Evaluation

After many failed attempts at creating my original Headless Women idea, I decided to make my documentary topic about the paintbrushes. I chose this idea because it is a topic that I am highly interested in and I am usually doing creative things in my day-to-day life; painting is something that I enjoy the most. I believe that my idea worked to some extent, I feel like I could have done better when editing my final product, however I believe that if I had more time to edit and record my voice acting then perhaps, I would have made a better finishing product which positively effects my audience more. I feel that my finishing project works well in the sense that it is about a topic that not many people cover in documentaries, but it is a topic that audiences of all types of demographics enjoy. As well as this, I mention that people need to stop spending so much time on technology and I believe that people will be compelled to try and spend less time on social media and more time engaging in creative activities. The main problem I faced when making this documentary was the lack of time, because of this I was unable to complete the voice acting to a standard I was happy with and I also did not like the way the final product was edited – I wanted the scenes to look better and be less choppy and more in focus. After looking back at my finished product, I feel that it could have been approached better – one of the ways I could have done this was through more research, for example, making a documentary about what a specific target audience likes about art and then explore these likes and dislikes. I believe that my idea worked in some ways but failed in others. By this I mean that I think that my idea was very interesting and that it would capture the audience's attention, but I do not think that the finished product was very successful and definitely could have been better edited. 

My research into the modes of documentary helped me in planning what type of documentary I would be making. From this research, I was also able to discover the conventions and techniques of each specific mode which meant that I could use them in my documentary. One of the main conventions that I payed attention too whilst planning my documentary was the lack of using an interview. This was because my documentary was in the style of a participatory documentary. This means that there are no interviews are instead use multimedia tools to convey the topic to the audience. I used painting, stock footage, voice-overs (audio), music (audio) and editing techniques such as a simple cut to convey the calming environment that is discovered when taking part in creative activities. I think my research was very effective as it allowed me to create a final product that follow the conventions of the documentary mode it is based upon. As well as this, I already knew a lot about the topic and with some research into the history of paintbrushes I was able to understand and make a product which I hope will entertain and education my audience. 

My risk assessment was slightly helpful when filming my documentary as it made me and my family (there were no other crew members) aware of the dangers that we could have been facing whilst I was filming, such as the wiring for cameras and the tripod legs getting in the way. The schedule that I had made wasn’t very helpful at the start of the project, this is because I did not follow it and instead, I tried to just record as much footage as I could before time started to run out. However, towards the end of the project (around the beginning of March), I started following the schedule to make sure that I had everything done and enough time to do the things that we not finished I.e. post production. My audio/ visual script and my storyboard where created after all my footage was captured but before I had started planning my script. This meant that I was able to plan what I was going to say based o roughly off the footage my audience would be seeing. I believe my voice-over is more successful because of this as I knew what my audience would be seeing before I made the script which means that all I had to do what make sure that the audio and visuals fit well together. 

Looking back at the start of this project I was quite naive when it came to the amount of work that I would have to be doing, because of this I did not do as much work as I should have been doing if I was aware of how long everything would have taken. In view of that fact, I am not happy with my final product as I feel that it could have been edited much better.  I think I would have overcome the problem in post-production if I had payed more attention to my schedule and had better time management. One of the main points in my Proposal was to “show the process that people have to go through to get the products they need to make a piece of art”. I believe that I have done this when I explain to the audience through visuals and my voice-over the process of making a paintbrush. I also ended my documentary in the same way that I had originally proposed to do so – this is by telling the audience in a rhetorical way that they should go and spend some time away from their devices and instead do something creative. In the future, I will always start with the planning of my schedule and be considerate of time as I have observed that I quickly lose track of what I am doing and how long things take to complete.