Evaluation of Production Practise and Management Skills

In this section of the evaluating the production practice and my project management
skills. I will be looking at five sections:

 Most successful aspect

Most successful aspect

In pre-production I think the most successful aspect was my contact list for my
documentary interviews, this is because I think the contacts that I had where a range
of sports experts, which made where related to my topic and gave useful information
about my topic. On my blog you can see my contact list for my topic:
http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/02/final-contact-list.html

Another aspect that I think was the most successful during pre-production was my
content research for the topic that I chose to continue on with. At the beginning this
topic I did background research about the mental benefits of sports activities, this
helped me a lot in my documentary because the research enabled me to find out
which experts I should speak to and what areas of mental health I should focus on.
Below is a link of the content research for my chosen topic:

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2010/09/content-research-idea-one.html

Production

During production I think my most successful aspect was filming my interviews, this
is because except from one interview, I did not have to re-film any other interview.
Also another aspect that I thought was the most successful was filming during the
month of March, this is because during this month I had most of my filming complete.
Below is a link of the March production schedule:

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/04/march-production-schedual.html
Another aspect that I think was the most successful during production is the camera
shots that I used because i think throughout the documentary I used a variety of
camera shots.

Below are examples of some of the camera shots that I used:

Post Production

During post production I think the most successful aspect was the final week of my
editing, this was because during this week I used all my lesson time, free lesson time
and after school time to edit my documentary. Below is a link of my final week’s
production log:

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/04/production-log-week-11.html

Another aspect that I think was successful during post production is editing my
interview, before in my interviews I did not have any cutaways, but when I received
feedback from my rough edit video I included more cutaways with each interview.
This made the interview look more appealing and interesting.

Below is a link to my rough edit video

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/04/production-log-week-ten.html

Below is a link to my final video: http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/04/media-

Time management
Pre- Production

During pre-production I think that I managed my time really well because I never fell
behind with any deadlines. The most successful aspect I think was contacting my
contributors, this is because when I contacted my contributors I chased them up until
I got a filming date with them, this saved me time during my production period
because I already had everything planned before hand.

Below is a link showing emails from and to my contacts:

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/02/contributors-permission-emails.html

Production

During production I think that I managed my time well because I had every filming
date booked before hand, because of this I also had time to go back and re film
some footage. Although during production I did have a problem with one of my
contacts who was a football player for west ham, in short notice I had to replace this
contact with someone else, luckily I found a sports trainer that I could use instead.
This did take up some of my production time, but at the end I managed my time well.

Post Production

During post production I think I managed my time very well because I spent a lot of
my spear time editing my work and finishing all my paper work as well. Although on
the last day when the documentary had to submitted, I felt that I could of watched
over my documentary one more time, just for a final check but I did not have time to
do this since I was busy sorting out the sound, which I thought was more important
at the time. Below is a link of the final production log:

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/04/production-log-week-11.html

Actors and crew

During pre- production I think I organized my crew very well, my contact list was
fairly easy to do, this was because I already had in mind who I wanted to ask,
although I had to search around and make many phone calls to various locations in
order to get my contacts sorted out. By production time I had 5 solid contacts ready
to interview. Also in terms of my crew (camera person, presenter and sound
operator), I already knew these people, so it was easy to get in touch with them.

Below is a link of my final contact list:

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/02/final-contact-list.html
Production

During production I thought that the contacts that I had chosen were reliable,
because although one contact got cancelled, I still managed to interview four of my
contacts as scheduled. Although if I did not have to replace the fifth contact I would
have saved a lot of time, which I could have used to re film footage.

Post Production

During post production the only people that I used was me for editing and the voice
over artist who was already the presenter for my documentary. I think during post
production I was very organized because firstly I had all the voice over scripts
prepared before hand, this made it convenient for the voice over artist, also the fact
that the voice over artist was another member of my class, made it very easy to re-
do any voice overs.

Equipment and booking

During the pre-production stage I did not really need any use or book any media
equipment out because the main resource I used was the internet. Although during
pre production I did plan what equipment I would need during production and post
production process such as a tape, microphone, camera, tripod and Mac.

Below is a link to my final treatment and in the technical viability section I mentioned
what equipment I would need.

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/01/final-treatment_28.html

Production

During production I booked my equipment out on time for every time I had to go out
and film, although I had to double check if the batteries were charged, sound check
the microphones and so on. The only problem i had during post production was
when I went out to London to film my vox pops I did not check the battery before
hand, so when I was at the location, the battery died, this wasted time and money
because I had to go back the next week and redo the vox pops.

Below is a link showing which equipment I would need during production and post
production

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/01/final-treatment_28.html
Post Production

During this period I was working on a laptop which was also being used by another
media student, I sometimes found this arrangement difficult because I was not able
to use the laptop all the time because the other person would need it as well. To
make sure that I had enough time to edit, I booked the laptop out at certain times
before hand, this saved me from any problems with using the laptop.

Budget
Pre- Production

In pre production I planned my budget in order to get the most out of my money, this
included equipment fees, location fees, interview fees, travelling fees and so on.
Since booking everything was quiet expensive, I tried to book it so I could get a lot
done during the time I had the equipment.

Below is a link to my budget for this documentary:

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/02/documentary-shooting-script.html

Production

During production I think that I just about stayed within my budget, this was because
I did not have to pay too much for my interviews, this saved me money for the
expenses of when I went out to re-film footage. Also I did not have to pay much for
the crew because I was the camera operator and sound operator, so the only other
person I had to pay for was my presenter and voice over artist, which really helped
me save money for other aspects of the production.

Post Production

During post production I think that the amount of days that I booked out the
equipment out for was not enough because I took longer to edit that I had intended
too. This was because I re filmed footage/voice overs and changed the graphics
many times.

Below are images of how I changed my graphics whilst editing.

I think the least successful aspect of my pre production stage was chasing up
contacts, although I did have all my contacts booked on time for filming, if I had
chased them up more, I would have had more time to plan a head.

Production

The least successful aspect during production was double checking the equipment
when going out to film for example when I went to London to do my vox pops, the
camera battery died or when I did one of my interviews the microphone was not on
properly, so if I doubled checked the equipment, I could have saved a lot of time and
money.

Below is my production schedule for February and April, which shows that I went
twice to do my vox pop section and re did my interview with the P.E teacher, which I
think was a waste of time.

Feb: http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/02/feburary-production-log.html

March:http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/04/april-prodution-schedule.html

Post Production

During post production I think the least successful aspect was the tightness of my
editing, this is because I think that I could have edited my documentary much tighter
than I had done, this would have made the video flow better. Another aspect I
thought was least successful is the sound of my documentary; this is because I think
the sound was uneven and unbalanced through out the whole documentary.

Below is a link of my final documentary:

http://nrana1.blogspot.com/2011/04/media-documentary-mental-benefits-
of.html