Evaluation

Evaluation 

My piece for this Multi-camera Production was an informational cooking show. My role during the filming process was the director. I was controlling where the cameras were and what shots they will be capturing. My crew consisted of four people. I had three camera operators and one person listening to the audio of the radio mic.  

For my ideas I came up with three separate ideas to choose from which I would develop. The choices I gave myself were; A debate, A Cooking Show and advancing a scene from my Final Major project on year one. The reason for me not selecting the extension of a scene I portrayed in my FMP trailer is because I believe that it would be possible to create a scene using a single camera setup and would defeat the purpose of the Multi camera production as it would be of the same quality or possibly worse. A debate to me felt that I wouldn’t be pushing myself in terms of size of production. As I had created a podcast in the past it may have been the fact that it felt too natural and I wanted to put myself out of my comfort zone in attempt to create a cooking show. With a cooking show it meant that I am going to have to work with different subjects such as a chef with a lot of experience. As with my previous projects I failed to branch out and work with people that I don’t know and have them be a part of my crew or to be a subject in the actual production. This Unit has shown to myself that I am able to work on a larger scale production instead of singular camera shoots with people I already had relationships with. 

One of the issues Is my confidence with working and having to direct others and be assertive in the way I want something to be filmed with a group of people. I feel like my ability to direct people is very improvable and if I was to continue making films with a larger crew or with many actors. In the future I believe that if I can plan the shoot in more depth and detail and have the shot types, Shot plan and other planning documents on hand then I would be able to give them to my crew and allow them to learn through this method instead of giving spurts of information verbally. The assertiveness will be developed as I am going into other projects. This project has taught me that If I want to have higher quality films in terms of on-screen actors, camera operating, lighting then I must work with others to be able to complete a higher standard of production.  

When I was conducting my research into Cooking shows I was delving into two main shows (BBC Saturday Kitchen, Jamie Oliver 15 Minute meals). To source the right amount of detail from the shows I planned to keep watching the shows multiple times but each time looking at a certain aspect. This meant, for example, I gained a lot of information on the shot types and compare how they are in each show. This method of researching was very effective for me and I understood very quickly how cooking shows function. I think taking on this method has given me a technique that works for my style of researching. It was then where after I had collected all this information then I was able to take certain aspects from the cooking show and show how I am going to use it in my production. In this project I furthered my research as I believe it was what faulted my in previous projects by what the final product will be. By doing primary research I was able to learn a lot about why people consume cooking show media and implement it into my final product. I believe the biggest problems that arose between my research and what my production is being too ambitious and being faulted by production limits. During my research I was set on being able to film in an island kitchen where it gives a more homely film to match the atmosphere of cooking at home. This is clear to me that I need to interpolate how Mise-en-Scene can be successfully carried over from my research to the final production. Mise-en-Scene in my production was faulted by the fact that there were other cooks in some shots due to the fact there were students cooking. It doesn’t reflect what I wanted in my research and I am going to need to improve my abilities to reflect what I want into the final product. To improve this in future I will need to understand my limits by planning as I research so I know whether I am able to do what I have been inspired by. Furthermore, if anything changes then I will have to state it in my blog to give a clear understanding of why it was changed and then state why the adaption I have made still works.  

By adapting, it shows that I can overcome certain problems that occur during production and can lead the crew through it if things go wrong. As I was the director during the shoot, I put myself into a situation that I wasn’t familiar with. As I knew what I wanted to be filmed I was attempting to control the crew members to record what I had planned. The actions I took was informing the crew that they will be given instructions during the filming to let them know if a problem occurs and that they can relay to me if something occurs. A problem that occurred was with the audio from the subjects Radio Microphone. The information was given to me and I was able to convey to the subject to move his microphone and it went smoothly. The audio was perfect throughout the rest of the shoot however, the issue with this is that during the shoot this moment would appear, and It would be random and very distracting from the whole piece. In post-production I used my skills developed over time in editing to make this moment seem like it never happened by using other footage that fit that moment as well as with the audio it didn’t cause a disruption as I smoothed audio together. When the moment originally happened, initially I panicked as I then thought the audio would be unusable but after listening to my crew and based my actions off the fact that it would still be possible to carry on. My new understanding of when problems occur is that I can get over it. 

My implementation of the uses and gratifications theory in this piece I believe was very effective as you can see how a consumer of this video would want to replicate this in there day to day life. This audience is very wide that may want to watch a cooking show as it appeals to a lot of people. The audience are seeking help for cooking a meal quickly so they are finding my visual piece very useful.

With the multi-camera production, it has taught me a lot about working with others to create a visual piece with a lot higher quality than that of a single camera that I had created before. My skills in terms of camera work I believe have improved as I had to think how I am going to frame multiple shots instead of one. Encountering these problems has given allowed me to reduce them occurring in future projects Such as planning. If I constantly work on these skills, I will be able to produce work that stands out to be a lot better quality and allow me to achieve more.