Analysis and Evaluation

Since being on this course, I have learned new techniques and skills. Some in particular have helped me create our documentary ‘Diverse Greenwich’. Having tutorials for Adobe software, such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Audition, has not only improved my skills and understanding of making films, but has also helped me understand the technical roles of the industry as well. I have a better understanding of Adobe Premiere Pro which has expanded my technical knowledge as an editor, and made me more confident to try new things whilst editing.

I feel ‘Diverse Greenwich’ was organised very well. Our producer made sure everyone was on schedule and where they needed to be on a particular date. Everyone in the group, including myself, communicated very well to each other. If someone was going to be late or could not make it our producer was always informed. As people we got on very well with each other which caused no disagreements and kept things civil and polite. Personally, I feel my contribution towards the group was satisfactory. I made sure I was complying with the schedule so I was editing when I was supposed to and communicated back to my group the progress I was making. I also contributed ideas for the documentary and made some suggestions to our director and cinematographer of shots we could get for the film.

When we shot the film, we kept the camera rolling whilst they answered all the questions so in the edit it was my responsibility to cut these down and choose the best shots to use in the documentary. This meant making the decision of what to use and what not to use. This also applies to the shots our camera operator had filmed of Greenwich, as I wouldn’t be able to use all of the shots he got I had to make the decision of the ones which would fit best in the documentary and to what the interviewee was saying at the time. It was also my responsibility to create the titles and credits for the documentary, which I learnt how to create in Adobe Premiere Pro.

We experienced some difficulties when it came to shooting as we were on a tight time limit so we had to sacrifice some footage we were planning to get. Some things we had to improvise as we did not have time to get all of the footage we wanted to. For example, we wanted voice overs of international students saying where they were from in their own language but because of the tight schedule we could not film this. Because of this, in the future I would get together with my group and sort out time management better. Also, I would’ve liked to try the ‘Voice of God’ technique for our documentary to set up the narrative more. I feel that our documentary lacked direction and think a voiceover could’ve have aided this.

In regards to the editing, although I applied a lot of skills and enjoyed the process I feel I could have been more adventurous with it. I feel that I could’ve tried more graphics work with the titles and colour corrected the images more. However, because we were going for a simplistic, minimalistic style I think that I complied to this look by using cross fades in and out to keep up the sense of momentum and keeping the colour as natural as possible.

Overall, I am proud of our production and satisfied of how we worked together as a team. Even though there are elements that I would change next time, there are positives that have come out of this experience as well. When I approach my next assignment, I feel I will be better prepared to accomplish the task.