Unit 13 - Final Major Project Evaluation

For my last unit of this course I was asked to make a visual

production using all the knowledge I have learnt during the last 2
years on this course. Due to me being on the broadcast journalism
side of the media course, I was encouraged to make a factual
programme. Even though I was encouraged to make a factual
programme, this type of production is what I wanted to make
anyways even if I had a choice for the other production types. My
final idea I ended up going with for my Final Major Project was a
factual programme on the history of radio and the future of it in a
world filled with modern technology. I also wanted to meet the
needs of my target audience, which was between the ages of 16 and
24. I knew that people of this age range were a lot less likely to listen
to radio than other age ranges so I thought it could be a useful
challenge to try and aim my factual programme towards them. Due
to the target audience being of this age range, I knew I could not do
an ordinary expository factual programme as perhaps the viewers
would get bored.

To fill the needs of my target audience I decided to go with a

reflexive style of factual programme instead so I could keep the
viewers entertained. In this sort of factual programme, I would
present bits of the factual programme to keep it refreshing and
question the topic myself.
I thought this would be a very interesting topic to touch on as the
radio is something that has been around for a long time but its
popularity seems to drop year by year due to other advances of
technology such as music streaming services which are very popular
nowadays. I also wanted to show the viewers of my production the
history of radio as I feel like a lot of younger people nowadays do not
know the history of radio and how it started.

I went into this final major project knowing it would be in my best

interests to have a client or festival to submit my production in to.
There were many good options of clients or festivals to pick from but
I definitely seen a top one I had to go with. The client/festival I ended
up going with was the Aesthetica Short Film Festival. The Aesthetica
Short Film Festival is an international film festival which takes place
annually in York, England at the beginning of November. This festival
was originally founded in 2011, and it is a celebration of independent
filmmaking from around the world.
I thought this festival would be one of the best options for me to
submit my production to as it a festival dedicated to shorter
productions so it suits mine down to the ground. There was certain
rules and guidelines that I had to follow so I will show them all on
this document. One of these guidelines was to make sure my
production was under 30 minutes in length, which I did follow as my
finished edit was 9 minutes in length. Looking back, I do feel as if I
could have worked for the needs of my festival more. I think after
the initial research and decision to apply for this certain festival I did
not really look back on it too much. This is something I could look to
improve on if I ever do work for a client in the future as this time I
seemed to be more interested in seeing what I had to do for my
college course instead.
After the completing the final edit of my production, I thought it
would be a good idea to get some feedback and reflect on the job I
had done on this Final Major Project. I asked a few questions (I will
show screenshots of exact survey) to see what some other people
thought were strong points of my productions and also weak points.
After getting a few responses it was clear where one of the areas of
weakness in my production was. A few of the responses said that
their least favourite aspect of my production was how the video
quality was not always the best such as in the last interview.

I completely understand this judgement and do think I could have

done better to ensure a better video quality for parts of my
production. However, I would say some of the reason why my video
quality was not the best was also due to situation and problems I
faced while making my production.

One of the most unfortunate issues I faced and overcame happened

in the middle of my zoom interview with Toby. About 10 minutes
into the zoom my Wi-Fi connection in my house seemed to drop and
completely disconnect. At first, I was not too sure what had
happened as the zoom with Toby just froze so I initially thought it
could be to do with something on his end. Although, after about a
minute of this I could tell something was wrong on my end as I
checked my phone and the Wi-Fi on that had also dropped. I then
sent Toby a text apologising and saying my internet had shut off but I
would call him back when I had the issue resolved. I knew I would
have to sort something out quickly as Toby had only given me a 30-
minute window to speak with him.
I managed to overcome this problem by quickly connecting my
laptop to my phones 4g hotspot. Although the phones 4g is not as
good as the usual Wi-Fi, I managed to call Toby back and finish the
interview. This could be another reason why for some cracks or bad
quality in the second half of the interview as the connection was not
the best. I feel though as I overcame this problem very well as it
could have ruined my entire interview but I managed to turn the
situation around complete the interview despite the challenging
circumstances.

On reflection from some of the responses, one of the favourite

aspects of my production was the interview with Toby in terms of
the quality of answers he had for my questions.

This is something that I thought people would like even before I

started seeking feedback. This is due to the great answers Toby gave
and positive energy he gave out. He was very nice to talk to and very
informative with some of the information he gave me so I thank him
very much for chance to speak to him. I also think I did a good job of
preparing the right questions and asking Toby in a way in which he
was comfortable to speak in the way he did.

I had a question on my survey where I asked what the viewer

thought of the background music I used at certain points of my
factual programme and I got a response in which although not overly
positive, I feel as if I agree with it.

This response says how although they described my background

music as “good” they say it was not consistent throughout. I can
agree with this as I felt I included some helpful background music at
parts of my factual programme. An example of this is when I included
old school radio music for at the start of my history bit about radio.
I feel as if including this old school radio music really helped get the
point across that I was speaking about the history of radio and gave
an example of how it used to sound back when radio was very
popular. It also helped set the mood for that part of the history
section of the programme.

At a certain point however, I switched up the background music to a

more modern upbeat background noise.

I switched up the background music at this point to show that I was

changing what I was speaking about. While the old school radio
background music was on, I was talking about the past and history of
radio. After I had changed the music (at the point I included in the
screenshot above) I was then talking about radio in the current day
and the future of radio in a world filled with modern technology. I
feel like this change of music paired with the changing of timeframe
within the topic was a very impactful thing to do and I hope more of
the viewers of my production would also agree with that.

