Certain Proposals Evaluation

Certain Proposals Evaluation

The audience for this project would be young people and people who typically like soaps because it is a similar kind of situation to what you would see in a soap. It is very over the top, a lot like a melodrama, which is why it would be perfect for this target audience.

Use of the Camera

I found it very useful using the camera with the adjustable lens because I was able to change my depth of field and I could decide if I wanted one shot to be blurry or another to be sharp. I found that when I was filming 'Certain Proposals' I didn't want to use a blurry effect because it would ruin the video and it wouldn't fit in anywhere. All of my shots are in focus on the main action because this is where I thought it would be most appropriate.

One of the shots I use is an over-the-shoulder shot which was really interesting when adjusting the focus because I wanted the focus to be on the mother character and for the shoulder of the son to be out of focus but still there because it is important to see how close he is standing to his mother.

How have I improved from previous projects

In previous projects I have suffered when it has come to adjusting the focus but now that I have used the camera a few times, I have figured out how to solve the problem. After each of the shots I did, I would check them on a larger screen to ensure that the focus wasn't a problem because if it was then I could easily retake the shot to make sure that I got it right. This was very helpful and it meant that editing the video was much easier because I didn't have to retake my shots after I had uploaded them and started editing them.

Problems I faced when planning and filming

I had a few problems when I was planning and filming my project and the biggest one I faced was having to plan another script because the first one didn't work out.

When I planned to film my first idea I had organised everything to be perfect and I filmed it all. However, I checked out the video on the computer after all of the shots I filmed and I found that the focus still wasn't quite right on them. This was due to the lighting in the room, the distance from the camera the actors were and that the camera was slightly out of focus when I was filming them. I also had a problem of the backing noise in the video because I originally planned to film it in a café. There was a lot of backing noise which stopped you from being able to hear the actors lines. I tried recording them on a programme that I am very well accustomed with, Audacity, but there was still quite a lot of backing noise. I tried to record them elsewhere but it was incredibly hard to get the levels right because of the backing noise.

 

I decided in the end that it would be a good idea to re-think my script and to re-do the whole thing to see if I could get the sound and focus any better. I wrote the script for Certain Proposals and the sound and focus was much better. I checked after each shot if the focus was good by watching the video back on a larger screen which helped a lot. I then listened to the audio to ensure that you could hear the actors words.

Editing

When editing my video I always start by making sure that all of the clips are in the right order so I made sure that it all ran smoothly.

I decided that I didn't want to use any music in my video because I felt that it wasn't appropriate because of the seriousness of the situation to two people were in.

Unlike last time when I decided to use an effect on my titles I thought that I wouldn't need to include this because it would look too sinister for a video about a proposal.

I thought that it would be a good idea to only use straight cuts because I thought that an effect between shots might have looked a little bit strange because the two characters are meant to be having an argument.

Improvements for next time

For my next project I will consider where I'm filming and if it's going to be loud or I'm going to have a problem with the lighting. I will then be able to decide if I need to record voiceovers.

I will make sure that I continue to listen and watch each video back like I have done when filming 'Certain Proposals' so that I can check that the sound is of a good quality and the focus is too.


I will take a list of the shots that I want to use for my video and make sure that I use them all because I didn't do that with this project and it would have ran a lot more smoothly if I had planned it out a little bit better than what I did.