is
being presented in the
production. I had found the left video on the original article and found that it helped
to highlight that the issue is more than one mentioned concern. That it is in fact
worried about enough to appear on the news. These pros + cons were simple but
were good enough to include at the end of my production to help me sum up the
answer to my question of whether technology is good for us. The pros of this source
were all interesting and gave the audience an idea of what good technology can
do for us.
The first being new cultures. New
cultures “can help us connect to
others in faraway countries and
experience another world in front of
your computer screen”. This pro can
typically help to improve the younger
generation’s language skills and
encourage interest in outside
countries and cultures. Helping to
show the growing world’s
acceptance to one another. The
next pro is ‘deeper insights’. This
positive in turn could be a negative.
Whilst it does “connect us with our
weaknesses and better them”, it can
cause a young individual to
overthink the world and become
invested in topics that are dark or
negative. The next pro is ‘do more
with less’. “As technology develops, we as humans develop and adapt our abilities
that are supported by the new technology. Many have used technology to achieve
things that older generations haven't. Such as making a career out of social media,
learn about topics on google and revise for school with one website tool. The older
generation use technology to make their everyday job tasks quicker and connect
with others”. This in itself shows how much I have learnt from this pro but may already
be obvious to some in everyday situations. For the business side of technology
benefits, the next pro is ‘improves profits’. The new age of social media devices can
be expensive to invest in but the money can be doubly made back as easy with the
use of these devices on new platforms online and offline. One good example clearly
being social media networks. The next pro is making ‘research easier’. Like the last
couple points, and this research I completed, “extracts the individual into a world
with international sources of information to benefit them in their educational
ventures. For example, if a student is researching Japan for an essay, they could find
accurate first-hand information from those who have experienced the correct
information for those who psychically can't”. The last pro is ‘it saves time. “Saving
time for an individual can allow them to use the time for extended research or other
projects that they benefit
their projects/ task in hand.
The more that technology
develops, the quicker we
can access information”.
Which can be done
through the key phone,
table and computer
devices that I briefly show
in the documentary early
on.
 The cons also come in 6 and show a contrast and
similarities to the pros. The first is technology being
‘powerfully destructive’. “Destructive sources of
the internet can harm and manipulate many into
taking on negative or harmful tasks/ attitudes/
mind-sets. Many can access 'how to' guides and
those with opinions of terrorism, hacking and
invading others privacy in general.
Impressionable people in the younger
generations are manipulated towards these
topics and take it on for themselves”. I backed
this up with news sources from my archive
footage and found some extra insight into this
con that I also discussed with my interviewee
Gary outside of the interview. The main point
extracted from the discussion was that people
use social media to spread inaccurate or
explicitly accurate information about recent
attacks that the news tend to either ignore or go
against until further notice. This way, some news places tend to include social media
in their reports to appear more accurate and trustworthy. When some don’t as
much. The next con is to the ‘environment’. “When logging onto your computer, not
many consider that your electronics require power in order to function”. Some of
these modern environmental controls may be from the duration and features we use
to charge the devices.

The next con is ‘health problems’. “Many know

websites like Instagram and Facebook to be the
places that they can extract entertainment from.
However many can feel insecure or un-superior to
others on these platforms and feel the need to
portray a perfect image in an unhealthy rate”. This
con may link to the worry of one’s mental health, with
both similarly stating the loss of social skills and a rise in
mental health issues, such as social disorders.
Something I touched in other articles as many of my
target audience wanted to touch on it. The article
that I sourced later on called “The effects of Social
Media our Mental Health”, helped me to expand on the importance of mental
health to my target audiences’ request. The main impacts are self-esteem, lack of
human connection, memory, sleep, attention span and mental health itself. Even
though the information is detailed and
included in my production, I made sure to
expand freely with my own personal view
to help the appeal to the participatory
mode of my documentary and appeal to
what my audience have liked in the past,
like those of Shane Dawson.
The fourth con is ‘lack of
privacy’. “The internet can allow
you input someone's details to
reveal information that the
individual never thought would
be public knowledge outside of
where they shared it”. Like I had
found out in later articles, the
lack of privacy people now
have can ruin the intimacy of
bonding with another person to
find out who they are. When people now share so much of themselves online. It
removes the illusion of people’s personalities. The fifth con is technology not ‘being
cheap’. “The new age of technology brings electronics that aren't exactly in the
average person's price range”. This can show through many below the middle class
line not being able to afford iPhones back in 2010, compared to now with people
purchasing pay as you go or monthly contacts that are hard to escape. The last con
is the fact that technology ‘needs to be constantly upgraded’. “The downfall to
evolving technology is the new benefits that come out with newly updated versions
of the same products”.

