Overall, I think our piece was really polished for the amount of time we made it in and I feel that the effort we put into fixing things, even if it required reshooting, re-editing and finding new audio, paid off. The core things I would want to change would be how we set-up the experiment (black and white scenes) in the story, and the animations throughout the film. If we were to adapt this film into a different kind of work, I would like to have the piece be a longer film set up as a “how to guide” on navigating disinformation online. 

The animations were a necessary element in our piece to add texture, and to link Dr. Elkins remarks with visual representations. The platform of Vyond, as a video animation creator, allowed us to do this in the amount of time which was required of us, however, if we planned to enter the work in a festival or work on it further, I would want to recreate these segments ourselves. I think with the affordance of extra time we could have shot the scenes ourselves during subsequent shoots, or we could have customised the animations more towards the film’s aesthetic. Additionally, due to cost we opted in for the lower quality animations, but if we were to be entering the work in festivals we would have paid the excess. 

One of the biggest issues we had was a lack of introductory and varied footage from the experiment interviews. This meant that we had to go back to the studio multiple times to try and emulate the setting of the initial shoot. If we had extra time, it would have been beneficial to do a second shoot with the participants to capture more establishing shots, rather than editing together separate shots to create a scene. It would also mean that we would be able to slow the pace down through longer shots, and create a more totalising introduction. Additionally,  we would not have had to explain the experiment through text on the screen, instead we could have used a real shot where Abby explains it to the participants and we see their reactions in realtime. As well as looking better, I think this alternative would have conveyed the message more seamlessly and professionally. 

In adapting the work, I think this piece would be a good base for making a “how to navigate disinformation online” short film guide. Dr. Elkins through line message was to equip viewers with tools to protect themselves online, but I don’t think the documentary format explicitly communicates that, instead it poses more questions to the viewer to inform their own reflections and actions. As a short guide, the film could be more formulaic in sections, such as: what is disinformation, how to analyse sources, what clues to look out for, credible platforms to use, conversations to have, etc. I think it would be really good to have a user-friendly guide that is communicated through one professional, to make this new and rapidly adapting topic understandable. This is a simple approach to helping users online, by explaining and thus establishing media literacy, and making a clear action plan forward.