Toby's A-Level media blog

 During my final task, I plan to conduct two short interviews, one with my friend Alexei, who I have already introduced and done my preliminary task with. For the second interview, I plan to interview a family member who has a long history of working in charities. Vicky is a close family member who has spent her life dedicated to working for charities, varying from mental health to disability charities. I plan to ask the subject non-personal questions, but more questions based on the solutions to mental health. For example, if you were me, how would you help Alexei? What can I do to help? Etc.  I plan to conduct this interview soon sometime this week. I also plan to film the interview with Alexei again this week so I have lots of time to edit this footage before I go back to school after half term.  I plan to conduct this interview at my home, and I will post a production plan additionally with a risk assessment.       

For the first subject of my documentary, I decided to interview my friend Alexei. Although I wanted to have a more professional view of my topic, I believe Alexei provides a deeper thought process into this topic. Alexei has dealt with mental health problems throughout his whole life. During my preliminary task, the subject takes us on a journey throughout his life. The subject explained what it was like to grow up in a different country (India) in extreme poverty, throughout his childhood. The subject explains the consequences this has had on his mental state later in life. However, apart from early childhood, the subject also gives us background information into his current state now being an 18-year-old. The subject describes what it feels like to move out of his childhood home, and rent his own flat meanwhile being fully employed from home; he describes the loneliness of this, and how he feels alone as he is not used to not being around people.  I believe Alexei is a perfect su...

  Demographics- Age: 15- 21-year-olds Gender- mostly male gender however there will be some female audience, maybe parents who want to understand their child's mental state Location- United Kingdom Education- End of secondary school up until university level Psychographics- Teenagers are nowhere near alike just like anyone else, however, they can be categorized into 4 different segments. They can be socially driven, diversely motivated, sports orientated, or socio-economically introverted https://www.citeman.com/8535-psychographic-characteristics-%E2%80%93-teenagers-buying-habits.html Interests- Learning more about their own mental picture, happy to listen to try and receive help. Young adult males which are active. Challenges and goals My challenge and goals for this documentary are to increase awareness of men's mental health across social media. I want to provide help to people who may be struggling and not understand or know what to do.

 Although I have already decided that for my preliminary task, I will be editing using Davinci Resolve due to it being more accessible, while I'm at school, I decided to edit the preliminary task with Premiere Pro as well just to compare the results.                                           I used Premiere Pro last year to edit my tasks but in my opinion, I found it far harder to use than Davinci Resolve, however now I am getting more comfortable with this software and would like to start using it more by practicing on it.

What went well? In my preliminary task, I believe there were many things that went well, one being the positioning of my interviewee. I deliberately placed the interviewee off the center to make it feel more like a conversation, creating an open atmosphere for the interview. I also believe that during the later stages of my preliminary task, I really hit my target of the kind of topics that I want to discuss and raise awareness for in my interview; such as the struggle of loneliness for young men. What didn't go so well? I believe the technical side of my interview wasn't as sophisticated as I would like it to be, this is mainly down to time constraints, as I am a boarder at college, and I only have limited time to film with people outside of college. I also feel as if some of my interviews didn't really correlate to my topic as much as I would like them to have. What have I learned/ what will I do in my final task differently? In my final draft, I will continue the idea of...

Reflection of different editing software I have used

 Today, I received some feedback from my teacher on the preliminary task. The first thing that was mentioned to me was the technical aspect of the camera. They said that the camera position is too low, forcing the audience to view unnecessary parts of the background. It was also mentioned that the camera was not straight, I will ensure this is not the case next time. However, one thing that was pointed out to me was the position of the interviewee. I was told that this was good as it created an open environment for the audience and interviewee. Another technical aspect that was mentioned to me was there was only one type of shot which was a medium shot. Next time, I plan to have a two-camera set-up so I can do close-ups.

 

 

 Today I edited my preliminary task, using Davinci Resolve. I cut excluded footage and decided on certain questions which could be valuable for my final task. I used Davinci Resolve as there were some issues surrounding the size of my files; I was unable to transfer the video files from my laptop to the school computer. The only way I could access Premiere Pro would be through the school computer. That's another reason why I prefer to use Davinci Resolve as it doesn't limit me to only being able to do my work at school, I am able to do it anywhere. Overall, I believe the editing process went well, however, I want to continue editing to make sure my preliminary task is shorter. Of course, I will need to decide which parts to cut. 

During my preliminary task, I decided to not follow the typical interview layout, with the interviewee being the center of the shot. I decided to leave some space next to the interviewee as I want to make sure that rapport is developed between the subject and the audience as though they have been invited into the home and have a place on the sofa and are a part of the conversation. For my final task, I aim to follow this style. I aim to place still images (older photographs) of myself and the interviewee in this space and fill them within the space. These images will connect with what my interviewee is saying about our relationship and the journey we have been through whilst allowing me to maintain an interviewer, and interviewee distance to follow the conventions of ... The color of the sofa is dark blue, which connotates peacefulness and calm. This creates an open environment in which all emotions are heard. Dark blue also has a connotation of reliability and trust, therefore, additi...

This is my rough footage from the interview. I believe all of this footage is extremely valuable, I will be going through this footage to see which parts I can cut down.   I will be uploading another blog of the excluded footage explaining why I excluded the footage from my preliminary task.

This weekend I plan to film an interview for my documentary with one of my closest friends who I feel would give a greater insight into my topic. I plan to conduct the interview on the 12th of February 2023. The venue will be his house. Firstly I plan to set up the lighting, depending on whether he is anonymous or not. I plan to ask him a list of open-ended questions including- How do you believe the scaling issue of declining male mental health can be resolved? Why do you think this issue is rising so rapidly? However, I would also like to ask some more personal questions about his recent experiences that may have had an effect on his mental health. Of course, any piece of information he wishes to not be disclosed will not be made public.

Today I filmed some draft footage for my main task, I really like the shot that I took and I believe it will work really well in my documentary. However, this is only a draft so I plan to do a lot more establishing shots.