Self Assessment of Second Episode Production

Overall this second episode has gone a lot better than the first episode. We have taken into account the changes that CRaM wanted us to change, so we have managed to get rid of any inappropriate language and stick to using non-offensive words if we feel the need for impact. However, they wanted us to keep the episode itself down to one minute and thirty seconds, this was not accomplished. We have made the second episode just over four minutes long and this is shorter than the first episode, which is good but considerable more than we were allowed. I this was because the script that was written was far too detailed and not many members of the group wanted to change anything, therefore there was more footage to shoot and then too much footage to get down to such a short time. For our next episode, we will be trying to improve the time again and as we have a shorter time to shoot than before, we should have less footage which may make it easier for us to cut down the time.

This time around I also thought that our script was better constructed and it included a lot more humour that a wider audience would find funny. This made the viewing experience a lot more understandable and it was easier to get to grips with what was going on throughout the episode.

As I was watching the episode, I had noticed that our camera man(Loz), used a few new camera shots and he used a lot more wider shots to view more characters. These worked really well and helped to set the scene and explain the story visually.

The editing this time round was a lot better. There were no unneeded effects or zooms and everything was cut in the right places to make sense throughout. However, I thought that the sound still need tweaking as in some places it cuts out when no one is talking and it doesn't run smoothly. I think that this may be helped if I were there for that shoot (as I am working with most of the sound for the episodes), to listen to the sound while the camera man works so more attention can looked on for the sound. I was able to be present for one of shoots and I listened to sound and it went really well but we decided not to use that footage as we changed rooms which were filming in. I think it can also be helped by the editors, as they need cut it a lot more smoothly and pay more attention to the sound of footage. I think that I will make sure I pick up my role within sound a lot more so that I can over see the editors and make sure the sound is a lot better for the third episode.

The marketing that I have been helping out with has come a long way since the beginning of the project and we have been paying more attention to promoting the series than we were to begin with. I have been spending a lot of time at the end of editing, linking the uploaded videos from Vimeo and YouTube so they now appear on Facebook for all the fans to view and comment. I have been posting little messages with them and also updates of when more videos will be on he site. Many of the other members of the group have updating it too, with news of how the production is going and of any delays or progress. This has really helped to get more views or our video but I think that we can a lot more with the marketing to help get more people involved. I have noticed that the other group have started to make posters to advertise when their episode will be shown and I think that this may help us a lot. If we were able to pin up posters around the college, we would be targeting our audience and also notifying a lot more people of that we exist. We may have a lot of fans on our page but we do not get many of them actually viewing the videos so if we could get others interested in a different form then we could get more views.

Finally, my main role as production manager has gone quite well as I am starting to get quite used to the forms that I need to produce and I am getting done promptly for the shoot that we need them for. I have been receiving some late requests for the forms but it hasn't been too much of an issue as we have had the time but I think that when it comes to Monday we will have a small amount of time and we may be rushed. I shall have to make sure that I am not making any stupid mistakes with the form, spellings or dates incorrect so that the forms can be signed and approved as soon as possible.