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Grace Bundy
SENSE OF PRIDE
Source List
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride- I used this website to help inspire me to write about the meaning of pride
https://indiefilmhustle.com/cinema-verite/- I used this website to inform myself about cinema verite
https://www.slideshare.net/Dan1401/6-types-of-documentary- This slide show helped me to have a better understanding of the different styles of documentary
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/clinical-depression/
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics
https://www.verywellmind.com/depression-statistics-everyone-should-know-4159056
https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/statistics-and-facts-about-mental-health/how-common-are-mental-health-problems/#.XE7dCpP7SV5
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41125009
http://learnaboutfilm.com/poem-films/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Murray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serena_Williams
Daily log
7/1- Started of brainstorming ideas about the topic and creating a mind map to help with this. Decided on possible genres and wrote a swot analysis to understand the good and bad of them all.
8/1- I created three moodboards about the different genres of the piece to help influence me into which one to choose
9/1- After analysing the swot analysis and the mood boards I came to a decision on what genre I wanted to go for.
11/1- I researched into the different styles of documentary so that I am able to break the genre down and have a better understanding so that I can choose which style that I want to focus on.
14/1- I finished the historical research, and started on some initial ideas for my final project.
15/1- I started going into more detail with each of the 5 ideas by stating what I want to include, it made it easier for me to have a better understanding of rwhat I want to include so that I am able to compare ideas and narrow it down to my top 3
16/1- Finished of with my 5 ideas
18/1- Created mind-maps for the ideas to make it clearer to me about the key points about the ideas
21/1- Finished creating the mind map and started the swot analysis on the 3 ideas
22/1- Finished the swot analysis
23/1- Created mood boards and analysed the swot analysis
28/1- Identified the target audience and created story board on mental health
29/1- Completed secondary research on mental health and analysed videos for contextual research
30/1- Created three questionnaires for my 3 ideas so that I can see how to improve my idea
1/2- Analysed the responses from the questionnaires and researched into possible athletes that I want to talk about
4/2- Practiced typography for my final idea using after effects and following youtube tutorials
8/2- Analysed the videos that I created and reflected on what I have learnt
11/2-Gathered the primary research and began to analyse it
12/2- Finished analysing primary research for celebrities
13/2- Started secondary research by analysing the 3 celebrities that I would want to focus on
15/2-Finished of completing the secondary research
25/2- Started to create the powerpoint for the presentation
What pride means to me
Pride to me means a variety of things. My initial thought is the feeling of accomplishment that you have in yourself in something that you have achieved. This could be winning an award, or completing work that you are proud of, or just the feeling of self worth and respect. For me pride reminds me of celebrities like singers, and authors who create their work and release it to the world because they take pride in their own work. Having pride in yourself is what I believe leads to success. Having self doubt in yourself gives you a negative perspective in not just your work but life which can lead to lack of achievement.
Pride can also be a bad thing. Having too much confidence in yourself and having respect only for yourself and not others will make you come across arrogant. It is also considered to one of the deadly sins which shows that pride has good and bad connotations.
From this I can now explore the different ideas that I have to focus my FMP on. It is important that I am passionate about my idea which is why my brainstorming my initial thoughts of pride, will help me develop an idea.I created a mind map with all my initial thoughts of pride and what it means to me to help influence an me of an idea.
Genre
Before thinking of possible ideas I have to decide what genre I want to piece on, this will help to narrow down the idea of the piece. I want to focus intensely on the editing of the piece as this is what I want my future to be based on. So when thinking of a genre I will take into consideration the editing that will be involved if I focus on that genre. For example if the genre was comedy I can incorporate comedic editing techniques into it. If it was horror then I can focus on the lighting and music when editing to create suspense.
Documentary
Strengths- I can show the research skills that I have and can show the process of development of the research. Can clearly link this to a sense of pride.
Weaknesses- I would have to make sure that it is interesting to watch as some documentaries can come across quite boring. A lot of research would have to be done beforehand.
Opportunities- Doing a documentary about someone if done well can be really interesting to watch and can come across very professional
Threats- I will have to do a lot of my own research to make sure that the information I am saying is factually correct, as this is important that I don't say any false information.
Comedy
Strengths- There is quite a big target audience for comedy so if done correctly could be appealing to a lot of people
Weaknesses- Could be quite cringe worthy rather than funny, and could not come across entertaining to watch
Opportunities- There could be quite a lot of editing involved to make it more comedic
Threats- The script and actors are the main aspects of whats going to make it funny, and script writing isn't my biggest focal point.
Drama
Strengths- Large target audience because it is a common genre. A lot of opportunities to create an interesting and entertaining piece of work.
Weaknesses- Getting actors for the piece is going to be difficult to do and has a big impact to the piece.
Opportunities- Can link other genres into this, like a comedy drama could be a potential theme of the piece.
Threats- Difficult to link to drama to a sense of pride, I would have to make sure that it is very clear the link between them
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Comedy
Drama
Documentaries
I created mood boards for the three possible genres so that I can get some ideas of possible storylines, and important aspects that I would need to include depending on which genre I decide. I compared the images to each other and can see that the differences between them. The comedy images seem to all be light hearted and seem to be comical from initially looking at it. A lot of bright, bold colours are also used making it clear that lighting plays an important part in setting the write mood for the piece. This gave me ideas for my own which I will be able to incorporate some of the factors into my own work. The drama images seem to be mainly close ups of the characters faces to show their emotions. This shows to me that by choosing drama as a genre I am going to have to focus a lot on the actors showing their emotions. This would be difficult to do, due to the restricted options we have at college. All the documentaries are also similar they all are very serious and all the images are quite abstract and dark which makes it more engaging. From the swot analysis and the mood boards that I completed I can now compare them as I know the strengths and weaknesses of each genre. I can also see which genre is going to help show my own strengths and skills. Between them all and can come to a logical decision, from this I have decided that I am going to create a documentary as I think that this is going to be best for me and I will be able to show of the strengths that I have most with this genre. I think that this is going to give me the most amount of opportunity to show the skills that I have and will be pushing me to show of the editing skills that I have.
