Project Evaluation
Evaluation
For this project I took on the role of producer, in theory this meant that I was the practical and creative heart of the project. I was one of the overall decision makers and generated story ideas. I had to work closely with the director and approve the production ideas as well as spotting and solving potential problems throughout the production process. I had to approve locations and delegate certain responsibilities between the team. I created a good working environment and communicated efficiently with all members of the team to ensure everything ran smoothly. The health and safety of all team members are the responsibility of the producer and so I should complete risk assessments to keep everyone safe (ScreenSkills). I believe I did all of this to fulfil my role (apart from some of the risk assessments and Lewis wanted to do those).
My key contributions to this project included delegating the responsibilities evenly between the team (this has been mentioned in a previous post), I ensured everyone had roles which played to their skills that they would also enjoy. I completed a risk assessment for some of the shoots at the studio as well as call sheets for each shoot that we completed. I also liaised with the contributors who we would be interviewing for the news package as well as secured the locations for both shoots. I approved the production ideas and the stories we were going to tell. After approving the ideas I worked on a script for the first shoot and formed questions for some of our contributors, I found this challenging as I had never created interview questions before however the research I completed around the topic helped me with this. As well as all of this I was conducting and leading each group meeting, discussing ideas, ensuring everyone understood what work they were responsible for and that they understood everything that was happening. I definitely learnt a lot from leading the group in this project.
One of the key moments of growth for myself is from leading the group. I feel like I did a good job of keeping the group on track and motivated which meant that everyone was committed and dedicated to the project. It was important for me to understand that everyone was working towards a common goal, and we all wanted the project to succeed. I have learnt that not everyone has the same work style as me, everyone works differently, and I need to trust in my team members that the work will get done to the deadline in their own time, which is something I have struggled with in the past. One of the main things I learnt about myself was that it is important to get to know your team on a personal level, as friends not just ‘colleagues’ and peers. I have a tendency to keep a ‘strictly business’ mindset and having the only focus of getting the work done to the highest possible standard without knowing my team members very well, this was especially important for this project as I was working with people I had never worked with before/or for a very long time. To avoid this happening we decided to spend more time together as a group, going out for lunch and evenings. We even had a group trip planned to Thorpe Park which was unfortunately cancelled but nonetheless we still found ways to get to know each other better. One of the most important parts of doing this was that the team saw me as someone they could come to with problems or if they needed help because we are friends.
Other than producing my other key role was editor and graphics. Originally, Lewis and I were going to edit together, however, based on time limitations we decided to each edit one package each as this would be more time efficient and is how the news would be edited in the industry. This proved to be very beneficial and saved a lot of time.
However, I faced one of the biggest issues in the edit. As the news package had to be 5 minutes altogether it meant we had 2.5 minutes per segment. This meant I had to fit three interviewees into that time, the interview with our main contributor lasted 11 minutes. I think this issue was mainly due to us over planning and finding different perspectives to cover. I overestimated how many questions I needed to ask to get the desired answers we were pushing for resulting in us having too much content. As a result, I had to cut down a lot of the interview to keep sound bites which told the story and included all the information we needed. One of our interviewees did not make the final cut. Due to the mass downsize of information there were many jump-cuts in the edit which needed to be ‘hidden’ with b-roll. When trying to do this the quality of the b-roll was not up to standard compared with the quality of the news as it was quite shaky instead of smooth and steady. This meant that in the edit we were cutting between smooth and sleek footage to shaky, handheld footage. I did not like how this looked but to avoid upsetting the team and appearing bossy I decided I would try and work with the footage because I appreciated the effort that went into shooting it. However, I should have spoken up when I first encountered this issue as I was compromising the quality of our final piece by not suggesting the b-roll was re-shot. After the fine cut screening we were advised to change this which created more work and stress for the group further down the line. I now know in future to speak up sooner to allow the group to put their best foot forward and produce the best possible work. I have learnt that I shouldn’t be afraid to speak up if I am pushing the group/person to their full potential in a supportive way. In hindsight I would have spoken up sooner.
Another issue I faced was taking on too much work in the post-production process. As a producer I did not have a large role during production, which made me feel as though I was not helping out my team enough. Although I did help out by welcoming the contributors, providing the questions before the interviews, holding the teleprompter, helping set up lighting/equipment and working as a ‘floor manager’ all of these roles were minor in comparison to the roles of my other team members and some were issues which arose on the day which I had to step up and do. Therefore, I took on a larger role in post-production which included editor and graphic creator, at the time I was unaware of the challenges I would face. Graphic creating is something I enjoy but, I am not too familiar with After Effects so I had to watch many tutorials to teach myself how to do certain affects which was very time consuming. On top of this the editing became more challenging and I had lots of work to do to get the final piece to a good state. As the week progressed, I realised how much work I had to do and spoke with other team members to delegate some of the graphics onto them, this was a great help and it gave me more time to dedicate to other graphics and the overall edit. In the future I will make sure I do not take on too much work in a specific process and that all the work is delegated more evenly from the get-go as I felt guilty springing work onto someone quite late in the post-production process. Although I did not know I was going to encounter these issues I know for future reference that these two roles and large and very time consuming and should be split between different members of the group.
Due to time limitations nearer the end of the project we had to prioritise some work over others. In an ideal situation, we would have been able to work on all aspects until they were perfect. However, as this was our news unit we had a short amount of time to create the whole package and with the deadline approaching quickly while still facing challenges in the edit and other graphics we had to make the choice to prioritise some work over others. As gutting as this was I knew it was more important to have a clean, polished and completed news package with fairly simple lower thirds compares to the more complicated one I wanted to make as I just did not have the time. When working in news, there is a very quick turn around and to accommodate for this there were sacrifices we had to make. I know in future this would be avoidable by delegating the workload more evenly as mentioned above.
Nonetheless, I still liked the outcome of the piece, I feel as though we told each story in a concise way while also getting the intended message across to the audience. This process was enjoyable for me as the team worked very positively together and everyone contributed 100% of their effort into the project, as producer I felt as though I had done something right by keeping the team motivated right until the end. I am not sure if the news industry is 100% for me as I prefer documentary and fiction, but I did enjoy this process so if given the opportunity I wouldn’t hesitate to give TV news another go.
References
ScreenSkills. “Producer in the Film and TV Drama Industries.” ScreenSkills, www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/film-and-tv-drama/development-film-and-tv-drama-job-profiles/producer-film-and-tv-drama/ Accessed 28th October 2022.
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