Production process
This week, for our video task, we were asked to watch four videos on the production process.
The first video we watched explained what design thinking was and how we can use it. AJ&Smart described design thinking as using a philosophy and tools to help solve a creative problem. The first stage, empathise, involves interviewing people, researching your demographic and finding out who you’re designing for and what they want out of your product. Step two, define, involves taking the information gathered in the first step and finding out what your audience needs and what insights you can use to develop your product. The third step, ideate, means you take the issues you found in the first two stages and you find solutions.It’s essentially a brainstorm or workshop of all your ideas. Step four, prototype, involves taking the ideas you like and making simple prototypes of those ideas. Step 5, test, is exactly what it sounds like. You take your prototype and you test it out with users. Cycling back through the process is normal and expected in order to perfect your product. Design thinking is meant to be lose and creative, it doesn’t follow an exact order.
The second video we watched explained the three stages of film production. The first stage, pre-production, involves writing your film, casting actors and hiring crew, scouting locations and obtaining props, costumes and equipment. An important part of pre-production is coming up with a budget and planning out your production schedule day by day. Production, or principal photography, is the shooting phase of a film. It’s the most expensive process since there’s so many people needed on set. It’s also seen as a “point of no return” since it’s nearly impossible to make back the money already spent. The ending of production is often called a “wrap.” Post production involves editing, colour grading and the addition of visual effects and sound effects. It’s the longest part of production and can take months, if not years.
The third video we watched went into more detail about how we might handle these production stages. For pre-production, we should think about our audience, consider working with a client if possible, have a clear outline of what will happen in the video, write a script and secure a location, crew and props if needed. For post production, you’ll edit together your footage, make any cuts if needed, record any narration, colour correct and add sound effects and music, all while communicating with your client to make sure everyones happy with how the video is turning out. I found this video really insightful to the production process on a smaller, more personal level.
In the fourth video, we’re told that there’s four essential elements to a documentary. The first element is the interview, otherwise known as a talking head or sound-on-tape (SOT) This footage will help to give context to your film, and the soundbyte from your interview can be used over different shots to make the video more interesting. The second element is voiceover. It can help link parts of your video together, but you should be using your footage or interviews more. The third element is B-roll, these are ambient shots that you can use over audio from interviews, rather than showing the same talking head. It’s stressed to us that B-roll can really help with cuts during interviews so that the audience doesn’t notice the editing. The fourth element, natural sound breaks, help the audience to feel immersed and can bring more life to your film
I found these videos really helpful with understanding the filmmaking process more, and I learned some great tips when it comes time to edit my project!
Reference list:
First video: “What Is Design Thinking? An Overview” by AJ&Smart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGN6hs2gZY
Second video: “Film Production Stages - Five Minute Film School” by FiveMinuteFilmSchool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5EoMcoUI2Q
Third video: “The Process of Making a Documentary: Pre to Post Production” by Science Filmmaking Tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hPFlGiAwEM
Fourth video: “4 Easy Steps to Film a Short Documentary” by Indy Mogul: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-K_XbCLtVk
The blog post I reviewed was by Ella, and it was a very interesting read. Ella clearly displayed a excellent understanding of the content in the four videos given. I really enjoyed reading this blog post and have very little qualms with the post. I feel that the writer has explained the process of pre production, production and post production really well in her own words. Did you enjoy watching the videos, and if you didn't what could have made the experience better. Maybe could written points have helped with getting through the videos? My only advice would be to maybe change how you start the beginning of your paragraphs to be a bit more unique.
ReplyDelete-Dara D.
I like the way you list all the information and explain what it is, for example you always said step 1, step 2 and others. This will make me feel very clear while reading and let me continue reading your blog
ReplyDeleteI also have some suggestions, maybe you can add more opoinon and more examples in your blog?
Overall, I think your blog is very good and contains a lot of information in your blog
-kar cong
What I like about your blog Ella is that there is a lot of information going in your blog, which I like and that you have also sectioned it into multiple paragraphs to explain what each video is.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should list the stages in the first video giving the audience a clear view of what was demonstrated in the video itself?
What has been your favourite tip that you have learned in the videos that you have watched?
From what I have learned from the second video was that there were three stages of film production. The newest information that I gathered was that the shooting bit of the show is not first but the second part of the stage instead.
Maybe you should also give each paragraph a subheading in bold writing to make it stand out more, making it easier for the audience to see the blog post itself?
My favourite part of Ella’s blog was how to structure a film so I will say all of it because it does take years to make a simple movie. I like the fact that the blog is easy to read and understand and the layout is also good, also in my opinion the way Ella explained how to make a movie in step by step was very well done. The first question would be to explain the prototype much better as I found it very vague. The second one is, give several how many years it takes to make a movie as I think it would take no more than 2 years, but I could be wrong. As I had learned this in leaving certificate applied when a movie producer talked to us when in our drama class, I feel that I did not learn anything.
ReplyDeleteElla could write about the tips and tricks she learned.
Overall, I found Ella’s blog to be very good.