As a way to delve into external places of

research, I was made to find book information
to add to my research. The book was called
'100 ideas that changed the web'. The
information was very informative and added to
the trends and societal changes from
technology. With the stripping of most of the
societal issues, I didn’t want to overdo the
source information. This resulted in using the
modern trends that I concluded on from the
book. Emoticons, blogging and memes.
However, I found blogging to be the only trend that seemed sensible to put in the
final cut of my documentary.

Social experiments were something I looked into

last as a way to add something engaging and
exciting to an overflow of information and
interviews. The social experiment was originally
going to be two in my final production but I
stuck to one so that the duration wasn’t too
long or unnecessary. The one that stuck was
sacrificing technology for a week. I found that
this was a bit ambitious to do in such a short
time period of a month and reduced it down to
24 hours. I however didn’t manage the 24 hours and expressed all my wrong doings
and successes. I feel as though I showed a realistic result that many would have
when depending on technology. The other social experiment that didn’t make it in
was having notification sounds going off in public areas. It was almost just an
observation of how much attention goes from one sound to a phone or device. To
replace this weak idea, I thought of adding a question of asking the general public
how many hours they spend on their phone. Which appeals to using statistics as a
shocking new revelation for the target audience and make them be more self-
conscious of their own phone usage.

To add more target audience research and

strengthen my grade, my teacher encouraged
me to gather social media comments
answering my question. These comments were
collected from Facebook. Most of the
responses were similar to my own conclusions
and gave me a new insight into what the older
generation above my target audience thought
of technology is really like for them. May saying
how much it impacts their families, how it’s a
helpful tool but shouldn’t be too used as it is

everything from wonderful to

dangerous’. ‘Exciting’ them, giving
them a ‘global network’, a ‘two
edged sword’ and have ‘grand
intentions but with that comes a
severe amount of danger’. Overall,
the comments show a mixed bag of
opinions from the general public in
our country.

One main part of researching is now finding the

mode of documentaries to build the convention
of my genre on. Starting with finding out the most
respected modes and styles and well known
examples of them. The one that I decided on
from poetic, expository, observational,
participatory, reflexive and the performative styles
was participatory. This mode is one that I see
many in my target audience’s view in the trend of Shane Dawson documentaries.
His work is highly admired by 18-30 year olds and ‘puts the filmmaker in the
narrative’. Just like I did. Participatory has “"elements of Observational and
Expository”. With the participation including things as little as voice-overs from the
film maker by asking interviewees or subjects questions in interviews and can go as
far as the filmmaker doing interactive experiences to show the subject's information
and impact. My target audience chose this mode in my
short survey with 80% of respondents choosing participatory
suiting my idea and the opposing with 20% for reflexive,
which is similar to participatory anyway. This interaction
between the filmmaker, me and the information would be
elevated with me interviewing people and conducting a
social experiment to prove my involvement and how I have
learnt and reflected from it myself. This was something I said I
would do in reply to a question at my pitch wondering how I
would appeal to my mode of my documentary.
My pitch was something that was very straight forward to do from previous
experience in other units when I had to pitch previously. After pitching I was given
not much feedback other than all the needed information was presented well and
that it was right to reflect and
evaluate on my own pitch. To
which I reflected that “I was told
that my pitch was good and that
all the content I presented was
applicable to meet a passable
level. This feedback was helpful in
assuring that as much information
could be told to the audience
without the chance of me missing
any gaps. The audience or my
teacher didn't reply back with
much feedback so I assume that
there is nothing to improve”. One positive I can take from this pitch is my confidence
being at an all-time high after the last couple of pitches in this course. I know what
to expect and don’t doubt my audience as I know their reactions from previous
experience. However, I was still quite nervous and messed up a couple times.