History of Documentaries- Cinema Verite
I did some research into documentaries and how they have changed and developed. I learnt about a style of documentary called cinema verite. This is a french film movement which started in the 1960s which was created by Jean Rouch. Cinema verite is a style of documentary where it is filmed from an observational point of view. The point of this was to show a kind of realism to the film so that the audience are able to gain some sense of truth when watching. It is a combination of naturalistic techniques and stylised cinematic devices like editing, lighting and staged set-ups. There was no sit down interviews and the shots tended to be filmed using hand held cameras in which they followed a person and captured their real expressions. Documentary films are still filmed like this to this day to create the same type of effect on the audience.
Another documentary genre that I looked into was direct cinema which was originated between 1958 and 1962. It has many resemblances to cinema verite like the hand-held cameras are used in both, as well as the similar feeling of real life. They both rely on the power of editing to give shape and meaning to the documentary. Direct cinema is more observational than cinema verite. The presence of the camera doesn't change the recorded event. It was argued that other modes of documentary are filmed to influence the audience to believe what they want.
Doing research into this has helped me to have a better understanding of two genres of documentary that has been around for a long time. It has helped to make a decision to whether I want to include either of these genres in my own work. I am able to understand the techniques and structures of them, so I can see what approach I want to take.
Documentary styles
There are different documentary styles that I researched into, which include:
Expository documentary- a commentator who speaks directly to the viewer. Its purpose is to educate or to show the audience what is happening on screen. It is well known for having commentary which has a strong argument and point of view. There is also commentary over the videos where they are explaining the story.
Observational documentary- This is where it is filmed from a person looking in, just observing what is happening. There are not interviews and the crew are out of shot so that they don't influence what is happening. Nothing is staged or rehearsed so that it shoes a kind of realism.
Reflexive documentary- This is where the audience are involved with the content of the documentary as it happens, they are aware of the issues of realism. It doesn't necessarily show the truth but a version of a truth which the audience are made aware of this process throughout.
Poetic documentary- The topic is personal to people involved, usually the presenter and the interviewees.This is an artistic way of documentary in which the way it is edited to emphasise aspects of someones life.
Participatory documentary- This is where the the events that are shown are influenced and changed by the presence of the filmmaker.
Performative documentary- This documentary style acknowledges the emotional aspects of documentary and presents ideas as a part of a context having different meanings for different people.
These are some other documentary styles that I looked into to see what style I am going to consider basing my work on.
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Initial Ideas
I decided to create a mind map with very vague ideas and topics that I could create my documentary on. I wanted to gain an idea about what I think has a sense of pride, if that was a specific person, or a movement in history, or something more vague like mental health. From this I can see which ideas that I want to develop and think that has potential for the documentary that I am going to make. I think the ideas that I want to develop are mental health, an athlete, and Jane Austen because I think that these are the most interesting approaches that I could take. They are all very different ideas because I wanted to explore the different perceptions of pride.
Idea 2
Another idea is to focus on athletes. That could either be athletes in general, or could be focused on athletes within a specific sport, or just one person in specific that I would find interesting to research into and talk about, examples of this are Lizzy Yarnold and Andy Murray. I am thinking of possibly talking about all the sports as a whole and then throughout the documentary focus more on a specific person. Athletes take a lot of pride in what they do and I think that this could be a very interesting approach to a this project.
Idea 4
This idea is about doing a documentary on actors. I will start off talking about the celebrities of Hollywood as a whole and then will choose an actor more specifically that I find interesting and that I think shows a true sense of pride. I will then after doing research talk about that person in the documentary linking it to pride and how that person has helped to inspire people to take price in themselves. Possibly actors include Tom Cruise and Edward Norton, I want to choose someone who is interesting and well known.
Idea 1
The idea is to create a documentary trailer for a film about feminism. I feel as if this is a growing talked about topic, making this idea have potential to be interesting to a big audience. I would show the change and growth of women's equality, starting from the suffragettes. I will include some sit down interviews where I find out peoples opinions on them. I will do research into this and include this information in the trailer. I will have a variety of different shots with voice overs to make it interesting to watch. I think that this would be an interesting and factual for people to watch.
Idea 3
This idea is to focus on mental health I think that this would be an approach that wouldn't be the obvious choice to pick. When doing research into possible ideas I thought about people who are too proud to ask for help. This is how I thought of focusing a documentary trailer on mental health. I think that it is an important topic to talk about, and it is not a direct link to pride but one that I think would be interesting to watch. I would research into mental health and the video would be about someone who is struggling with mental health issues and doesn't ask for help.
Idea 5
This idea is to create a documentary about Jane Austen, I think that it would be interesting to find out more about her and her views of the dependence of women on marriage. I would talk about her life and books that she has written, and link it back to pride. I will say how she took pride in her work and her life. I will interview people and ask there opinions about her, and will present it in an interesting way by focusing a lot on the editing.
SWOT analysis
Mental Health
Since creating the mind maps and some basic ideas of what I want to include and focus my work on, I have now created more of an idea about what I want the video to be about. I want to go down the route of creating a short film about someone who suffers from depression. It would show a day in the life of this person, and possibly having a voice over throughout to show the thoughts of the person. The video would take two different turns it would show what would happen if the person didn't get help and would then show what would happen if the person did and would show the different outcomes.
Strengths- It is an interesting approach to pride and I think that it is a good link to it as well. I will easily be able to film it with the equipment available at college which is going to give it a professional finish. I also have the right settings to film it making the film look more realistic.
Weaknesses- I will have to use a few actors which could affect the overall look of piece. I will have to make sure that I convey the link between mental health and pride so that it is clear to the audience the link between the two.
Opportunities- I will be able to focus a lot on the camera skills as I will be creating a short film so I can create some test shoots to see the different camera angles and shots that I could possibly include. I might include some foley sound effects to the piece to create some of the sounds as I think when creating a serious film, sound has a big impact in the way that it is presented. I will edit the video using Premiere Pro so I will show the editing skills that I have which is a focus of mine. I think I will use colour grading to create the effect that I want which is also going to be done using Premiere Pro.
