Introduction
For this project we were asked to create a montage that represented a certain theme, I chose to do happiness as my theme and I planned to use various shots that show this including various people smiling and laughing etc. My initial ideas for my montage was to record people laughing and smiling but also get different shots of them for example get a few shots of each person but close ups of eyes and mouth and then a shot of the full face. My plan was to chose a few of the shots of each person and put them in an order so that there is a range of shots in my final piece. I also wanted a few group shots- of friends/family having fun but all together & I wanted a shot of two people smiling too. Before starting this unit I had no experience with creating my own montage however I have had experience with editing videos and also filing so I didn’t really need to learn any other skills. Although before I started filming for my montage I researched more about montages and what needed to be in one in order for it to be a good, professional video. I looked at a range of videos on youtube and also took into account the different types and themes that I could choose for my own video.

Research/Planning
I was interested when we were told that we would be creating our own montage, it allowed me to understand new ways of filming and editing, all depending on the theme-happiness that I chose. Before starting to create my montage I needed to do the correct pre-production; research and planning in order for it to go well and look how I wanted it to. I didn’t completely understand what a montage was- I had seen some before but I didn’t know that there were various different types of montage that I could do. I researched further into what types of montage there were- I found out that there were five different types on montages. After looking on this site I then had a lot more understanding of montages and it helped me a lot when choosing what type I wanted to do
http://veracity24.tumblr.com/post/39686928799 . I then analysed various montage videos that other people have made before, this helped me work out what works well, not only for a montage in general but for a happiness themed montage too. It also helped me come up with some ideas of my own as to what I wanted to put on my own video. This influenced my ideas and overall final video as I compared everything I was doing on my own edit to what I saw on other peoples montages too and so overall my video looked professional because of this research. My planning included creating a location recce, risk assessment, shot list and storyboard. Doing all of this planning allowed me to create my own ideas for my site and also organic my plans, ideas and work. When doing my location recce I needed to make sure that I added details about the location I then added images and directions etc for each place. I then had to fill in a risk assessment for each location/ where I would be recording my video and mention what I would do to prevent these risks in general and from effecting my work. I made a shot list to plan out how long I wanted each clip from my recordings, it also helped me think about the organisation of the shots in my final film. Creating a storyboard helped me chose the shot types and angles I wanted to use and whether or not I wanted any dialogue in my film, it also helped me organise my shots just like the shot list. All this planning really helped me organise my work and ideas for my final project and allowed me to put my videos in an order that I wanted.

Creating my montage
My first days in production were me getting shots from college friends including them laughing and smiling- these were the easiest shots to get as on the first day I had access to the TV studio (at college) and almost everyone on my course was allowing me to record them. On the rest of the days shooting I got the rest of my shots at home as I took equipment home for me to get shots of family etc. This helped me a lot as it allowed me to fill in any gaps I had missed when recording in college. The only problem I came across involved me not being about to find usable stock footage online for my montage, I wanted a few stock footage shots but I couldn’t find the right shots that I wanted that were also copyright free and useable for my montage. I then decided not to use any stock footage at all in my video- which I am a bit disappointed by however I am happy that I recorded all of my shots for my video myself. I believe I did meet my initial intentions when creating my montage, I got all of the shots I wanted and of various people and I created the theme I wanted- happiness. I believe if I had more time I could get more shots of more people and add in some stock footage to give a range of shots in my video. Although I am happy with my video the only thing I would change would be to add in more footage.