311mc Final Evaluation

29Apr10

Evaluation

I sum up a lot of my reflection in the post below*, but this is my full evaluation of the entire project.

The reason I wanted to do this project, and adapt it from its original routes in photography, was because I felt my first project didn’t do it justice, didn’t show it off enough, I didn’t to do it proud. I wanted to make this documentary to let the world know about another world, a world no one would of thought existed; a world so remote to a lot of people I have met over the past 2 ½ years at university, I wanted to tell the story, the best way I knew how – through media. It was the only option for my final project. I had had other ideas, but nothing I was as passionate about, nothing I was so involved with personally, making it clear that this was the project I had to do for my final assessment. I knew I would always pour my heart and soul into this project, as it was so personal to me, I am so invested in it. Why make up a drama piece, when I have real life drama waiting to be told!

Research and Pre Production was the longest and heftiest section of my project, but was still very interesting. I discovered a project called Kingsmead Eyes by Gideon Mendel fairly on in my research. This project was so similar to my original idea that it was scary! Kingsmead eyes saw Gideon Mendel give digital cameras to 30 primary school students from Kingsmead Primary School, on one of the most notorious estates in Clapton. The school is in the same area my project is based. He worked alongside the resident poet of the school to get the kids to write poems about the photos they had taken, and with these made a film using the photos the kids had taken and the poems (read by the kids) and the portraits he had taken with the kids. His project was so inspirational as it showed me that my project is relevant to the outside world today. Being so geographically close to my project it helped me to think about the issues I could bring out in my interviews, such as murder, and living conditions. During the process of my research for my project, so many cultural things happened which made my project even more important to the world out there. Stories of gang violence, murder, and teenage tragedies were all over the local and national news. For example, Agnes Sina-Inakoju was shot in Hoxton very recently and died because she was caught up in the cross fire of a postcode gang war. This story made it to the national news, but I was also finding things out about these postcode wars, and gang violence personally. One of the members of our youth church was stabbed 9 times (and survived)* during the making of my film. He was stabbed because he is involved with the local gang, and he was fighting another local gang because they were from a different postcode. It was vital this topic was discussed as a part of my film as I know that this is a large part of these young peoples lives, and for some of the people who will view my film it will be hard to comprehend.
A couple of other very important things I came across during my research was the ‘London Orbital’ film about the M25. It taught me how to film my driving scenes, was what inspired me to have the driving scenes in the first place, and eventually became the driving force behind my concept. I had to drive from Coventry to London almost every weekend to complete my project, and this time spent in the car, on the M25 and M1, encouraged me to look back at the London Orbital film, as we had been shown it briefly in past projects. Also works from the blog ‘From The Upper Deck’ also helped in that realisation, and with more artistic decisions. It’s a blog I have admired for a while, and came in handy when thinking about how to shoot my driving scenes; such as whether to use a car, or a bus for a higher angle. I felt the continuity of a car would be the best option in the end, because this would give the viewer the feeling of what its like to come from the outside – in.

From the start of the project I knew my main problem would be getting the young people to participate. I knew I had to accept the fact that they just might not turn up on the day. I was prepared to take this risk, I bought bait, such as pizza, sweets, and juice, and slowly they turned up, and all 3 of my shoot days were successful! I was fully prepared that at least one of them, and maybe even all of them might end up as no-shows, but they all had attendees, which was great! I knew the more footage I got during the production, the more choice I would have when it came to editing in post production. This was the only real risk I took when with regards to production but I was also worried about using the equipment, as I feel that technical skills are my weakest point. I used a Sony Z1 and Dedo Lights, along with a boom mic for my interviews. I have I have used these on projects before, but I was still quite rusty. I did plan to get some help from another media student(s), but that didn’t happen, and it would have been too hard to get people there, and it also may have affected the interviews if there were strangers there during the filming. I decided to tackle the equipment on my own. I did have help from my friend William, and my Mother, Marcia, as credited in the film! They were very good at helping with the equipment, the location and the young people, and it would have been a lot harder and stressful without them. The other side of production was the filming of the driving scenes. I had to shoot these twice as the first time I filmed it holding the camera thinking it would look a bit quirky and give it a more real feel like someone just looking out a car window as they were driving around hackney. Once I put the footage into AVID, However, this was clearly not the case. The footage was totally unacceptable; it was jerky, not quirky! It had to be re-shot otherwise the film would have looked terrible. I re-shot it that weekend, with just enough time to spare. To make it not jerky and horrible I found out the media loan shop had a car mount for camera’s, an alien piece of equipment for me, but I hired it anyway, and managed to work out how to suction it onto the car! This is what we should have done in the first place; it would have saved a lot of time, and would have enabled me to push on with post production far earlier than I ended up doing. It was the right decision to re-shoot, as I now have a far superior film with a feel to it, which reflects my intentions. The re-shoot elevated my film to the next level, the level I want it to sit and it will now represent my work in a much better way.

