Major Project - Project Evaluation (DreamChaser)
Project Evaluation
In this blog post I will attempt to evaluate my overall experience in working on our 3rd Year Major Project - 'DreamChaser', a documentary film following course-mate Alex Baldwin as he attempts to realise his dream of becoming a motorsport racing driver. As part of this project I worked with Alex Baldwin & George Nicholls, with additional crew support coming from Alex's friend Jon Simes, his father Nick Baldwin and fellow course-mates Alex Hargood, Katie Joslin, Connor Winfield & Laura Dagga. Pre-production began last September, with production marking the beginning of this unit at the start of the year. With a total of 26 dedicated shoot days, this is by far the largest project any of us have ever undertaken, both inside and outside of the Television Production course, not to mention the surrounding support for the documentary through the publication of it on Alex's YouTube channel has made the entire experience completely unique in terms of projects that I've worked on. We've had backing of several sponsored brands, not to mention raised over £800 through Kickstarter which helped finance some of the additional shooting time towards the end of the documentary production schedule. In that sense it has been absolutely overwhelming to a certain degree, yet incredibly rewarding as I sit here at the end of the unit with the finished product in our hands.
The production was successful in achieving what we wanted to achieve in the end, in spite of the events of one of our last (and most important) shoot days - Race Day, where Alex was prevented from racing due to a torn strut in the suspension of the BMW he was due to be driving. While this did shake us all somewhat initially, we were prepared and professional enough to adapt to the situation and put together what we believe to be an appropriately interesting and fitting ending to our story, without compromising what comes before it. A major concern we had following the incident, considering that the entire documentary builds to the climax of Alex getting out on track in a genuine race event.
I will break this evaluation down into several key sections:
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- What I Learnt?
- What Could I Improve?
- Final Thoughts
So let's begin...
Strengths
Collaborating with people on a project of this scope was always going to present challenges in the form of disagreements, creative differences etc, however I think working on previous projects on the course together has really prepared us for this unit. One of the areas that I think we've been most effective in would be general organisation. George, Alex and myself have all spent hours putting together google document after google document tracking almost every aspect of the film from an administrative perspective. This includes shot-lists, the script, an extensive budget sheet listing each purchase and everyone's contributions, storyboards, a complete 4 month production schedule that was iterated upon in real-time, Interview transcripts, posters and t-shirts that were to go out to kickstarter backers etc. All of these documents have been created through Google Documents which allows us all to view and edit these in real-time, ensuring we all remain as up to date and on the same page as possible when it comes to what the situation is with the project. Not only this but when it came to the post-production process, it was my idea to set up a collaborative 'Editing' folder in my Google Drive (pictured below) which allowed all 3 of us to almost immediately share editing resources, images, cuts and After Effects composites over cloud storage and without the annoyance of size/quality compression. This was something that made our editing work far easier than it would've been otherwise and served to streamline the entire process.
The budget sheet ensured that we remained on budget and kept track of all purchases made under the 'DreamChaser' account. This was an account with Lloyds TSB that we opened up together at the end of last year and would be used for the duration of the project. We all put in £540 of our personal contributions, with the rest of the ~£4000 budget coming from sponsors and our Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign, we knew at the start of the project that we would be able to afford to do the bare minimum required for each of our key sequences, with the additional money helping flesh out the documentary and turn 10-15 shoot days into 26. This number was also somewhat inflated due to a secondary aspect of organisation - test shoots. There were several things that we weren't entirely sure about prior to the shoot days themselves, this usually equated to logistical queries regarding how we would film specific sequences. For example, we test shot the diary room sequence in Steven's garage several weeks before we came to shoot the real thing, we decided to do this because we didn't have any idea how much room we'd be working with on the day since we had only seen pictures of the location beforehand. There were also concerns about how the Track & Dolly would be operated as I at that point had no experience operating one. By carrying out the test shoot we were able to get an understanding of what we were working with both in terms of the space we had, my abilities on the track and dolly and the mise-en-scene of the shooting location.
