Evaluation

For preparation to the real media coursework we followed out a practice documentary to prepare us with both the filming and editing. The whole class was split into groups of 3 and were told to complete a documentary on mobile phones using given questions. This helped us to plan our cutaways and the mise en scene. This planning time was effective as we used it wisely so we wouldn't have to waste valuable filming and editing time. However, along the way the plans changed a little bit for example a cutaway would change to suit an answer but no big changes were made.

The filming ran smoothly as we followed the codes and conventions making it easier for us to edit and easier for the audience to understand. We followed the rules by asking the interviewee to look at the interviewer instead of the camera, also we asked for the interviewee to give an answer using the wording of the question so that it was easy to follow. The direction given to the interviewee and the framing of her was good to make the interview more clear and more professional looking.

Editing the film was hard at first as it was my first time using Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 but gradually it got easier to understand as the edit were similar each time. The cutaways were a way of filling the gaps and this was useful as they all were good and relevant to the dialogue. These were editing by dragging the footage and placing markers were we wanted it to start and stop, then we would drag it back down to the editing timeline. Also the music bed was put in during the editing stage and it was a way of keeping the interview up-beat and entertaining. This was faded in and out by using the gradient tool.

Audience feedback in this production was very helpful as it pointed out mistakes that we didn't see and things that we did see. It helped us to make sure we won't make the same mistakes next time. For example, the mise en scene was distracting as there was a door behind with people walking across. However, the computer screen with a mobile phone shop on it was effective as the audience could tell without listening that it was about phones. More feedback we got was that the cutaways were too fast for the audience to register and the quality of sound wasn't good enough so we should have used a microphone, all of these point will be taken into consideration when we plan, film and edit our real coursework.