Documentary Unit: Critical Reflection

Now that the project is finished I feel it's time to reflect on what has gone on in the past few weeks.

What has gone well:

- The shoot went without a hitch.
- The edit was finished and looks solid.
- The workshops were successful.
- Teamwork: we all worked well off of each other and completed our goals.
- The pitch was great.


What hasn't gone well:

- Our participants were unreliable on one occasion: cancelling on us and having to reschedule two weekends before the deadline.
- Being unable to film in a couple of locations in Camden that we wanted to go to.
- Having to dub Strobe: he had great audio.


Thoughts on myself:

I feel I need to contribute even more to the pre-production side, although I did the editing and the risk assessment, I think my contribution on the shoot shouldn't count towards anything as that was compulsory. Ren did the majority of the work in terms of pre-production and did all of the organising. I'll admit I'm not great with contacting people but I wish I contributed more even though we had designated roles for each of us.

I believe my editing skills have improved after so many years doing it, but this unit only helps to continue that. My camera-work skills have also improved though the constant re-focussing, exposure altering and zooming, along with having to keep the camera as steady as possible and know when the camera was and wasn't picking up the audio. I also feel my confidence improved due to our shoot and having to walk around London with a camera filming, who are technically, strangers as they do things and try to ignore the public staring. It made me feel more comfortable with being in a crowd and actually sticking out.

Overall I feel the project was great fun. I personally do not like documentaries in a production sense: I have never been interested in making one but this unit has shown that there is a sort of enjoyment and satisfaction to take from one. Upon first hearing of having to do a pitch I was dreading it, standing in front of people is a terrifying prospect in my head but I managed to find some comfort in it and came out feeling better than before. All in all a great few weeks.