Major Project - Meetings w/ Simon & Beth (26th Mar)
Gathering Feedback From Our Lecturers
Today we were all at the studios in order to gather general feedback on the current cut of our documentary 'DreamChaser'. We were fortunate enough to have Beth present to view our films and critique them as well as Simon.
BETH:
First we spoke with Beth who proceeded to give us feedback after watching the cut from start to finish. She was generally impressed with the production value and dedication that was shown throughout project which was nice to hear. She also praised the level of access that we'd acquired over the course of our time on this project, it's easy for us to forget how much we've actually done over the past several months, however now that we're getting towards the final stretch of production, the effort we're putting in appears to be beginning to pay off somewhat. She also told us that we need to rethink about whether having Bobby Trundley as part of the documentary is worth doing in the first place, given that autism and disability within Motorsports could be considered an entirely different topic in of itself and the entire Silverstone/Team BRIT sequence risks portraying the team and their efforts in a tokenist manner. This is of course the opposite impression to the one that we want to give and is something we're strongly considering cutting entirely moving forward.
Beth really liked the Formula Ford montage sequence that I previously edited and said that it wouldn't look amiss on television which was nice to hear, however I am still cognisant of the fact that the entire structure of the montage must be changed to incorporate the GT Puma and Mazda MX5 track day footage into it as well. She also remarked on the strength of the Jamie interview in that it relates well to the story and orients Alex in the right direction in terms of where he needs to go from that point in the documentary. One of the other areas Beth critiqued us on was the cutaways to Alex during the Jamie interview, these were originally implemented due to previous feedback we received from Simon regarding not seeing Alex within that sequence itself, however Beth informed us that they don't really work as it looks like he's directing (which while accurate, isn't what we're going for) and doesn't suit the tone of the interview.
The key points we walked away from our session today with Beth were that we need to be thinking about whether or not the Bobby/Team BRIT sequence is worth keeping at all at this point, especially considering we're already looking to cut down our time significantly. There was also the reminder that 'less is often more', we shouldn't feel like we need to include every contributor we had take part during our time on production. Finally she appreciated the sound design, stating that there's so much energy and power behind the roar of an engine and the music in a lot of areas is highly entertaining.
SIMON:
Shortly after our session with Beth, we were scheduled to meet with our course leader Simon Welsford. This was an opportunity for him to watch the full cut through and attain valuable feedback similar to our previous sessions. Now of course given that we haven't filmed the race day sequence just yet, we know that there's still another sequence to go in at the end, along with the credits themselves. This makes us one of the last groups on the unit to get our full fine-cut together, however we're also shooting significantly more than other groups, therefore leading to a tighter editing deadline. For this reason we've been editing more and more as we've gotten closer to the race-day, this way we'll be in a position to be slot in the final sequence mid-April and spend the last 3 weeks polishing and streamlining the documentary as a whole.
Simon enjoyed the cut as a whole, but offered a lot more critical feedback than Beth which was useful to us. This included things to be aware of such as having to remind the audience exactly what we're doing as part of Alex's journey during each sequence and why it's directly relevant to the overall ambition of racing, as well as minor things like ensuring we don't assume that the audience remembered people and information from a list of contributors like we can, as they lack all of the surrounding context to the events that they're seeing on screen for the first time. Things like this were incredibly insightful to hear as they reminded us to be aware of different perspectives when it came to the story we're trying to tell, and how one could interpret specific sequences as something entirely different than what we personally envision.
Furthermore, we began questioning whether or not there was even much point in having the fitness sequence present in its current state and what we could do to it in order to make it fit better and drag on a whole lot less than it currently does. Simon mentioned that given fitness itself wasn't actually the thing that is preventing Alex from realising his dream, it may be worth cutting the sequence entirely, however we believe we can maintain the fitness sequence in the form of an exercise montage rather than an extended sequence. This will also give George an opportunity as editor to take on a montage sequence, most of which have been attributed to me up to this point, so we feel that this may be a good opportunity to save time and also assist George when it comes to adhering to his editing responsibilities.
Simon also insisted that VFX should be in production by this weekend at which point they can begin being implemented into the sequences. For now this includes designing lower thirds for names, occupations and locations, as well as some form of clock/countdown animation which will be used to emphasise the amount of time that remains to the race day itself, throughout the documentary. I will produce these using Adobe After Effects as that is the most versatile piece of software I have access to when it comes to designing visual effects.
The only other thing that Simon mentioned was that we should go through our entire timeline and 'red flag' specific sequences that are absolutely crucial pieces that we can't not have, this way we potentially alleviate spending a lot of time editing and polishing sequences that may end up having to be cut entirely by the end of the project. Getting the chance to sit down with our lecturers like this and get honest, raw feedback during the production process is invaluable, so we were grateful for the opportunity to hear these thoughts and utilise them going forward in order to ensure that our documentary ends up in the strongest state it can be come the hand-in day.
