How Did it all Go?
And there you have it. After just over a month and a half, we have came to deadline day for this project. All in all I quite enjoyed this project - it proved to be a huge challenge purely because of all the work there was to do, not forgetting learning new software and working with new people!
I generally feel that my group and I have created something which is good in terms of being a news channel. It was initially quite complex going through with the idea of having a student news channel purely because there aren't many examples at all which we could compare our news channel too. However, in a way this works better as it shows that we are creating something new which hasn't been done before, instead of just copying other news channels ideas (or using their ideas).
What Did I Enjoy the Most?
My favourite part of this project would have to be creating the student channel itself. It's also good fun creating your own branding especially something which hasn't been done before. This includes our initial aims for our audience and of course the story ideas.
The best part would have to be filming and preparing our cooking story, purely because I'm a student myself so it worked as a bonus as I've also learnt something new whilst finding these cheap student meals - its come as a good advantage! My other favourite part is as I previously mentioned, targeting our audience. For example, little things such as setting up our studio - it creates a bit of humour whilst filming (and on film) by almost creating a copy of your stereotypical student's bedroom but instead on a desk, such as the vodka bottle, pot noodle, etc.
Casting as well was quite interesting for me personally. I've never actually used casting call pro before (I didn't use it for my first year at uni) so it's always challenging trying something new. I was quite surprised on the amount of applicants we received for this project as well as my fiction story as well, especially with them knowing that there isn't a payment at the end!
I feel that our reporters were an excellent choice which is always good to know. They both suit the target audience and it's clear they are both talented in what they do! Dave was great fun to work with and it was a bonus that they were both genuinely interested in our stories and ideas - this is clear with Natasha as well as she even came up with her own questions for the interview. I'm certain that I will be asking these two again for any upcoming projects where I think they'll be suited!
So What Were the Main Problems?
As we are all still learning, it's clear that we would face some problems. But when thinking about it, there weren't as many as I predicted.
The main problem for me would have to be the lack of time. Despite having over a month and a half to prepare and film this project, it proved to be very time consuming to film this as well as another
One of the main problems which I encountered for my group would have to be communication and team work problems. Throughout the project it does feel that the amount of work and effort put into the project is unbalanced when of course it should be equal between the three of us. This probably would've helped to save time if we all put an equal amount of effort in, as (remaining nameless) it's clear who has worked and who hasn't worked. Nonetheless, I've never been a huge fan of group work but I guess it's all a learning curve.
Minus these two problems, the rest were smaller problems. For example, we are over exposed in some of our shots, the white balancing is a bit off and the audio could've been tweaked a bit better. As well as this, the cooking story meals didn't quite come out to how we expected them to be in terms of presentation which is a bit of a problem.
How Could the Project be Improved?
Of course, theres always room for improvement. I've already mentioned that having a bit more time would be perfect however minus this i've learnt a few tips for when I film my next project, such as:
PREPARE & ORGANISE! Personally, I feel that I was quite organised throughout this project: we had a shooting script and a story script for both stories as well as writing down how long roughly I
thought the days shooting would take and when. However, it's clear that being organised will help to save time and more importantly make sure that you get everything you want and need. To improve on this, I could start creating checklists and tick off every scene/audio when there done, as we missed a couple of voice overs. Additionally, I could make sure all voice over scripts are doing beforehand and not on the day to make sure we get the most clarifying speech. This can be solved by generally planning through the day and thinking of anything which I may've missed.
Brainstorming initial ideas and making sure to stick with them. As we changed one of our stories, we lost out on a lot of time as we then had to do research again and preparing when we could've been filming. For example, we stuck with our nightclub story despite all having doubts about how it'll work. This made us slip behind quite a lot when I personally did have some doubts on our idea and how we were going to film it. However, we still managed to reach the deadlines and finish everything on time.
Another way to improve would be to communicate more with my group. I feel that in ways however it needs to be improved as we all don't have a balance in terms of effort and setting each other tasks so that we've worked the same amount. This could be improved by just getting organised on what tasks to set as well as possibly having weekly reviews on how we are all getting on. We did create a Facebook group which made communication a lot easier as we could all talk via Facebook. However, this can make it clear on whose doing what so that there are no excuses for when someone hasn't done the work set.
So to conclude, this project has been a massive challenge - I didn't realise how much work there would be! I now have until Friday to complete my other project however all i have to do is edit as I've already completed the essay (only a couple of minor tweaks). So for those who are interested in my work then feel free to view my fiction adaptation posts!
I would like to say a big thanks to those who helped. Our reporters Dave Chawner and Natasha Blick, our composers Andrew McAlinden and Geoffrey Alexander.
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