Fiction Adaptation | Project Evaluation

When starting this unit, I was apprehensive that my ideas would turn out the way I imagined them due to the very short amount of time we had for this unit. However, I found that as I started doing more preparation for my project and research, I felt more prepared and more confident that the video would turn out the way I wanted.

What worked?

My favourite part about this project was the ability to be very creative and experimental within my visuals and the sound design. I enjoyed working through the poem and creating images that match the poem while also show my own perspective on the poem. 

• Research
• As I have created a video that has elements of a montage, doing the research for montages, helped me greatly. This is due to the fact that it helped me with knowing how montages are put together and what type of things I need to remember in order for it to be known as a montage. For example; montages don't follow a narrative. I had to remember this all the way through the project, and I feel like this was clear within the final video. 
• I chose to look deeply into the poem, and analyse it in a way that I could develop the images I see in my head and create them through visuals. By analysing my chosen poem, it guided me through developing the visuals and also through coming up with a very complicated sound design. 
• Having done research on the theme of depression, it helped when creating the visuals for my poem and it helped me look deeper into the emotions depressed people will feel and present.
• Scripting and Shooting
• When thinking about the visuals, I feel like my ideas have been presented well through the script and the way it's been shot.
• The script was a great way for me to note down the different elements I wanted to include in both the shooting and the editing. The footage that was shot during my shooting days clearly show my ideas, and also they show experimentation through the creativity presented.
• Some of my favourite shots are the blurry candle shots, and the black background shots with Micaiah sat in the middle of the shot.
• Editing
• The thing that I thought worked the best throughout the whole project was the editing of both the visuals and the audio.
• The editing process allowed me to experiment with the colour of the shots and also the pace of the video, which has made the video a lot more powerful and emotional. The desaturated look has created a sad and depressing tone which was what I wanted the outcome to look like. Not only do the images look the way I wanted them too, they also look more powerful and a lot better than my original idea.
• By experimenting with the colour of my shots, it helped me develop a final look that I was really happy with.
• With the sound design, I found that my sound skill developed greatly. This is due to the amount of varied soundtracks and layers I added, and also due to the build up I created throughout the video.
• The echo effect on most of the soundtracks, really help towards creating the 'inner thoughts' and I really liked the effect they had on the video. It created a dark tone and helped towards presenting the mental illness in a respectable way.
• By having the advanced sound design, it has improved my video greatly, and I think it has improved my skill in presenting different moods and tones through the audio, not just through the imagery. 

What didn't work?

There weren't too many things that didn't work, but the few things that didn't go as planned were either in the planning stage or the editing stage.

• Planning & Editing
• There were a few ideas that I really wanted to try but I either didn't have the time or I didn't have the material to do so.
• I wanted the landscape image to eventually melt down the screen to go along with the line of "melting mascara". Once I had my landscape shot, I tried it out on after effects, but I couldn't get it to move down the screen. I tried multiple times and followed a few sites online to help, but it wasn't successful which was disappointing as I thought that idea would work quite well.
• In the end, I did have to replace this shot with another clip but I think it works so much better.
• However, the outcome of that shot is a lot better than the original idea, and I think it works well within the video.
• I also wanted to try double exposure for one of the lines about flames, but I didn't have the time to try it out before the shoot day, as I couldn't get the actress to come down earlier for any test shoots.
• Saying this, I thought the shot I now have for that specific line works really nicely due to the added text and the audio behind it.

What did I learn?

Within this unit, I have learnt:

• Research and planning is very important.
• Without any research into the topic of the project you won't get very far with your work. The research can help with the planning of the project and it can make a big impact on the visuals that may be seen throughout the video.
• I found that all of the research and planning I produced helped me greatly and it made me more confident about what topic I was exploring, both montages and depression.
• Creativity is important within montages and adaptations.
• In order to make montages work, and to make the original work your own, you have to have a creative mind and come up with a variety of different shots that really push you to improve your skill in filming and editing. 
• Adaptations are generally always hard to receive, but keeping the poem tone the same while interpreting the visuals and audio in your own way can help towards creating a successful adaptation. 

Overall, I'm really proud with the work I have produced and I have enjoyed working on this unit, even though it has been a really quick turn around. I think I have improved my skill in all the pre-production, production and the post-production, but mostly I think my editing skills have improved the most. This improvement has led to me feeling confident about presenting an emotion in other projects, and it's left me feeling confident about creating creative shots and montage sequences.

If I had more time, I would've liked to experiment more with the editing techniques for the visuals seen, but I'm really happy with the outcome of my video.