The narrative structure of factual programming

was fairly easy and straightforward to find and
follow. The narrative structure of a documentary
consist of three acts, the beginning (act one), the
middle (act two) and the ending (act three). The
beginning is intended to capture the audience’s
attention, set up the conflict or situation, introduce
the main character and be a teaser to the rest of
the acts. I did indeed hit all points, with a musical introduction to engage the
audience’s attention, a question asking ‘is technology good for us?’ is asked straight
after and is in fact asked by the narrator/ main character, me. The taster to the next
acts was presented with simple information of the context to show the audience
what information is next by stating that I would move onto the modern day. Act 2,
the middle consists of the largest and most important parts of my research, which I
organised to be most of my topic research. Considering it had most of the modern
information in it and that what I intended to inform my target audience of. I also go
back in time to the 1900s like the middle instructs too. I attempt to solve the problem
by conducting an experiment and concluding the pros +
cons. The last act, act 3 and the ending was shorter
compared to the others but was an opportunity to reflect
and conclude the answer to my question of whether
‘technology is good for us?’ My target audience all 100%
said yes to how this information was set out and gave me
improvements, with ‘add social experiments in’ which I
did to the middle. ‘Good variation of opinions’ which will
be present in interviews with the public throughout the
whole documentary. ‘It’s more up to date’ which
reassures me on the decisions of making act 2 revolve
around the modern day information.
 Interview techniques were a key thing to
research in order to include interviews in an
interview. When looking back on my efforts to
find out how a proper interview should be done,
I remembered that tutorials and certain
methods like the rule of thirds help to make the
interviews more engaging to the audience. I
was also meant to do test shoots on techniques
within my chosen project and knew to act
towards interview tutorials. The test shoots I
provided were from a separate project that I
did last summer with family friends. The tutorial allowed me to stick to balanced
camera settings, have artificial lighting overhead and keep the background un-
focused. I applied the rule of thirds by keeping my interviewees either right eye to
the top right centre of the grid or vice versa for the left. Most of the interviews were
outside in my final production to ensure
good natural lighting and the ones that
weren’t that great were from inside and
dimly lit rooms. Which ruined quality
and was something I couldn’t re-shoot. I
attempted to fix the bad exposure in
post-production. When comparing my
interview techniques to my analysed
examples from a past student and
Shane Dawson, I can clearly see they
applied the rule of thirds too and
blurred the background with
appropriate artificial or natural lighting.
I find that this is something that most
people should get the hang of by now.
The social experiments and interviews
were also slotted in between the
second act as a way to link back to the topic and gather outside opinions. Like I did
with mine. My social experiment was also recorded like Shane’s as well and shown to
the audience as a way to appeal to the participatory mode of my documentary
style. Found footage is also used as visual evidence at times when the audience
may not know what the verbal mentioning I something in the interview is. I did this
particularly when I was narrating and was inspired by Shane when he does this in his
conspiracy videos. The student’s interviews are mostly outside and inspired me to do
this to show where most of the audience could commonly share communication
and will all relate to the setting being in their everyday lives.
The next convention I was told to
investigate was found footage. In our
brief, we were told to keep found
footage to 10%. Which is something that
Shane and the student don’t do. The
student could substitute to a good
example but they tend to use illustrations
that they made themselves and I
wouldn’t have had time to do. Shane
goes overboard on it but has enough
that has inspired me. For example, he tends to use people doing certain things, such
as watching TV or being on a phone as a symbol to link to the verbal mention of the
objects. I attempted to do this by having two actors purely for b-roll of them being
on their phones and social media to appear when I
talk about social media or the uses you can have
with the device enablers. To log my found footage,
I made a found footage list with links to YouTube
clips and had spoken about what I would film
myself previously in my script. The found footage list
had new news articles linked to Manchester, stock
footage of people in public and the interviews with
Tim Berners lee. I also had memes but had cut
them because they felt cringe to add. After
downloading this list I felt like I didn’t have enough
so I added some debates/ interviews from
celebrities to add some reliable and interesting
points from those who you wouldn’t think could
express their opinions that openly. It also made the
introduction more interesting and gave some
length to what I wanted to be a minute long.

The next convention to research was

camera work. I had several test shoots with
camera work when doing test shoots in the
research and filming process. In my test shots
for ‘how to set up an interview’, I had several
shots that didn’t resemble those that I
analysed. To fix this, I adapted my real shots
to feature mid shots, full shots and close ups
like both Shane and the student have shown
me. These mid shots are both similar when narration is present and the long shots
show tracking of a moving subject or the public that the Shane doesn’t seem to do. I
applied a close up that Shane does with his dog when interviewing Carole. This
emphasises importance and encourages the
audience to pay closer attention to the visual
subject in the present moment. I didn’t use
cinematic borders like Shane did because it would
have been time consuming in editing and useless if
not applied to a humorous or dramatic scenario
that I didn’t have like his documentary.
 The lighting convention is something that I have
briefly touched on in the last couple
conventions but know I can expand on now.
The two examples that I analysed show very
basic methods of lighting as they are not
professionals and neither am I. so were these
perfect examples of lighting to follow. Like these
two did, I made sure to apply artificial lighting to
low lighting settings and natural lighting to high
key lighting settings. Yet I could sometimes
switch if I felt these already had a good enough
balance. The overexposed places were
lowered in the camera resolution (white balance) and badly lit settings were moved
to be shot under artificial lighting to improve the quality. Which is something I failed
at on a couple interviews, particularly
with the woman in reading and Gary in
the café. If I re-shot these interviews I
would remind myself to check the quality
in playback rather than checking the
display mid filming. It was easy to resolve
however and was something I knew I
could control. With my test shot that was
of footage from last year that I altered to
look better than it actually was in
regards to lighting.

