Evaluation

I’m going to start off by saying that I feel my product has been an overall success, although it may have had its slight hiccups at various points, I feel that I have been able to manage these well and prevent them from causing any disruption or harm to my product. The product itself was originally planned to put me out of my comfort zone, with it covering an entirely different topic from anything I have made before. Through various factors, I feel I have managed to pull this off very well and would arguably say it is a dramatic improvement from prior products I have made. The production of this product has tested me as a filmmaker entirely, from my presenting styles and techniques to my planning and story-building abilities.   Despite this, I feel I have managed to pull it off very well and created a product of which I should be proud of.

For this product, I chose a topic in which I haven’t really explored before or actually know much about, which was the topic of Men’s Mental Health, and in particular the stigmas surrounding it. This is a topic that resonates with me heavily and something I have noticed over recent years, doesn't get as much coverage as it should do realistically. Therefore, I saw it as an opportunity to not only test my own ability, but also to shed some light onto the situation. Looking back now, I feel that I have achieved the goal in which I initially set out to do, which was to spread awareness amongst young men in the Uk that it is ok to speak up about their emotions. Through various factors in my product I feel that this message has been spread extremely well and is a deep and meaningful product overall. On top of this, I also feel that I have been able to achieve any goal I set for myself as a film maker. For example, the time of production has really tested various skills of mine, from time management which was a key area of improvement from my last product to simpler things such as understanding the effect of music on a product and how it can trigger or convey various emotions if used correctly. I feel that I have managed to hit my initial plan in my proposal, using the skills I have picked up throughout my time at college and have been able to create a product that hits all the boxes I intended for it to hit. For example, the initial target audience I set for myself was young men aged between 16-25, which was in a bid to get young men talking about their feelings and to break down the barriers between young men. I feel I have hit this target well, as being a young man with my own mental struggles, I have discovered that talking and being open is something that helps massively, so being able to convey this message through to my audience from the point of view of a young man their age, is something I feel I have managed extremely well, throughout. This was done by adopting the ‘vlog-style’ which is a more familiar style of product with the younger generation through the likes of YouTube videos etc. I feel that another way I was able to successfully hit this target, was by taking a more relaxed and comical route to the product, instead of being 100% serious, I have incorporated a mix of comical interactions with mates, as well as more serious conversations with myself and professionals. One thing that has been prevalent within my product, is how much my confidence has grown, especially when it comes to being a presenter, as before this product I would struggle to film myself in public and talk to a camera. Whereas now, I find I am capable of just picking up a camera and filming a piece to cameras no matter where I am. This product has tested my own mental ability, whether this be through various problems I have faced or having to refilm parts of the product that haven’t necessarily gone the way I wanted them to go. However, I do feel that the product overall has been a huge success and has helped me to improve myself as a film maker in many ways.

As a whole, I feel that the success of my product started from the research period at the start of production, as I was able to pinpoint exactly what it is I am trying to achieve for my product as a whole. One area of research that I feel dramatically helped the idea for my product, was looking into similar products, as I feel it helped me to understand what defines the gap between good products and poor ones, by studying the products already in the industry that have performed well and hit the goals they intended to hit. The main product I studied was Roman Kemps: Our Silent Emergency, as it fit the criteria and overall, topic of my product perfectly. Not only this, but it also managed to convey its intended message successful and triggered emotions in its audience, which was exactly what I intended to do, as I believe that if an audience is connected with the product that they are watching , then the message is more likely to sink in. a product I studied that I feel portrayed the style of filming I wanted to achieve was Supersize Me, which was filmed in a mainly ‘vlog’ way where the presenter was talking one-on-one with the audience throughout. This in itself seem more appealing to the younger audience which I intended to make my product for, as it feels similar to the likes of TikTok and YouTube which they have grown up watching. This in itself I feel helps for younger audience members to stay engaged with the product as it is like the content they watch on a day-to-day basis. An area of research which I look deeply into was the theories side and exploring what theories are involved with the creation of documentaries. The theory in particular that I investigated was the 6 modes of documentary theory by Bill Nichols, which helped me to decide the exact route I wanted to take my product down. When researching the theory, it taught me that documentaries don’t have to adopt just one of the modes, but in fact could use multiple to portray the message onto its viewers. After researching the theory, I decided that my documentary fits into the performative and participatory category, as I planned to be a part of the product and pushing my own boundaries, whilst also informing my audience of the information I am trying push across. This allowed my audience to learn through me which was the initial idea I set out with. Although I feel that the research process significantly helped to improve the creation of my product, I feel that I should have expanded more into the production and audience research as I feel it could have gained a better insight to what my audience already know and how I could better articulate my product to capture their needs perfectly. One way I would’ve done this is by going out into the public and filming vox pops as it allows for me to gain a firsthand opinion from my audience directly, which would help me to plan the information I need to really through my product to better suit their needs, instead of assuming what I feel my audience need to learn. Not only this, but it also allows for me to gain a range of answers from all ages which would help me significantly help me again to distinguish the views on mental health between various generations of men. Researching into production research more would’ve helped me to get to grips with the camera gear available to me a lot sooner, which could’ve helped the overall quality of the product, particularly when it comes to the framing of various camera angles, as I feel that in some shots, the camera isn’t framed correctly on the person I want it to be, particularly when on the walk around Mam Tor with Lewis. Besides this however, I feel that the research process was a huge help in terms of prepping me for the rest of my production process.

