Alexander Dwyer

Evaluation

Fitness for purpose and Potential impact

At the start of the project we were asked by the council of london borough of Redbridge to create a short social action project which either addressed one issue affecting the area or one of the local charities. Our brief was specific about community cohesion and that it needed to speak to the youth (teens aged 14-19) as well as all the people of the community. The brief also stated that the film needed to be between 8-10 minutes.

Before any initial work was started we sat down and talked about what issues we thought would be good at talking about in our film. After some discussion and decision we ended up choosing recycling as our focus. We were not quite convinced yet though, so we came up with a questionnaire that we gave to people that lived in the area. After a week of collecting data from the questions we were finally sure that recycling was the correct issue to face as a majority of people felt that is needed to be looked at. After living and working around Redbridge we had personally seen a lack of recycling and having this, we then needed a style to go on and after watching comedy duo Mitchell and Webb we thought that a comedic tone inspired from their work would fit nicely with what we had in mind. We came up with the idea of Mr Captain Recycle (MCR)a superhero on a quest to encourage the importance of recycling.

When writing the script we aimed to include all the information on Redbridge recycling we had collected so far; ideas that we wanted to use in the film and also the guidelines that the brief had given. Our final scrip was one we were proud of as it had elements of the theme we wanted as well as facts of recycling. It opened with the two characters meeting and proceeding on their quest around redbridge, how it was planned. During the middle of the script there is a large bulk of information which was planned to be used alongside stock images of either recycling plants. The brief stated that we had to educate and bring together the community, the comedy elements should hopefully bring youths together to laugh at something, and the facts and statistics used should help to educate them in the issue of recycling. By having the body of information in the middle of the project it aims to educate the viewer after the start has caught their attention, this is to not put our audience off by bombarding them with information as if we had put it first.

We aim to create moral panic in Redbridge, through showing the difference in amount of recycling between the boroughs in london. We point out the fact that Redbridge recycles below the London average, which is one of the important information points, and directly outlines that there is a problem in the community. This should serve as a wake up call for our secondary audience, the families, that watch the video with their children. We suggest small lifestyle changes to help combat this problem that both audiences should follow, hopeful if the parents can be convinced then the children will follow. This should hopefully spread to other parents and children at school in the playground, bringing them together for a common cause. According to the theorist Stanley Cohen some media companies like to create panic by over exaggerating a story.

Technical qualities

Camerawork

The scene opens with a long shot to help introduce our characters we then cut between the character of Mr Captain Recycle and Jimmy Johns. We convey our comedic tone from the start of the film straight away with quick cuts aways to build up Mr Captain Recycle’s entrance. We convey to our audience that we are not going for a serious documentary style.

We use low angles to give importance to characters. In the beginning we shoot mr captain recycle to make him seem more powerful than he is. We also use a low angle at the end to make the antagonist General waste appear to be larger as if he had won the battle. When shot correctly the low angle shot makes the audience feel smaller or weaker in comparison to the character or image on screen. I think that our low angle shots do just that as they include the message of power that we wanted to portray.

We used a lot of cutaways as well in the film to better show what we were describing instead of one stale tracking shot. From watching other documentaries eg Plastic China and Panorama we saw that they create pace by having a variety of shots switched between slowly to keep the audience focus, occasionally with voice over. To keep to the documentary elements of the film we made sure include a range of shots when Mr Captain Recycle is talking about recycling points around Redbridge. An example of the different shots we used

include for the binns and the dialogue reasons for having them.

Over all the one downside with the camera work is that most of the footage was out of focus due to the camera not being in automatic focus for most of the filming. We didn't realise that this was would be a problem until the editing stage of the film. At the beginning of the film we were getting used to the camera and manual focusing the shots were hard to keep in focus as the movement of the actors was hard to track. If there was more time in the project we

would have gone over and refilmed those shots to create a better quality image for our final project. Editing

When it came to editing we wanted to editing we used it more to help our comedic tone. In the beginning there is a scene of the two main characters flying across the screen. All of this shot was created in the editing stage of the production. It adds humerous elements because of how bad it looks. As well as this we met the comic book elements by having flashing onomatopoeia and important points onto the screen. The idea for this came from the original batman television series when a fight would break out. I feel as though these edits worked well with the style we were going for. If given the chance I would like to have included a lot more of them as I think they work well for important points.

