My initial project goals and objectives:

- Accomplish managing time I have for filming and using it wisely.

- Learn new editing skills throughout the project

- Being able to edit sound footage well

- Short documentary will be about 8-10 minutes long

- Explore and research different documentary modes 

 

On overall reflection of my project, I do think that these were appropriate goals that I had set for myself. This is because, I chose to make the first to to be able to manage time effectively that I will use for filming and making sure that with the timeframe that I had given myself I try to get everything done within that time and that if there are any extra bits that need to re shoot or film additional clips because maybe I loose footage or the one I initially filmed didn't turn out as good, I can still somehow manage to make time in order to film those clips. I surprisingly had managed my time pretty well because I prioritised what main parts that required filming first so it is out the way so this includes like all the interviews that I had and especially of the one with the counsellor which is essential for y documentary. They both did go really well, but unfortunately I ended up loosing the actual main footage of one of the counsellor's interviews and she did get back to me to arrange a different day an di asked what worked for her but she still hasn't got back to me so I just left that since I was running out of time with production and had to move onto other things. Instead to make up for the clip of her I decided to be innovative and come up with a different interview instead because it still counts since I already had one expertise interview. Besides that I managed the filming independently pretty well. But just in a few clips where I couldn't handle everything myself I did get my friend to help me. Furthermore, the next goal was to learn new editing skills throughout this EPQ project, I chose this as a goal because when I was planning my timeframe I also made time to do different kinds of action research that would be useful for me to have a good knowledge of in future projects. The next objective I chose was to be able to edit any sound footage that I will record using the sound kit well, so this means that using Audition on Adobe effectively. Because good sound especially for things like the interviews and voiceovers is absolutely crucial when filming  a documentary especially if you want a good outcome. Hence, I decided to prioritise editing all the audio I have recorded well so this means removing unnecessary things from it like background noise. Moreover, my next objective was to aim to get my short documentary to be about 8-10 minutes. To challenge myself and to make sure that I am doing what I can in order to have a good outcome of this project I aimed to make it around 8 to 10 minutes. And finally, my last objective was to explore and research the different documentary modes. Since all documentaries have different modes I wanted to gain a better understanding of the different kinds of modes and also start to have an insight into which mode my documentary may be. 

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First of all, with my first objective which was managing my time effectively that I had for filming. I think that was achieved pretty well because I made sure to prioritise the important things that need filming first so that in case anything goes wrong with those clips such as interviews I can always have time to book another appointment to see the person and re shoot the interview. I also made sure to have backup plans in case if certain interviews didn't take place or certain shots weren't working out that I initially planned. So to say I think I definitely have worked on managing my time more effectively throughout this project. And I am usually the person to stress out too much if one thing doesn't go correct but I am relieved that I learned how to persevere and make sure that I am always thinking of other possibilities and that its not the end of the world if one thing can't go to place like how I imagined. So to conclude that objective, I do think that I managed my time that I had for filming quite well throughout this project and hope that I will continue to do so in future projects. So my next goal was to learn new editing skills on Premiere Pro throughout this project. I had also chosen this goal because I felt like this was an element of mine that needed a lot of improving and I thought that during this project for an example when I am doing like action research and stuff I can always research about different editing techniques that I could then use in my own documentary. I was glad to say that I learned so many different techniques whilst I was working on production and action research. I managed to colour correct my clips properly and also learned to blur the videos as well as testing out different transitions and seeing which ones worked best for my liking. So I think that objective was also quite well achieved because I did learn a variety of editing skills which will now be useful for me to use in my future projects. The next objective was to be able to edit the sound footage well in Audition, I also think that was also successfully achieved. This is because I am already quite familiar with using Audition so all the audio that I had recorded using the sound kit I was just able to just put that on there and work with the different effects so the voiceovers and stuff sound more professional so what I did was removed background noises and also adjusted the volume levels so they all sound similar. And my next objective was to make a short documentary length that was around 8 to 10 minutes I do agree that unfortunately it shortly falls a bit below it. But I didn't want it too long because I felt like if I was to even record more things it would just not fit in very well and and I think that all the main bits that I planned for my documentary were all able to be added. And the documentary also falls slightly short because of that one missing interview that I wasn't able to re shoot again because the teacher had not got back to me in time. Moreover, my final objective was to research the different documentary modes and have a better understanding of them, during my research I was able to dig deeper into the different modes I also linked documentaries as an example for each mode and along with that since I had  abetter understanding I was also able to figure out which mode my documentary which was a mix of participatory and expository. 