A bit of preparation which I felt helped me a lot whilst making this

final major production was the topic research.
I feel as if I done quite a bit of topic research before carrying out my
final major project which helped me do it to a decent standard.

One example of my research that helped me quite a lot was the

timeline of radio I did at the end of my topic research.

This timeline I made was very helpful as it set out in chronological

order how I was going to have the history bit of my factual
programme. Doing this was definitely the most important part of my
research as I after making the timeline I could look for research with
a clear plan in mind. Before I made the timeline, I was still
conducting good research, but I feel as if I didn’t have a proper plan
behind it until I made the timeline.
Another bit of my research before the filming process started was
looking at professional productions that were of a similar genre of
what I was trying to achieve in my own factual programme. As I
stated earlier in my evaluation I had decided to do a reflexive style of
factual programme due to my target age range being younger (16-
24) and their attention span being lower as I seen in my target
audience research.

The first professional piece I looked at in my research was a trailer of

“My Life by Nicolas Winding Refn”.
I thought this was a very intriguing piece of reflexive factual
programming, and it did inspire me while making my own factual
programme. One of the things I looked to include in my own factual
programme which I had seen in this professional piece was the use of
informal camera shots that perhaps you would not see in an
expository factual programme. There are many examples of this
throughout the trailer as you can see the camera is handheld at most
points by the subtle unsteadiness of the camera.

It is never clearer than at this point in which we actually see the

director’s wife with the camera hand held in her hand which we can
see in the shot. I tried to do this at certain points in my own factual
programme such as when I did the student interviews about their
knowledge and use of radio. I used a lot of the codes and
conventions that I had seen in this example and other examples to
get my production to get as reflexive as it could have been. I used a
lot of the informal camera angles seen in the trailer in my own
factual programme as this gave me inspiration. The narrative
structure in this professional production is another thing I tried to
implement in my own production. That’s why I had the history part
at the beginning of mine with the interviews later on because I
wanted to show the viewer a bit more about the history of radio
before I included any interviews. I also tried to ask a range of people
questions in my factual programme which is something that was also
done in “My Life by Nicolas Winding Refn”.

Overall though, I feel as if I could have done more to make my

factual programme more reflexive as I might have to gotten my
reflexive point across enough.

In these interview clips you could see the camera was handheld and I
done this on purpose to add to the informal feel. However, I would
say perhaps on these interviews I done a bit too much swaying as it
was perhaps a bit overboard. Overall though I did find the informal
settings of the professional production and my own factual
programme were both effective.

Over the course of this final major project I feel as if I have also
enhanced a few of my production making skills. One of the main
things I have improved on is my researching skills. I am better now at
finding useful information instead of wasting my time on information
that is not going to help me.
Another thing I have improved on during this final major project is
my editing skills. Although editing has not always been a strong point
for me while on this creative media course, my current editing skills
are very clear of where they were before this final major project.
One of the editing skills I have learnt during this final major project is
how to zoom in properly onto a picture or video to make the clip
look more visually appealing.

I feel as if I have done well on this final major project but that is not
to say there is not things I would change. If I could do this unit over
again there are definitely some things I would change. One of the
main things would be my time management over the course of the
last few months during this final major project. I feel as if I had used
my time better over the past few months I would have made a better
final edit. This pours over into my next thing I wish I could have
changed. Due to the poor time management that I just talked about,
I was unable to reshoot certain parts of my factual programme which
I feel could have or should have been reshoot. One of the main
things I wish I could have reshot was the student interviews which I
filmed at the college. Another thing I could have changed about the
student interviews was the audio quality. The audio quality in these
interviews was not the best and if I had used a proper microphone it
could have sounded a lot better. As I have said earlier in the
evaluation, I feel as if the clips I filmed in these interviews were a bit
too shaky. Another thing I wish I could have done differently had to
do with the interview with Toby. I really wished I could have done an
in-person interview with Toby instead of the zoom interview I did, as
I feel I could have gotten to questions over to him better face to face.
I also feel as if his quality of answers could have been even better if
the interview was in person instead of on zoom. The quality of Toby’s
camera was another reason why I wish we could have done an in-
person interview as he looked a bit fuzzy in the footage. If I was to do
this over again I would ask Toby beforehand to make sure he had a
good quality camera on his computer for the zoom interview. I could
have also asked Toby to use his phone as another camera angle for
the interview. Had I of done this I could have used a lot of that
footage instead of using Toby’s laptop camera that was very blurry.

To conclude, I feel as if I done a good job on my final major project. If

I had more time to reshoot or edit my factual programme I feel as if I
could have done a way better job, but I will have to say that is down
to me and I am to blame for it not being as good as it could have
been. However, other circumstances also made it harder to complete
my final major project to its best standard such as the ongoing covid-
19 pandemic that is still going on. Due to the pandemic I was unable
to meet my interviewee Toby Anstis in person and instead had to do
a zoom interview. Due to this I feel as if my interview could have
been even better under normal circumstances. Overall, I still think
my final major project was a success and I carried out what I sought
to achieve at the start. I believe the context work I had done at the
start of the final major project set me out on the right track. I also
believe my improved research skills helped me throughout this final
major project. I have learned quite a lot over my two years on this
course and have enjoyed a lot of it. I hope to take what I have learnt
on this course onto my future endeavours whether that be university
or a job in broadcast journalism.