As for other edits that use for example many of the shots were changed to be the same colour. This was done due to the different days of filming which made it look unconnected. Sound

As for we aimed to make sure that our video kept to the theme and the plan that we decided on during the planning. The superhero theme was easy to have sound to as most of it is theme songs and sounds that match onomatopoeia. We also found it easy to incorporate sound to the educational side of the film as it mostly either sound or background music. The diegetic sound used in the film is mainly dialogue from the characters in our storyline. When it comes to the dialogue used in the voice overs, although Mr captain recycle is speaking to jimmy he is also addressing the audience, This links the audience in with the film driving the points home.

Constraints experienced and overcome

Financial

During the start of the project we created a spreadsheet of the initial costs of the production to complete it professionally. The Budget we created included Camera hire, crew cost, props and editing. Our over all cost including VAT came to £4,650.79. As I stated this was a budget and us being students ment it was not possible to gain access to all the items on the

budget. To overcome this obstacle we shot our film on borrowed equipment from our school, which got rid of much of the overall cost. We also found we did not need professional camera operators and sound crew Another way we cut cost was that we ended up using public transport instead of private transport, which now was also entirely possible as we did not have a large amount of equipment and crew to think about. Legal

When creating our project we had to be aware of the legal restriction we had to follow to be able to release it to the public. An example of the rules we had to follow was gaining permission to film either a person and place. We overcame this by creating both a talent and location release form. This was a written document that provided permission for our selves to use the person or location. This would have been impossible to start filming without as it gives us the right to distribute the person or place. The locations we used were mostly public domain which meant we could film freely. All the actors in the film signed a copy of this document giving knowledge that they were being filmed, any persons in the film that were did not want to be in the film could not be recognised.

Regulatory

The copyright, Designs and patent Act of 1988 keeps the artists property their own. It gives the rights of ownership to the creator which is important in combating plagiarism. These laws protect all creative works of art in any form of media such as music, film and television. These laws protected our film from anyone who would try to take credit for its creation. Copyright also prevented us from using songs that we planned on using in our film as we did not have the rights to use them, or the money to buy the right. To overcome this we searched for royalty free music and stock footage. Royalty free means free to use without a fee, it allows for filmmakers who might not be able to make music can have music in their film. The creator can still claim the rights to the music

Management of the project

Time management

As for time management there were certain measures we took for the production. At the start we created a call sheet for our filming days which had on it a time, a date, a location and a list of who would be needed for which bit. The call sheet also had on it the part of the script that we would be completing during that session of filming. After some technical and environmental issues with the camera and weather the call sheet day was moved to a day when we could film. As for timing the times were kept and where met by all members of the group. As well as this time management with the filming we completed filming when we planned to, although our editing ran over slightly due to unforeseen circumstances with the computer editing software that we used it was delivered shortly after. By managing our time the way we did we were able to sick to our plan and complete the work within our own guidelines, it helped our productivity and our teamwork skills.

Independent working

As an independent part of the team I feel as though I was good at meeting at the time set and completing work on time. I feel on thing I could have improved upon is that of my standard of work. As the most Artistic in the group I took on the task of creating the story board which can be viewed as part of Task five. It was completed within the time which was put aside for it. As for the quality I felt as though it could have been improved as the drawing was not to the best of my ability. I was pleased with the way using the highlighters helped the comic book theme Come forward and stand out. I feel as though I could have put more effort in then it came to the editing stages, personally I did the least amount of editing in the group even though I was with the group when we were editing.

teamwork

I think as a team we worked well as we shared a common idea; had good time management and where good at splitting the tasks. At the start we chose to group together as we easily agreed on an Idea and a theme as well as the way we would divide the tasks between us. During the pre production stage of the project we had the tasks divided in accordance to our skill level, because of this it was easy to work on completing the primary stages to the project. During the filming stages the group work was again successful as we all arrived on time to the planned locations of filming, this was a good feature to our group as it allowed us to waist little time and we could get right to filming which was a bonus. As we all knew the script well we could easily figure out what we had to do.