Threats- Time management could be an issue due to the amount of planning and research that I am going to have to do. This is important that I complete a lot of research so that I convey the character with depression correctly in the film.
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Athletes
The idea is to create a documentary type video about athletes, I would talk about how athletes take pride in what they do and give some examples of some athletes that inspire me and that has been very successful. I will also include some vox popping and ask people in the street their opinion on certain athletes to see what they think and get their opinions. I might also include a sit down interview where I talk to some people to find out more. I will then explain what the results were and at the end I will link it back to pride.
Strengths- This idea is a clear relation to the sense of pride and I will be able to show the link in the video. I think that many people would find this topic interesting and are intrigued to find out different opinions on athletes. I won't need any actors for the piece as it is going to be mostly interviews so that answers are going to be peoples true opinions.
Weaknesses- The idea I don't think is very original, there are many other videos out there on this subject, so I will have to find a way to make mine different than the others.
Opportunities- I will be able to show my interview and researching skills that I have, as I will have to look into the life of a certain athlete and the success that they have. I can apply the research well when completing the work
Threats- I don't think that this idea is going to give me the opportunity to show my potential. The editing involved would be quite basic as the main focus would be on the vox popping, and there wouldn't be any special effects, or any other advanced editing because of the style of the piece.
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Celebrities
The idea is to create a spoken word type documentary. This is a different approach to the other ideas that I have but one that I think is quite an interesting. I would research into a specific celebrity and create a typography video using After Effects. I will talk about how that celebrity takes too much pride in themselves, and explain how pride can sometimes have a negative effect on people.
Strengths- It is a very different approach to the video and I will be able to clearly link pride to celebrities. The whole video is more of a direct link to pride making it clear to the viewer the connection between the two. If done well typography can look very professional and effective making the video more interesting to watch.
Weaknesses- The video could come across quite boring due to the lack of variety because the entire video would all be spoken word. I don't think that there is enough variety in skills that I would use as the main focus is going to be on After Effects rather than the filming side of things.
Opportunities- I will be using After Effects to create the typography, so I can show the skills that I have using this programme. I will have clips playing in the background to make it more visually pleasing.
Threats- I am going to have to make sure that I practice a lot before I create the typography as this is not my strongest skill. I am going to need to watch some Youtube videos and practice which is going to be quite time consuming. Actually creating the typography also takes a long time to do so I will have to make sure that I have good time management so that I leave enough time to complete it.
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Mood boards
Celebrities
Athletes
Swot & mood board analysis
Creating the mood boards and swot analysis has helped me to have a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each idea. I am able to compare these so that I am able to decide which idea I am going to go with. Acknowledging the weaknesses and threats I am able to see how I can improve each idea to see which one has most potential. Creating the mood boards has helped influence and inspire me. Researching into typography has helped me gain an insight into the possible fonts that I could use. To progress with this idea I am going to have to practice creating some of these using After Effects by following Youtube tutorials. Creating a mood board about athletes has helped me to have a better idea as to who I am going to create my documentary on. I have chosen a few athletes that I find inspiring and who I am interested to find more about. I chose people who I think have become successful due to the pride that they take in the sport that they play. The mood board I created for mental health has helped me to gain a better idea into what I need to convey in the film. The colour of the pictures has also helped me into the colour grading needed for my own work.
Mental Health
Target Audience
Knowing the target audience for each of the ideas is important so that I make sure that it is going to appeal to a specific group of people and to reinforce this when creating the video. Making sure that the target audience is known means that when storyboarding and creating the video I can make sure that it is going to appeal to the targeted viewer. The short film about depression is targeted to teenagers and young adults because of the sensitivity of the topic. I would say teenagers aged 16 and above are the ones who are going to benefit most and possibly relate it the most. The documentary on athletes is targeted towards people who have an interest in sport. This could be younger teenagers who play sport or adults who also take an interest in the subject. The celebrity idea is going to appeal most to young adults as these are the people who are interested in celebrity news. Now that I have acknowledged the target audiences for my ideas I can now get these audience groups to participate in my primary research.
Storyboard- Mental Health
As part of the development of my idea I decided to create a simple storyboard so that I have an idea of the story of the film. I have not gone into much detail as the purpose of it is to give me a better understanding of the structure of the piece and what I want to happen. It has helped me to do this and from this I can see the outline of the story and I am able to develop and improve this to create a more detailed idea of whats going to happen. The basic storyline is as follows: starts of showing a teenager who struggles with mental health issues getting out of bed and getting ready to go out. It will show the struggle that she has to go through to do everyday tasks. It will show her going for a walk to the park, focusing on the teenagers feelings and emotions. Then shows her back at home where she gets a message from her friend asking if she is okay. She will reply saying that she is fine, and she carries on with her day. It will then rewind and show what would happen if she replied in a different way, by admitting that she is not okay and that she needs help. The friend will then come over where they will talk and will show how her her life is improved.
Primary, Contextual & Secondary research-Mental Health
I need to do some research into mental health so that I make sure that I convey the right emotion in the film and so that I am more knowledgable on it as this is going to make the production process a lot easier. To do this I am going to use a variety of websites to find out the causes, symptoms, and treatments are of depression.
Secondary
I used the NHS website to find out some more information about depression so that I have a better knowledge on it.
Depression is more than simply feeling unhappy, sad or fed up for a few days, but is more where you have these feelings persistently for weeks or even months rather than just for a few days. It is not something that you can control and is not a sign of weakness, it is a genuine illness that you are not able to just snap out of. With treatment and the right support you able to make a full recovery.
Depression affects people in different ways and can cause a variety of different symptoms. Generally if you are depressed you have the feeling of sadness or hopelessness. Other symptoms include feeling tired and having a loss of energy, loss of self-confidence and self-esteem, many also have symptoms of anxiety. Having sleeping problems is also common as well as loss of appetite, difficulty concentrating and thinking about suicide and death are other symptoms. There are different levels of depression ranging from mild to severe. If you at its mildest then this is where you feel persistently low and unhappy, whereas if you are severe then this is where you have suicidal thoughts and self harm because you believe that live is no longer worth living.