The next convention is the use of music.

When analysing my two inspirations for my
mode of participatory. I had found that they
apply certain types of tracks to particular
situations. For example, I logged down one
happy track on my sound list to apply to
happy situations. Such as the social
experiment and possibly the conclusion to
give a positive finish to the documentary. This
method was inspired by both of my
examples when they used positive music in happy moment. On the other hand, sad
music was used 27 minutes into Shane’s documentary when he investigates a sad
situation. This inspired me to apply a slower track when talking about dark and
serious matters in my own documentary. The rest of the tracks were fairly normal or
building to add some cinematic finish to my narration like Shane and the student’s
examples. The last thing I applied last minute was actually inspired by the student’s
clever use of having a song that spoke of ‘tainted love’ when one connects to
social media. I chose ‘chained to the rhythm’ by Katy Perry as it talks about following
the crowd and being addicted to
something without consciously
knowing it. Plus the song is upbeat
and easy to cut the beat to.
 The last convention that I can
conclude from analysing is the
use of sound. I adapted my
sounds throughout the whole of
the planning and editing
process as I found some worked
better in replacement of others.
The existing examples that I
analysed didn’t use as many
sounds as you’d expect. Shane
uses flash sounds in replacement
of screens turning on and off. I
decided to use ‘whooshes’
instead of flashes and ‘clicks’ to
convey a computer screen
being on the screen as my
documentary was more so
focused on portraying a
computer screen. Especially
when adding a taskbar
underneath my manipulated
narration looking like a webcam recording. The student’s documentary inspired me
to use notification sounds in between explanations but I in turn used it at the
beginning like the student to link to tweets and the ‘tweet’ sound effect. The other
notifications on my sound list felt almost random to use in midst of on camera
narration with no visual link. When looking to typical sounds in documentaries of my
style, I found that dramatic music is used in humour that I in turn didn’t want to
include with some serious topics. The third documentary that I analysed (for sound),
‘participatory documentary’ showed an example using Foley sounds linking to your
topic. Theirs’s was a football to link to football. Mine was a mouse click and typing to
link to one of the devices in the subject of technology.

When looking through the typical

locations of documentaries, I found 4
common locations that were
apparent. These were concluded
from my analysed examples and were
the following. Office/ professional
environment, home/ interior, studio/
professional background and a public
city/ exterior. “An office can help to
link the interviewee to their job role
that is both relevant and accurate for
the audience”. “The home setting is
consistently used in Shane's
documentary as his documentary
follows the filmmaker himself and give the audience an insider perspective. This can
feel more relatable and comforting for the audience. In comparison to the studio
that helps the filmmaker inform his audience on the topic or subject at hand”. I
attempted to do this by filming my social experiment and narration at home to
apply more of a personal stance from the filmmaker. “The studio, like I previously
said, helps to create a more professional setting to inform the filmmaker’s audience
of the topic at hand. Shane also
pulls certain props into the mix and
creates a creepy ambience and
links the background back to the
mysterious topics that may evoke
emotions from the audience and
lead them to feel more
venerable”. A studio was
something I couldn’t get hold of
that easy and I attempted to
make up for it when editing the
narration too look like a computer
screen to appeal to the link to
technology as the background
couldn’t. “Doing interviews/
segments outside can help to
piece the documentary together.
These clips above contrasted the interior with exterior exploration. With the public
giving more of an opinion to the filmmaker and helping them to conclude the
documentary from another perspective that many may relate to”. I filmed interviews
in reading city and Marlow Park to show the public walking past. To show my
options, I looked up the best places to film in London and what is also best to include
in a film. I found that Trafalgar was the easiest place to commute to and was cheap
when looking at it being in the future. Yet after a couple weeks of filming, I was short
of cash, like I had worried and only had enough to go to reading. It still had the
same use but just wasn’t in London like I had researched. The best places to film
were mostly useless to me, except for
the time lapse which I used in my social
experiment to show the pubic walking
by one their phones. The test shots for
these locations were good but were all
previous clips that I’ve filmed before
and helped to map out the sound and
visual quality. The interior want as good
though and wasn’t easy to fix. My
location recces helped me to conclude
filming on the tube/train, office, college,
home environment, Marlow and
London. The ones I didn’t end up using
was London, college and the train as I
filmed elsewhere on different days with
the interviewees. My survey results
showed that the respondents in my
target audience preferring them all
equally before I excluded the museum.
As I felt it wasn’t strong enough to
include.
 When writing the script, I organised it
into three acts just like the narrative
structure I sourced to follow in my
previous research. The first draft of this
script only shows the narration of the
script as I was mainly focused on the
spoken content at the beginning. This
was to ensure that what I was saying
made sense and was engaging for a
long duration of around a 25 minute
mark. The other drafts, which I can’t get
a hold of now, had a longer version of
the narration that was cut down this
current version. I had to sacrifice some
information in the beginning as I found
it dragged on and may have made the
individual watcher with overloaded
information before even getting into what I want them to here. The sound and
visuals are something I could add in and tweak last minute. After rearranging the
script, the final version with the added visuals and sounds to help me in the editing
process in regards to transitioning between particular topics and segments. Such as
my idea to number the questions and add a, b and c to each type of interview. I
separated each question to apply to each narration paragraph to make the
interview answers flow better with the information. I also made sure that the
interviews aren't repeating the information and show different ranges of people and
opinions. The shortened version lf my cues may be personal but get the message
across in a short way, for example, WS is website screen. Meaning I will show my
research to evidence my points and research. After “I struggled to follow some
things that I expected to not be problems. The first being my struggle to successfully
follow my script and consistently look at the camera and keep to a half an hour time
cap. To substitute for this, I came to the conclusion that giving brief commentary
could help to distress me from my nerves and give the audience a more natural
narration than something that feels forced and dis-engaging”.

