EVALUATION

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What I intended to create with my FEP was an approximately 15–20-minute documentary on the evolution and currentness of physical media in music. The documentary was to follow mainly vinyl records and CDs, presenting to my audience their history and production, the idiosyncrasies of each format, their comeuppance, competition, and downfalls. Their revival.

Within this documentary, I wanted to understand different perspectives on this topic. To do this, the goal was to include interviews from people on the production side of music (singers, band members, etc.) as well as the selling side of things (record shop owners, customers, market stallholders).

Whether the project has been successful is a yes and no answer. I have achieved what I set out to achieve: a documentary on physical media in music. The documentary has reached the length I wanted, included interviews with professionals in the industry, and improved upon last year’s singular interview by having three, one with two people in.

One of the big aspects to me is the visual factor, and the hindrance to success is within this area. Be it due to my equipment, my lack of comprehension of it, or any other potential reasoning, my footage all lacks quality—looks as if it was filmed in 2003 on a digicam and a prayer. It was the same for each location, so it wasn’t due to lighting.

Due to its consistency across locations, I instead took the opportunity to change the style of my documentary to be more MTV-esque. Filmed as though it were in the 90s and Blur and Oasis are still feuding. One way I did this is by changing my supposedly “set in stone” documentary soundtrack. Where it had previously been very rock and roll, and remains largely so, to fit the more 90s theme, the documentary opens with Parklife by Blur, instead of the initial plan of Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin. The more rock and roll parts are now reserved for their mention instead of my own preference.

While I am not angry at the change, it has been slightly upsetting. The goal with this topic was to show off more technical prowess and balance it with the narrative, so the lack of quality and interest in that aspect has been disappointing.

One aspect I think I have particularly succeeded in is matching the music despite the change. The goal was always to prompt interviewees into name-dropping bands. This was done with the questions: “Who do you go home and listen to, be it streaming or vinyl?” and “What bands have influenced your band’s style of music?” “Who do you take inspiration from?” By asking these, I got artists' names dropped: Queens of the Stone Age, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Stone Roses, etc. Collecting B-roll after interviews, of the interviewees, alongside the mentioning of music, means that I have been able to edit my interviews more fluidly and fittingly. The music matches, and the B-roll placed over the top of segments breaks up the consistency of one face on screen—something that can get boring over time, an aspect that was raised to me in my peer feedback.

One of the areas I believe I have also succeeded in is my patience and temperament. While I again fell short on time management, when facing technical and theoretical challenges, I have only once lost my temper with it and stopped. However, in previous projects, it has been full shutdowns—not looking or working on anything to do with it for multiple days until I get over the deep undercurrent of anger I feel towards it. Instead, this time around, when issues have occurred, I have resigned myself to it, taken breaks, and tried to return clear-headed.

While some areas of my documentary have been more successful than others, despite it not being what I had first envisioned, I still believe it to have been successful and that I have met the expectations I had of myself.

My project would not be what it is without the research. It would not be there at all. Going into the research sectors of both the FMP and FEP, I have always overlooked it, far more eager for the extra time on production or to just get stuck into it regardless of actual knowledge on my topics.

For a documentary on the evolution and progression of physical media in music, despite being very personal to me, I knew surprisingly little. It has always just been “I like this thing” but never “let’s investigate this thing” (unless trying to prove a point in an argument).

While all the research I have curated during the FEP is important and has been beneficial, multiple pieces have proved the most load-bearing.

The visual aspect of my projects is always the most important to me. I take pride in it looking good and interesting—to fit a theme and have a specific style. When it comes to inspirations research, I will sit and scroll through Pinterest, making a board full of title cards and magazine covers. I pick out the most interesting or my most favoured, and I weigh them all up like Anubis presided over the Weighing of the Heart.

The biggest aspect is always the font and how it is placed. I have realised I have a liking most towards big chunky text—text that has a presence. This research is always the one I most look forward to. It is as fun as it is tedious.

I struggle with creativity when it comes to stylising my own projects. I need references and inspirations to build off. Things tend to look slightly off or wrong. I can visualise it but cannot create it. Looking at references from professional work lets me work off trial and error, see what sticks, how I can mould it and personalise it. So, research into it—even if it is just sitting looking at pretty shapes and colours—plays a massive part in my own self-gratification and satisfaction when it comes to editing and the final product. I can never do as much as I want to, but each time I play around with each personal and coursework project I do, I get closer and closer to getting better at formulating it all.

Theory is an area of research I enjoy; it is contemplative. Within this project's research, I looked at the UGT and the End of Audience theory.

A substantial portion of my documentary’s basis centres around what people get out of the media they consume and why. One of the biggest aspects is the concept that people consume things purely for societal and peer validation—to seem cool to others and interesting. Research into these theories aided this notion.

The UGT expands on the evolution of media, the old categories of psychological need and gratifications, and the new ones as media has progressed. Work by Sundar and Limperos sees that while old media and new media may fulfil similar psychological needs and gratifications, new media has created unique needs that the original theory overlooks.

How it has become transformative from societal integrative needs and affective needs—the two that back up my notion the most—to modality-based needs and interactivity-based needs. Similar rooted areas, but each more individualistic.

This research prompted the idea of “Is the ploy for aesthetics more relevant before or after social media?” This is due to finding more similarity in the old needs rather than the new.

One of the biggest successes with my project, as I mentioned earlier was the interviews, however I believe the segment of my documentary that centres around the band “Suckle” is one of the overall strengths of my documentary, the supporting footage of the bands private rehearsals and their live performances, both created a nice result and also was fun to edit. The interview itself was brilliant to conduct, and both men have extremely good presence on camera. Sam, the guitarist, elevates the segment even more, due to his voice, it is lovely and low, very soothing and to listen to, so paired with the visuals of him playing his guitar, it makes for an interesting but also comforting watch.

