This week I was focused on finishing my edit so that I could present this to my class to get feedback, I am looking forwards to showing my class my film to get feedback because I want to know people’s opinions on the work I have done and how I could make it better.

Last week I made a lot of progress with my edit and this week I needed to just put it all together and finish my edit. I started off my cutting all the interviews down and putting them into different sections for the different answers they gave. I then made sure that I had all of the information I wanted from the interviews, dropped into the timeline.

I worked hard to get my edit more organised and with some sort of plot to it, I did this because I also wanted to add in statistics and without knowing a rough plot for my film I wouldn’t know what statistics would fit and where in the edit they could go. I inserted markers into the places where the subjects brought up a topic that I could’ve added in a statistic to match what they were saying.

Once I marked out where I could add in statistics, I cut down some of the interviews because they were either repeating things that had already been said or they were getting too long and dragged on for a while. I made sure I was happy with how my interviews looked and the different angles I had chosen before deciding which statistics to add in, I think doing this made sure that if I added statistics in it would still fit with the interviews properly.

To get a better idea of how to create eye-catching statistics, rather than just using text on Final Cut, I spent some time watching YouTube videos on how to use text in Adobe After Effects. I then looked online for simple ways to use this, after I spent some time watching these videos they looked too timely and detailed for the amount of time I had left to do them. Because of this I used online free templates that people have created to make it easier for people (like me) that haven’t used After Effects before. I think that doing this did save me a lot of time however if I did have more time I would’ve tried to do it myself instead of using the templates.

After I created the statistics I wanted I then dropped them into my edit and started editing my clips around this. Once I felt that I had finished cleaning up my edit I then looked for some copyright free music online, I saved a few different music tracks that I thought might work well with my edit and imported them into my project. After trying out a few different tracks with the edit I credit, I only liked the sound of one of them and so I then added this to my timeline and added in key frames for when the interviews were playing to create smooth audio fades throughout.

Once I had added my audio and changed some of the audio levels throughout my edit, I was confident with my edit however I thought that some of the edit didn’t link together well and there were some jumps that didn’t work too well. After getting some opinions on this I decided that adding in some voiceover would really bring the film together and link all of the interviews well. So I spent Thursday morning (before showing my film) recording some audio that I had planned out. I then edited this into my storyline and found that it worked really well and completely changed the film.

At the end of the week I presented my film to the class and asked for feedback, I received a lot of positive feedback as well as receiving some constructive criticism. I enjoyed showing my work to the class because it allowed me to see how people reacted to my film and how it made people feel. Everyone in the class gave a lot of good comments about mt film and I didn’t get too many comments about things I could change, which I was really happy about. The comments what were constructive where tiny things such as starting on a black frame and checking all audio levels for the voiceover were the same all things that I noticed too when showing the film. I know that from getting this feedback I will be more confident in my film and in the future I will make sure to check every detail of my work before showing it.

I was really happy with how the showing went, I think that I it has made me more confident and I am happy with how my final film has turned out. In this production I really wanted to improve my skills in all areas and I believe that I have done this. I got a lot of positive comments about my editing which I was really happy about because this is something I was hoping to get noticed for as I have worked hard on it.

I spent the end of the week reflecting on the comments I got and adding to my evaluation. Not only this week but overall on the course I have developed my skills as a film maker throughout, even though I wont be taking my interests in film into further education I will definitely keep film making as one of my hobbies.