Practical Skills Unit Evaluation

My practical skills were not my strongest element throughout this course. Practical skills involve the use of equipment such as camera and audio equipment, health and safety regulations, and working to a client brief.

At the start of the course I knew how to use some equipment such as camera, tripod, reflector, mainly due to doing Photography A Level, however this course gave me opportunities to use them more and be more experimental with new equipment.

The first practical on the course where we considered health and safety was in a practical camera and lighting task where we had to demonstrate using different types of lighting in short videos. We used the LED lights with coloured gels to create interesting lighting but had to be careful when using them as the lights can get very hot and can heat the gels up, so we had to make sure everyone was aware of this and to be careful when removing or changing the gels as to avoid burning themselves. The lights were also very bright so we had to not look directly into them. We worked around this by filming people standing perpendicular to the lights as shown in the image above. We also turned them off when we had finished filming the clips required to try and prevent them getting too hot. We also used a reflector on this task and had to be careful not to reflect the light directly into peoples' eyes as this would hurt their eyes.

Another important element of practical skills is time keeping/organisational skills. This was definitely not one of my strong skills as I often left work to the last minute. To improve this I could have broken each unit down into manageable chunks and then created a calendar/ gantt chart to help me complete each task in time for the deadline.

In the four hour film challenge, 'The Door', I struggled with the filming for some parts as I was filming it myself whilst also acting in the video. This meant I had to use a tripod for most of my shots or get someone else to film me. I found it difficult not having someone else act in the video as I wasn't able to have as much control over camera angles/ movement lighting etc so it didn't look quite how I wanted it to in some parts. 

For instance in these shots, I really hate the framing and in the second one it also feels tilted sideways which I don't like. It was difficult to get it exactly how I wanted due to me being infant of the camera and the room I was filming in had very limited space to there wasn't much room for the tripod to be moved around. Upon reflection I should have refilmed these from a better angle so that they looked more professional. I also struggled with the lighting when filming this short film as the only led lights I have are small freestanding lights but the need to be placed high up in order to light a room properly and in some of the rooms there was nowhere appropriate to place them so in order to resolve this I should have been more  prepared and hired out better equipment from college which was more suited to the task.

We also used a reflector when filming 'The Ugly Duckling' silent film, however we didn't properly risk assess this and had to be careful when using it on the street as to not shine it into car drivers' eyes. Aside from this, this was probably one of the four hour film challenges we did the best planning on and subsequently we were able to successfully and succinctly shoot it in a short time frame and to a good standard. For example, we made a storyboard and shot list and also planned where we wanted to shoot on location and the order of which locations to shoot at, which made the filming process run a lot more smoothly. Another issue we encountered was that we used a 60mm static lens to film, which meant that the camera had to be placed very far away from the subject and couldn't be zoomed in or out, however it wasn't too big of an issue and the shots still looked of a high level.

For my music video I was really pleased with the finished result and felt that this was one of the most successful projects I have done on this course. As I was going for a more abstract and experimental video, I didn't explicitly plan with a script or storyboard but just had visual ideas of what I wanted to include and locations I wanted to film. I felt that my downfall within this project was due to my time management, as I left it too late with some of the filming which didn't leave me a lot of time for editing and evaluation etc. If I was to re do it I would have created a schedule where I planned out when I was going to film specific shots in order to ensure I left myself more time to edit. When filming the music video I used a camera in some shots and in some shots I used my phone. The phone was easier for filming some of the shots in London as it is smaller and lighter to use when moving around. The lighting was good in the clips filmed on my phone as it automatically chooses the setting for you. I used a manual setting on my camera which ended up being slightly grainy and underexposed however I really liked the way it looked and felt it added to the aesthetic I was going for and suited the video really well. I tried to try out new techniques on Premiere Pro when editing the music video compared to some of my previous projects. For example I layered multiple clips over one another and reduced the opacity to create a unique effect which I felt worked really well and looked effective.