Practical Skills - Evaluation

Throughout this last year, I was tasked to develop a number of practical projects used to both show the final products of the unit and to learn the skills needed to create the final products. These came in the form of the Final Products of the Music Video, what would have been the Promotional Video, the Film studies task and the few Four Hour - Film Challenges we were set.

At the start of this course we looked at the DSLR cameras and how to use them, looking at the aperture and Iso settings and learning how to use them effectively to get a set of useable footage, although I had basic practice before from doing Film Studies and just a genuine interest in Photography, this element of my research helped me develop my current understanding of the different features the camera and helped advance the skills I already had. Following on from this I began to research different lighting techniques that are used within film and media production looking at the different styles of lighting, researching; Rembrandt, Edge, Butterfly, High-key, and Low-key lighting as well as experimenting with colour gels and lights to create footage and photos for this I took to the studio and photographed some of my peers as well as renting out a set of lights and gels to experiment at home. This set of research and experimentation gave me an understanding of lighting and how to use it as I had no previous practice beforehand, enabling me to further myself and my skills to become better.

After the research into the practical side of film was complete as a group, we were tasked with Four Hour Film Challenges every week to get us used to the controls of the camera and to develop our skills with Premier Pro the Editing Software we use. For this, I created 4 short films shot and edited in 4 hours, in personal opinion they weren’t the best but helped me to develop the needed skills. My first short film I was tasked with using different camera angles in a unique way to help me develop my skills and to get me to think about different shots. The next short film I developed was based around Jump Cuts, we chose to use the Wii Music that is played in the background on the console. In this video, I edited the jump cuts on the beat helping me develop my skill editing in a unique way and also looking at editing to audio tracks. The third short film I created was editing based, in this short film I had to use footage found online to edit together a music video, this short film drastically developed my editing skills allowing me to be as creative as I wanted and not limiting me with footage that I could shoot. and the final was a challenge to create a silent film, however this was a challenge indeed due to issues that we had with the camera the weather and filming in general, but this helped us learn the need for back up plans and general planning for things that could go wrong.

Moving on to one of my first practical task, the creation of a new wave film, as my first task I wasn’t too sure on what I was doing filming wise, I lacked on the planning side of the task and unfortunately the overall film didnt scream new wave however I did look at ways to edit the film to seem more new wave splitting the film into story chapters.
In this video the aim was to show a new wave film within 2 minutes. I chose to base my film around a normal day for myself when I am not at college or work, the reason for this was the fact that I had access to locations I could film easily in, I also based my video around a specific moment from pulp fiction, the car scene, with the unscripted dialogue and the long takes and jump cuts seen in new wave film. Overall I'm not very pleased with my Film I believe the footage I shot could have been better and the narrative structure could have been better, as well as having more examples of typical new wave ideologies and techniques, but I didn’t look at this project as a failure I looked at it as something to learn from, and used my mistakes to develop what I needed to work on to create better footage in the other practical projects.

The next practical task we were given was a music video, for this task I had to choose a 3-minute-long song without a music video as to not give me any influence from the original video. The song I chose for this unit was "Ohio (Come back to Texas)" by Bowling for soup. When planning this music video, I analysed 3 music videos and studied the codes and conventions within them. I then went onto creating a questionnaire to ask audiences what style of video they would prefer. Once I gathered all this information I started planning my video, the footage I had planned ended up being minimal due to issues with people not being able to show as well as weather issues and costume issues, I also had a lack of time to be able to do reshoots and again like my first project I learned from this the importance of planning for the unknown and the uncontrollable, using a Gantt chart in my later projects to help come up with a set timeframe in which to do things.

Finally, for the last unit of this course I was originally tasked with developing a promotional video for a real client, however, due to unforeseen circumstances of a lockdown this could not come to be and the unit was changed. The new unit that I was tasked with was fairly similar to the previous one with exceptions that I would not be shooting and instead I had to fully plan out a series of videos for a specific client my teacher set to me. This change of unit stopped me from enhancing my practical skills behind the camera but did however help me to understand more deeply the importance of planning my shoots in every step such as storyboards screenplays and budget management skills I knew that I needed to deepen from the mistakes I had made in previous projects. Another element that I got to experience within this unit is the communication between the client and myself which gave me plenty of professional experience in working to the specific needs of a client and I believe this is certainly my strongest area now due to learning from past mistakes.

In conclusion, It is clear that even though some of my units may have been unsuccessful, they have helped me to further the skills I would need and shown me the areas that I needed to improve upon giving me a range of practical skills that would help me when coming to working in the industry.