Coursework - Evaluation (draft)

The course, moving image arts, has been extremely good fun. I really enjoyed making the video and learning more about film technology and the processes that you have to go through to make a piece of moving image. The flexibility of the course was a huge surprise to me and I have really enjoyed to literally be able to make any kind of video I like.

My final film has been a huge success. Technically, the film doesn't have very much to it; one camera angle, one object and the same lighting through the whole piece. I did this because the transitions between all the cuts and fades had to be almost invisible. Using influences from German expressionism and early 20th century art I created a music video for a song I produced over the previous summer.

The creative vision I pictured last summer is almost identical to the video I have created over the year. Of course, the idea has been adapted to and modified due to conversations with many people and advice from others. One major change was that I had not realised a story line was needed in the film. I then wrote some short sentences I believed worked with the formalistic and imaginative idea of the film. The three sentences where extremely poetic and comments I received tell that they thought about extraordinary things such as life and the meaning behind existence. The visual product I have now finished has far exceeded what people had though I was creating. People have described it as ‘trippy’ and almost too colourful to watch.

The reaction of my audience pleases me greatly. To contemplate deep meaning even exceeds what I thought my film would evoke. Not all comments have been positive, some complain that I have taken the easy route and not stretched myself in the making of this video but I completely disagree. The filming and editing process were extremely difficult. Many problems occurred and not all of which I could easily get around.

The initial problem occurred when filming. I had one weekend in which to film because I had only those days where I could keep the rostrum at home with me. As soon as we began filming, the camera ran out of battery and no mains supply lead was provided when we took the camera from school. Fortunately, my aunt who was helping me with the filming had a camera which we could use. The camera worked well and all was good until we had finished recording and tried to watch the video on the computer. My aunt remembered that the camera was from America and therefore in NTSC, not in PAL. So I had to wait about a week for her to transfer it to her computer and from there, convert it and give it to me. This put me back a week. Once the footage was on my hard drive, I took it to school and began working on it. After just one lesson with my footage, the school’s system broke down and I was unable to do any work on the computers for at least two weeks. During this time I worked on my story boards and finished my script.

From making this film and the process of developing it I have learnt many things. One of which is the ability to critically analyse films and review their attributes. This I found helpful when trying to think of ways of developing what you see on screen and also how to evoke the reaction you want from the audience. Before I began the course I had never used final cut pro ever, the only piece of film equipment I ever used was I movie, and that isn’t very stretching. Over the year I feel I am extremely proficient with the program and can quite comfortably edit footage. The ability to write and draw story boards we have worked on through both years ten and eleven and I can now draw accurate and proportionately correct images with correct language to describe the movements.

To conclude, I have greatly enjoyed this course and in making the film and I believe I have created something I did not think I could have eight months ago. I feel that as time progressed, I became more confident with the idea of making a film and stretched my ideas beyond the original confines of my mind and expanded on what I would normally do. The reward of knowing, I did this, I made this film is great and knowing I have the ability to create such things is a fun thing to be able to do. I am extremely proud of what I made and with the time I have put into this project I feel I have achieved.

Coursework - Final Film

Final Film - This is my final piece and the video i will be submitting for the moving image arts AS level.



enjoy!