Xavier DOCO

‘ Xavier Romanin- Green aged 19 has moved from the lazy seaside town Beaumaris to the hustle and bustle of Kew. However this small change has impacted his high school experience dramatically as it made forming friendships harder yet overcoming obstacles easier through his resilience. His struggles with firsts football was an obtruding problem that impacted his character yet with the help of friends, family and pure determination he had overcome this hurdle. Concluding that although it was tough, this experience shaped him into the person he is today.’

The most problematic aspect of this product was defiantly the exporting process. I struggled to export the content into the format I wanted to clearly and easily display it on Youtube. Also finding an appropriate and well suited song to be played in the background of the clips was very hard considering the music has to be copyright free. I initially struggled to condense the material I had as I had so many video clips that I had no idea how I wanted to reveal my interviewee’s story and what to include/ not include. However I  eventually produced the product in a simple and effective way that dictated Xavier’s story, proclaiming his strong message he wanted to share. What I thought was successful was the layering of different media within the film, therefore the dull mid-shot footage of Xavier isn’t shown for the entire 2 minutes, it’s broken up and more intriguing with the inclusion of sound score, still images, other filler video footage content, audio clippings and interviews from friends of Xavier’s. The video’s narrative sequence was also well done as it clearly announced to the viewer who Xavier is and reveals his story and what he has taken from it in a linear progression. I think also choosing Xavier as my subject was a smart move as I am well acquainted with him, therefore before the interview commenced and I was at the stage of writing interview questions I already had some idea of what to ask him, as I knew how I wanted this product to go. I learnt through this task of creating a portrait through film that you should go above and beyond when it comes to content. Always have too much content when producing documentaries as this will help you form many different ways to tell the story and it also ensures you have enough footage in the editing process.  Also when it comes to the interviewing stage make sure you have directed questions that are open- ended to ensure the best possible outcome for your product and for the interviewee to answer with justice. Through the making process I learnt that it is always a good idea to overlay different media in order to make your final product more interesting (no one wants to be staring at one mid- shot for the products duration), always keep the audience on their toes, through using different shots and including other aspects such as sound, images etc. Also give yourself a week to acquire all the footage and a week to edit the footage as these projects are a timely matter and just incase something goes wrong, you still have time to fix it without the need to stress. Most importantly I learnt that whenever you produce material make it interesting for the reader through different media contents and leave them with a strong message they can remember your product by (always teach your audience a lesson).

Attached is a screenshot of my completed sequence in Premiere Pro.

Nakita xx