Evaluation

EVALUATION

Overall, I have many mixed feelings about this project, some positive and some negative. Although many of the positives outweigh the negatives and I have learnt a great deal along the way, there are numerous amounts of things that I would change if I had the chance to complete this project again. Nevertheless, I have a finished product and in spite of the fact it was not what I envisioned,I am very proud of it and have done my very best throughout.

Firstly, I would like to talk about my strengths as I had many that were noticeable throughout this project. Although I had many struggles and some things just wouldn’t go right for me, filming was definitely an aspect of my final major project that I not only enjoyed but thrived in. Prior to this project my filming abilities were very limited as I always chose to go down the easy route and do either graphics or photography – two things that I am semi-confident with. However, as this was going to be my last project of the year I wanted it to stand out and challenge myself, hence why I chose to do a music video. In spite of the fact that I struggled massively with technical issues that were out of my hands (e.g. my SD card corrupting and go pros breaking) the footage that I managed to get was impressive for me! I am immensely proud of the slow-mo shots that were recorded. I learnt a new skill by shooting in 50 frames per second instead of 25 and subsequently learnt a new skill when it came down to editing too. Although only a handful of shots out of hundreds made it to the music video, the ones that did were brilliant. I feel as if seeing something that I managed to produce by myself with little to no help come together was a massive confidence boost for me. I will be carrying the confidence on to future projects and hope it will teach me to have faith in myself. With the technical issues – although some were out of my hands and could not be prevented – in future I will most definitely give myself time to make mistakes and be able to shoot again rather than rushing about.

My research in my blogger was most definitely my biggest strength, in previous projects it was my downfall and I would put off completing it until the last minute, hence why I made it my priority for this one. The majority of things that I researched came in really handy when it came to creating my music video, especially fashion and drug culture. Although I like to think that prior to researching into rave fashion I was very knowledgeable about fashion as it is one of my passions, it did really help me decide what brands I wanted to feature in the video. One brand that came up numerous amounts of times in articles and websites was Stone Island, I knew this brand as a football hooligan brand and had never linked it to rave culture prior to looking into it. By delving deeper I realised it was important in the culture I was looking into so therefore decided to incorporate it into my FMP. This is just one of many reasons why my research helped me make my video consistent – I would have never have thought of Stone Island but due to me researching lots into fashion it guided me and helped me to have costumes and brands ready for the ‘actors’ to wear. For example, at 01.17 minutes in my FMP you can clearly see close ups of the Stone Island badge.In future projects I will conduct my research exactly how I have done in this project but I will try not to dwell on it as much as I have now realised that I can continue producing research throughout the project as I learn more every day.

                                            

                                                      

Another aspect of research that assisted me in producing my FMP was drug culture. Whilst I had done pervious project on drug abuse and based things around drugs, I had never researched the culture in as much depth as I did for this project. The main reason why I decided to delve deeper into drug culture was because of the era I was basing my whole project around – the 90’s. During the 90’s drugs were the normal and nearly everyone was or had taken them, making a 90’s style music video without a reference to drugs would have made it inconsistent and incorrect.

I discovered that acid, marijuana and nos all played a big part in parties – helping me to decide which type of drugs I wanted to include. I decided to include all of these 3 drugs in my music video as it was part of the culture and it relates back to my research but also the style of music it is against. Drum and bass has a very bad reputation for drug culture and many people believe that you can only listen to that style of music whilst under the influence. The fast paced beat when it drops matches up perfectly with people doing acid and NOS as that is the feeling whilst on them – it replicates how the people doing it would feel without actually having to take them. I found out this information by researching into rave culture and how its linked to drugs – this is another reason as why my research really came in handy with producing my music video.

However, amongst all of the positives of my research there is something which I would change if I could re-do this whole project. I would allocate myself more time for shooting and ensure that I had multiple shoots planned for every scene so I have room to make mistakes. I would also put a lot less pressure on myself as when I am under pressure I tend to stop working all together and ultimately give up. This is something that I did towards the end of this project as the outcome wasn’t how I wanted it to be. But I have now learnt that not everything is perfect and I have so much more to learn! Although nearly everything I researched was relevant and helped me with my idea, I did spend a lot of time on it and was immersed in the research mind frame for way too long. This set back my schedule by a couple of weeks and subsequently left me with 2 less weeks to film. If I could do this again I would still do as much research as possible as it is one of the most important planning aspects of a project but I would really try to keep on my schedule – even if it meant leaving my research and keep adding to it throughout the course of the months I have to complete it.

I followed my proposal to the best of my ability. In my rationale I spoke about how I intended to do my research and planning forms earlier on in the project as previously they were a last minute thought, this is an aspect of the proposal that I most definitely followed. I made sure that planning documents were done prior to filming and they actually really helped me, for example my shot list for the car park was a massive help as I tend to forget which shot I need. By producing this form before filming I could refer back to it and ensure I captured all of the shots that I needed to. However, I feel as if I, again, lacked perfection when it came down to my time management. This is a reoccurring issue throughout all of my projects and something I still need to improve on in my future projects as it always lets me down. Although I had planned a weekly diary of what need to be done I didn’t follow it as I didn’t take into consideration that I would have to do multiple shoots and technical issues could occur. However, I am not happy with the way I dealt with some of my planning - my weekly reflection. At the beginning I felt that a weekly reflection of my work would be positive and helpful - I only managed to keep on track of this for two weeks as you can see in my planning page. This is something that, if I was to re-do this project, I would change. Instead of writing a weekly evaluation I would have done weekly blogs - they are much easier for me as I am on my phone a lot and I can really speak my mind. I feel as if that would have helped me when it came down to writing my evaluation and pulling out my strengths and weaknesses. Although this made me struggle with the project it has made me realise that time management is one of the most important aspects of a project and without good time management anyone would really struggle. So instead of being down about this factor I will be taking it on board and when writing my plans for future projects I will leave time for extra shoots if anything wrong should happen. My piece met my main aim of the proposal which was to produce a music video linking to rave culture. With all of my research and everything that I produced all rounded up I feel as if I hit that aim perfectly ( if there is such a thing as perfect ).

From this project as a whole I have learnt so many things and it has been a huge eye opener to me for good and for negative. I will take on board everything that I have learnt. Such as my time management not being up to scratch and my set backs. It’s easy for me to dwell on negatives and pick my projects apart bit by bit but for this one I am not doing that. I have spoken about the mistakes that I made and things I wish to improve in the future but I think that it is really important for me to look at this project as a whole and give myself a pat on the back. This time last year I would never have dreamed of producing a music video having done every aspect of it myself, and I also wouldn’t have been able to as I didn’t have a clue about half the things I know now. Fast forward to this year and ( although there has been struggles ) I am so knowledgeable about the world of media and I am so passionate about it. Overall I am really chuffed with my FMP even if it wasn’t what I envisioned 3 months ago, and very proud of my piece.