Another example of this was the Donington Park Track Day sequence. This was an ambitious shoot on a track that myself and George had never even visited prior to working on this project, therefore it was important to us that we knew what to expect on the morning of the track day itself. It was for this reason that we decided it would be worth the financial/time investment for us all to drive up there 2 weeks prior, in an effort to scout the track and mark out appropriate shooting points for track-side operators. It was a 14 hour day that all of us could've done without at the time, however we decided that it'd be the best thing for the project and ultimately prepare us going into an already complex sequence at the end of March.
The other key strength I'd like to highlight during this project would be the work that I've been able to put in through cinematography as a D.O.P. (Director of Photography), getting a chance to personally author a visual style for this film has been a genuinely incredible experience. Looking back on much of the cinematography across all of our shoot days, I'm still in somewhat disbelief that I was capable of capturing the footage that I did, however I proved my own self-doubt wrong in that sense. There are many shots throughout the documentary that I'm incredibly proud of not just on an aesthetic level, but also a technical one. We used a variety of cameras and shot set-ups including incredibly wide depth of field with the Jamie Caroline interview, super wide-angle lens' on the in-car Go-Pros, and 'walk and talk' wheeled camera rigs in sequences like the Dan Rowbottom interview and the fitness montage. Shot variety has been a key focus for me during my time working on 'DreamChaser', and I'm excited to incorporate a lot of the footage into a future show-reel.
Additionally, the experience of working on this project has brought us closer together in a very non-cliched sense. As we began to realise how much of a workload we'd each taken on by undertaking a project of this scope and size, we quickly began splintering our roles and responsibilities up between us all. There were aspects of each-others work that we were able to step in and advise on, or even assist in. Editing for example was a big example of this for me, as I began this project with the official title of 'Director of Photography' however mid-way through production it became evident to George that he would not be able to keep up with the editing workload of this project alone, at which point I was asked to step in as a secondary editor handling a lot of the fast-paced montage sequences. In total I edited 6 full sequences, 1 of which was cut from the documentary in the end. These sequences are the introduction/titles, Brands Hatch with Alex's Dad, the Karting Sequence, the What I've Done montage, Donington track day with Sam, the Race Day and the end credits. I also was responsible for the VFX side of things when it came to lower thirds, on-screen graphics and footage of web-pages for use in the Kickstarter and Diary Room sequences.
Weaknesses
I cannot pretend that we didn't have our disagreements during our time on this project, there were a couple of key points I wanted to highlight in this evaluation. There were several times during production where it felt like there was a sense of un-professionalism at play in terms of the things that were said internally. There were points where both Alex & George would get into arguments with each-other over minor disagreements, which would lead to an awkward atmosphere during some shoot days. I must stress that this was outlier behavior in the grand scheme of things, though it occurred frequently enough for me to deem it worthy of mentioning here. I think there were periods where being the focus of the documentary got in the way of Alex's ability to judge things from a rational and more critical perspective, which of course is expected to some extent given how personal the experience was to him in general. This is not to take away at all from the incredible team-work and drive I've seen from both George and Alex over the course of this production however, considering that Alex was let down at the last hurdle by and unexpected fault with the car, he was able to remain calm and composed under the immense pressure of being denied his opportunity to race that close to the finish line, whilst simultaneously having a documentary crew present and a whole other set of concerns regarding how we were going to salvage the documentary.
On a couple of occasions I think things got to George somewhat, as he would snap at Alex or myself during a shoot. An example of this was when he was having issues with exposure on his camera when we were at Silverstone interviewing Bobby Trundley, a sequence that ultimately didn't make the cut in the end. Alex asked him what the issue was and George shouted him down in front of Bobby and some other Team BRIT members. This was of course somewhat embarrassing in the moment and didn't speak well to our professionalism in general, however we both made a point of speaking to him about it on the way home that evening, in an effort to get him to understand the impression that gives to others around us. In general I felt like there was a great contrast between the ways in which we would communicate as a team in person, and the ways we'd communicate over Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or SMS. It felt like we would have incredibly smooth shoot days thanks to effective team-work and thorough organisation beforehand, we would genuinely enjoy our time on set and walk away singing each-others praises about what we had accomplished, however there would then be a noticeable tonal shift within 24 hours in terms of the way we would be communicating with each-other. Messages became blunt and criticism heavy, the general atmosphere in those chats was frustratingly hyper-critical at times. Despite prior elation towards the work we carried out, disagreements with the way things were handled, or critiques of past behavior suddenly surfaced, justifiable or not. I understand more than most the challenges of conveying tone through text messages, however there were periods where it felt openly hostile and that lead to a fair amount of unnecessary stress for all of us I'm certain.