Another strength of my project is that, despite B-roll being grainy, I have been infatuated with a lot of my shots. One particular reason for this is that during my filming at both the Leeds Kirkgate market and the Brudenell social club, I only got out of the tripod when conducting interviews. All other footage was filmed freehand. One thing I wanted to try with freehand filming was tracking shots and moving shots that weren’t the basic tilt up, pan, worm view, etc. I ended up with many variations of tracking shots, becoming seemingly obsessed with it. I believe it provides a nice point of view, that they can make the viewer feel as though they are walking through those locations, much like the cameraman. There are two shots filmed this way I particularly like, walking alongside the queue into the Brudenell as security checked tickets, and the camera moving at a right angle across a stall holder's selection of vinyls. Within the latter shot, there is one solitary customer whom the camera catches, and his silhouette makes for a lovely transition.

 

Digital media production at Leeds Trinity University is my first choice regarding my progression after college. Having attended an open day for it on a whim back in January, it immediately swayed me. The course is far more intimate than most, with an average of fifteen people per year group and four tutors for it. It boasts access to editing suites, a TV studio, and placements with a vast number of media companies within Leeds and the wider Yorkshire area. Alongside this, when on this course, I would also be able to take modules from the journalism course.

My overall career goal is to work within video editing and production, ideally working freelance on projects such as documentaries. This is a degree that will best set me up for that.

When it came to the context portion of my FEP, I overlooked my favourite idea of the three and instead chose the topic of vinyl and CD history and evolution because I thought with a more mainstream content matter, I could use the FEP to develop practical skills such as camera operation and editing. Achieving a result of having a more technically advanced project to place within my portfolio

 

My topic for FEP is quite a mainstream idea. When conducting my market research, I found multiple similar documentaries; they all focused more on vinyl than CD or cassette, but all held the same basis. The evolution of vinyl, the effect of streaming and the resurgence. A lot of them focused on the nostalgia element and play more to an older audience. In comparison to mine, where I’ve tried to make it appealing to both older and younger.

The 3 documentaries I looked at, I had never heard of, and got varied reviews on IMDb and Letterboxd, some raving, some dismal. 

 

One of the steps I took to minimise disruption to my progress was working on my lonesome. I am easily distracted by others, and my work ethic is instantly diminished by the idea of anything more exciting, such as talking. Throughout my project, I have only enlisted help when narrowing down the B-roll I had into a final cut folder. Six hundred shots down to 223. Alongside research and peer feedback.

Visting locations alone allowed for nothing other than my phone to provide any distraction, a phone I cannot use when instead I have a camera in my hand, a phone that stays zipped in my pocket as I set equipment up for interviews and only makes an appearance when I’m looking at my questions for interviewees.

Another step I took was keeping the equipment I booked out for a prolonged period. All three locations I visited were done in 2 weeks, and the third location, I did not have confirmation for until 9 pm the night before. Having the equipment already with me at home meant I was able to go out and do things on production at short notice. Regarding my third location, had I not had the equipment, the dual-interview I conducted there would not have happened, due to the band going on tour throughout England and Scotland the day after their appearance in Leeds.

 

Regarding doing anything different within my FEP, had I had better confidence I would’ve liked to have obtained vox pops.

When filming at the Leeds Kirkgate vinyl fair, I had three objectives. Two interviews, B-roll, Vox pops. Out of the three, only the first two were accomplished. This location was the only one out of the three I filmed at where vox pops would’ve been attainable.

The lack thereof was due to three factors: my laziness, my lack of confidence, and an oncoming migraine.

When on location, I filmed both interviews and b-roll as planned, but when the time came, 3 hours later to get vox pops, I was wandering between the two big halls of the fair, mic in hand, aimlessly. I concluded that for my peace of mind, I would try the stallholders first, then try and include customers. But every stallholder I saw either seemed to stare me down on approach, or was involved in conversation, two things that shouldn’t have put me off but did. It made me feel meek and shy. It was the first time I had attempted to go out and get vox pops alone, and the realization I came to is when doing it for prior projects, I have always relied on others around me to bounce off. If someone else is nervous to do it, I'll step up to the plate but seemingly cannot step up when the nervousness stems from me.

I booked the 10^th of May off work, as that is when the next vinyl fair was hosted at Kirkgate, I did this with the intent of going back to the fair and getting vox pops as originally intended. However, the closer I got to the date, the more I realized that if I were to return to Leeds, I would be shortening the limited time I had to edit the footage I already had too much of and was struggling with.

Even if I hadn’t got vox pops to include within my FEP, I still wish I had got them regardless due to the fact one of the organizers for the event has asked, with the footage I got of the fair, if I could create a short social media video to post to and promote the market. He asked that I don’t include any bits of the interviews I did, so vox pops would have fit well within that as a replacement. My lack of confidence now reflects in the quality of my work outside of college. 

Alongside developing my confidence in approaching people, another area I would like to improve upon is technical knowledge when it comes to equipment.

 

The biggest skill I need to take with me as I progress is time management. In every project I complete, I outline time management as a failure or an area for development. Yet, despite this, I am never able to improve upon it, seemingly stuck in an endless cycle of executive dysfunction.

I intend now to go to university, an area of education where the impacts of this are far dearer. The stakes are higher. Procrastination and laziness need to be overcome. Projects handed in late or to a poor standard will not be tolerated, and excuses will not be heard.

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