Evaluation.

First of all I have really enjoyed this brief. I wish it were longer because I feel I am only just getting my teeth into it and that I have only just scratched the surface of the subject. There are so many more areas within it that I would like to look into and many more that I need to look into.

I really enjoy the independent study aspect of this project. I definitely work well this way I feel. I like being in charge of my own time and what I do with it and at what pace. But I think that literally even just on one subject of moving image the learning journey could go on forever.

I made a small pixilation piece and a small animation that I did intend on developing further. I have never done either of these things before so I am pleased I now know how to do them. I then went on to do the short documentation of Papergirl as a small live project to do within the Comm. Tech. brief and this ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. Not having the relevant editing software at home meant I could only work on it at college that was good in the sense that I always had help at hand if I got stuck with something, but not so good in that it took a lot longer than I expected to remember how to use the software. Do a good edit. Figure out through trial and error what is a good edit, being brutal with the footage and finding out I had not been brutal at all and having to keep going back over it again and again! I am still glad I did the Papergirl project though, it was a great experience and I did learn a lot from it. I know now that I may of been slightly over enthusiastic about the amount of projects I could fit into the time period and also exactly what a small project is. I now realize that the last two test pieces I did (miranda and sequence 1) might of worked better size wise. This may change as I get more used to the software.

I have become more familiar with final cut pro now through this project and am more confident with editing and I also know how to look at sound waves in the program if I wanted to edit in time with the music. Although I still need to learn how to use the camera properly I have learnt about framing a picture and am quite pleased with some of the shots I have got. Once I have learned to use the camera properly (manually instead of in automatic) this will improve the quality of any work I do. I will also try and get some other people together that might be interested in collaborating because sometimes I would imagine It is difficult capture everything.

I will make time in the future to develop tests I have done in pixilation and stop motion.

I wanted to look into women in the film industry a little more. I also wanted to look into the history and future of moving image a little deeper. I also need to understand the technical side a little more compression and key frames for example are things that have come up in the last few days that I don’t understand. I also wanted to make my own sets and characters for animating to develop those projects further.

To develop my understanding in this project I combined just trying things out, asking relevant people for help and advice and reading relevant books and web sites and I think this has worked really well. Both Sharon and Matt have been fantastic help since they both have lots of experience in this area. Being able to look things up and ask questions as and when I needed to has been invaluable. I did do a camera induction, which was great and although I understood it at the time, as soon as I had got home to write up what had been said it, I couldn't remember a thing. So the trying things and having people at hand to ask for support was crucial.

The projects maybe could of done with being smaller in retrospect so I could try lots of different things and then improve on them as I fixed what went wrong. Things might have been less daunting that way.

I don’t seem to have a problem finding live projects to get involved in but I do lack the technical now how and seem to just come up with the goods by the skin of my teeth at the end. I would like to develop my technical skills further so that I am comfortable and don’t constantly need the back up of tutors if I get stuck. I do feel like I have learned a lot throughout this brief. I have learned that I actually know very little indeed and have winged it this far!

I still need to plan out my projects a little more. Story boarding is something that I meant to do that I didn’t and I know this would help. I let the live brief take up too much time and I didn’t get round to doing all the things I wanted to or to develop the ones I did.

I am being a lot more observant now whenever I watch anything. constantly wondering how things are done and with what programs. Noticing different ways of showing visual footage and audio. Noticing the use of audio to create an atmosphere.


I took the camera home to do some small tests using the controls manually because when I borrow the camera I take it out turn it on and press record. Luckily that has been ok for some of the projects I have done previously but will not always do for other things I would like to try. I couldn’t figure out how to work the controls though so wasted an entire weekend with it. I will find or download a manual for future reference. Again this will improve the quality of the images I capture and make editing easier.

I have found some great organizations and met some great people read some really interesting stuff, and made a short film (that is not bad) for the very first Papergirl in this country so that is an achievement I am pleased with.