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I think that during this project my biggest successes were editing better, filming, organisation and managing time. I think that I was able to slightly improve my editing skills compared to like before. Especially in the EPQ practice that we did if I compare my production from then I could definitely say that I have improved quite a bit. I was able to do my own research also ask for suggestions from other people in what I should improve or add to my documentary and tried to get it to what I wanted the outcome to be. In order to improve my editing skills I made sure to watch a lot of YouTube videos that showed tutorials in how to do certain effects and transitions, as well as that I also asked advice from a friend in helping me with a technique I may not be able to do correctly. But that was how I learnt to get better and try more harder when it comes to editing footage. This also meant that I worked well when it came to colour correcting the documentary certain clips were darker and didn't look as good because of the quality of the handy cam but I still made sure to do what I can to edit it and just make it seem aesthetic and fit it with my theme. I also think that filming worked pretty well this time during my production because I had researched lots of documentaries and watched plenty so I understand the different kinds of shots that a documentary has, I was able to use that knowledge and apply it to my own documentary. So learning the different kinds of shots and also watched videos on how to film certain shots so they all look presentable for my documentary. And also independently once again I was able to record interviews and stuff myself I thought I would need more people to help me film because I would need to work with the sound kit and filming myself but somehow I managed to handle everything and it worked pretty well. The next big success in this project was my organisation skills I definitely think they have improved a lot more than before. Because before I would stress things out so much that I would become overwhelmed and burnt out and then when I tried to get stuff like filming done it would just not be as great. But this time with patience I was able to organise when I will be filming and also made sure to stick to those days regardless of circumstances, and this is so that I had time to get everything that was important done and out of the way so I could focus on other things. And my final success which links to the previous one is time management. When it comes to the production I feel like even though I plan my time beforehand I never stick to the timeframe and focus on other things and then start to cram in with filming. But this time I made sure to stick to the time frame plan that I had made and I am glad I did because I was able to get everything I needed right on time and especially the main bits such as the interviews I was able to get those out the way so I could film other things and if needed to re shoot I have enough time to get that done too. 

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The current skills that I already have that I had to use for this project was editing, filming, research and time managing skills. I already had  some knowledge of editing and filming skills but I just needed to develop these. But with research skills I am already quite good at that so that didn't need to develop I just needed to make sure I was consistent with the research and that every bit of research that I did was actually useful to me and that I was learning something out of it. And with time managing skills I already had time managing skills for the writing part of this project but I just needed to improve managing time when it came to doing the production. These skills that I already had were useful for this project because I needed all those research skills since the writing aspect of the EPQ is very crucial and that all of the information that I am getting I am making sure it is helping me learn more things. And I think that the research stage was so useful in helping me because I was able to learn so much more new things about documentaries and also did different researches on what a good documentary consists of. And as I was doing research I also made sure to research on the topic that I was doing to expand my knowledge on it and so that I know what else to mention in my documentary regarding the topics of mental health and mindfulness. I used my filming skills and developed it through this project. I already had some familiarity with filming and sound recording myself for the documentary because of the practice EPQ but it wasn't as great because when I received feedback there were clips where the camera wasn't straight and also shaky clips. But this time I made sure to put more time and effort into filming and that regardless of the times that I might have to re film something I will do it until I reach my desired outcome. And my doing this my filming skills were able to develop by quite a bit because I just worked around with the tripod and camera to make sure that the shot is still and also not wonky or anything. Furthermore, I also had familiarity with editing skills but if I be honest it really wasn't good at all before this project but during this my aim was to develop my editing skills and I was able to do so. I worked around with Premiere Pro and also watched several different YouTube videos that helped me learn different techniques for editing that I was able to then test out on my own documentary and see if I liked it. And the final skill I was able to develop was my time managing skills like I previously said these weren't too great when doing my production. But along with tine and patience during this EPQ project I was really able to work on remaining under composure and also making sure I come up with backup plans when something didn't go how I wanted it to be rather then stressing it. And these were all important skills to me that I used and developed because without these my documentary wouldn't have reached the outcome that I desired initially. 