There are different causes and triggers for depression, this could be from life- changing events such as bereavement, having a baby, and losing your job are just some examples of what can trigger depression.
Treatment for depression can involve a combination of lifestyle changes, going to therapy, and getting medication. If you have moderate or severe depression a combination between therapy and and medication is recommended. If you have severe depression you may be referred to a specialist mental health team for intensive specialist talking treatments and prescribed medication. Joining a support group or reading a self-help book might also be beneficial as they can help you gain a better understanding about what causes you to feel depressed.
Many people with depression will benefit from changing their lifestlyle like exercising more, drinking less alcohol, stop smoking, eating healthily.
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Statistics
At then end of the short film I want to include some shocking statistics so I have done some research into this and chosen the most surprising to me that I might include.
1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year
60% of children and adolescents with depression are not getting any type of treatment
Contextual
I decided to do some research into mental health videos that already exist so that I can take some inspiration from them and to help influence my own ideas. I was mostly focusing on the way the video was presented and the different techniques that they used to film.
I found this short documentary on YouTube which I found very inspiring and interesting to watch. I liked the different camera angles and shots with the voice over through out. All of the shots looked very dark to represent the mood of the piece, I will take this approach when doing my own work because I think that it is very effective. These shots were colour graded which I am going to practice with so that I can create a similar approach in my own work. The voice overs which showed peoples real feelings and emotions made it more effective and made the overall video more interesting to watch because it is real. This video helped me with my own video as it gave me an idea of what I want my video to come out like, and has helped the way I present my idea. I am considering having a voice over through out to show what the women is really feeling.
This is another video that I found, and the one thing that stuck out to me the most was the colour grading used. The colour is very dark again to represent the emotions of the character. This short film takes a similar approach to the other one due to the voice overs used. The voices are very clear but monotone which links well with the topic of the video. Another aspect that stuck out to me was the music that was used, it was quite loud which caught my attention. I really liked the music that they chose because it again went well with the video. It made the video a lot more engaging my having the voice over as well as the music. The difference between the two is that the first one the shots are of different landscapes, because the main focus of the video is the listening to the audio. Where as the other video it is more of a combination between the two which is why I prefer this video because there is more going on which makes it more engaging to watch.
Primary
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I found the video 'living with depression' very interesting to watch. It takes a similar approach to the other videos that I have watched as it has used a voice over which is explaining what living with depression is like. It explains what having depression is like which seems to be a common approach when creating a video for this subject. There are lots of different shots used which are showing what she does everyday. Each of the shots are very simple because there is not much action happening, showing her picking up her keys, or getting in the lift and then it cuts to the next scene. The way that they have cut the shots and the length of them are very interesting to me because it works well with the mood of the piece. I feel that because the shots are only showing little movement and excitement so it mimics the feelings of the person in the way that it is a continuous feeling and how each day nothing changes. The cuts between the shorts are not in chronological order, one shot will be her at home and the next she is on a beach. I like this approach because the video is not supposed to be telling a story through the different shots, but the main focus is of the monologue and the shots are linked to what is being said. After watching these videos I am going to consider making some significant changes to my own idea as I like the approach that all the videos have taken.
Link to Pride
I thought that it was important to state the link between my idea and pride, so that I refer back to this to make sure that the connection is between the two is obvious. The point of the video is to show the different outcomes that could take place depending on the choices that a teenager suffering from depression takes. One outcome shows her struggling with life, and the other shows her getting help and how her life has improved. The link to pride is to swallow your pride and admitting that you need help. The whole point of the video is to show what would happen if you asked for help and what would happen if you didn't. At first I wanted to create a type of documentary about it, but then I thought it would be more effective for me and give me more potential and opportunity to show my creativity by creating a short film about depression.
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I decided to create a questionnaire to see what people thought of my idea so that I could make improvements. This is going to help me to decide if I should choose this as my final idea. After creating the questionnaire I sent it out to my target audience so that I can get their opinions on my idea, as these are the opinions that are relevant to the video. I started off asking if they thought focusing on mental health is a good idea for the final major project. Out of the 10 responses that I got 9 said that they thought that it was. This is very encouraging for me to now proceed on with this idea due to the majority of the people saying they thought that it was a good approach. I wanted to find out if they thought that mental health is a good link to pride on which 70% said that it was. I think that the percentage wasn't as high as the first question because mental health is not necessarily and obvious link to pride, but I think that it does still have a connection between the two, in which most people agree with. I wanted to find out if people would be interested in watching a video about mental health, because if they aren't then this going to majorly affect my decision on whether to proceed with this idea. However, from asking this question 90% said that they would be interested, which is helpful to me knowing that the vast majority would want to watch the video. The next question was open ended so that I can get a more in depth opinion of what people wanted to see. Most of the responses were about showing someone suffering and struggling with mental health issues, some saying to show that person before and after getting help. A few other responses said to show the facts and statistics revolving around mental health. I have taken all the responses into consideration and it has helped me to understand what the audience are looking for in the video. My video idea, I believe covers the majority of what most people wanted to see as my main focus is to show a teenager who struggling from mental health issues, and showing how her life would be different if she got help and how it wouldn't if she didn't. The next question I asked was do you think focusing on mental health as a whole would be a better approach than to focus on a specific sub section? I asked this question because I wanted to know whether focusing on mental health in general will be more interesting to watch by a wider audience. The results I found were surprising as they showed half the responses where yes and the other half were no. The people that answered no were then asked what specific mental illness would they want it to focus on. All of these responses were either depression or anxiety. This didn't surprise me as this is what is most common to people meaning more people might be able to relate to the video, or just to be able to take something from it. The other 50% thought that is was best if the video was focused on mental health in general possibly meaning that they think it would be best if all areas were covered, or thought that the video should be about mental health facts and statistics, in which they wanted to learn more about as a whole issue. The next question was to find out how they would improve the idea. The answers were all relatively similar which said to make sure that the video shows the link between mental health and pride.Other answers said to make sure to do research so that the way that you are going to portray the character with mental health issues a realistic representation, and by doing research it is going to help with this. This was useful for me to find this information out about what I need to improve on as I can now take it on board and make sure that I use this to make my video better. The last question was a rating out 10 of how good they found the idea. 5 people rated it a 7, 3 people a 6, 1 person a 5 and 1 person a 4. These results were quite varied which surprised me, but half of the responses did rate it a 7 which I think is a good rating and for the other responses it could of been because of the improvements that they think that I need to make, which could be the reason for some of the lower ratings. Overall, this questionnaire has helped me to gain a better idea of what the target audiences opinions are and what they think about my idea. I will take all the answers into consideration and will make the relevant changes to my idea to make it better.
