Me-Vid Evaluation PRE-PRODUCTION Interests - To generate some initial ideas for both my final documentary and my Me-Vid, I was asked to present in a brainstorm a minimum of 10 hobbies and interests that I have. I found that some concepts led up to more hobbies and interests which gradually allowed me to have a good selection of ideas of which I chose to focus on driving, cricket and conspiracies. I think driving for young people is a topic that I could base my documentary on. Shooting Script - At this stage I had to start visualising what my Me-Vid would be like and what order my ideas would progress in. I included jump shots, green screen and any transitions I had. Altogether I ended up with having around 50 shots in a 2 minute video. This made the whole production stage a tad easier as all the information was laid out in the shooting script. PRODUCTION Filming - I got all my filming done in a weekend; however it was difficult due to the variety of locations. I had to go to the park to film my cricket shots which took one day. The second day I filmed near my computer when talking about my interest in conspiracies, and outside in my dad’s car when talking about driving. I found filming very difficult as I had a lot of shots to capture according to how I visualised but was denied as on the same weekend we had relatives round which made me delay a lot of my work. An example is for the driving segment of my Me-Vid, I wanted to actually drive down the road and have the camera in a kind of car angle where they have someone like Jeremy Clarkson driving in Top Gear, but this was obviously not possible due to time constraints. I found that throughout the filming I was actively thinking about how the video was going to look after editing. Green Screen - I had planned to have a green screen of me at Lords Cricket Ground just to show my childhood career aspiration. So I placed the pitch behind me and got a peer to throw me in the ball which I
caught and said ‘Howzat’ as if I am actually playing. I used my cricket kit from my younger days to signify me wanting to be a cricketer. What I found was that the green screen worked as a very good transition as during the shot before, at the park, I had used my bat to hit into the air as I was messing around after my dialogue, but it seemed to work so I decided to include the footage which I had meant to actually delete as it connected well. I think there is potential for a green screen to be included in my documentary.
POST-PRODUCTION Editing - I edited using Final Cut, which was new to me. I found it had a lot of new features which iMovie did not have such as the additional transitions. Altogether, I had around 18 minutes of footage which I had to condense to about 2 minutes. In the end I made a decent video in two and a half minutes. I ordered all my clips, cut them to size, and added transitions and graphics plus a green screen all on Final Cut. Some still clips I found were too long so I shortened them resulting in jump cuts. A good example of this is when sitting near the computer talking about conspiracies. Live-Type - This was the first time I used Live-type and I found it extremely useful. I added all the effects on Live-type and just synchronised sound with it in Final Cut. I found it was very effective for the starting and ending titles. I think definitely for my final documentary, I will use Live-type to some extent because it will be a shame to waste a programme with so much potential to make my documentary look professional.