Evaluation

My original intentions:

Originally with this project I wanted to create something that was

visually pleasing, something that could tell a story, something that I was
passionate about. As we were in lockdown there wasn’t much I was
doing considering my main passions are golf and football, however I'm
also big into mountain biking[MTB] and this is something that I have
been doing through out lockdown. And I thought it would be good if I
could make a project about it. So I did some research of my own and
looked at MTB videos, I wanted to know what was popular in the MTB
community but you didn’t see very often, I realised this to be
documentaries, weather be about a pro rider or how a spot went form
nothing to everything, people loved to see it. That when I thought, of
dirt jumping, many people outside of the MTB community thinks it's
amazing what people can do on jumps, bigs jumps at events such as
Redbull Joyride. My issue was there is no where in England with jumps
as big as the ones at Joyride, so I wanted to show the people the back
bones of dirt jumping and how it is on a slow rise back to its former
glory.

As you can see in the photo above before finalising any of m ideas
made sure to come up with three different ideas to help broaden my
view on what was possible with FMP I found this useful as it help to
show me what was achievable, this also showed me I wasn’t to worry
about getting overwhelmed with the task as I could work on something
that I enjoy and that I am passionate about.

How did I use my findings in research to plan my production:

Throughout the process of my research I used some different methods

of researching to help aid my planning, for example I made a survey
with several questions that revolved around target audience, this was
so I could see who was interested in my production and why. This
helped me to see who I needed top plan for and made sure that I
planned specifically for the target audience I had continued my specific
research for.

Below is an example of my survey:


This question was very useful to me as it helped me to make my

research more specific, this then helped me plan better as, I knew what
the people of this age group wanted to see and I knew who was most
interested in the subject I had specified and what they were more
interested in seeing, I didn’t have to research what people of the age 50
and above wanted to see.

Another example of me using my research to help with my planning is

researching the genres of documentaries. This helped me massively as
it made me create a better idea in my head of what I wanted to create
and how I wanted to present it to me viewers.

The frame shows a snippet of the research I did and how I presented it
going through each type of documentary and finding and example of
that type, explaining why it is this type of documentary and whether or
not it is type of documentary I wanted to create for my own production.

Why would my production have met the needs of my target

audience?:

My production will have met the need of my target audience as I had a

very specific type of audience. My target audience was mostly male
and between the ages of 10-20. This meant that when creating the final
plan for my production I could specifically aim my production towards
these people as this would therefore mean I would be able to make a
better production.

The frame above shows one of the question I asked when researching
my target audience, this show me what, they thought were some of the
more important features, that should be in a documentary, this has
helped me make sure that I would create a production specific to my
target audience which they would enjoy, I could use it as almost a
check list to make sure I get in as many features requested as possible.

What codes and conventions had I planned into my production?:

One of the key conventions I planned to have in my production is A

Hand held camera - showing realism and truth, I planned to use this
during my interviews as when talking to the interviewee, it would help
Make the audience feel more amerced in the production, this is
because, when you speak to a person in real life they don’t stand still
and stare directly at you they look around or look at there feet, and you
being the other part of that conversation aren’t going to stand still or
look straight at them. So I planned to recreate this feeling of a
conversation and a sense of realism, with a hand held camera as it
can be used in many different ways and angles and it's never going to
be completely steady.

Another code/convention that I have planned into my production is

Interviewing with experts and participants, This is a key part to every
documentary and I have planned to have two different experts in my
documentary, one who is a public figure and one who is a friend but a
quality builder and really know his stuff when it comes to building dirt
jumps.

The image above shows the two interviewee and the research that I did
about them to ensure I knew what I wanted to talk about them and that
when I asked them questions during my interview I would ask them in a
way that would get me the best answers that I needed out of them. This
would improve my production as I can fit information in to the
documentary without boring the audience too much.

How effective do I feel my planning and materials are? Could they

be used by another person to produce my project? If not, what
could be improved?

I feel that my planning materials were very useful however, I do not

believe that they could be used by another person to create the same
production. Tis is because a lot of my production I had built up in my
head, and with it being a documentary I haven’t created any kind of
storyboard to get the images that I would like. Another reason for
someone recreating my production may struggle is that fact that I
haven’t given any guidance about my B-roll and what I want it to be of,
B-roll is an important part of my production as it helps to break it u and
keep the audience interested, this is key for most documentaries.
Following on form the B-roll, I would also have a voiceover at during my
production, this would be to help fill in gaps between each scene or
interview, nowhere have I scripted it or mentioned that I was planning
on using it.

However there are some positives from my planning, I managed to

create useful location recces, that would give someone who was trying
to recreate my production all the information they would need to do so
in the right places. I have also done extensive research on my
interviewees, and written out some questions that I had planned to ask,
this would have helped someone trying to recreate my production
greatly, as all they would need to do is contact the interviewee and get
them to do an interview.

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the work that I

completed?:

An area of strength within my production would be my research, Which

took me a long time, partly because I struggle with motivation
throughout creating my production but also because I feel it is
extensive and in depth, this is to make sure that it covers everything I
would need to know about mountain biking, documentaries, the people
that would watch my production even the platform I would be posting it
on I did this by first researching what a documentary is this was
necessary to show that I had a clear understanding of what I was trying
to create and I didn’t end up trying to make something of a different
genre. I research into my target audience using a survey asking my
different question to try and find out information for whom my target
audience might be. This included thing like age and gender but also
stretched to question like for example, “name any famous
documentaries”, or, “What do you think a documentary is?” This is so
the I can get a clear idea of what my target audience would expect to
see and what they would know of a documentary.

Know what my audience thinks a documentary is, is important as this

tells me how much information I should feed them and in what way, for
example, someone who doesn’t know much about a documentary and
likes the cinematic and images shown throughout a production aren’t
going to want to watch something that is shoving loads of information
into their face as they won’t find it interesting at all. However for
someone who now a lot about documentaries and like the information
that they give, they like to listen to what the presenter is trying to tell
them. So for me to be able to reach as many people as possible I
needed to find a medium between them all.

What areas do you feel you need to improve the most in the second
year?:

One area in which I think I could improve for the second year is my
timing and sometimes the effort I put into my productions, as it is
important to me that I do well and produce work that is of a high
standard. This is something that throughout the first year I feel that I
have struggled with especially when working at home for such a long
period.

Another thing that I would like to improve for the second year is
spending more time on my playing and research making sure that
everything is perfect before I start rushing into filming, as I did this a
couple times this year and I felt that it effected the final result of y
production negatively.