Monday, 26 September 2011

Production Evaluation

Positive aspects of the process - I finished it on time. I wasn't entirely sure how realistic it was to complete the project as it was all a completely unfamiliar experience to me. When I started photographing i realised how large the project would be to put together. I am proud of my final product and think it is successful, especially as it is my first stop motion (or film altogether). During the editing process i learnt how to use premiere pro and how to approach difficulties/problems i had. This gives me a base knowledge if i use it again. I also learnt about the difficulties with lighting when filming and how to use my camera effectively so it didn't turn off or zoom back out every few minutes while i was re-arranging the frame. I found it very difficult to make each frame flow to the next because every photo you have to make one very small intricate detail on the reed. Each frame i had to pick up the reed again ( i couldn't just make the changes to it on the table as reeds are so small and fiddly!) and then put back where it was, take a photo, and then see if it was in the same place as the previous photo (so it would flow smoothly).
I also gained a reed out of it! - Which i recently played when i won the Australasian Double Reed Competition (Senior section - under 30 years)!

Steps in the process that could have been better done and strategies suggested to achieve this - The lighting - especially shadows - i had a problem in one point where there is an obvious shadow of me holding the camera which i couldn't get rid of while taking the photos (using different lighting set ups) or in the editing using photoshop and iPhoto. The strategy i used to try and eliminate the shadow after a lot of trying with editing was to speed up the frame rate so the viewer would not notice it. A strategy suggested to achieve no shadow or lighting problems would be to have a professional studio with the correct lighting set up. Experience in film making would also mean i would've had some knowledge on how to get rid of shadows.
Quality of video - I tried many different formats to export the final product and the best i could find was still not as high quality as the original images. If i had a better knowledge of how to use premiere pro i could possibly have been able to increase the video quality to that of original images. 
If i had more time i may have found an alternative to using blu-tack to stick the reed down during most of the film. I had to edit this blu-tack out while editing.
If i had more experience with making stop motion films i would have been able to do some of process faster as i wouldn't've been learning and experimenting with what works while i was doing it.

Some evaluation of how these changes to the production process may have affected the media product - It may have improved the overall quality of the film, but i think most of it is the best it could have been. It could have been a little cleaner (eg. no shadow, no extra editing out blu-tack).

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