Evaluation

 Idea:

To begin I felt that there was an added responsibility when choosing ideas for this project not only did I have to meet the briefs criteria but I also had to consider the restrictions concerning Corona Virus. I felt this limited my ideas and made it harder to think of what would be possible to create. However I learnt from previous projects that it is important to give myself time to consider ideas therefore I felt confident in all three of my ideas that I picked. However I then choose to go with my second idea of recording a live performance from a music or musical theatre student. After my evaluation of previous projects I concluded that I typically neglect the practical side of every project which is my weak point and instead put more time and effort into the written work which is my strong point. I realised in order to progress I must focus on my weakness to improve my overall project. Therefore this idea was perfect it would allow me to focus on my cinematography and mise en scene therefore elevating my knowledge of the topics and skills. 

Research:

With this project I was expected to do more in depth target audience research and analysis because of the importance of audience within this project. I felt I struggled with the research for my target audience and found it difficult to determine what relevance to my project the data I had collected had. However I then decided to create an audience persona from the research I had collected and considered how this persona would respond to my piece and this really helped me to connect the target audience to my planning and other research. However I feel as though what I had planned to meet my target audiences interests faltered slightly by the change of circumstances concerning the lockdown. For example from my target audience I determined they would respond to the use of a female gaze which included intimate and emotion filled shots whereas I felt this was lost when the recording was changed so that it was filmed over zoom. However despite the change of plan I still included close shots which I feel still captured the emotion I wanted. Although I didn't change my target audience once I had filmed I felt I didn't meet it as well as I could have if I was able to go through with my plan A. 

Additionally I conducted a survey for my target audience to determine what they enjoyed when watching live performances. I always feel that primary research feels more reliable because I have collected it myself an it allows me to make more accurate conclusions because I'm presented with all the available data. This really helped me to understand what my audience wanted to see and lead me onto my analysis of similar shows and codes and conventions research. I felt this research was particularly important with this project as I had never considered the visuals on a live performance as I typically focus on the music. Therefore watching, analysing and evaluating these performances were crucial to the planning and creating of my own piece.  

Planning:

To begin my whole planning process was very different than I was used to. In previous projects I would focus on writing scripts and screen plays whereas with this project because I was more focused on the cinematography and mise en scene my planning also changed. With this I took more time in creating the look of my piece; planning my mise en scene and how and why I wanted certain lighting and set designs. However I feel this is where my project was weak because my planning was more about the thought process of how I wanted my piece to look it left my planning page to look bare. Although I did enjoy having a change in my work I did miss creating my work in a more written way I do always enjoy creating a screenplay. However this was a great learning experience for me and feel the focus on the filming aspect of the project will really help in my future studies. 

When considering my initial ideas I planned around the government guidelines at the time I referenced how that effected my ideas and the planning of my production. However after creating my idea and beginning my research England was put into another national lockdown throughout my project I had to consider a plan B if we were still in the lockdown at the planned time of filming. I found this really stressful and difficult to plan as I really hoped that I could do my plan a of filming at college. However this was not the case and I had to use my plan B it was obvious I could not film in person as the cast and crew are all from different households. Therefore I had to resort to filming over the app Zoom I was aware therefore that what I had researched and planned for my mise ens scene was no longer achievable. I found this very deflating as I no longer could produce exactly what I had planned. However this whole project has made me very aware how important having a plan b is for all projects and that it is important when considering an idea to also consider it's down falls and how to plan around them. 

Production:

Just before I was scheduled to start filming due to unforeseen personal reasons Holly could no longer film the performance. I felt this experience really tested my ability to work under pressure this sudden change meant I had to use a plan c. After weighing my out my options of changing the performance I filmed or only using one side of a duet it was obvious I would have to move forward with the same performance because I had based my target audience from this musical, researched and planned my production for this performance. For future projects I could use understudies with actors so in the instance that they can no longer film. However this option was not really applicable for this project as no one else knew the performance. Olivia and I moved on and began filming before I was slightly anxious of how difficult it would be to communicate direction through Zoom. However I felt that Olivia worked really well with the instruction I gave her especially when explaining the shots I wanted. I would turn my camera on and show her what I meant then she would mirror this, stand in position so that I could judge then I would ask her to tweak it slightly until I was happy with the shot. This technique worked well and I was able to capture really good footage and audio in a surprisingly quick amount of time. 

After finishing filming I moved onto the edit I allowed myself plenty of time as I am aware how difficult and time consuming editing can be also I was using new software and added this into consideration when planning my time. Fortunately I had allowed this time because my first day of editing did not go very well as the software confused me and it took a while for me to understand how to add cuts to the timeline. Furthermore the quality of the software was not great and I had to be more precise with my cuts which meant I used the extra time to get my edit to the best quality I could with the software I could use from home. I'm happy with my final cut under the circumstances and with the challenges I faced in order to create what I have. However I believe if I was able to follow my original plan I could have created something with a much greater quality and it would have allowed me apply much more of my research and planning.