Overall, I feel that the product has been successful especially surrounding the skillset I was able to use during production. A main skill which I feel carried a large majority of my product, was my confidence in front of a camera, which meant that I was able have a lot of natural footage, meaning that instead of having to setup the camera and record multiple takes of thew same thing, I was able to just setup and speak directly to the camera, which I feel heavily helped the success of this product, particularly with the style of recording I chose, which relies heavily on the natural look and feel footage through the presenting being the main focus on screen for the majority of the time. Despite this, I do feel that I have improved my skillset when it comes to presenting on camera, as prior to production, I would struggle to film myself in public and would sometimes jeopardise the overall product because I wasn’t comfortable with filming myself in public. However, filming Talk It Off, I have been able to force myself out of my comfort zone and prove myself once again as a great presenter by putting myself into positions that I wouldn’t usually be comfortable with such as the likes of filming around Mam Tor which was a heavily public populated place on the day of filming. For me, that was the beauty of creating this product and exactly why I chose to do it, as it forced me into positions that I am not usually comfortable with and forcing me to create content to fit the topic of the product I aimed to create. Hence why I feel that particularly as a presenter I have improved massively and will only continue to improve thanks to the situations I put myself in throughout this product. One skill which I feel I need to focus on, is my time management, as I found myself cramming a lot of filming days into one week, through lack of preplanning and spacing out. For example ,  in the final week of production, I found myself with both the Donington Park and Mam Tor filming days being within the space of three days of each other, which didn’t really give me time to clear any Sd Cards or organise footage between shoots, which essentially made the editing process even harder, as I then had to sport through a lot more footage than I would have done if I planned my days out correctly. Besides, this I feel that my strengths outweigh the weaknesses as my ability in front of a camera was able to carry the product, as well as the chemistry I had with guests on screen which prevent any awkward silences or moments where the things being said don’t align just to fill as gap. I also feel like my ability to get interviews have significantly helped this as I was able to gather some big names in and around the industry, for example for this product, I was able to interview Hollyoaks actor and Mental Health advocate James Sutton who is a well-known name in the sector and host of a well known mental health podcast ‘Male Mind Matters’ so I feel being able to gain an interview with James is a huge positive for my product as not only is he very knowledgeable on the topic, but he also is a credible source. My ability of being able to gain interviews has been proven before in the past, as for prior products I have interviewed the likes of Fat Boy Slim of which I feel have massively helped to improve my product as a whole. Another strength of mine must be my editing skills, which I have gained through two years of experience working for a digital marketing company where I have learnt the basics of Premiere Pro and how to colour grade and use graphics. This in itself has proven in prior products to have improved massively since joining the company. Compared to my product from last year, there are significant differences in the editing, whether it be through the audio quality or colour grading of footage, it is evident to see my progression between years. For me personally, I feel that I have progressed in a way that makes my product more entertaining to watch from an audience perspective, as I sometimes struggle to watch through old products due to the quality being a bit all over the place and not very consistent throughout. A limitation of my product was faced during the final week of production when I injured my ankle during a training session at the gym. During this week of production, I was set to visit Donington Park for the first of the two filming sessions for the week. This filming day was managed fine and wasn’t hindered at all, as at this point I hadn’t yet injured myself. However, when it came to a couple days before the Scafell Pike hike, it became apparent that it wouldn’t be entirely possible, so we decided to go to Mam Tor instead.  This in itself posed a range of positives, as now not only was the distance closer, meaning that fuel costs were lower resulting in an overall cheaper budget for the product, but also meant that the weather was going to be a lot nicer and appear more appealing on camera. My ability to problem-solve throughout the production process limited the damage made to my initial product plans, as I was able to navigate my way around issues such as the one I faced when editing the interview with Simon Mayo. This particular issue was caused by the poor framing over the Zoom call, which meant that at times parts of Simon’s head were slightly off-screen. This, whilst only being a small issue, still could affect the professionalism and quality of my product as it makes that segment seem as if it wasn’t set up properly. To combat this, I cut down the time that the interview was in the product, making sure that I only capture the most important segments that provide a benefit to my product. By doing this, it allowed me to minimise the effect that the issue had on my product, whilst still making use of the crucial parts of the interview, which allowed me to display my problem-solving abilities.

