Unit 5: Working on a brief (Barrington)

As part of a unit task me and my class mates had to film the staff awards, this included the main features from video inserts to lighting and sound to filming and entertainment.

Shortly after me and the production team completed our set task of delivering our project to our target audience I personally received numerous positive feedback regarding my leadership skills in my director job role which I then took and used to strengthen me in future projects. This feedback was commonly along the lines of how easy I was to understand, how affective this made conveying what I wanted done with high clarity to the production team which then could be put to use. My peer feedback came from my fellow classmates Sidique, Zeinab and Catie to name a few.
On a whole, my peers seemed highly satisfied with my efforts and the impact role had on the overall outcome of the event. I received warm congratulating handshakes and joyous after the production from peers and team members as well as the live audience members and staff (client) who participated in making the experience so memorable.
I believe my feedback was good however the delivery was around 45 minutes late which was brought up in the focus group after the awards. Regardless, the staff agreed they all enjoyed the show and left very satisfied at the efforts of the team and entertainment. Other things said in the focus group were that the staff really enjoyed the awards particularly the pre title sequence and that it set the mood for the evening.

Peer feedback aside, my client's feedback was along the same lines as my peer feedback, consisting of positive and appreciative comments on how well the project went and how much the audience and present staff members enjoyed it.
My client comments congratulated me and the team several times during feedback and also in this case I don't have anything I can point out as a negative from my client feedback.

My role during the filming of the video inserts was camera man and occasionally switched to the microphone operator when needed, also for a short period I helped as an editor to push the overall scheduling of our project forward. The filming of the inserts were quick and easy to carry out and few interviews needed redoing. The equipment was properly set up and worked as supposed to, having two camera operators meant for less work and overall boost in possibilities for the editor to further mix shots or replace bad shots. The only weaknesses in my opinion is sometimes the filming teams would get over crowded and slow the execution of the interviews due to people not knowing roles or too many people trying to do the same thing. It was unnecessary and highly frustrating throughout. In the end though the filming and editing was done and the outcomes were very good. This goes from the colour corrections and colour grading to the effects and overall quality of the finished work. The video inserts went very well.

In the meetings my production team focused a lot on what we'll do to express the USP of the project and make it stand out. In the meetings key point were noted for example:

- Use of close and detailed shots to capture emotion in speaker.
- Use of bright and complimenting backgrounds to further enlighten the consumer's attention to the speaker.

As director of the project my role had numerous strengths which suited my own personality and brought the best out of me on the day. Key strengths were that I could tell it exactly how it was and be honest about the way the project was going and correct any issue freely, I had a lot of leadership in the task which I love in general. The role meant I had a voice throughout and could see the project as it was happening from the screen in the gallery. I could give orders and it was almost my show. On the other hand, it was quiet nerve wrecking at first because I knew nothing of the job and had never done the job before but once I got into the hang of how it worked I began working to high standard; Being a director was hugely exciting and very fun.

The only changes I had to make due client feedback were probably around the filming of the interviews in which some of the clips may have needed redoing or footage may have gone missing or some interviewees felt they wanted to start over their interviews to rephrase anything they felt they had said wrong or didn't want to include also we had to be considerate of client expectations meaning we changed a small amount of things to suit the client.

Few constraints occurred in the run up to executing the staff awards and also during the actual staff awards. These were:

Before Staff Awards:
-Damaged/Equipment not working
-SD cards full or not working
-Equipment not being accessible
-Interviewees/crew members being late

During:
Cameras not appearing on the monitors in the gallery
Last minute editing or missing footage

Time management was sloppy but worked in the end. The team rarely missed deadlines to film interviews and the editor(s) did well to get the job done to high quality on time. Our team had unrealistic amount to do in a extremely short time which made it seemingly impossible but we got it done. Leadership skills were good and there were a few people who knew the task better than others and assisted in guiding the team throughout including the assisting staff, form tutors and students

Our target audience were the staff of City of Westminster so we made sure we included lots of teacher humour from their fellow staff members which they loved and the audience was laughing when supposed to and enjoying the show.

To conclude, it was a very new and exhilarating experience and I'd do it again. I learnt a lot about myself and what I can do when I'm put in new and unusual positions and not to doubt my abilities, I learnt a lot about camera shots and how they affect a live audience and I also learnt why managing time is so important.