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In order to evaluate my own performance overall in the realisation of my own project, I will know this if I know that I have followed my checklist and plan thoroughly and have worked on areas that I thought I needed to improve on which I have because I think that I have met my aims and objectives pretty well, and I will also know if my project is going well if I am actually pleased with what I have done, and I didn't expect my documentary to turn out like this it is a lot better than I imagined for it to be it may not be the best but I do think it exceeded my expectations in what I thought I was going to end up producing. If I was following my plan I know my outcome will be what I desired and so if there were any issues I would fix them immediately. And I made sure to do that exact thing, that when certain things like certain shots or interviews didn't go to plan I would think of other possibilities that could make up for it and I think I was pretty successful in finding solutions to problems that I may have faced during this project. Furthermore, I will know how successful my project is going depending on what the teachers say, and they will let me know what I need to work on so I can use that advice to improve what I can. And I think I got feedback on places that I expected during my rough edit I already kind of knew what exactly I would be getting feedback on like some of the stuff, so I was then able to use that feedback to learn from and then apply what they said to my documentary and improvise as much as I can. As well as that I can also get responses from my target audience itself, I made sure to get some of my friends to watch and give me their opinion on the documentary whilst I was editing it. And all of the responses I had received were pretty positive so I was able to use that as motivation and also a sign that my overall performance in my project has been really good and that I need to keep up with the effort that I am putting in and making sure I improve as much as I can. And because my main focus on areas of improvement is production. The method I used to manage the progress of my project a plan that lists the things I need to be doing and following to reach my outcome, however if there is anything lacking I will figure out ways on how to improve and what I could add. And I made sure to stick to the plan and try and achieved most of the goals that I wanted to achieve as a outcome of this project. To conclude, my overall performance from the evaluation of everything I did and the feedback I got I think I put in good effort this time to elevate my production comparing it to before. 

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Some problems that arose during this project was with the one of the interviews. I considered this as one of the main issues that I had so I basically filmed an interview with this teacher that deals with mental health issues amongst students in college. And I did end up filming everything with her and it went completely fine. But a lot later on when I was looking back at the footage it turned out that only the behind the scenes clips ended up being recorded and none of the main bits where she spoke about the topic ended up being recorded. I was so disappointed but then I did have some time to re shoot that so I thought of messaging her and asking if she was able to film again she did arrange a certain week for me and I asked her which days would be okay for her but it was too late by then and she still had not responded. So instead I had to come up with different alternative solution to this because the interview was bound to be long it would've also reached to the time limit I aimed for my documentary to get at but now I had to try and think of something else I could add that could make up for that. So instead to work it out I just added another interview of a friend and her take on my topic to contribute to the documentary. Another of the problems that arises was with the camera I wanted to make this editing technique where the background is moving but the person is still and I did film a clip of my friend looking into the camera and a still shot but then when I went onto trying to edit the clip the background started going all blurry and it turned out that the handy cam didn't really suit the handy cam and I am guessing the camera was the issue hence it didn't work out. And I was going to use that clip so that my friend does her voiceover where she introduces herself and it goes on top of that but that didn't work out. Instead, I remembered when I did research one of the documentaries had  a slow motion walking scene with a voiceover so I figured why don't I try something similar and this clip worked so well with the voiceover and the music in the background it came out so much better than I expected and I was so proud of how it turned out. These were actually the main issues that I faced I think that everything else went according to plan thankfully. 

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Steps I could take that the interview issues doesn't happen again is first of all making sure that I filmed the interviews earlier on. This was the only interview that was left for a bit later because of the teacher's availability however the other successful interview I did with the counsellor was filmed earlier on. But with all interviews in order from something like that occurring again I will make sure that I prioritise all interviews or at least place them at days where then later on will get enough time if I needed to re shoot anything and that it won't have to be a case of changing the clips around last minute and trying to figure out what to replace it with. And it is also kind of my fault because I wish I watched each and every of the clips beforehand just to be safe I watched about two and assumed all the rest were also just improvisations of the other ones and just added it to my files but turned out that they all somehow were behind the scenes, and only one was correct which was her introduction but  then there would be no use of that if the rest of the clips are missing. As well as that in order to avoid editing problems of such in the future I will make sure I test out certain shots beforehand in case I am using the same camera to make sure it actually works well so I don't have to go through the stress of trying to figure something else out last minute. I think if I am a bit more responsible and slightly more organised and aware of what I am doing I will be fine for future projects.