Colour Grading test shots
After analysing some videos I thought that it would be most beneficial to me to practice colour grading because it is an important aspect when creating a short film, especially when focusing on the depression because the colour of the shots reflect the mood of the piece. I found some images that helped me to have a better understanding of colour grading and I was able to compare the before and after pictures to see the difference. It showed me the importance of this aspect, so I am going to take some pictures similar to the ones that I found and play around with the colours using Premiere Pro.
Using Premiere Pro I played around with the colour grading to try and make them as similar to the original image as possible. I tinted the photos, as well as changing the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites and blacks, which gave me the look that I wanted. Some of the results were subtle which is the look that I wanted. This was a good way to experiment with colour grading as I was able to get use to the different tools available and have a better understanding of what they are used for and was able to practice for when I film the actual video. I learnt a lot from this and looking at the outcomes I can compare the before and after images to see what looks different. Overall, I like the colour grading effect and will definitely use this in my final video as I can see that it effects the way the image is perceived and changes the overall look of the piece.
Primary, Contextual & Secondary research- Athletes
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Contextual
As part of the contextual research I decided that the most beneficial thing to do is to analyse my past work on vox popping so that I can see what when well and what I need to improve. I am going to analyse the video so I know what I can do better next time. I am also going to watch some youtube videos to see what other advice I can gain to help me.
Interview test shots & Primary research- Athletes
A storyboard was not going to be as beneficial to me for this idea as this is an interview type documentary, so all the answers are not going to be planned. Therefore, I decided to create some test shots for the vox popping side of things, so that I can gain practice in my interview skills and practice with the camera angles and the audio. I think that this is going to be beneficial to me because I am able to look back and see what I need to improve. After analysing my previous work I am now going to take the improvements that I need to make into consideration when filming these test shots. I thought of a few questions that I am going to ask that is relevant to the topic. The first question I asked was if they would be interested in watching a documentary about athletes and in particular Serena Williams. The other question was if they would be interested in watching a interview style documentary. The reason why I asked these questions was to not just test the equipment and the lighting but also to gather more peoples opinions on my idea as part of my primary research.
After re-watching the video I focused on my vox popping techniques. My initial thoughts about it is that the audio is not consistent between the the different interviews. This needs to be improved so that there is a volume consistency between them all. In some of the clips there is background noise going on which means that I could have chosen a quieter place to film, which I will take into consideration more when I am filming for this project. I then watched a video aout the basics of vox popping. I watched this so that I can improve my skills and knowledge about vox pops. This video helped me to know the importance of being ready so that when you see a person they don't have to wait around for you to be ready. Another point that she made was to be approachable by smiling, as being filmed can be quite intimidating to people. Also, she said to ask open questions which need a descriptive response so that it make it more interesting and you get more information from the person.
After filming the interviews I edited them using Premiere Pro. Instead of including me asking the questions I decided to put the question on the screen. I wanted to try this approach to see if it would make it more professional. After completing it I liked that it makes it clear to the viewer what question is being asked, however after watching other interview style documentaries this approach is not normally taken, which is why I would prefer not to have the questions displayed. I used the boom mic's to record the audio because I thought that it was most appropriate to use this mic rather than the others available. I recorded in one of the editing suites which I used the natural lighting to film in, but after looking at the footage it is still rather dark which is why when I film for the actual video I will make sure that I film in more of a well lit area so that the quality of the video looks better. The audio came out well, which is because of the room that we filmed in meant that there wasn't any background noise or any echo's. I interviewed two people, and when I was editing I put their responses of the same question next to each other, so that it made more sense to the viewer when watching the video. I think that I should have filmed the interviews closer to the person rather than having their whole body in shot.
From both the responses I can see that they both thought that focusing on athletes would be an interesting approach to the video and that they would enjoy watching this type of video. They also both said that they enjoy watching an interview style documentary which is reassuring to hear. Overall, the test shots have been very beneficial to me as I can see what went well and include this in the video, and then what needs to be improved to make the video better.
Primary
Link to pride
For this idea I believe that the link to pride is more obvious then the other ideas. Athletes take a lot of pride in the sport they play and I think that creating a video asking peoples opinion on them is a good approach to take with this subject. The questions that I ask will be specifically linked to pride so that the relevance is clear when watching the video.
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I created another questionnaire for my idea about making a documentary about athletes because I wanted to find out my target audiences opinion on the idea. The first question was find out if they would be interested in watching a video about peoples opinion on athletes, in which 70% of the responses said that they would. This shows to me that the majority of people would want to watch it, but compared to the questionnaire I conducted on mental health, the responses for this question were significantly lower compared to the other idea. The next question was to find out if they thought the vox popping and interviews are a good approach to the FMP, in which 90% of people answered yes they thought that it was. Getting these responses has reassured me that this is a good way to present my idea. The one person that answered no said that they thought it would have been better if it was presented in a short film documentary. I appreciate this comment as it gave me an insight into how else I could have presented my idea but because the vast majority of the responses said that they though it was a good approach I will be sticking with this approach. The next question was to find out if they thought there was a clear link between athletes and pride in which 70% said that it was an obvious link and the other 3 people said that it wasn't. This still shows that most of the people thought that the link was clear. I will take the other answers into consideration by making sure that I reinforce the link between the two. The next question was to find out if they thought that interview style video are interesting to watch in which everyone who answered said yes. This is very beneficial to me as I know that interviews are going to be the main focus on the video as I know that it is going to be most interesting for my target audience. I then wanted to get some suggestions as to what athlete they thought it should be about in which the responses were very varied. Some of the responses were focus on olympic athletes like, Tom Daley, Jessica Ennis and Usain Bolt. From this question I can see that who ever I focus my video on not everyone is going to be interested in that specific person due to everyone liking different athletes. However, this doesn't mean that they will not watch it as I know that everyone likes the style of video that I am going for. The next question which is most beneficial to me is ways that I can improve the idea. The results included, having different aspects to the video like typography or to make sure that the link to pride is clear whilst watching. Other responses included having a variety of peoples opinions so that it is interesting and to make sure that it isn't repetitive. These answers have helped me and I will make sure that I take their thoughts into consideration. The last question was a rating out of 10 in which 7 people rated it a 6 and 3 people a 7. This is encouraging to know that everyone rated it over half. I think that they chose these numbers was due to the minor parts that need to be improved and if I do this then the ratings would go up.