I chose to edit on Avid, as I didn’t really have a choice. I don’t have any suitable editing software at home, and I couldn’t use the Mac’s as the ones with tape desks were dedicated to the Drama cluster, so I bit the bullet and decided to use Avid, which is notoriously difficult to use, and having not used it since my first year at University, I was very anxious, and I thought I wouldn’t remember how to use it. After a few gentle nudges from other students and staff, and some old reading material from Bex, I managed to do well. I captured all my footage correctly, and started to edit, with no problems occurring! Except for the issue of having to re-shoot my driving footage, there were no real issues with editing or Avid and by then I had a clear concept in my head, and managed to get that down on the editing timeline. This is when I decided to edit my 2 DVD extra’s. I thought I would have a little fun with my editing, and make a small re-edited film called ‘Life According to Tia’, as watching all her out-cuts, and the footage that didn’t make it to the final documentary, I felt I had to show this side to her, as her view of the world is so magnificent and in some way naive. I definitely think this is a bonus to my film, and compliments the main film beautifully, as well as having the ability to be viewed as a stand alone piece and brings along a little bit of comic relief to my project. The poem section was really just to showcase the poems the young people wrote on their own. Exporting was okay too, but I needed some help when it came to putting things on DVD, as there were problems with the server at university the day I needed to do this. Thankfully (saint) Bex was there to help me with this.

Looking back over the complete project, it has been such an interesting way to spend the last months of my degree. Looking into a subject I am so passionate about anyway and being able to apply my skills from my degree has been wonderful, and helped me to learn even more about media production as a whole. Working on my own has been hard, it’s quite un-easy when you don’t have someone else there to agree or disagree with you, and someone else to challenge ideas and bring new ones to the table. It makes you work extra and makes any outside input or research even more important. My blog has been my lifeline throughout this project. I have relished writing in my blog every time I find something interesting and relevant, and writing about any developments, and being able to easily upload images, videos and links. I think I would have a lot less work to present if I was working in a workbook format.
I have been thinking about what I would do differently on this project if had to do it all over again from the start, and there are plenty of things I would attempt. I would probably approach the project from a whole different angle. I would maybe not present the film as a one-voice of the young people film, but I would get input and interviews from other connections from Hackney that I have, including the older members of the church, and my dad who is the vicar there. I would talk to a Hackney council member I know, who was the former Hackney Speaker about his experience and reflections on the subjects brought up by the young people. I would try and find other professional opinions from people in power who are involved in Hackney. This would be an entirely different film, so maybe these aren’t reflections of what I would have done, but more ideas for the next development of my project! I am pleased with the outcome of my final project; do I feel like I have now done this subject justice, as I set out to do? I am still not sure, as I feel I will probably never feel this. This is a project I could take in so many different directions it is probably never ending, there will always be improvements to be made and new developments in the stories as the young people grow older. I could carry on making a film about them once a year, and each one would be totally different, and even more interesting than before. For what the film is, I am proud of it, and I feel it accomplishes all the things I initially wanted it to do. It covers the subjects that need to be told, and being told by the young people themselves is what makes this film so interesting and relevant. The best thing I will take away from this project is that I enjoyed it so much, and it will always be a part of me.

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