In this blog post I will be evaluating the product that I have created. I will also be including the feedback that I will gain from the teachers and the peers in my class. Finally I will then be evaluating the film itself.
Our film is call Unique. Our film is about someone who has autism and has to live with the condition daily. this film also shows the daily struggles that people with autism face and also how they cope with the challenges they face.
I think that the project that we have created is fit for purpose. I think that it is fit for purpose because, it follows the style of an adventure film and shows us in the Peak District and Sheffield town on our adventure about Autism awareness.
I think that our final project follows the codes and conventions for our film because, we did go on an adventure while filming in the Peak District and town, we also had the ambient sound on the background of some of our film, this is a code and convention of adventure because, in these types of films, you would expect to hear sounds of birds or trees.
Looking at the film as a whole, I think that the visuals work really well as they are displayed clearly and relate to what the film is about. I also think that the visuals are neatly edited and the transitions between each visual and the edit as a whole runs really smoothly. I also think that the sound works very well with the visuals, each sound that we used is synced correctly with the visual edit which works really well. The sound is lowed to the correct volume when the voiceover starts and then heightened again when the visuals are showing with no voiceover.
I like this shot of the taxi going by and the transition between this shot and the next. The taxi is displayed to show that there is a lot of vehicles going by. It is also displayed to show that someone with autism can be affected by the smallest and the simplest noises.
I also like this shot as it shows you that being in a busy place with a lot of noises has become unbearable. This shot also shows that a quiet place is needed and that it has become too much to deal with. I think that it also shows a sense of discomfort due to the facial expressions and hands over ears.
I think that this shot is a very good shot because it shows the Peak District and also how quiet the countryside is compared to the city centre. This could be an establishing shot even though it is a drone shot it shows you where we are and what we are near to. This is a good shot because I also think that it shows peace and that it is a relaxing area to be in.
I think this is a beautiful shot that we included in our video. This shot shows the sunlight shining through the trees on a warm day. This was shot in a quiet place. The shot of this tree also makes me feel calm and I am glad that we included it in our video.
This is a great ending shot that we included. This shot shows the protagonist walking towards the camera with her earphones in. I also like this shot because, it shows that everything has calmed down and that there is less going on around us. Also when you are calm and feeling less anxious it is great to do something that you enjoy to take your mind off things that you are not comfortable with.
referring back to our feedback given by the teachers and the class a few people have said that one of the transitions is a little slow but this doesn’t affect the video too much.
A few people also said that it was a great film but there was a lot of running and walking, Our film is as close to our pitch as possible however, we would have liked to have added in some different shot and also some different camera angles.
My role in our film was the sound designer. Looking at the sound elements of the film I think this all works well with the visuals and also the camera work. All the sound is synced correctly and plays at the right time. All the sound is at the right levels throughout the film but is lowered when the voiceover plays.
I think that the music we used for the Peak District could have been faded in better, our group thought that it started a bit too sudden after the transition to the Peak District. We thought that it could have been faded in so that it starts gradually and doesn’t jump. We also thought that we could have done the same for the end to fade it out so it stops gradually and goes quiet slowly.
I think that we had a minor issue when filming the sound out in the Peak District and also in Sheffield town. I as the sound designer was trying to record the ambient sound of birds in both places however, I did struggle a little as in both places there were lots of people taking which made it harder to get the sound. I did manage to get the sounds of the birds that we needed, it just meant that we had to edit the recordings before inserting it into the final project.
When putting the sounds onto the computer I didn’t name all the sounds that I had done, I then found this difficult when I had to put them into our project, this is because I didn’t know which sound was which, this meant that I had to keep listening to the sounds over and over again to make sure I had the right sounds. Once I had got the right sounds I thin renamed the ones that I needed to make it easier to find them if I needed to come back to them at a later stage. For future reference when we make a new project I will remember to name all the files with appropriate names so that I know what sounds they are, this will make it easier when I come to put them into a premier pro project file and start to edit.