Secondary
I wanted to do some research into the possible athletes that I would talk about and focus my video on. After the primary research that I gathered I have narrowed the list of athletes to Jesse Owens, Serena Williams and Andy Murray as they are all very successful and people who I find very inspiring and am interested in learning about. As part of the documentary I am going to use some interesting and relevant clips of the athlete and am going to have a voice over stating some information and facts about them. As part of the primary feedback I realised that I need to incorporate some different aspects to the video so that it makes the video more engaging and interesting to watch, which is why I am going to include this aspect to the video. This is why it is important for me to do research into the athletes so that I am able to gain more knowledge on them but also so that I can narrow it down to one athlete that I would want to focus on.
Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens was an American track and field athlete and four-time Olympic god medalist in the 1936 games. He specialised in the sprints and the long jump and was known for being "perhaps the greatest and most famous athlete in track and field history" in his lifetime. He set three world records and tied in another. The 1936 Olympics in Berlin is where he achieved his international fame by winning 4 gold medals which were in the: 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump and 4 x 100 meter relay, making him the most successful athlete at the games. Owens was ranked by ESPN as the sixth greatest North American athlete of the 20th century and ranked the best his sport.
At the end of 1935 a secretary from the NAACP which is a civil right organisation in America which is to advance justice for African Americans, wrote a letter to Owens although it was never actually sent. In the letter he was trying to persuade Owens to not take part in the Olympics of the grounds that an African-American shouldn't promote a racist regime after what his race had suffered at the hands of white racists in his own country. Owens was convinced by the NAACP to declare "If there are minorities in Germany who are being discriminated against, the United States should withdraw from the 1936 Olympics" yet he and others did take part after the American Olympic committee president branded them "un-American agitators". Following Owens success from the games due to Hitler and other government officials had high hopes that German athletes would dominate the games with victories.
Serena Williams
Serena Williams is an American professional tennis player. The women's tennis association ranked her no. 1 in the world in singles on eight different occasions between 2002 and 2007. In total she has been ranked first for 319 weeks. Her 39 major titles puts her joint-third on the all-time list second in the Open Era: 23 in singles, 14 in women's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. She is the most recent female player to have held all four Grand Slam singles titles continuously. She also holds the all-time record for the most women's singles matches won at the majors with 335 matches. She has won 14 Grand slam doubles titles all with her sister Venus, and they are unbeaten in Grand Slam doubles finals. She is also a five time winner of the WTA Tour Championships in the singles division and has won four Olympic Gold medals, one in singles and three in doubles. She has earned almost $29 million in pride money and endorsements, making her the highest payed female athlete in 2016. Due to her many victories she has become a huge influence on young boys and girls who see her as a role model, and she has used her platform for good. As an example in October 2018 she stepped up to support October's Breast Cancer awareness month in which she sang acappella to "I touch myself" in a video. Even though she was out of her comfort zone she still was able to have the courage to sing topless for a video to promote checking yourself.
Andy Murray
Andy Murray is a British professional tennis player from Scotland who is ranked no.233 in men's singles as of 4 February 2019. He is a three time Grand slam tournament winner, two time Olympic champion, Davis Cup champion, winner of the 2016 ATP world tour finals and former world no.1. He defeated Novak Djokovic in the 2012 US Open final, in which he became the first British player since 1977 to win a Grand Slam singles tournament. He is also the first British man to win multiple Wimbledon singles titles since 1936. He is the men's singles 2012 and 2016 Olympic gold medalist, making him the only tennis player to have won two olympic singles titles. At the beginning of 2019 he announced that he may retire in the following month and would like Wimbledon to be his last tournament. He has recently had a second operation on his hip and if he returned to tennis would be putting himself at great risk of further injury.
After gathering this information about the three athletes I now feel that I have more knowledge of them and am able to compare them to decide which one I would want to focus my idea on. I feel that I am most interested in creating a video about Serena Williams, as I find her very interesting and inspiring and think that she is good person for the topic of pride. I think that the target audience will be very interested in learning more about her which is why she is going to be the main focus of my video.
Typography Practice- Celebrities
Using After Effects I wanted to create some typography so that I am more knowledgable and experienced with the programme. I can also play around with the different fonts so that I can see which ones are going to look the best for my idea. It has helped me to improve my skills of the programme and now that I have more practice I am able to create the video a lot quicker.
I followed two different tutorials so that I have enough practice for creating the real documentary. The first tutorial that I followed was to have basic practice using the programme. I learnt how to animate the words so that they moved and changed size. I was able to play around with the different font types and the colours. I then followed another tutorial which was more advanced where I was able to animate the words in different ways. I used more of the tools available like rotation and opacity which is shown in the screenshot below, making it look more professional. It was very time consuming but now that I have practiced I am more confident and will be able to create the final piece quicker. I really liked the outcome of the videos, one tools that I liked the most is the 'easy ease' tool which makes the overall video flow better. I enjoyed experimenting with the different animations that they have available and I will make sure that I include these in the final video.
