In class recently we were asked to create our own video projects
Our projects had to be
- between 6-8 minutes long
- First Idea
Initially I wanted to film a promotional video for the Bath Spa Christian Union. My hopes for this video were to encourage more people to join the Christian Union in BathSpa University and come to one of our meetings, I also wanted to let people know more about us as a society and community. To do this I would have filmed one of our meetings and then I would have interviewed some of our members and the president of the society about their experiences whilst being part of the Bath Spa Christian Union.
- Second Idea
My second idea was to produce a documentary on the youth minister of my local church Lloyd Katz. I wanted to interview him and film one of the services in the church. The idea behind the documentary was to tell his story from his upbringing in South Africa to what his personal experiences have been and what made him turn to Christ. I also wanted him to talk about being the youth minister for Bath City Church and what the church itself does for the community.
- Third/Final Idea
I chose to produce a little featurette on my friend Chioma Ononoju who is also the former president of the Bath Spa University Christian Union. my reasons for filming this was that my personal project would have been more easier to accomplish due to the fact that as was the only person filming and editing this video project i also wanted to portray Chioma in a very wise and professional manner.
The Aims of the Project
As I thought of the concepts for each video I came up with several thoughts in mind that I wanted to display in the documentary...
I wanted to educate the non christian community about our beliefs could have a better understanding of our religion and how we function.
I wanted to tell the story of how a devoted Christian was able to lead a civilised life with the beliefs that we shared despite the pressures and temptations in life
I also wanted to educate the viewers about the Christian Union in Bath Spa University
I wanted to talk about Bath City Church and the Christian community in bath itself
Disappointing Parts of the Production
Initially due to my poor time managent there were a factor of things which hampered the production.
- Sound
The first problem I encountered whilst filming was with the audio. I used a rode microphone which I thought would give me the best sound quality at the time. When I played my footage back the sound appeared distorted. Chioma appeared unclear in the interview and very monotone the simple fact was that she was positioned (by me) too far from the camera far away from the camera, as I didn't want the rode microphone to appear within the shot. In an attempt to fix the problem I had to normalise the audio using the option in final cut pro and I had to increase the audio levels due to the atmospheric noises in the background which drowned her voice out immensely. The sound still appeared to sound distorted but sounded better in terms of quality.
- Picture Quality
The second problem I encountered during production the video was with the visual aspect of the production. The quality of the image in the film was very bad my as my subject was very underexposed due to the problems with lighting and the camera. As I tried to figure out how to use the camera and set the features and visual settings I could only blame myself for not getting to grips with handling the camera throughout the year. I found that as the time went on I wasnt as fully functional with the video camera as thought and when adjusting the picture quality i.e. the white balance made my subject appear too dark I attempted to correct this problem by using the colour correction feature in final cut pro in a vain hope to hide the bad picture quality I decided to revert the whole video black and white imagery
- Out of Sync
Somehow Someway I managed to either film or log and capture my footage out of sync with the audio which meant that Chioma appeared to be speaking many seconds ahead of the audio to rectify the mistake I tryed to use the bracket keys on the keyborad in final cut pro whist watching the video and highlighting the audio (as pressing these keys whilst watching the video help you to align the audio with the video in final cut pro) time on some points of the video the audio is still out of sync but I managed to minimalise its visibility.
- Not Planned Properly
The very big factor which stood out all the way through due to the reviewing process of my finished project was that it simply was not planned properly. There were many opportunities (if it had been planned well enough) to insert cutaways shots into the video for example when my subject was talking about the Bath spa Christian Union and the award that we had recently receieved as a society. my questions cud have been thought through thoroughly before I asked my subject as I thought of all of them in an impulsive manner when reviewing my video I found that the question about spare time bared to relevance to my production. I wanted to ask one of my classmates who lives near me at the time to help me film but due to my bad organizational skills I left everything to the last minute whilst reflecting on other things the framing quality of the video was poor as I gave my subject too much headroom and didn't position the camera properly which when viewing the video did under represent my subject the video itself was quite boring due to the fact that the video was a basic interview with no apparent footage of any other things which she talked about being in the video i could have filmed her worshiping or praying and i could have filmed her doing social activates with members of my church as well it would have also been nice to speak to a few of her non Christian friends about their views on religion i feel that i had the a greater opportunity to make this film more interesting by filming my subject in a number of locations but I didn't use it.
My Conclusion
Ideally this is in no means how a featurette should look like a featurette should be judging by this poor effort there are many things which I need to improve for the following year .
The first thing I will work on is my time management skills as I found I didn't devote enough time towards this production I felt myself rushing and doing everything in the last minute (which is never a good idea) which showed in the quality of the video by for the next assignment I would view the hand in date and work backwards so I could give myself enough time to produce a rough/final edit.
The second thing I need to improve is my technical ability the simple functions of the camera as to how to adjust the picture quality on the camera and use the correct framing methods are evident in the video as i am not that confident and how to use it to improve this i aim to book equipment out to practice in my spare time and to get to grips with handling and setting up the camera whether it be Panasonic or a Sony Z1 and to get advanced editorial skills using final cut pro software.
If i were to have filmed the video again these are the things I would have done differently
- More cutaways as my project is too basic and quite uninteresting due to the lack of external footage
- Better Framing not too much headroom
- Better Quality of questions as it would clarify what i was trying to achieve by filming this video
- More footage of Chioma either worshipping or doing something social
- Better camera shots/angles and visual quality as my subject was greatly underexposed
- Better sound quality as the sound quality in this video was substandard
Below is my finished project
the making of a christian from Edem King on Vimeo.
