EVALUATION
Throughout the development of this project, I have been taken outside of my comfort zone and as a result, I feel that I have advanced my skills in ways that have vastly improved the standards of my work. Within this section of the website I aim to document my progression in this project and describe the ways in which its development has evolved as the weeks passed.
IDEAS GENERATION
I formed my primary idea - to promote Bell Group's apprenticeships for aspiring tradeswomen - almost instantaneously. I knew that creating a promotional video for an already established successful company would be a challenge with added pressure, and I wanted to push myself and accept this test. I had also been aware of the current demand there is for more women and diversity within the property services trades because my Dad works for Bell and has discussed these issues in passing.
This meant that I had to generate two more ideas, but I struggled with deciding on what to do. I knew that I wanted to stick to creating a promotional video because I felt that there are more available opportunities for local businesses rather than organisations and charities; which seem limited for my location.
To overcome issue, I used Google Maps for inspiration, searching around the local area for shops and services that I often use and could potentially promote. This method of brainstorming was very effective and creative, and I will definitely be using a similar method in the future to come up with project ideas.
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I searched around my town and considered promoting my previous school, as I knew that it would be accessible in terms of filming location. It would have also been beneficial that I am familiar with the building and know the staff. However, I thought a little deeper into what events are held in the school and remembered a dance exercise class that I regularly attend is held in the school halls. To use this idea as my contingency plan would be a great idea because I could lean into a similar topic of female issues, this promo in particular would be linked to women's attitudes towards exercise, presenting the sessions as a solution to the self esteem issues that many women face when exercising.
RESEARCH
I knew that in promoting Bell Group, I would have to complete thorough and detailed research so that I could fully understand the topic of which I was promoting. This is because the subject of property services is one that I knew little about in the beginning of this project. As much as it was challenging to promote something that was unknown to me, I believe that putting myself in this position was a great idea because it moved me out of my comfort zone and required me to put a lot of work into the research behind this project. I began by dividing my research into subtopics so that I could break down my time and research specific points at certain times when I needed to. This has helped me to develop my general organisation skills and made the task seem less overwhelming. The fact that this project required a bibliography was also useful, because I could keep track of all of the research sources that I used and it allowed me to go back to a certain page or website if I needed to reference it again.
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I made sure to maintain diverse documentation of my research by recording it in different forms, such as notes, images, paragraphs and essays. I also used a variety of sources to get a varied basis for my study and referenced websites, blogs, social media pages and my own survey as a method of primary research. If I was to complete this project again, I would like to explore other forms of media for research such as books and leaflets instead of my research being fully digital. I believe that this would make an improvement by providing me with a more differentiated assortment of research sources.
A method of research that I am particularly proud of is my target audience survey. I have never conducted such a detailed and thorough survey before, and the extra effort to do so was very beneficial to me. I came to this conclusion while I was analysing my responses, which provided me with very useful information that gave me more guidance with the ways that I should convey Bell group as a business as well as providing me with a deeper understanding of my target audience.
For example, here I was able to discover that my target audience were generally not comfortable with working in environments that are male dominated for a multitude of reasons. I came to the conclusion that if I advertised Bell Group as having the opposite of these negative workplace characteristics, I would be able to appeal to my target demographic.
PITCH
I believe this pitch and proposal to be the best in which I have done so far. I decided to use Canva for the first time when developing them because I have observed my peers as they used this software and I have seen how much more professional and visually striking their results were compared to mine that were previously made using PowerPoint. I found a couple of templates to use for the pitch and proposal and made small tweaks to make them fit the style of the brand I would be representing. The templates were useful in saving me time by allowing me to simply write in the available text boxes and customise some of the appearance settings. Based on this experience, I have grown to like Canva and I will be using the software to develop my pitches, proposals, and other presentations that will arise in the future.
Here is a small view of my pitch and proposal, both of which were on brand and professional.
When I delivered my pitch I felt that I was able to communicate all of my points clearly and outlined my project plans in a way that is concise and accurate. I was pleased with the feedback that I received from the lecturers that I pitched to, who gave me helpful constructive advice. One of which was to be more detailed with what specific shots I am planning to include, which is an element of my pitch and proposal that I will make sure I improve on for future projects. There were two pieces of advice that they gave me in which I considered however I did not decide to take on. The first was to include before and after images of Mia while she was still a trainee at Bell. As much as I like the idea, I felt that it would be too invasive to include in the video and in my opinion, I thought it would be a little too personal to request of her. Additionally, I was also given the advice of using hero shots. I decided not to incorporate these because I felt that it would look too forced, and may give a sense of pride that is too forward. In hindsight, it may have been appropriate for the filming of Mia's practical work, and I would at least film a few takes of hero shots with her to experiment with the technique if I could redo this project.
PRODUCTION
The filming of this project was over the course of three different days that were all quite spaced apart from each other. The filming of my first interview was three whole weeks before my last. This was not ideal and made me feel slightly uneasy about the approaching deadline, but I had no choice with the dates that were available to film. This was because I was working around other peoples schedules, and ultimately I am grateful that the interviewees were willing to participate.
