3 Minute Wonder Evaluation

The reason I decided on my topic:

When it came to the drawing board of considering an individual idea for our production I found myself lost. I needed to consider something that I believed could both educate as well as entertain within the 3 minute snippet allocated. My idea actually came to fruition when we had a quick whip round of ideas within amongst our classmates. Ultimately I decided on the idea of the gym and why people decided to go, this idea came from my own passion of weightlifting and fitness as a whole. I was always a larger than average person both height wise and weight wise and so I decided to go to the gym to lose weight and built upon my naturally top heavy anatomy. I personally believe there is nothing but positivity in both health and happiness in going to the gym and so I wished to try and show people why gym is worth the time that most people think it isn’t. The focus of my documentary also happened to co-inside with the availability of interviews by different people from multiple local gyms.

Documentary style:

I was able to envision exactly how the documentary would look and flow and so it was easy enough to decide on and work within the traditions of an expository documentary, for example the lack of direct interaction and use of voice overs. 

Use of camera:

Due to being constrained as far as time available during college/lessons to get to and from the gyms and signing out of equipment we perhaps let more slide as far as shaky camera movement and imperfections within the shot quality; for example one of the opening pan shots speed changing and in doing so certain things appeared as slightly amateurish when peer reviewed. That said I think it added something and I know 99% of people would probably disagree but I personally think it added a kind of charm, call me crazy I guess. However personal opinion aside as a generalisation I would say that although flawed the use of camera and differing angles the project was ultimately successful as a whole and so I am pleased with the quality although aware of the issues.

Use of sound:

Ah, the Achilles heel of our production, although the simple and effective garage band track we produced was spot on there were however, some issues with the base audio tracks. Our situation was practically unavoidable but none the less it hindered certain elements of the interviewing process which ultimately was our focus. The issue was that there was a surplus of background noise of music, people talking, grunting and weights clanging; it wasn’t until our last day of shooting that the gym owners opened up and allowed us use of the studio which if you watch for instance the section with ‘Russell’ audio clarity was optimum and should have been consistent throughout the production, something that we have noted for the future. We also added a voice over which was due to our first draft having a simple questioned slide as a transition between interview shots.

Use of editing:

Through the use of Premiere Pro we used simple editing techniques to transition between each shot and interviewee to reasonably effective standard, we also added titles for each person that was interviewed using After Effects and we initially did not want them but one teacher insisted and so we added them only to be peer reviewed and told that they were indeed unnecessary.

How happy am I with the finished product:

With all its faults and flaws I can’t help but enjoy the piece that we crafted, perhaps it’s like a mother having to love it’s child but still I think it works to a great effect and indeed my peers agreed and so I have every reason to be happy with it. Out of 10 I would probably give it a 7.1 given my experience and situation while producing and editing.