Evidence Document – Project 2

Project 2 Evidence Document

Winter Project Reflection

The video above is the outcome of my winter interviews that I filmed for the winter project. It was a good result and I am happy with how it looks. The project is a set of interviews from a range of different ages, the questions are all based around winter and how it effects us as people and if its either good or bad. The goal was to see what peoples opinions were of winter and if it varied with ages, I also made sure there was a massive difference between the youngest and oldest person so that i could see if there is any significant difference which explains why its in age order. The target audience for this video is everyone. Anyone can watch this that have an interest in how winter effects us and the opinions that people may have on it.

The quality of the footage is good and looks clear with the red background behind the subject however could have been better if I used a better quality camera rather than the one I used. The audio quality could have been  much better if I used a separate microphone such as a zoom on a boom pole, the reason I didn’t use a separate microphone is because I didn’t have one to use so had to result in using the one built into the camera which still works well. This made me realize how how much of a difference to quality that a separate microphone actually makes to the footage.

For the backdrop I was going to use Christmas lights and hang them up in the far background then put them out of focus to create an orb effect which help make it feel more like winter, however the camera I used did not have a focus option. The reason I had to use that camera is that there was a fault in my dslr camera so had to work with a different one. I found an alternative for the Christmas lights idea and it still has the winter feel I was after, I hung up a red blanket as red tend to represent Christmas and it fits really well.

A problem I had was in some of the shots I had a dog in the room breathing heavily, it wasn’t as noticeable whiles filming as it is in the footage which is a little bit distracting while trying to listen to people answers as its on and off as the dog wasn’t always there during filming. I could fix this by thoroughly making sure there is now background noise or anything distracting in the background during filming or I could even try and add the dog breathing into the other scenes so its more continuous and maybe harder to notice however it will seem out of place with out a dog on screen.

Another problem I had was I didn’t check the settings on the camera were correct before I filmed so I had two interviews which weren’t the right resolution and didn’t fit the screen, it was also recording in SD rather than HD. I could have stretched the footage out to fit although that would have impacted the quality of the footage massively as it wasn’t great to start with making it look out of place and harsh on the eyes so I decided against using it instead. Below is a screen shot of the footage.

I edited it specifically so it was in age order, this was because I wanted to see if there was a significant difference between younger and older peoples answers. Although there was no big difference it did flow well putting them in this order. I could have also mixed up the order I put them in just to change it up so that it didn’t feel too repetitive but the way I did it didn’t feel repetitive. I did have footage of my six year old cousin answering the questions but I lost it and it is no longer on the SD card I used, this isn’t a huge problem but it would have been nice to see the two complete opposite ends of the scale.

I faded in and out between each clip so that it didn’t feel rushed or jumpy this worked well in achieving this however it didn’t work so well on the shorter answers. I got feedback about the fading effect during the editing process and they said the fading works well with every other person being on the opposite side. I also combined everyone’s interview into one so they answer each question one after the other, this is so the questions weren’t repetitive by being asked over and over nearly 10 times. Another thing I did to try and make it less repetitive was flip every other person so that they were opposite the previous person, this just changes up the footage and prevents the audience from staring at one place on the screen. It also makes it feel like each person is almost having a conversation with each other as they seem to be facing each other.

The music I used was off of a royalty free music site but I chose it because it has a winter feel along with being upbeat and happy which most of the answers are so its fits well with what’s on screen, I lowered the volume of it whiles people were talking so you can hear them over the music and then raised it again when the question was on screen. This worked well as it filled in the pauses when people were thinking and the emptiness when the question came up.

If I was going to redo this then I would use better camera so that the quality would be great compared to the one I used, and would also use a separate microphone to the one that is built in to the camera so that again, the quality would be better. I would use the better camera to also do the Christmas light idea with the focus which would make it overall look more professional. I would double check to make sure there wasn’t any noises in the background as I had a dog heavily breathing in the background of some of the scenes which was very distracting, really out of place and at some points drowned out peoples answers.

I got some feedback of a peer and they said by having a plain red background it doesn’t just make it look professional but with the fade effect it made it look like only the people were fading in and out as the background was in the same place the whole time. You can see a slight change between lighting on the background but its still not enough to ruin the effect.

One of my tutors gave me some feedback as well, he said that the questions were very good as they really show how winter affects us and goes in to details as to how it does such as eating habits for example.