Evaluation

For my Final major project I chose to have small businesses as the main focus of my documentary, particularly one that makes furniture frames. However, going forward I changed the focus from the financial viability of being self employed to Brexit and the risk of it effecting small businesses. I decided on my original idea because the struggles of the self employed are something that I am constantly surrounded by due to my father being a small business owner, this along with recent law changes regarding pension changes pushed me to centre my documentary around my father and his business. The change in direction came due to an oversight in production, however I would not have gone down that road if I had not been advised by one of my tutors months earlier during my proposal that Brexit would be good to look at as it is a very contemporary topic.

I feel that throughout this project I was very good at reacting to and solving problems that arose of both a content and technical nature. An example of me overcoming a major problem with my first shoot whee the camera wouldn’t transfer the footage I had filmed. In response to this incident I filmed on a different more reliable camera without an SD card that I had experience with. Also, that day I filmed outside, which was something I mentioned in my proposal as a potential weakness that I would need to overcome. I did prepare for the wind noise by having a wind breaker at the sides of the mic to protect it from any noise that wasn’t the interviewee.

I like the editing and overall tone of my documentary because it turned out quite atmospheric and aesthetic which is what I envisioned at the beginning of the project. I do not like how the interviews went as I feel they weren’t as fleshed out as they should have been. I also do not like how the questions I asked are in there but I couldn’t remove them because they provide context to the answers. Despite this I like the composition of my shots and think they allow people to understand the environment I filmed in.

I think the weakest part of my project is the interviews contents. I think this is due to a lack of extensive planning as all of the reshoots had to be spontaneous due to their work schedule. I think the editing and compositions are the strongest part of my project, I think this may be due to the fact that editing is my favourite part of film making and when there is a mistake it is more obvious to me and effects the viewing experience the most. The most effective and impactful part of the documentary for me is the visuals and cohesive aesthetic as I feel it is cohesive and interesting to the viewer. If I were to redo this project I would have all of my interviewees together and ask them a question that they could debate over in a group to get more content. I would also change the way I asked questions so the answers could stand alone without having to include the question.

The biggest lesson I learnt from doing this project is how to properly conduct an interview; from the criticism given to me by my tutor on my interviews. The criticism informed me on how to phrase questions and how to conduct a bigger conversational interview with multiple people debating by posing a question to a group of interviewees instead of individually like I was doing. Another thing I learn’t was towards the end during feedback. I was advised to add in report style voiceovers to add context to my questions, which is a lesson in information conveying which I think will be valuable going forward. I also got an idea of how to direct a shoot and do a whole project by myself start to finish because this was my first time doing that. My secondary research taught me lessons in voiceover scripts, specifically Bowling for Columbine, and how to add context and weight to what is said.

To conclude, I think I have learnt vital lessons in interviews and report style media whilst also strengthening my skills in editing and composing shots. I am happy with the final film and how I reacted to problems because I think it was my responses to problems that salvaged my project and kept it up to my visions standards when entering under this brief. I also think that this project is valuable experience because it is my first time working by myself on a film project. I believe my video will have a reassuring impact on my target audience and make them feel comfortable in the fact that Brexit will not likely heavily effect them in the near future.