What I Learnt?
I've come away from this project with an enormous amount of experience in almost every area of film-making. In that sense it truly feels like the first 2 and a half years of this course had prepared me for the challenges I would face on the production of 'DreamChaser'. With a confirmed 26 shoot days with several outliers pushing it somewhere closer towards 30, I've spent more time with cameras during this project than the collective 8 years of media study prior to it, and it's truly been an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Not only that, but I was fortunate enough to be able to get the opportunity to demonstrate and expand my editing skill-set further despite that not being my designated role. There are several editing techniques that I've never attempted prior to this documentary, but invested time into learning over the course of the post-production process. This includes things like masking out shots in order to artificially blur and sharpen specific portions of an image at the end of the race day sequence, as well as designing and masking out lower thirds and visual FX. There were several areas I already had some fore-knowledge about going into this unit such as basic editing technique & colour correction, the story-boarding process and the unpredictability of working on a documentary in a live un-controlled environment, however each of these areas have been built on extensively through shoot after shoot, and I'm in a much better position now in terms of what I can offer, than I was at even the beginning of this year.
Another aspect of this entire process that has taught me something is the amount of iteration we had on existing sequences over time. In the past, the editing process has been a short period of time right at the end of a project, it's an important aspect of post-production no less, however it never felt as substantial to me as it has done throughout our work on 'DreamChaser'. Thanks to our frequent feedback sessions with our lecturers and each-other over Skype and in-person - we were able to consistently update and incorporate changes and alterations to all of our sequences. The 'What I've Done' montage, the Donington Track Day sequence and the Race Day sequence all had more than 5 different versions by the end of post-production, something that had never been the case for me prior to working on this documentary. This taught me to be able to disassociate myself from my work more efficiently, in the sense that I would become less and less personally attached to the creative choices I was making, thus making it easier for me to be more efficient at what I was doing when it came to stripping out segments of sequences, cutting things that weren't relevant etc. I believe that this kind of mentality shift will help me in a real-world environment considering how often directors, producers, writers and other influencers force creatives to cede complete creative control over their work. One of the other areas in which I noticed I changed by the end of the project was in thinking ahead to other stages of production. Since this was the first project where we were both actively shooting and editing at the same time, my editing mindset would start to bleed over and influence my mindset and actions during shoot days, as to make things easier when it came to post production. An example of this would be in the ways that I chose to shoot certain sequences during live pit-lane segments - knowing that I already needed some raw audio of the car from editing the introduction sequence, I was able to go out of my way to capture said audio and b-roll during the race day shoot so that I could use it in another sequence. Playing an active role in both aspects of production taught me to see things from both perspectives simultaneously, and I think that ultimately only benefited the project when it came to post-production.
What Could I Develop?
Despite how much I personally developed my skill-set whilst working on this project, there are still a few areas in which I think I could improve myself and my approach to a large or intimidating work-load. Take my VFX for example, I'm happy with how they turned out and myself, Alex & George agree that they're of a professional looking standard, however I recognise that I could have been slightly more experimental with the designs I went with. I see them as fairly generic which was partially why I included the Xenosphere font on the progress bar, in an effort to tie them directly to the 'brand' of 'DreamChaser'. This would be achieved by researching further into after effects techniques and advanced masking which would allow me to further elevate the production value of this entire project. Furthermore, time management has been a concept I've struggled with throughout all of my life, this is an area where I've improved substantially in since beginning my time here studying Television Production at UCA, though there are still areas in which I acknowledge I could be more proactive in assessing the situation and adapting to it in order to improve a situation or address an issue that rose during production with sufficient time allocated to do so. An example of this would be when storyboards were requested by team members, I would often leave them until the last day to produce, which wasn't wise given that it left no room for error or last-minute alterations. By making a conscious effort to prioritise miscellaneous tasks like this throughout the production was something I admittedly could've been better at - though I still recognise that on a basic level, I have been at my best throughout production in terms of showing up, performing my role to a professional standard and thinking on my feet in the heat of the moment, and I think that both members of my group would attest to that.