Primary, contextual & secondary research
Contextual
Using the website 'learn about films' I watched a typography video which I found very interesting and useful to me. The actual topic of the video is not relevant to pride but more of the technical side of is relevant to the type of video I want to create. I have included 2 screenshots from the video which shows the basic concept of the video. It has the word in bold and an image in the background which relates to what the word is saying. I like that they have used the related images in the background as it makes it a lot more interesting to watch. This video is aimed at people who are interested in learning about typography and about different ways you can create a video. This is because it is an interesting way that they have created this video and is inspiring to people. They could have used After effects to create this video which is what I am going to be using as it is most appropriate to this style of work.
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There are lots of other works that are similar to this approach like the lyrical kinetic typography video on the song Closer. They are quite similar as they both include typography, meaning that they both probably used After effects or a software similar to this. They both have the lyrics/words being said as it appears on the screen. Even though the lyrical video has sentences on the screen rather just one word at a time, but it still does have a very similar concept. This is useful to me as I can see the different type of approaches that I can take and it depends on the mood that you want to create. This has influenced my own project if I am to choose this idea as I am able to consider how I want to present the typography. I like the use of colours and fonts in this video and would like to take a similar approach when creating my own video.
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I found this video on Youtube which influenced my idea on the technical side of things, the video is called 'Why I hate School but Love Education'. Again the topic of the video was not relevant to pride but the way it is portrayed is what I focused on. The video consists of the words being typed letter by letter rather than the words just appearing. There are some animations next to it to represent what is being said at that moment or the words will move around the screen. Having these different animations makes the video really interesting and makes me want to include some of these aspects in my own as I think that it makes it look very professional and more visually appealing. I think that they used After Effects again because of the way that they have made the video. This is similar to the other videos that I have already spoken about as they are both include typography.
Primary
I created another questionnaire for my final idea to see what the target audience thought. The first question I asked was "Do you think typography is a good approach to the FMP?" In which 90% of the answers were yes. The high majority of these answers did surprise me hut it is reassuring to know that most people liked the idea. To the one person who didn't think that the next question applied to them, in which I asked what they thought would be a good approach. The answer to this was to do interviews and vox pops which is the same approach as my other idea on athletes. The next question was to find out if they find typography videos interesting to watch. This is a similar question to the previous one but the slight difference between the two is if they enjoy watching them type of videos and the other is do you think it would be a good approach meaning is it going to show off my creativity and give me the potential to show my skills. The answer to the video being interesting again is very promising as 90% of responses were yes and 10% saying no. This is good for me to know that people would actually be interested in watching a typography video. The next question was to find out if they thought that celebrities was a good link to pride. The results showed that 9 out of the 10 responses said that it was, which is helpful to me as I can now know that the connection between the two is obvious when watching the video. The following question was "would you be interested in watching a video about how celebrities take pride in their job?" 80% of the answers said they would be interested and the other 20% said that they wouldn't. This shows to me that the majority of the people said that they would want to watch a video based on my chosen topic. I then wanted to find out what celebrity that they would be interested in watching and learning more about. The responses were a very varied the ones that I thought were the most interesting to base my video on is, Steven Spielberg, Beyonce, and Jennifer Anniston. These are the three that I agree with the most that I would want my video to focus on as I believe they are all very interesting and all take a lot of pride in their work. The next question is to find out how to improve the idea in which people answered by saying to add more depth to it, include different aspects like interviews or vox pops, others said to make sure that you keep the relevance to pride, include animations or relevant images to make it more visually appealing. These answers were very helpful and I will take all the responses on board through out the rest of the pre production process. I lastly wanted to know what would you rate this idea in which the responses were quite varied. The most popular was a 6 rating, in which 4 people chose and 3 people chose a 7. The other ratings I received was a 4,5 and a 9. From this I can tell that peoples opinions are quite varied and I may have got some of the lower scores due to the improvements that they think needs to be made.
Secondary
After the completing the primary research I have decided to choose three celebrities that I would possibly want to focus my video on. The three celebrities that I have chosen is Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Anniston, and Piers Morgan because they are all completely different but are all interesting to me. I will research into all of them as it will help me to decide which celebrity I want to focus on and will help me with the writing of the script that I have got to make.
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg is an American film maker who is one of the most popular directors and producers in film history. He started of by directing television and several minor theatrical releases before he became the director of Jaws which was released in 1975, which was very successful and is considered the first summer blockbuster. His releases from then on was mostly science fiction and adventure films with films like Indiana Jones, E.T. and Jurassic Park was seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood escapist film making. In his later work he focused more into addressing humanistic issues an example of this is Saving Private Ryan, and Empire of the sun.
Spielberg co-founded Ambin Entertainment and DreamWorks Studios, which is where he was a producer for several successful films, including Back to the Future and Men in Black. He then later on to creating several games within the video-game industry.
He is one of the American film industry's most critically successful filmmakers, who is praised for his talent in talent and versatility. He has also won the Academy Award for Best Director twice. His net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion.
Jennifer Anniston
Jennfer Anniston is a very successful American actress as well as a film producer and a businesswoman. She began working as an actress at an early age with a small role in the 1987 film Mac and Me. She then rose to fame when she played the character Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends from 1994 until 2004. From this she earned Primetime Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards. She has since played lead roles in numerous comedies and romantic comedies. Other successful films she is in include, Bruce Almighty, The break-up, Marley & Me, Just go with it and We're the Millers. Each of these films grossed over $200 million in worldwide box office receipts. She had also co-founded the production company Echo Films in 2008.
At the start of her career she did four television shows which were unsuccessful, she was then encouraged by the head of NBC entertainment to continue acting and a few months later was when she was cast for Friends. This was when she played the character Rachel Green from 1994 til 2004. This was when her career took off and from then on was cast in many successful films, and is now the highest payed actress in Hollywood in 2018.
Piers Morgan
Piers Morgan is an English journalist, writer, television presenter and former talent show judge who is currently working for itv presenting for Good Morning Britain. His career started as a writer and editor for tabloid papers like The Sun and The Daily Mirror. At age 29 he became the youngest editor of a British national newspaper in more than half a century. He then went on to become a judge on America's Got Talent and Britain's Got Talent. In 2008 he won the seventh season of the US Celebrity Apprentice. He also presented Piers Morgan's Life Stories since 2009 and has on Good Morning Britain since 2015.