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Aspects of my project that could've went differently is possibly working on getting more interviews from expertise, colour correcting, filming more useful clips. I still didn't like how I wasn't exactly able to reach to the time that I aimed for my documentary to be. So I just wish I had more time to film more clips and arrange for interviews from expertise that could be really useful. Because without advice from expertise the documentary wouldn't really be professional. And although I do have a variety of interviews I think its mainly form students I just wish I was able to get the teacher interview in again or even form someone else in the expertise field for dealing with mental health amongst young people. And if I had that I am pretty sure I would also be able to reach the time limit that I had aimed for my documentary to be. As well as that with colour correcting, I also think the handy cam was a bit of an issue with good quality because many of the documentaries that I have watched they have excellent camera quality but I had used a handy cam and it wasn't that bad but certain clips just didn't turn out how I wanted them to look like and even after colour correcting the clips it sometimes still wouldn't really change as much. So this time I just adjusted with the quality and then just planned that I will make the theme of this documentary to be like an aesthetic old school visual type of theme so it fits with the quality and how it is going to be filmed. As well as that I did need a lot of random shots to film because where I would have voiceovers I basically needed some appealing yet relevant scenery shots that would fit nicely with things like my introduction. So for next time I want to try and film in different places as well because it was filmed in college there wasn't any appealing spots around that would make up for a nice scenery shot and I do acknowledge that my topic is also like based on how colleges handle mental health and that many of the shots would be based there but I feel like more scenery shots could have still been elsewhere like far from college, and that it is all about finding the nice and aesthetic spots where I would be able to film eye catching scenery shots. And for my  next project I will make sure that good scenery shots are done and in different places elsewhere and try and find where else scenery shots would look good. 

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I personally do not think that there weren't exactly any resources that were important but not available particularly. Apart form like the NHS interview. At first I presumed that I was going to be able to get an interview from someone at the NHS and also because this would be a really good opportunity to involve an expertise interview in my documentary. I did email the people that initially work there for helping with people's mental health but I hadn't received anything back yet from them so I was unable to do so but it was okay because I still had my other counsellors and students interviews pending so I wasn't too put off by the fact I couldn't get an expertise interview from the NHS because I had the others ones that I had in mind in place as a backup plan in case certain interviews did not take place. And also I didn't know that I could actually book the studio out to use for filming my interviews till last minute where a friend had told me. And I was going to do her interview on that day so I emailed and asked if it was available unfortunately the teacher said I wasn't able to do so because the notice was quite last minute. And I couldn't reschedule her interview anytime soon again because she was not available after that so instead I just decided I will find a room with nothing in the background and that actually seems appropriate enough to do an interview in and it worked out the same so pretty well. Besides this, I don't think that any other resources that could have been important were not available for me. 

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I personally think that this time round in this project I was actually a lot more effective when it came to problem solving the challenges that I had faced. This is because, this time my goal was also to persevere from the practice EPQ and make sure to work on all the things that require it and make sure I am not giving up easily and then when issues do arise I know how to tackle them and also have any backup plans put into place in case if certain things don't go how I wanted them to go. I was effective in solving challenges I faced because I would really think about what other plans I could put to place when things didn't go my way. I made sure to have a plan for each thing because I know I wouldn't be happy at all if something didn't take place such as an interview so I made sure that I still have other clips or interviews of other people that I could add in case one didn't take place. Or I could just do more voiceovers and talk about my topic but instead I thought it would be better if I added more interviews since a documentary is based of what people think as well as expertise so I did what I could do there. So overall I think I was quite innovative with coming up with solutions and different options when I faced such challenges during this project. And I also asked for people's opinions that watched my documentary in ways I could resolve certain problems to see what they would also think as like a secondary opinion in case it could be better than what I am even thinking of. So with all these ideas from my target audience and even my own I was able to overcome the issues that I had faced. 