Today we were all at the studios in order to gather general feedback on the current cut of our documentary 'DreamChaser'. We were fortunate enough to have Beth present to view our films and critique them as well as Simon.
BETH:
First we spoke with Beth who proceeded to give us feedback after watching the cut from start to finish. She was generally impressed with the production value and dedication that was shown throughout project which was nice to hear. She also praised the level of access that we'd acquired over the course of our time on this project, it's easy for us to forget how much we've actually done over the past several months, however now that we're getting towards the final stretch of production, the effort we're putting in appears to be beginning to pay off somewhat. She also told us that we need to rethink about whether having Bobby Trundley as part of the documentary is worth doing in the first place, given that autism and disability within Motorsports could be considered an entirely different topic in of itself and the entire Silverstone/Team BRIT sequence risks portraying the team and their efforts in a tokenist manner. This is of course the opposite impression to the one that we want to give and is something we're strongly considering cutting entirely moving forward.
Beth really liked the Formula Ford montage sequence that I previously edited and said that it wouldn't look amiss on television which was nice to hear, however I am still cognisant of the fact that the entire structure of the montage must be changed to incorporate the GT Puma and Mazda MX5 track day footage into it as well. She also remarked on the strength of the Jamie interview in that it relates well to the story and orients Alex in the right direction in terms of where he needs to go from that point in the documentary. One of the other areas Beth critiqued us on was the cutaways to Alex during the Jamie interview, these were originally implemented due to previous feedback we received from Simon regarding not seeing Alex within that sequence itself, however Beth informed us that they don't really work as it looks like he's directing (which while accurate, isn't what we're going for) and doesn't suit the tone of the interview.
The key points we walked away from our session today with Beth were that we need to be thinking about whether or not the Bobby/Team BRIT sequence is worth keeping at all at this point, especially considering we're already looking to cut down our time significantly. There was also the reminder that 'less is often more', we shouldn't feel like we need to include every contributor we had take part during our time on production. Finally she appreciated the sound design, stating that there's so much energy and power behind the roar of an engine and the music in a lot of areas is highly entertaining.
SIMON:
Shortly after our session with Beth, we were scheduled to meet with our course leader Simon Welsford. This was an opportunity for him to watch the full cut through and attain valuable feedback similar to our previous sessions. Now of course given that we haven't filmed the race day sequence just yet, we know that there's still another sequence to go in at the end, along with the credits themselves. This makes us one of the last groups on the unit to get our full fine-cut together, however we're also shooting significantly more than other groups, therefore leading to a tighter editing deadline. For this reason we've been editing more and more as we've gotten closer to the race-day, this way we'll be in a position to be slot in the final sequence mid-April and spend the last 3 weeks polishing and streamlining the documentary as a whole.
Simon enjoyed the cut as a whole, but offered a lot more critical feedback than Beth which was useful to us. This included things to be aware of such as having to remind the audience exactly what we're doing as part of Alex's journey during each sequence and why it's directly relevant to the overall ambition of racing, as well as minor things like ensuring we don't assume that the audience remembered people and information from a list of contributors like we can, as they lack all of the surrounding context to the events that they're seeing on screen for the first time. Things like this were incredibly insightful to hear as they reminded us to be aware of different perspectives when it came to the story we're trying to tell, and how one could interpret specific sequences as something entirely different than what we personally envision.
Furthermore, we began questioning whether or not there was even much point in having the fitness sequence present in its current state and what we could do to it in order to make it fit better and drag on a whole lot less than it currently does. Simon mentioned that given fitness itself wasn't actually the thing that is preventing Alex from realising his dream, it may be worth cutting the sequence entirely, however we believe we can maintain the fitness sequence in the form of an exercise montage rather than an extended sequence. This will also give George an opportunity as editor to take on a montage sequence, most of which have been attributed to me up to this point, so we feel that this may be a good opportunity to save time and also assist George when it comes to adhering to his editing responsibilities.
Simon also insisted that VFX should be in production by this weekend at which point they can begin being implemented into the sequences. For now this includes designing lower thirds for names, occupations and locations, as well as some form of clock/countdown animation which will be used to emphasise the amount of time that remains to the race day itself, throughout the documentary. I will produce these using Adobe After Effects as that is the most versatile piece of software I have access to when it comes to designing visual effects.
The only other thing that Simon mentioned was that we should go through our entire timeline and 'red flag' specific sequences that are absolutely crucial pieces that we can't not have, this way we potentially alleviate spending a lot of time editing and polishing sequences that may end up having to be cut entirely by the end of the project. Getting the chance to sit down with our lecturers like this and get honest, raw feedback during the production process is invaluable, so we were grateful for the opportunity to hear these thoughts and utilise them going forward in order to ensure that our documentary ends up in the strongest state it can be come the hand-in day.
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