Digital News - Final Evaluation

This unit has been a lot of hard work, stress and enjoyment. The tight turns round has meant that as a group we needed to have an incredibly well organised plan to make sure that our time management was on point. I don't feel that we necessarily had the best time management because we were still filming right up to the day before the deadline making it even more stressful for the edit. 

Right from the beginning of deciding on the idea, I have had a massive input into all of the pre production. This is because I was very clear on the story and knew what needed to be done. With support from the other members of the group, we were able to get confirmed access to all of our location and contributors. I am very pleased with how I have kept in contact with our contributors and I am pleased that they are happy with what we are doing. Something I feel I need to improve on is phone conversations as I get too nervous when talking that I forget to ask the right questions that I need answers to and I am also quite unclear with what I am calling for. This is something I am planning on working on and feel that I have already made progress due to the studio production needing confirmed clarification. I called Demelza again to ask for the pronunciation of Alexandra Kopyciok's name in order to make sure that our facts were completely correct. 

On location shoots, I feel that I directed them well and that as a group we worked well collaboratively to get the footage we needed. During the Tesco shoot, I forgot to ask the interviewee's to answer with self contained answers which made the edit of the transcripts difficult. We did however get lots of usable GV's meaning we could cover the edit points as well as use them for narrative purposes. 

I made sure to ask on the shoot at Demelza for the interviewee's to answer in self contained answers because it made the edit a lot easier to do. Overall I feel that I directed well and was able to make the interviewee comfortable to answer the questions. 

I have learnt a lot from this unit, particularly for editing. Fergus's workshops on after effects were amazing and I have learnt so much from them. For example making the Live interact with the studio in a little window. I have also learnt about making sure that when we export that we maintain the proper sizing of the films. This was a vital piece of information that really helped me with the export. 

In terms of the presenting, I am disheartened that it resulted in me doing it however at the end of the day it worked out well because we had to re shoot due to sound. Next time I will really try to push to hire outside of UCA as it makes it more comfortable for the edit. As it was a unanimous group decision to have me present, I could not force it upon them to hire outside as that would not be working as a group. 

Overall, I am so happy with our final result and I am able to look at the finished result and feel pride that all the stress and hard work was worth it. Here is our final episode!