The other concern I've had with my experience with this project has been my general mindset towards the work that laid ahead of me. Whilst we were on set and actively engaged in our production, I was able to focus, coordinate and work well with everyone in our crew, as well as produce high-quality looking material as a camera operator and an editor. It was my mindset towards work outside of my time on set and at the studios that needed work. I mean this in the sense that I would often look forward to future shoot days with an outlook of pessimism, negativity or general lethargy, stemming mainly from some form of inherent anxiety towards the expectations of me in such an important role. On one hand as I sit here at the end of the project able to view what we've accomplished, it seems somewhat naive for me to ponder over my own self-doubt, however what bothers me was that it happened in the first place. I worry that it may happen again and where that'll leave me in terms of the way I approach work in the future. This is something that I need to address going forward and feeling the satisfaction from watching what we've been able to put together over the course of 4 months is really helping me do so.
Final Thoughts
I genuinely found this project to be the most engaging and interesting thing I've had the opportunity to work on. Being able to play such an integral role in the production as one third of a 3 man team has been incredibly rewarding, and has allowed me expand my skill-set extensively - with 26 full shoot days I was able to get an enormous amount of public, real-world experience of camera operation & the responsibilities of a D.O.P. that will no doubt serve me well in the future. Not only this but through doing so I now find myself in the position where I have access to a large amount of show-reel appropriate material which I can now walk away with and put to use elsewhere, both in the area of general cinematography and editing for a documentary to a professional standard.
There were difficulties in communication at times internally, however we were able to rise above it and remain professional when it came down to it, and through the frequent feedback we received from lecturers and family members, coupled with the perhaps excessive level of self-criticism and doubt, we were able to put together a piece that we're wholeheartedly proud of, and that's all we can really hope for by the end of this unit.
In this blog post I will attempt to evaluate my overall experience in working on our 3rd Year Major Project - 'DreamChaser', a documentary film following course-mate Alex Baldwin as he attempts to realise his dream of becoming a motorsport racing driver. As part of this project I worked with Alex Baldwin & George Nicholls, with additional crew support coming from Alex's friend Jon Simes, his father Nick Baldwin and fellow course-mates Alex Hargood, Katie Joslin, Connor Winfield & Laura Dagga. Pre-production began last September, with production marking the beginning of this unit at the start of the year. With a total of 26 dedicated shoot days, this is by far the largest project any of us have ever undertaken, both inside and outside of the Television Production course, not to mention the surrounding support for the documentary through the publication of it on Alex's YouTube channel has made the entire experience completely unique in terms of projects that I've worked on. We've had backing of several sponsored brands, not to mention raised over £800 through Kickstarter which helped finance some of the additional shooting time towards the end of the documentary production schedule. In that sense it has been absolutely overwhelming to a certain degree, yet incredibly rewarding as I sit here at the end of the unit with the finished product in our hands.
The production was successful in achieving what we wanted to achieve in the end, in spite of the events of one of our last (and most important) shoot days - Race Day, where Alex was prevented from racing due to a torn strut in the suspension of the BMW he was due to be driving. While this did shake us all somewhat initially, we were prepared and professional enough to adapt to the situation and put together what we believe to be an appropriately interesting and fitting ending to our story, without compromising what comes before it. A major concern we had following the incident, considering that the entire documentary builds to the climax of Alex getting out on track in a genuine race event.
I will break this evaluation down into several key sections:
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- What I Learnt?
- What Could I Improve?
- Final Thoughts
So let's begin...
