Ollie Tristram

This is the finished version. The quality is pretty bad because YouTube loves to compress everything to do death, but its not too bad.

If you have me as a friend on Facebook there is a much better quality one on my videos there.

Anyway, enjoy!

Project/ Assignment title: Documentary, “Soul City”

Self-evaluation is a reflective process assessing and describing your learning experiences and the results you have achieved in your project. A transparent (fair, candid) and well-written self-evaluation will help you identify and recognise your strengths and areas for improvement. It will also help you become more familiar with your own working and design process for the purpose of improving and implement strategies for your future projects. (word count- 500-800)

The main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were:
In terms of narrative, I wanted to get across to the audience that being a busker is an interesting life and that the relationship between them and the public can be unique and sometimes special. In terms of my own intentions, I wanted to make a film that showed that I can be part of a team that can create an artistic piece showing I have a good eye for composition. Also, I wanted to show that I have a talent in sound recording and mixing, as the live recording of the busker playing turned out very good quality and authentic and the interview turned out quite crisp (via means of equalising, compression, speech enhancing etc.)

The methods I use to develop my ideas were:
Online research was my main method for developing ideas. Watching existing short documentaries, particularly on FourDocs, enabled me to gather ideas for the film, and in the end the artistic style we went for came from a couple of films on there.

I took a risk by trying something new.
I think the biggest risk we took as a group was clinging onto the idea of documenting a busker as the idea was initially disliked as it didn’t have much potential, but since we pitched a new direction to pull it in the idea grew on people. However, the technical ‘risks’ we took were using quite a lot of pull focusing as I for one had never really used much of it before so to get the film looking good via this method was somewhat of a risk.

Some of the unexpected problems I had to solve while working were:
As I was in charge of sound there were a couple of problems we came across. The first problem was when we were recording the interview with the busker on the street there was way too much background noise. This was partly because the microphone wasn’t held close enough to the subject’s mouth, but also because the street was generally too noisy, so when I came to cutting up the interview the audio too obviously stopped and started when the backing noise came in. Another problem with the sound was getting the levels correct. When we heard the film for the first time on large speakers, instead of headphones, it was too hard to distinguish what the busker was saying.

The decisions and choices I made to help solve these problems were:
To fix these problems, we had to rearrange the interview and one of the sound booths were booked out. This way we wouldn’t get any background noise at all and in the end I recorded a clear sound. As for the levels, well they were simply adjusted so that the ducking of the backing track was more severe.

The most interesting or challenging thing that I achieved was:
What I am most proud of achieving on this project is spotting and filming interesting shots that excite the audience and keep up the pace of what could have potentially been a slow, boring film.

The things I have learnt from this particular project were:
I already knew to use manual white balance and focus but one thing I have learnt is to use manual exposure as well. This is because there are a couple of shots in our film where the iris changes from light to dark when someone in a dark coat walks past the camera. I suppose the other thing I have learnt is to allow for more contingency time as things like having to rerecord the interview and even getting hold of the busker in the first place proved to be somewhat of a setback. Another point to add is that we probably needed to film a bit more footage. We had enough, but maybe just a few more shots to play with in the edit could have helped boost the artistic-factor of the film.

If I were to do this project again I would change or do differently:
Probably do a new idea. I think more research and inspiration was needed so the rest of the group and I could have found a subject with more potential to be interesting and entertaining. Although our guy turned out to be quite interesting, he could have also been very boring so it was a risk.

A new project that might grow out of my experience maybe:
I think after this film I could make another documentary. I have never made one before but it is quite a good way of storytelling and interesting to make. It has necessarily inspired me to create a new film, but I will take with me all the experience with the cameras and sound so next time I have more knowledge on how to be more efficient and more productive. Except for what I may create, this project could and should benefit me when looking for work experience with established production companies. It is another project that shows my potential and hopefully people will pick up on it and will lead me into a career in the industry.

I have achieved the following learning outcomes for this module and my evidence is:
I have learnt to be consistent with technical skills and also to work well with your group. My evidence for this is the actual final film we have produced but also all the posts on my blog that show all the research and pre- and post-production I did to go with the rest of the work from the group and into the final production file.

Here are some action shots of us producing our Documentary. These will be included with the rest of the paperwork when the project is finally submitted.