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I do think that all the elements in my planning and preparation of this project were really useful and helped me with the outcome that I have currently achieved, so this includes the research and even the proposal stage. However, so there would only really be one thing that I wanted to change which would be the initial planning stage so where we basically started to summarise like 3 different ideas and then pick one that interested me the most. I think that I started off with such a strong idea which was for knife crime and I was really keen in making a documentary about that because investigating and researching about knife crime I feel like would be really interesting for me hence I wanted to make a documentary about knife crime. But since the topic was so broad and in Cambridge knife crime isn't really a problem so it would be difficult to retrieve people's opinions here unless I go to like London or speak to the police somehow. I think that if I started off with mental health and mindfulness combining together as a initial idea I would've had a better concept on what things I would need to add and what kind of mental health documentaries I could make because it was kind of difficult to mix up mindfulness into talking about bad mental health issues among young people. If I had this idea before in the initial planning stage I would probably be more clear on what goals I have and like why I want to make this documentary, so I would rather know these things sooner than later. And since mixing up mindfulness with mental health although it was linked there wasn't too much that I could add about mindfulness and I wanted to mix up like two topics if it is about mental health because you see so many documentaries about just mental health but I wanted to make something different and combine a different topic that also relates to it. But I didn't think it would be slightly difficult to incorporate the two, but I did what I could in order to make it work. So all I wished in the planning stage that may have resulted to a different outcome is in the beginning when I was deciding my ideas and even if I chose mental health what other topic could I actually use that I would be able to make a link well with. 

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The first key lesson I learnt from this project is the ability to have confidence and perseverance when working by myself in doing the production. This is so useful got me in projects later on as well as just the future in general because I have learnt how to manage everything like this independently and that too under composure and able to problem solve under difficult situations, I don't think I would've got out of before by myself because I would probably just avoid them by doing something else and it just wouldn't end up nice. But now working by myself in such a tasking part I chose myself which was a documentary, doing that all by myself and being the different roles I was able to get an insight into each role which is good for experience so that in my future project I can then use each of these roles since I will already have a better understanding in what to do. Another key lesson I have learnt is that a good workflow plan is very essential in managing my time effectively as well as using it to briefly plan out what you will be doing in each of those days. I found that having a workflow plan was useful to me because I actually stuck to it this time and basically most of the things I planned to do were actually done around that exact time. And then due to that I was able to not cram anything important just in case with filming I took my time with it and made sure I used the time wisely that I had remaining and because of that I was able to reach the outcome that I got at the end of this project which is the documentary that I had produced. And finally my last key lesson I had learned was doing all kinds of research, so this meant using different kinds of sources I could find whether that be watching so many different documentaries or simply just looking through websites. I found that doing this was what helped me the most in getting a better idea of what a good documentary consists of and also gave me several ideas on what kinds of shots I could include and the different features a documentary would have, and then I was able to gather that knowledge and apply it to my own work.

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There is just so many skills that I was able to learn throughout this project that could help me in future assignments whether it be soft or hard skills. There was many hard skills like filming and editing skills that I was able to learn because of this project because I did spend a lot of time in improving my editing skills by watching tutorials an this is useful for the future because when it comes to doing practical later on I have a much better idea on what I could be adding and don't need to be teaching myself the basics all over again because I will already have the understanding of how to do things. And then when it comes to big projects such as the final major project I will know how good editing is done and also different ways to film things and it is better if I have good knowledge on how to film certain shots and try out transitions. I will also be more confident when it comes to working by myself because if I can handle doing something like this by myself I am sure I will be able to complete other assignments also to my best ability independently. And one of the soft skills I had also learnt was organisation skills. I can effectively manage my tasks and time accordingly in future projects as well because in this project I was able to teach myself how to remain organised even when I would be having so many different things to do, so despite the workload I still did what I could and will continue to do so in future projects. 

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Moreover, to conclude, I am glad about my outcome only because it is a lot better than I expected it to be. I can't believe I was able to actually teach myself quite a few editing skills through the help of friends and watching tutorials I was able to extract ideas from everywhere and create it into something of my own that I would be pleased with. There were certain challenges that I had to deal with in this project and the workload was stressful at times but the whole point was so that I learn how to manage working with this workload without feeling too burnt out and also making sure I am improving on my problem solving skills which I really had worked on this time. And all these skills will be so useful for when I am working on future projects because I was able to develop and gain many soft and hard skills throughout this project. I also did enjoy a lot of this project especially when filming with friends I was able to understand people's opinions on mental health and know about their journey and I am truly thankful for those people that shared it and it was so intriguing to know their opinions once again and what they think on certain matters. To conclude, this project I believe has went somewhat successfully for me maybe the outcome could've still been slightly better if certain things went perfectly for an example more  successful expertise interviews would've been better and possibly a different camera or filmed better. But it is fine since I still tried to make it work. And I am pleased with what I was able to produce and get out of from this project.