Strengths
Collaborating with people on a project of this scope was always going to present challenges in the form of disagreements, creative differences etc, however I think working on previous projects on the course together has really prepared us for this unit. One of the areas that I think we've been most effective in would be general organisation. George, Alex and myself have all spent hours putting together google document after google document tracking almost every aspect of the film from an administrative perspective. This includes shot-lists, the script, an extensive budget sheet listing each purchase and everyone's contributions, storyboards, a complete 4 month production schedule that was iterated upon in real-time, Interview transcripts, posters and t-shirts that were to go out to kickstarter backers etc. All of these documents have been created through Google Documents which allows us all to view and edit these in real-time, ensuring we all remain as up to date and on the same page as possible when it comes to what the situation is with the project. Not only this but when it came to the post-production process, it was my idea to set up a collaborative 'Editing' folder in my Google Drive (pictured below) which allowed all 3 of us to almost immediately share editing resources, images, cuts and After Effects composites over cloud storage and without the annoyance of size/quality compression. This was something that made our editing work far easier than it would've been otherwise and served to streamline the entire process.
The budget sheet ensured that we remained on budget and kept track of all purchases made under the 'DreamChaser' account. This was an account with Lloyds TSB that we opened up together at the end of last year and would be used for the duration of the project. We all put in £540 of our personal contributions, with the rest of the ~£4000 budget coming from sponsors and our Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign, we knew at the start of the project that we would be able to afford to do the bare minimum required for each of our key sequences, with the additional money helping flesh out the documentary and turn 10-15 shoot days into 26. This number was also somewhat inflated due to a secondary aspect of organisation - test shoots. There were several things that we weren't entirely sure about prior to the shoot days themselves, this usually equated to logistical queries regarding how we would film specific sequences. For example, we test shot the diary room sequence in Steven's garage several weeks before we came to shoot the real thing, we decided to do this because we didn't have any idea how much room we'd be working with on the day since we had only seen pictures of the location beforehand. There were also concerns about how the Track & Dolly would be operated as I at that point had no experience operating one. By carrying out the test shoot we were able to get an understanding of what we were working with both in terms of the space we had, my abilities on the track and dolly and the mise-en-scene of the shooting location.
Another example of this was the Donington Park Track Day sequence. This was an ambitious shoot on a track that myself and George had never even visited prior to working on this project, therefore it was important to us that we knew what to expect on the morning of the track day itself. It was for this reason that we decided it would be worth the financial/time investment for us all to drive up there 2 weeks prior, in an effort to scout the track and mark out appropriate shooting points for track-side operators. It was a 14 hour day that all of us could've done without at the time, however we decided that it'd be the best thing for the project and ultimately prepare us going into an already complex sequence at the end of March.
The other key strength I'd like to highlight during this project would be the work that I've been able to put in through cinematography as a D.O.P. (Director of Photography), getting a chance to personally author a visual style for this film has been a genuinely incredible experience. Looking back on much of the cinematography across all of our shoot days, I'm still in somewhat disbelief that I was capable of capturing the footage that I did, however I proved my own self-doubt wrong in that sense. There are many shots throughout the documentary that I'm incredibly proud of not just on an aesthetic level, but also a technical one. We used a variety of cameras and shot set-ups including incredibly wide depth of field with the Jamie Caroline interview, super wide-angle lens' on the in-car Go-Pros, and 'walk and talk' wheeled camera rigs in sequences like the Dan Rowbottom interview and the fitness montage. Shot variety has been a key focus for me during my time working on 'DreamChaser', and I'm excited to incorporate a lot of the footage into a future show-reel.
Additionally, the experience of working on this project has brought us closer together in a very non-cliched sense. As we began to realise how much of a workload we'd each taken on by undertaking a project of this scope and size, we quickly began splintering our roles and responsibilities up between us all. There were aspects of each-others work that we were able to step in and advise on, or even assist in. Editing for example was a big example of this for me, as I began this project with the official title of 'Director of Photography' however mid-way through production it became evident to George that he would not be able to keep up with the editing workload of this project alone, at which point I was asked to step in as a secondary editor handling a lot of the fast-paced montage sequences. In total I edited 6 full sequences, 1 of which was cut from the documentary in the end. These sequences are the introduction/titles, Brands Hatch with Alex's Dad, the Karting Sequence, the What I've Done montage, Donington track day with Sam, the Race Day and the end credits. I also was responsible for the VFX side of things when it came to lower thirds, on-screen graphics and footage of web-pages for use in the Kickstarter and Diary Room sequences.
