"Track Down" Evaluation

Evaluation

As a project for a short time, we were given a task to create a short chase scene; this includes the use of basic equipment such as a camcorder and video editing software “Sony Vegas”, which is a professional video editing software provided by Scott Barrass. My group consists of 5 people; myself, Adam Bennett, Ryan Willis, Reece Beveridge and Scott Barrass.

            We began our project by watching several chase scenes from movies with different styles or genre, this allowed us to research on different key points in a chase scene. We realised that a chase scene must have: quick edits, upbeat non-diegetic music, fast movements etc. With this information we decided, as a group, to create a comedy/crime chase in which is set out in a school environment – as we weren’t allowed to go out of school premises. We decided our target audience would be the school audience as the scene acts as an awareness video in which some crimes may happen in a school environment.

            We started by planning our story and placed in on a story board in which was our preliminary plot. We also decided what we will do – where we’ll take the scene, what will happen, what props we may need and also a brief imagination of what our shots would look like. Once we have finished the story boards, we headed to get our equipment. Scott and Reece were our camera men however I shot a clip of the scene. Scott also edited the clips into a mini chase scene in which I, Ryan, and Adam were the actors. We were limited in time with a 3hrs period to film our whole scene in which was reasonable for a short scene, however the equipment that was given to us was running low on battery (camcorder) in which we had to spend time charging it, however we finished filming it with the use of the free extra time outside of lesson. The filming was sometime frustrating as people sometimes walked through our set in which we had to wait for them to go through, however we had a good collection of creative minds in which we used our experience – from watching films – to imagine certain shots in which we used to make our chase more effective. We used POVs, long shots, panning and also quick camera movements to make it fast moving – to fit the genre of a chase scene. Once we finished filming, we set out to edit the film. This was done with the skills that Scott has – he has a YouTube account in which he has many skills with making and editing videos. We handed the clips to Scott in which he done the editing of the film.

            We didn’t have many problems throughout the project besides the issue of limited battery use in the filming, however altogether our team work properly throughout the project in which we all had ideas to share.

            My role throughout the project was the actor; my role was to be a stereotypical view of a “nerd” in which I wore clothing such as a bow tie and other features such as buttoning all my buttons up etc. I acted as a witness and also a kind of victim as I was getting chased in the first half of the scene. I also played a part by sharing my ideas to the group by using my past experience from learning Media for my GCSE. This was taking up in which some of the ideas I shared was placed in the final product of the scene. I believe that I played my part well in which the final product has benefitted on as certain plans in the storyboard was avoided and improved in the production and also the final outcome of the scene was better than we all expected.

            Overall I believe that our product is good for a first attempt, and also my group all worked well together in which was a benefit to produce a good outcome. However I would have liked to improve on my part in the group and also learn how to edit clips together in which would be a great skill to learn for the next project in A2 Media Studies.