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My first day of filming was the only one that I felt disappointed by. This was a result of the lapel microphone not recording my audio, which must have been down to me thinking that I had pressed record when I actually didn't. This experience was definitely a lesson learnt for future projects, and I will ensure that I always double check this every time I record audio. Fortunately, I was prepared for the event that the microphone was to fail as I had connected a Rode mic to the top of my camera before filming. Ideally, I would have filmed this interview again however this was not possible due to my interviewees schedule. Despite my frustration in this situation, I remained calm with the knowledge that I have the ablity to clean up the audio using editing software such as Audition. Other than this error, the rest of the interview went smoothly and I am satisfied with the rest of the interview process.
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The second day of filming involved recording an interview and getting general views and B roll of a Bell Group Quanity Surveyor, Mia Steven. This was a success and everything went to plan. The only drawback was that I was filming with my own camera because I did not feel confident using the Canon 5D that the college gave to me (I would usually choose a Canon R10 but these were unavailable due to high demand). I made this decision because I was not willing to risk anything else going wrong. I was aware that my camera, the Canon M50, has slight limitations when it comes to darker lighting and sharp focuses, but I worked around these issues as much as possible. In future, I would rather film with an R10 because of its capabilities and my own confidence in using it, and also learn how to use the 5D in case I end up in a similar situation in the future.
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The third and final day of filming included an interview with the business psychologist, Helena Smith, and afterwards I filmed B Roll of the office. Similar to last time, this round of filming was successful. An element of the production process that I am particularly proud of is the locations and background settings for my interviews. They were all unique, on-brand and visually interesting. I believe this experience has improved my creative insight in framing not just interviews, but general views too.
POST PRODUCTION
I did my best attempt at fixing the audio issues in my first interview with Tracy by taking the footage to Adobe Audition. In this experimental experience I found useful effects such as noise reduction and voice enhancer. These effects worked well to improve the sound, and I am satisfied with the end result.
Editing my footage began with cutting down my first interview, which was a hour long. I tackled this time consuming task by watching the video and cutting out pieces of irrelevant information as I went. When I reached the end of the footage, I returned to the beginning and started the process over again. This was effective and was a good method of editing considering that I had never had to cut an interview before. I cut the footage down to 20 minutes, and then 15 minutes, to 10 and eventually to 4. I used the same process for my three other interviews, and eventually merged them all together on one timeline and made all interviews combined to a length that is appropriate to the brief of this project. I did this because I believed it would be the most effective way to begin structuring my final video and would help to create a solid foundation before adding B - Roll footage. The majority of this editing process was an experimentation within my own skills and editing abilities. As a result of the fact that I have had no prior experience to editing an interview, it was a learning experience and I believe that the way that I approached this bulky editing task was effective and successful.
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I took inspiration from the research that I had completed when editing this video together. For example, I chose background music that was similar to what was used in the previous Bell promotional videos to maintain their style, keeping on-brand. Another element I took inspiration from was when I was adding transitions to each clip, in which I decided to mix between cross-dissolving and jump-cutting because I had seen these techniques used in other promotional videos of a similar nature. The same goes for implementing J-cuts with the audio, which I found fun to experiment with. I also stayed within the Bell style when it came to graphics, using text with a similar font and colours to the logo.
I believe that the feedback I received during the post - production process of this project was valuable and beneficial to the development of the video. It allowed me to understand how my target audience views the video as well as my client, getting a broader understanding of what I am communicating from different perspectives. From this I was able to improve the video from its first edit, for example, the feedback let me understand that leaving out Tracy's interview was a good idea to maintain a high standard in terms of audio quality, making the video appear more professional and up to the standard of the industry.
FINAL PRODUCT
I am pleased to be able to write that I am proud of the final edit of this promotional video. The finished product successfully encompasses all elements of working for Bell Group as a woman as well as promoting the business as a good employer in a broader sense. I have been able to reach all of my goals in terms of the topics that I wanted to communicate and the way that I have brought it all together in post - production was effective.
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Despite the fact that it had not gone completely to plan in terms of the interview that I wanted to include, I have been able to successfully work around this issue and still produce an effective video that is able to communicate the same message. I am proud of my ability to overcome issues like this, which have allowed me to further develop my production skills for future projects.
EVALUATION CONCLUSION
To conclude, I am feeling positive about the work that I have completed during the production of this project, and I believe that the hard work is visible in the final product. I made sure to go into depth with my research, which was vital to provide myself with topic knowledge and production knowledge that has allowed me to thrive in successfully creating a promotional video for Bell Group.
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As much as I am proud of the work that I have done, I am aware that there are many elements that could have been better and that I wish to improve for future projects. For example, I believe that I could have taken more B - Roll footage to allow me more flexibility when it came to editing. As much as I had enough footage, it would have been nicer to have more so that I had the freedom to choose better quality shots or clips with more variety. This would have taken some pressure off when it comes to editing and potentially could have created a more visually interesting video. I will also make sure to improve on my knowledge with lapel microphones as a result of the incident I had with the first interview, making sure that the same mistake does not happen again.
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Despite these errors, these experiences have created lessons for me to learn and further develop my own production skills so that I can perform better in future projects. To summarise, I am contented with the way that I have worked on this project and I am proud of my final product as well as the research efforts that have helped to develop it.