Weaknesses
I cannot pretend that we didn't have our disagreements during our time on this project, there were a couple of key points I wanted to highlight in this evaluation. There were several times during production where it felt like there was a sense of un-professionalism at play in terms of the things that were said internally. There were points where both Alex & George would get into arguments with each-other over minor disagreements, which would lead to an awkward atmosphere during some shoot days. I must stress that this was outlier behavior in the grand scheme of things, though it occurred frequently enough for me to deem it worthy of mentioning here. I think there were periods where being the focus of the documentary got in the way of Alex's ability to judge things from a rational and more critical perspective, which of course is expected to some extent given how personal the experience was to him in general. This is not to take away at all from the incredible team-work and drive I've seen from both George and Alex over the course of this production however, considering that Alex was let down at the last hurdle by and unexpected fault with the car, he was able to remain calm and composed under the immense pressure of being denied his opportunity to race that close to the finish line, whilst simultaneously having a documentary crew present and a whole other set of concerns regarding how we were going to salvage the documentary.
On a couple of occasions I think things got to George somewhat, as he would snap at Alex or myself during a shoot. An example of this was when he was having issues with exposure on his camera when we were at Silverstone interviewing Bobby Trundley, a sequence that ultimately didn't make the cut in the end. Alex asked him what the issue was and George shouted him down in front of Bobby and some other Team BRIT members. This was of course somewhat embarrassing in the moment and didn't speak well to our professionalism in general, however we both made a point of speaking to him about it on the way home that evening, in an effort to get him to understand the impression that gives to others around us. In general I felt like there was a great contrast between the ways in which we would communicate as a team in person, and the ways we'd communicate over Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or SMS. It felt like we would have incredibly smooth shoot days thanks to effective team-work and thorough organisation beforehand, we would genuinely enjoy our time on set and walk away singing each-others praises about what we had accomplished, however there would then be a noticeable tonal shift within 24 hours in terms of the way we would be communicating with each-other. Messages became blunt and criticism heavy, the general atmosphere in those chats was frustratingly hyper-critical at times. Despite prior elation towards the work we carried out, disagreements with the way things were handled, or critiques of past behavior suddenly surfaced, justifiable or not. I understand more than most the challenges of conveying tone through text messages, however there were periods where it felt openly hostile and that lead to a fair amount of unnecessary stress for all of us I'm certain.
What I Learnt?
I've come away from this project with an enormous amount of experience in almost every area of film-making. In that sense it truly feels like the first 2 and a half years of this course had prepared me for the challenges I would face on the production of 'DreamChaser'. With a confirmed 26 shoot days with several outliers pushing it somewhere closer towards 30, I've spent more time with cameras during this project than the collective 8 years of media study prior to it, and it's truly been an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Not only that, but I was fortunate enough to be able to get the opportunity to demonstrate and expand my editing skill-set further despite that not being my designated role. There are several editing techniques that I've never attempted prior to this documentary, but invested time into learning over the course of the post-production process. This includes things like masking out shots in order to artificially blur and sharpen specific portions of an image at the end of the race day sequence, as well as designing and masking out lower thirds and visual FX. There were several areas I already had some fore-knowledge about going into this unit such as basic editing technique & colour correction, the story-boarding process and the unpredictability of working on a documentary in a live un-controlled environment, however each of these areas have been built on extensively through shoot after shoot, and I'm in a much better position now in terms of what I can offer, than I was at even the beginning of this year.
