Media Production and Communication – Unit 3 Evaluation (1000 words)

The brief was to create a video, up to five minutes long, for YPemployment. The video has to be relevant to the target audience in the theme of employment. The video was allowed to be an interview, report, tutorial, dramatisation or any other relevant content. The video researched, planned and created, in response to this brief, can use either fictional or factual information. The video had to include evidence of appropriate ideas development, pre- production, production and post-production, as well as an evaluation of the video.The target audience for my video was both males and females from every ethnicity aged 16-21. This was because from the age of 16 you can start working and by age 21 most people have gained experience of previous jobs or interviews on how to better their employment chances. At age 16, most people don’t know how to apply for work or what to expect in interviews and employment so creating a video for them would be very helpful as it is a starting source of information. In my video I chose to focus on the differences between a good and bad interview. I chose to do this, as it would give clear information for how to conduct yourself in an interview and better your choices of being employed. I knew that if I did a good and bad interview it would stay simple enough for the audience to understand and take in the information being given to them.  I knew that I would also have to include more comedy than keeping it factual and formal, as this would interest the audience more.

The research I carried out for my topic started by looking at different articles and videos that discuss the same topic that I was planning to make a video on. This enabled me to better understand what information was out there already which meant that I was able to make my content more unique and not the same as the other videos that I found on YouTube which seemed more factual in order to be informational which made them boring. I made my video unique in comparison to these videos by adding comedy, which would also allow the audience to stay entertained and not get bored straight away. It also allowed me to see what aspects of mise en scene other people used that I could try to emulate in my video. By reading through the articles and watching the videos I was also able to see what were common things that people needed to know. I carried out audience research such as surveys on survey monkey to hear from people in the same age bracket as my target audience in order to understand what they already knew and what was commonly unknown by this age range and I would have to talk about in my video. Through creating a pitch a presenting it to my class to get audience feedback from my initial thoughts I was able to gain more audience feedback on what they thought was good about my idea and what I needed to improve so that I would know what I could change to further improve my video. I used shot lists and a script to plan my video. I created a script with what would be said in the main interview so that the people that were acting had an idea of what I wanted them to say and didn’t have to improvise. I also made a separate shot list for the rest of the video and included the shots I was going to use for the interview along with the script. The shot list allowed me to know what angles I would need to place my camera and tripod in which would cause the filming process to be less time consuming and would allow me to have more time to edit or re film anything that needed to be improved. The script also helped the filming of the interview to be quicker as it was clearly written exactly what we needed to film.

Some of the production skills that improved on included editing, camera skills and use of lighting. For this project I used redhead lights during the interview to make sure that the interviewer and the interviewee were evenly lit. This allowed my interview to have a natural yet more professional look rather than using the natural light coming through the windows. My camera skills improved as I used a bigger variety of shots, which were more complex. Such as the shot at the beginning of my film when the interviewee is being followed along the street, which also works as my establishing shot. I also learnt to manage my time better and organise roughly what I needed to do each lesson when it came to filming and when I needed to organise my locations to be free at the same time as the actors. By doing this I managed to make sure I had plenty of time for editing and if I needed to re film I had time to do this rather than running over schedule and being late when handing in my project. From gaining audience feedback from my rough cut video I was able to see what needed improving in my video such as the writing on the paper with what is going right or wrong in the interview was unclear, so I re filmed in order to make it readable for the audience as this is key to showing the differences in a good and bad interview.

I met the brief through explaining the differences of an interview using a good and bad interview in order for young people to gain more knowledge. I did this through showing what was wrong with the interview and what was good in the interview by writing it on the piece of paper.

By using my fellow student Carmen and myself in the video I was able to meet the brief through using actors of a similar age range to my target audience. This meets the brief as it means that my target audience have actors that they can relate to in the video, which makes it more likely that they will be able to take away the content of the video.

By using and creating a logo for YP Employment, I also demonstrate that I have met the brief by showing that the video is an informational video for YP Employment.

One strength of my production was that I used music that relates to my target audience such as PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake. By using this type of music, the target audience will become more interested in the video. This will then enable them to be more attentive to the content that they are watching, and thus they will retain more information as they will be focused on watch they're watching instead of being bored and losing interest before the video has ended. Another strength of my video was my use of camera skills. By using a range of camera angles I was able to make the video look more professional and thus the audience would be more likely watch it. This means that my video becomes more appealing as it has a variety of shots and thus doesn't get boring. Another strength of my video is my choice in actors. As I used two females within my target audience, it makes it more relatable with the target audience. By creating a video that is relatable to my target audience, the video has more appeal to my target audience as they feel like they can see themselves in the interview and can replace themselves with the actors. This makes the content more retaining as it puts the audience in the shoes of the interviewee and they can imagine themselves having an interview that goes wrong.

One way I could improve this production is through making my mise en scene in the interview better. In the video I use the staff training room to emulate and interview type set up, but the layout of the room was very basic and didn't have anything to represent an office properly. This meant that the only thing I could use to try and emulate an interview type setup was the layout of the tables and chairs that the interview took place in. I could have improved this by making us that the school's conference room, where interviews often take place, was free when I needed to film so that I could have used that setting in my video. Another way I could improve my video is through using a male actor as either the interviewee or the interviewer. This would have meant that my film would be more likely to appeal to both males and females within the target audience age range. As my target audience wasn't gender specific this would have meant that it would have been more relatable to my whole target audience rather than just the female section of the target audience. Another improvement I could have made would be to include more factual information to demonstrate what most young people do and do not know about the world of work. I could have done this through the use of pie charts or showing my findings from the survey in my video.

From receiving audience feedback from my fellow classmates, I have seen that my audience liked the music and use of target audience aged actors as a way to appeal better to my audience. However, it was noted that my video did not have a clear conclusion, even though I said 'a little can go a long way'. It was not clear what the conclusion was other than the differences between the good and bad interview. 

From the feedback that I have recieved I am able to tell that peopple generally believed that the report was useful. One reason for this would be that the actresses used were of a similar age to that of my target audience, this then made my report more relatable to my audience, which led many to be more interested and thus gain more information from the video. My audience also liked the originality of using a cutaway of the interviewer writing what was right or wrong with the interview. Lots of my audience feedback suggested that this made it clearer as to what people should approve on and what it looks like to portray these traits. However, one thing that my audience feedback suggested was that I could have improved my mise en scene for my main interview. Although, considering my circumstances of having to change locations last minute, many said that from the angles I used, I managed to make the mise en scene justifiable.