DIGITAL STORYTELLING
Brief one
Brief one includes 3 one minute interviews from the charitable organisation space2Grow. This includes Jon King's story since he joined space2grow, cooking classes with Coral Turan and Mervyn Court's story with collaborate group Men in sheds through the organisation Farnham Maltings. Although this was a group project (I was operating the camera for some of the interviews), the edits were done separately. Each of the edits were my own finalised version, which was shot using a Canon XF305 HD Camcorder, a E-image GA752S Tripod and a AKG Lavalier clip Microphone.
Subtitled versions available here
Brief two
For Brief two I did a short documentary . The documentary, which is entitled (Socially) Together is on using video chat to stay connected with friends and family regardless of the Pandemic and National Lockdowns because of Covid-19. The Interviews I set up were primarily done through zoom to make it feel more authentic as a video chat and because of restrictions caused by Covid-19. It was originally displayed without subtitles, but to make up for the change in different audio on some of the video interviews, I decided during editing to have subtitles added permanently to the short documentary.
The original proposal my group and I had is in the link below, which includes all the original ideas and a checklist of what was needed to be done once we decided on which direction to go. I created the title sequence through Adobe After Effects whilst I was editing this documentary and the interviews I could get in person were shot using a Black Magic Ursa camera, an E-image GA752S Tripod and a AKG Lavalier clip Microphone.
Brief Three
For Brief Three I did a combined project entitled Student Kitchen. Each member contributed their own edits of them cooking a dish from their nationality followed by different contributions to make this show. The entitled video displayed here was the final submitted version of the project, which also includes my own designed title sequence, followed by my cooking edit: Justin Attempts to cook Jollof Rice. I have also included an alternate edit of the title sequence I had planned before the group and I decided to merge elements from another alternate title sequence with mine for the final edit, in order to suit the theme. My cooking edit was shot using a Black Magic Ursa camera, an E-image GA752S Tripod and an I-phone 6s camera on a tripod selfie.
Critical Evaluation
One of my presented films as part of three different briefs was entitled '(Socially) Together'. This was a Brief two project and was a short documentary about video chat being used to remain (or become) socially connected to friends and family; as well as a new standard being set for socialising and activities that have been limited because of Covid-19. This was done as a two-person group project and was intended to resemble an actual video chat call in order to give a more realistic feel about what video chat could be used for and how it can be just as fun as meeting up in person. Because of this and how it was impossible to meet in other people's houses due to the government, a majority of the interviews were done through video calls on Zoom.
I enjoyed creating '(Socially) Together' because I was able to use the experiences myself and friends had on video chat, which made it easier to construct interview questions. Moreover, video chat has acted as a solution both to some activities that can't be done in person, including my issues with filming which could be used to give my audience and myself a far greater understanding of the impact video chatting during the Pandemic has played on the lives of myself, my subjects and others. It was also intended to be a meta experience in which it was a documentary in the form of a regular video chat.
I found I was very successful in presenting it as an actual video chat, while also covering the main key things video chat is used for and some of the many problems and issues it can have at times. Originally, I felt a little disappointed when some of the video and audio on some of the interviews came out in lower quality than planned. Although I was able to use this as something to learn from, I was also able to use this to my advantage because it could reflect the issues people can have with their camera and audio on video chat. I wanted to address a few overlooked and unnoticed problems with video chat and display them as hidden jokes and gags.
Gags included a clip with a lagging share screen, while the chat on the side of that clip is a discussion on if the sound and audio is okay and camera's accidentally being left on when they were meant to be off. The clip of myself and my friends wearing face masks did not work as effectively in humour, however the virtual handshake and connecting in person gimmick did. My audience also found it humorous when I revealed during the documentary that my brother (who was an interviewee) was living in the same house as me. Unfortunately, they weren't as surprised because they already knew we lived in the same house, but they were able to understand that some attendees do live in the same house.
What I think I could have done differently to get these references to video chat to be more recognised was to reduce the amount of text and action on screen. This would have made there more time for my audience to focus on what was happening and ultimately discover more of the hidden jokes implanted throughout the documentary. I decided to keep in all the gimmicks and hidden jokes including the ones that didn't get the reaction I was hoping in the final edit because to me it shows an assemble of friends having fun, despite how difficult a time it is for all of us. In comparison to the success of Brief two, I didn't think I contributed as much as I was expecting to for the Brief one projects plus the social media strategy.
I felt I couldn't contribute as much in comparison to other group projects because I not only didn't feel I had enough knowledge on the topic, but because I felt it was difficult to communicate as a group. Both the colour correction and original caption box did not work too well for Brief one because it came out overexposed and a little low in quality. With more time I would have learnt how to use colour correction correctly through a number of tutorial lessons. Fortunately, I was able to use this bad experience to upgrade my lack of experience with colour correction and creating caption boxes in order to give both the short documentary and my cooking segment for Brief 3 better colour and light, which worked well for the darker interviews.
I thought Brief three's lockdown TV show 'Student Kitchen' went really well, but I was disappointed with the decrease in responsibilities I originally had. As well as my own cooking edit, which was to be added to the show, I was supposed be directing or producing the group project live through OBS. The roles of director or producer did not happen because we had abandoned the idea to make it a live show. On a different note, my knowledge on sound and Audio Audition has improved to the point where I learnt enough to return to past projects and clean up the audio in areas where it could be smoother or clearer.
My action plan and target for the next project would be to get a better hang of the audio and camera work. Although I found my knowledge on audio channels and camera features had improved, I think the acquired knowledge plus more time will be more beneficial for future projects than it was for Digital Storytelling. Expanding my knowledge on the fundamentals of file settings, formats and channels would help me to get better results with audio and camera. Additionally, I want to become a little more independent with group projects and not be afraid to ask questions. One inspiration that I think would help me with this is "the greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fear you will make one" (Elbert Hubbard).