Another aspect of this entire process that has taught me something is the amount of iteration we had on existing sequences over time. In the past, the editing process has been a short period of time right at the end of a project, it's an important aspect of post-production no less, however it never felt as substantial to me as it has done throughout our work on 'DreamChaser'. Thanks to our frequent feedback sessions with our lecturers and each-other over Skype and in-person - we were able to consistently update and incorporate changes and alterations to all of our sequences. The 'What I've Done' montage, the Donington Track Day sequence and the Race Day sequence all had more than 5 different versions by the end of post-production, something that had never been the case for me prior to working on this documentary. This taught me to be able to disassociate myself from my work more efficiently, in the sense that I would become less and less personally attached to the creative choices I was making, thus making it easier for me to be more efficient at what I was doing when it came to stripping out segments of sequences, cutting things that weren't relevant etc. I believe that this kind of mentality shift will help me in a real-world environment considering how often directors, producers, writers and other influencers force creatives to cede complete creative control over their work. One of the other areas in which I noticed I changed by the end of the project was in thinking ahead to other stages of production. Since this was the first project where we were both actively shooting and editing at the same time, my editing mindset would start to bleed over and influence my mindset and actions during shoot days, as to make things easier when it came to post production. An example of this would be in the ways that I chose to shoot certain sequences during live pit-lane segments - knowing that I already needed some raw audio of the car from editing the introduction sequence, I was able to go out of my way to capture said audio and b-roll during the race day shoot so that I could use it in another sequence. Playing an active role in both aspects of production taught me to see things from both perspectives simultaneously, and I think that ultimately only benefited the project when it came to post-production.
What Could I Develop?
Despite how much I personally developed my skill-set whilst working on this project, there are still a few areas in which I think I could improve myself and my approach to a large or intimidating work-load. Take my VFX for example, I'm happy with how they turned out and myself, Alex & George agree that they're of a professional looking standard, however I recognise that I could have been slightly more experimental with the designs I went with. I see them as fairly generic which was partially why I included the Xenosphere font on the progress bar, in an effort to tie them directly to the 'brand' of 'DreamChaser'. This would be achieved by researching further into after effects techniques and advanced masking which would allow me to further elevate the production value of this entire project. Furthermore, time management has been a concept I've struggled with throughout all of my life, this is an area where I've improved substantially in since beginning my time here studying Television Production at UCA, though there are still areas in which I acknowledge I could be more proactive in assessing the situation and adapting to it in order to improve a situation or address an issue that rose during production with sufficient time allocated to do so. An example of this would be when storyboards were requested by team members, I would often leave them until the last day to produce, which wasn't wise given that it left no room for error or last-minute alterations. By making a conscious effort to prioritise miscellaneous tasks like this throughout the production was something I admittedly could've been better at - though I still recognise that on a basic level, I have been at my best throughout production in terms of showing up, performing my role to a professional standard and thinking on my feet in the heat of the moment, and I think that both members of my group would attest to that.
The other concern I've had with my experience with this project has been my general mindset towards the work that laid ahead of me. Whilst we were on set and actively engaged in our production, I was able to focus, coordinate and work well with everyone in our crew, as well as produce high-quality looking material as a camera operator and an editor. It was my mindset towards work outside of my time on set and at the studios that needed work. I mean this in the sense that I would often look forward to future shoot days with an outlook of pessimism, negativity or general lethargy, stemming mainly from some form of inherent anxiety towards the expectations of me in such an important role. On one hand as I sit here at the end of the project able to view what we've accomplished, it seems somewhat naive for me to ponder over my own self-doubt, however what bothers me was that it happened in the first place. I worry that it may happen again and where that'll leave me in terms of the way I approach work in the future. This is something that I need to address going forward and feeling the satisfaction from watching what we've been able to put together over the course of 4 months is really helping me do so.
Final Thoughts
I genuinely found this project to be the most engaging and interesting thing I've had the opportunity to work on. Being able to play such an integral role in the production as one third of a 3 man team has been incredibly rewarding, and has allowed me expand my skill-set extensively - with 26 full shoot days I was able to get an enormous amount of public, real-world experience of camera operation & the responsibilities of a D.O.P. that will no doubt serve me well in the future. Not only this but through doing so I now find myself in the position where I have access to a large amount of show-reel appropriate material which I can now walk away with and put to use elsewhere, both in the area of general cinematography and editing for a documentary to a professional standard.
There were difficulties in communication at times internally, however we were able to rise above it and remain professional when it came down to it, and through the frequent feedback we received from lecturers and family members, coupled with the perhaps excessive level of self-criticism and doubt, we were able to put together a piece that we're wholeheartedly proud of, and that's all we can really hope for by the end of this unit.
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