The interviews were something that

didn’t exactly go to plan when looking
back. Firstly, the interview with the
psychologist “didn't work out what so
ever was the phycologist interview. She
didn't respond to any of my messages
but saw them and has now made me
assume that she backed out
completely”. However, Carole, my
mum, was arranged to the next Sunday
so I could simply focus on the skype
interview with Ian. This interview set up is
prone to fail like my previous documentary and needed my extra attention for the
preparation. Mum was also available consistently throughout the week and at the
same time wasn't available to do the interview in Reading when we found it most
convenient as she wrote down her answers and wanted them to be as detailed as
possible. Which I think shows a great respect and loyalty that I wish most people
would have when coming to interviews. The one with Chloe was meant to happen
on the Wednesday of last week but was
rearranged to Friday this week in Wycombe.
Another location that I now need to add as the
new location. This wasn't a huge deal to me at the
time because I was only having Chloe for B-roll but
we decided to incorporate her as a public
interview to help balance out the age range of
opinions in my interviewees. She is now the
youngest voice of my interviewees and holds a lot
of opinions with those in my audience that are
more likely to watch. She is 17. The interviews with
the others were very informative and gave me
some insight into what others thought of
technology. My interviews with those in public and
Chloe weren’t that long or detailed in particular
but they helped to make some helpful points and
fill in some gaps where the experts may overpower
the answer. All of these were recorded on a crew
list that I screenshotted for convenience of not
always needing a word document. Similarly to the
location question survey result, the respondents were all in and equal to the choice
of interviewees.

The editing process was fairly easy to

come by, with the successes of the
introduction, graphics, narration,
interviews and new transitions + overlay
all coming together when I explained my
editing process. With editing being my
chosen specialism, I found some pressure
to focus my attention on it for two weeks
straight. I did find that premiere pro was
being difficult and this frustrated me and
slowed the process down until I realised it
probably needed updating. After this, I
found my skills of slotting in interviews to
be as strong as when I last did it in unit 12.
So that the interviews didn’t become too repetitive in one section and helped the
information to flow. The new transitions helped to challenge me from overcoming
my comfort zone of constant cuts and creatively expressing myself through the
webcam idea could be a useful thing in the future regarding any future editing. The
graphics are something I’m getting use to and find that I can improve how I position
screen recordings to look more professional. To conclude this project, I suppose you
could say that I would take my organisational skills, newly found editing knowledge,
new confidence to speak to the camera for narration, interviewing skills, camera
skills and much more that shows throughout this process. I obviously still have a lot
more to get through and wouldn’t expect to be an expert at all. If you look at how
many mistakes I have made and overcome. The last issue I had was rendering my
project onto YouTube with decent resolution. I need to re-export that differently and
upload a better quality version of the project.