During his career he has been very controversial due to the strong opinions that he has and he has participated in many debates on the itv show, and is also well known on social media from the tweets that he has published.
After researching into these three celebrities with all different industry backgrounds I can now decide which one I think is most suitable to the topic and which one I am most interested in. From this research I have decided that if I was to choose this idea then I would go with Steven Spielberg because of the accomplishments that he has I think is going to be more interesting to make a video about and I think that this is the best link towards pride.
Peer Assessment- Peter
I like how you have showed your process of elimination starting off with 5 ideas and then narrowing it down to three. You have created some important research that is going to help with the decision of which idea to choose like the swot analysis and the primary research. I think that you need to create some test shots so that you can visibly compare the ideas as this will help for you to see which one is best.
Research Evaluation
After completing the different forms of primary, secondary and contextual research for my three ideas it has helped me with the decision of what idea I should go with. I have done the research for each of the ideas that is relevant to my idea and will benefit me. The mental health idea I thought that it would help me to show my vague idea by creating a storyboard so that I am able to convey the basic outline of what I am wanting to create. I then researched into mental health and was able to gather some statistics so that I was more knowledgable of the subject, and will also help me in the developing and filming of the idea as I can make it more realistic. I then looked at similar videos to my idea and was able to take aspects of them and incorporate this into my own idea. I then created a questionnaire as part of my primary research so that I can gather peoples opinions of my idea to help me improve it. I analysed all the responses which helped me to see what others think and when developing my idea I will refer back to this to see what other people think I need to include. I then looked into colour grading because from analysing the videos I realised that it was a reoccurring thing. I then found some colour grading images online and recreated them and played around with the colour grading to try and replicate the original image. When I create the video I am now able to colour grade due the previous practice that I now have.
For my second idea which was to create an interview style documentary on athletes and after the primary and secondary research I was able to decide on which athlete I want to focus on. For the primary research I created a questionnaire and I analysed the responses that I got to see how I can improve. This has helped me with the development of my idea and to see what peoples opinions are. I then completed secondary research into three athletes that I would want to create my video about, and from this I decided to focus it on Serena Williams. I then analysed my previous interview video that I created in another project and analysed it to see what I did well and what I thought needed to be improved. I also watched another video about vox pops to gather some tips and important information that would help me when filming my own. I then completed some test shots, to practice interviewing people and to also gather some more peoples opinions as part of primary research. It helped me to see what I need to improve and the if the audio and lighting was good enough.
For my final idea I started off creating typography test shots using after effects. I followed two tutorials so that I can gain enough practice for when I make the video.
I then looked at already existing videos that were similar to what I wanted to create so that I could gain some inspiration and to help gain more ideas for my own video. After analysing the videos I was able to see what aspects that I liked which helped me to improve my own ideas. I then created another questionnaire as part of primary research to see what people thought of my idea. I was able to see what needed improving and helped me understand what people wanted to see. From this I then researched into the three possible celebrities that I wanted to focus to help with my decision of which one to choose and to help influence the script that I would need to create.
Overall, all this research has helped me to develop each of the ideas but also has helped me decide which idea I want to progress with and create a video. Once I have presented my idea and gather their feedback I will then make my final decision, but from this process I think that the mental health idea is giving me the most amount of opportunity to show off my skills and creativity more so than the other ideas. I feel that this idea has most potential and even though there is a lot of development needed I think that with the pre-production process I am able to expand and develop the idea enough for it to turn out really well. However, I will take the feedback from the presentation into consideration which could sway me into choosing the other ideas.
Questionnaire
After presenting my ideas to the class I thought that it would be good to get some feedback to see how to improve my idea. These are the following questions that I asked.
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​What final idea would you have chosen?
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Do you think enough research was done to make a final decision?
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Do you understand the final idea?
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What do you like about the final idea?
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What do you think needs to be improved?
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Do you think that it is a good link to sense of pride?
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Do you think that the research that I did was relevant to each idea?
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Final Idea
After presenting my three ideas to the class and explaining the process of my decision and the work and research that I have been doing has reassured me the best idea of mine is to focus on mental health. After creating the questionnaire and having my peers answer the questions about the presentations and their thoughts on my ideas and decisions to see what see what I can do to improve. The presentation helped me hugely to see what others thought of my idea and helped me to think of ways to improve or to include which I have not noticed or thought of myself. From the results of the questionnaire it has shown me that I made the right decision to go with the topic of mental health. In this idea I am going to show someone struggling with depression and shows them trying to cope with everyday tasks. After the contextual research on this has helped with the influence on my idea. I am going to research more into existing videos and analyse the different shots, colour grading and framing devices so that I can have a better idea of what I want to film and start to develop into the idea more. This stage so far was to have just an outline of the ideas and to make myself more knowledgable on the different subjects. But now that I have chosen to go with this topic I am going to start with the development on this, which is going to include mood boards, storyboards, test shots, colour grading testing, framing devices, analysing previous videos, shot lists, character analysis, all of these things are going to help me improve the idea and to have a clear idea of what I want to create. I feel most passionate about this idea compared to the others because I think that it is going to give me the most opportunity to show my skills and knowledge through out the planning stage as well as the production and post production. From the answers from the questionnaires it has shown to me that I have made the right decision to choose this idea as many other people thought that I chose the best idea. One of the main reasons that I have chosen this idea is because of the link it has to pride. The other ideas that I had thought of the link to pride was very obvious and I didn't find them as interesting and I wasn't as inspired and didn't have many development ideas possibly because I didn't feel as a passionate and excited as I was for the other idea. With the mental health video that I want to create I have a lot of inspiration and plans for progressing and developing my idea in which I am able to show off the skills I have. The other two ideas I felt were restricting me from this and were limiting my creativity. All of the ideas were very different from each other, which is what I wanted to do that I was able to decide which route I wanted to go down and was able to research into the different sectors. Focusing one idea mostly on typography and after effects, the other to create a documentary, and the other last a short film. These three ideas are completely different and it gave me the chance to decide which route I wanted to go down and I was able to realise that the short film is best for me and the skills that I have. Now that I have chosen which idea I can now start more in depth research, and preparation into the filming of the video.
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