Commissions Unit: Project Review

Today is Monday 11th - deadline day. We have finally finished this project after a numerous amount of weeks preparing, researching, filming and editing. It has proven that despite the large amount of time given, there is so much to be accomplished! Below are some strengths and weaknesses based on this project.

Strengths

- Our actuality we got was very effective. Having 2 camera's filming the tattoo gave us more than enough footage which we needed and as a group we generally feel like that we managed to get everything we need and edited this part of actuality perfect.

- I feel that our project is very suited for BBC 3 and generally suitable for a younger audience. This is mainly because we have engaged with Twitter as well as using a story which is relatable for the majority of the audience. Additionally, I feel that our project is also quite entertaining and doesn't exactly seem like it could bore many people.

 - Linking with my previous point, I felt that the character we had (Jake) fitted perfectly for our documentary. He felt strong all the way through the documentary and it is clear that he is quite unique - giving our project it's unique selling point. I also feel that we have a story throughout our film and that the audience can mentally learn about Jake as a person as well as a super fan. We also incorporated elements of comedy as well as some emotive parts giving our documentary more of a diversity.

Weaknesses

- Lack of time has proven to be a very huge problem with our project. Seeing as working in groups and making a documentary which is 10 minutes long is new, it is difficult to organise and strucute how much time we had to do each individual part for the project i.e. how long to research, how long to edit, etc. We could've done lots more work in terms of editing as we literally only just managed to create one draft instead of originally structuring the edit into rough and fine cuts. Therefore, time is a huge consumer in terms of problems.

- Similarly, working in a group and generally with other people seemed to be complex and awkward. This is because it is difficult to find the right days for filming/editing as myself and other people in my group plus the people were filming have busy lifestyles, making it hard for all of us to find one day to meet. This is why are time schedule was always changing because it was proving difficult to find a day where everyone is free. This applies to Jake mainly because he works full time making the times to film him very limited and complex.

- Of course, another weaknesses is finding the exact information you want. It takes a lot of time to find whom you want to use and exactly what information you want to include within your film. For example, in this case, it was difficult to find another character who was as strong as Jake, hence why w decided not to use the Girls Aloud fans as we thought that they weren't as strong therefore bringing Jake and the documentary down with them.

General Conclusion

Overall, this unit has proven to be extremely difficult, nonetheless I feel that I have learned a huge amount about documentary and more about filming in general. It has taught me to be much more organised and structural instead of just trying to go with the flow, as time has proven to quickly creep up.

I feel that our project is to of good standards, however we could've improved it a significant amount more if we had more time to edit. We generally had a vast amount of footage and had all the coverage needed. Additionally, I feel that having a script and transcripting proved to be very helpful for editing and generally understanding the structure of our project better.

In my opinion, I also felt that working in a group would prove to be problematic as i prefer myself to work independently. However, this project has definitely out of most things improved my communication and organisation skills - not forgetting skills with working with other people as this too is new to me. I still prefer to work independently however my skills have generally increased.