My final project was a short documentary that lasted for 5 minutes and was produced with my team members. The protagonist we chose was a Chinese man aged 30, his name is Ron. He obtained the Australian identity. We chose him because his story was encouraging for us. A young man from China came to Melbourne alone during his high school years and tried to make his ends meet on his own. At college, Ron studied Nursery, but after graduation, he gave up the stable job of a nurse in favour of entrepreneurship despite the disagreement of his family and friends around him. Now Ron is the boss of two clean companies. We believe it can enlighten and encourage some confused foreign students and new entrants of the society in China, our target audience. Meanwhile, it shall also show the expectation of the Chinese people. This is our intention. I believe our target is well accomplished, and personally, I like this piece of work.

I feel proud of it in many ways. Most importantly, we successfully expressed the aim originally intended to be expressed in our work, especially in the edition of the entire video. First of all, I’d like to give my special thanks to Rohan. He is experienced in producing non-fiction media and provided us with a lot of help in the production phase, including perfecting the theme, content and structure of the whole video for us. This gave us a clearer concept and better grasp while shooting. Secondly, our post-editing also made me proud. We used two cameras, giving us enough B-rolls, and making interviewees no longer the only focus. In this way, the backdrop and theme of the scenes can be integrated into his story more profoundly, while the visual feel of the audience won’t be too rigid, either, thus enriching the interviewing views.

One of our creativities at the beginning is worth mentioning. We referred to the documentary form of “Searching”, and added the effect of “clicking” to the connection of the three parts of our video. Literally, we recorded the screen of the computer, created a folder on the desktop, which happened to have three sub-folders, respectively the three parts of our video. Whenever one part was played, the next folder would be clicked on, and the next part would be played. We felt it a novel way which could also make our content and structure slightly clearer. But during counselling, a teacher proposed that this creativity would in return influenced the expression of our content and emotions, making people feel abrupt. Therefore, we cancelled this idea. But I believe this was a good attempt.

I believe the media production skills I need to improve include the arrangement of materials, toning and score. I am extremely bad at selecting suitable A-ROLL materials, particularly when the quantity of materials is too large and the materials are too disorderly. This has always given me a headache. I participated in video toning, but I found it difficult. Influenced by light, after adding “filter”, I needed to revise the toning of each clip. But I discovered that even though I recorded materials at the same time and in the same place, due to the adjustment of the position of cameras, I couldn’t directly copy the effect of the clip whose colours had been toned onto another clip directly. This caused certain differences in the colour of some parts. I didn’t make a systematic attempt at scores, therefore, I’m not good at it. I’ll study and practice media production skills harder.

We also met with two severe problems in the process of undertaking the whole project. One was with pre-production, and the other was with the shooting part.

1. First of all, our pre-production was not very perfect. We didn’t have enough communication with the protagonist, so that some ideas written in treatment weren’t realized (our treatment was not well-turned, either), so that we kept shooting on and off, and it was difficult to shoot long and complete interview clips, adding a lot to the difficulty of our post-edition. We needed to keep editing A-ROLL, causing numerous jump cuts. As a result, we needed to supplement and revise with a lot of B-ROLLs. Besides, we didn’t carry out the investigation on the site of all interviews. In the beginning, we had planned to interview in parks, but afterwards, we found the radio environment outdoors was very poor, so that we needed to reshoot the content of that part.
2. Additionally, our shooting process was also problematic somehow. We didn’t keep a correct record of each clip, instead, we started and finished recording randomly, without being methodical, wasting a lot of our time and energy in previewing materials. Later on, we did many rounds of the rough edition, only cutting out a basic framework of the dialogues of the protagonist, and making a lot of A-ROLLS out of focus, which was a serious problem. This also disorganized our originally formulated shooting procedures and sequence. But in the end, we still managed to appoint with the protagonist and shoot again.

I  have worked alone in the previous classes and I would like to try more things with my team members. When there are more people, there are more ideas; therefore we will have more inspiration to do the project. Teamwork is one of the key learning outcomes of this studio, so I decided to team up with Delores, Kenneth and Yu for this project. I like working with Delores, Kenneth and Yu together a lot, and we also enjoyed the process of producing the documentary with each other. We worked with the great tacit agreement, and a lot of ideas proposed were also on the mind of others or regarded by them as brilliant. Even if we had different ideas, we could still discuss with each other and put forward solutions. I believe this is also a way of cooperation.

Before shooting, Delores acted as director, and she was responsible for communicating with the protagonist overshooting while acting as the interviewer in the shooting. Kenneth, Yu and I, on the other hand, were respectively the photographers of A-ROLL and B-ROLL in each part. I couldn’t say we had a pretty clear division of labour since instead of following the traditional way of editing by one person, we decided that the four of us would be responsible for post-edition together. For we believed this part was critical, and we needed to consider the opinion of all. The focus of Delores’ work was the edition of background music since she was the only one in our group experienced in music edition. The rough and fine edition of the videos was accomplished by the other three of us cooperatively, and she put forward some suggestions. Yu and I added mask, title, the effect of cutting videos and mixed colours ( we playfully said: “complex technical work shall be left to technicians.”). That the four of us all participated in post-production might make edition a little bit confusing, and drag the progress slightly, but I enjoyed the feeling that everybody voiced their opinion before discussing with each other to yield a result that we all recognized.

I believe the most important part of becoming a good partner is communication. For me, there is nothing that can’t be solved through communication. Certainly, when the whole team are bewildered, I can also be a leader and guide others with my proposed suggestions; and buy some snacks, drinks or play jokes to boost the morale of the team when everybody was downcast.

The first was a rough cut edited through our counselling, while the second was our final version. Our video is divided into three parts, and the sections I selected were from the first part of the two versions.

Rough cut: (I cut down a little bit of middle part because of file size limit)

We referred to the methods in the film “Searching”, and added the creativity of clicking files, which made our documentary more innovative and the structure of the video clearer so that the audience could know that the content told in each part was different. Besides, we added some dramatic scenes to the cuts in the middle of the film (the scenes showing the shadows of hugs and planes taking off), the tone was changed into black and white, in an attempt of showing the mood of the protagonist while travelling far away from home.

But due to lighting, the overall tone was too dim, calling for toning afterwards. For the whole video, dramatic scenes would appear comparatively redundant, and some people might fail to understand why such a picture would be put in the middle of the film. The creativity of clicking files was novel, but it might influence the emotional experience of the audience in the film. The clicking files were originally put into the content, but if the scenes of clicking files just popped out, the audience would be pulled away from the circumstance.

Final version: (I cut down a little bit of middle part because of file size limit)

Merits: we added filtering and toning to the video, making the picture more distinctive in colour. We cancelled the original creativity of dramatic scenes and clicking files, and slightly adjusted the order of the opening and the first part. We added a title to the video clip showing moving crowds and highlighted its theme. I was also pretty satisfied that I attained the subtitle effect of typing that Delores wanted.

Drawbacks: One of the acts had jump cuts, but we couldn’t find appropriate B-ROLL as a replacement. The problem was still with toning, since I was not that skilled intoning, the overall tone of this sequence was still a little yellowish and greenish for me, appearing a little odd. In terms of music, I still felt it ended too soon, and could be extended somehow.