This FEP product has been a defining moment for me for a few various reasons. One of these is that I have been able to push myself outside of my comfort zone by exploring new topics and product styles. This, in turn, has pushed me in the right direction as a filmmaker by showing that I can adapt to various projects and create effective content through doing so.  This skill is highly sought after by employers and can make me a crucial part of a production team. So I would agree by saying that the product I have created will be beneficial to my career, as I feel it can make a mark within the industry, and in particular the Mental Health Awareness scene currently if I can market the product correctly, by contacting organisations such as Andy’s Man Club to showcase the product I worked on. Another reason I feel that the product will help me greatly in my career is that it is based on a niche topic, where there aren’t many visual products being made by the media to raise awareness of the topic, which leaves a window for me to bring my skills to the forefront and help raise awareness by coming together with various organisations.

One thing I would do differently in the future as crazy as it sounds, I would go bigger and get other organisations involved and push myself and my abilities even further as I feel that there is so much more I could have covered and many alleyways to go down when it comes to tackling Men’s Mental Health as no matter how much I cover, it always feels like there is something else I could be doing to expand and bring more awareness to the topic. As well as this, I would have liked to have an in-person interview somewhere in the product, as although the interviews I had were effective and beneficial to my product, I feel that if I had an in-person interview it would’ve tied the product together greatly, especially considering how much I talked about how I would frame the interview and the camera angles I would experiment with, so not having one feature in my product, feels like a slight let down. However despite this, I a still incredibly happy with what I was able to produce, and thoroughly enjoyed the production process from start to finish, as I feel like I am in my element when planning a product, especially when it comes to the editing process. One thing I enjoy is having ideas of how I intend my product to look and constantly jotting notes down on paper whenever I get an idea of how I should edit my product, especially when it comes to a music segment. I get a certain buzz from having the creative freedom to play around with edits and the chance to create something of my own, and I feel like this product did exactly that, with no real idea of how I wanted this product to look when I first started, I loved how suddenly everything would fall into place just by me having an idea of how I wanted one particular section to look. I also enjoy how these types of products test my skill set and how they make me think in different ways than I usually do, particularly how with products like this I can create a story from just one simple scene or idea. Moving forward, I feel like this product has taught me the importance of time management and how not using all of your time wisely can lead to potential mess-ups or partial rushing to get a product finished, so I feel that making the most out of your time in any situation helps to extract the best results possible. On the other hand, I also feel that  I will be able to take this product forward with me into a future career, especially as I aim to create content for other companies as well as my own content. Therefore, I feel that the skill of time management will particularly help me to hit deadlines and be able to move on to other products within a reasonable timeframe. Overall, I want to keep producing great content around various topics such as Men’s Mental Health, as it is something that I thoroughly enjoy doing and something that I feel could land me great success in the future.