Evaluation (James)

Evaluation

Me and my fellow classmates had got the opportunity to film and organise the Staff Awards 2013. The Staff awards is an annual event held within the college grounds which aims at giving recognition and showing appreciation toward the hard working staff over the year. As a class we had to film the interviews and vox pops including comments and brief insights to the views on colleagues by fellow staff members as well as produce the title sequence for the live event.

My role for the day was Director and as the director I made sure the show ran smoothly and gave direction to the vision mixer as well as kept the floor running smoothly through the audio headsets. I was also in charge of giving adjustment orders to the camera operators which included changing shots, adjusting shots and getting in position for upcoming shots. My expectation of the role was that I'd be running around like a headless chicken having to look at a thousand things at once, I was extremely nervous and prepared for embarrassment and a day from hell; I was still going to give it my all. As the show began it got easier and soon after I had found my rhythm and began understanding how the job role worked. I also took part in filming majority of the video inserts (Voxpops and interviews) as a camera man. My job role was thrown at me by my teacher and initially was pretty shocking considering I asked to be  a lighting assistant.

I learnt a lot before, during and after the day of the awards. Before the day during the pre production process I learnt a lot about camera work for example I trained my skill of improvision as there were a few cases where people needed re recording or didn't have a straight forward plan for shots or the lighting wasn't as expected. I learnt on the day how well I could handle new experiences and not crack under pressure which was very nice and boosted my confidence in my own abilities. With that being said I now feel like I can do a lot more, as if to say I have expanded the world I live in around me by now having fewer limitations on what I will allow myself to do and where I call my comfort zone.

We had to pick first, second and third choice for job roles individually. A lot of people got their first choices however, my teachers wanted to show me I could do more than be a camera man and put me out of my comfort zone, agreeing to put me in charge.
I loved the challenge and believe it couldn't have gone much better for me on the day.

I feel the staff awards went very well and everyone stayed strong under the pressure even though the show got off to a rocky start with us starting a little later than planned, the team worked hard together to make it a well earned success. Not long after the client and our team had a meeting to acquire feedback. The feedback was straight forward and extremely positive, the client stated everyone was brilliant and that it was a good event. She did however state that the only negative was the late start. Besides that the feedback was positive and definitely pleasant for me and everybody who took part in the show.

The following week I kept on getting hand shakes and congratulations for me and my teams efforts on the day and that it was a superb show.

To conclude, I think it all went smoothly and near enough to plan and the experience it's given me is priceless, I'm more confident, daring and my leadership skills have enhanced plenty since the day of the event. It was very fun and brought smiles to everyone. I'd do it again any day and was worth the hard work inputed into the whole buildup.


Kameron Brown