Here are some screen shots of sound work that I was responsible for as the sound designer:
This is a screen shot of the voice over clips that I as the sound designer recorded for our film. Some of the sounds are not named, this made it a little difficult when putting them onto the project. I had to re listen to them to make sure I had used the right sounds. The sounds that are named are the ones that we needed for our film. the ones that are named don’t use are the ones that we didn’t need or the ones that we did wrong.
This is a screenshot of the sounds that I recorded for the Peak District. These sounds are all named appropriately to help when adding audio to our film. The items that end in .wav are the ones that contain the sounds that I created.
These are the different sounds that we needed for our project. They are names so that I could easily find them and again they end in .mov so that I knew they were an audio file.
This is a screenshot of the sound in the actual premier file. This screenshot also shows where the sound was needed in our film.
I don’t think I have any ways to improve my part of the film as a sound designer. I think it looks really good and works really well with the visuals.
Some of the research and pre production for my role as a sound designer did help when undertaking my role for our project. When conducting the research for my specific role that I was given, I found out quite a lot on a few different websites. During the research for a sound designer I found out some useful information about what a sound designer does and how their job works. I also conducted some research on ambient and non ambient sound. I found out that ambient sound is a sound that occurs in the background of something for example, the ambient sound of birds you will hear in places such as the country side or the trees. Knowing what ambient sound is helped me to know and understand what sounds I needed for our film as I knew what I was listening out for, it has also helped me to recognize when they are used and how they are used.
I also conducted research on the different microphones and how they are used and also when they are used. This helped me when I had to record the sound for our project as I know which microphone to use and I also knew how to use it as I had researched the specific information before going out and recording the final film. I also knew that when we were going out in the Peak District that it was going to be very windy as we were filming in the countryside, because of this I knew that we would need to use a wind sock, this is to stop the noise of the wind when filming and this also means that we wouldn’t have the sound of wind on the recording.
I have added in screen shots in my evaluation to show what role I undertook.
Overall I think that our film as a whole turned out really well and was really close to what we wanted it to be and also I think it is really close to what we wrote in our proposals in the first few weeks. We all did really well when filming even though we had a few minor issues. Having a shot list and an AV helped us to know what shots we needed and how we wanted them to be. The AV script was for the directors use but having this helped me because I know how long I needed to record the audio for, also I was able to get the timings right on the marantz kit.
I think that if I was responsible for any of the other roles, I would have liked to undertake the role of the director. I think that the role of the director is a good role, I also think it will give me good experience for the future. If I was to change anything in the future, I think that I would be the director and have the other group members as the other roles. I would also make sure that we have the right equipment, this is because some of the equipment that we needed such as the steady cam to help with some of the running shots that we included. We were unable to have the steady cam as it was already in use.
I have received feedback from others, I have also received feedback from the teachers. We each watched everyone’s videos to gain feedback, we then recorded the feedback on a voice recorder to add into my evaluation.
Once I have listened to the feedback I will then write it up.
I have listened to the feedback that we have gained from the class and the teachers and overall I think that we have received some useful and very honest feedback.
Some people said that the first part of the video was shot really well and that we had put thought into the planning that we had completed. One person said that we have used eye line match with a few of our shots and that it also works really well with the darkened shots that we had. However some said that we had some cantered shots and also a lot of walking shots that could have been replaced with other shots but all in all it worked really well.
A lot of people mentioned that my sound work was really good and that it is all synced well with the shots. This made me feel proud of the work that I have done.
Overall throughout this project I think that it has all gone really well and we have managed to stay on task and meet the deadlines. We have all had a different role to do the research on pre production and filming the product itself.
My role throughout this project was the sound designer, Sophie was the director who came up with the idea and told the rest of the group what she wanted the film to be like and what music and sounds she wanted me to record, lastly Emma was the cinematographer, the cinematographers job was to add the titles onto our film and to also to research about different camera angles and capture the shots and different camera angles that the director needed our project.
Some times during this project have been a little hard and during the days when we were out filming we finished in the early evening and got back to college to then put the footage onto the computer.
Lucy Millar 