Post Production reflection/evaluation:

• Justify whether your film clearly depicts the intended genre and describe some specific editing techniques you have used to achieve this;

My film does not clearly depict the intended drama genre. I do not think that we had the right amount of footage for our film to make sense. We had not shot some of the scenes that were important for the storyline, because we were not organized enough to film it. We did all the filming before I went away, and when I came we had not shot any more footage. I think that the story line still depicted the drama genre, but I didn’t use many editing techniques to enhance the drama genre.

• Explain whether you used Final Cut Pro effectively to organise your project (through the use of appropriate clip names, bins, sequences) and what you could improve for future projects;

In future projects, I would want to learn how to use Final Cut Pro properly and to learn the techniques that it has to offer. I did not organize my project with clip names, bins and sequences. I didnt even know that you could do that. I think next time, I would want to explore the more professional techniques that Final Cut Pro has to offer.

• Describe any problems or difficulties you encountered during post-production and editing. These may include; technical difficulties, corrupt or missing files, difficulty using the editing software etc;

During the post production, I found it difficult to use the Final Cut Pro program. I did not know how to use the program at all, and had to seek help from Sarah who showed me how to use the effects, how to render, and how to split. Sarah basically showed me how to use the program. I didn’t even know how to start it off with the scratch disks so Sarah also helped me with that. I had some file difficulties, because sometimes when I opened the file up in class, it would have red lines above it, and the media files wouldn't work and I didn't know what to do so I started again.

• Explain whether you made use of devices such as storyboards, shot-lists and the rough edit to streamline the editing process;

I think that the rough edit helped me a lot. I spent a lot of time on the rough edit and I had put all the footage we had into the rough edit in the right order. I had my laptop open with the rough edit, while I had the school laptop open with Final Cut and worked off both of the laptops at the same time. This helped a lot, because I cod see both of the programs at the same time.

• Discuss whether you made effective use of the EDL and Sound Design templates to support the editing and decision making process;

Im not quiet sure what the EDL or Sound Design templates are, but I did use sound to make it louder/softer in some of the shots in the film.

• Clarify any time-management issues you encountered during the editing process and describe the steps you implemented to improve in this area;

I would have used class time better, but found it hard to do anything in class because once you get started, you only have half an hour until the bell rings, and when you finally get into the project you have to pack up. I like doing things all in one go, so I ended up doing the whole thing on the weekend, because I had only done a couple of the scenes in class. I only had a week to do it anyway, and all week I was using my homework time to organize my self for my core subjects because I was behind since I went on exchange.

• Discuss whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection throughout your project. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Look back at your blogs/journals and think about whether it looks like a whole terms worth of work);

I do not think that I undertook adequate reflections throughout the post production.

• List any software skills, techniques, tricks or shortcuts you have learned during the project.

Throughout this project, I learnt these skills on Final Cut Pro:

• how to spilt a shot
• How to render a shot & the shortcut apple-R
• How to add music (though it took me while because I put one sound file in and it was scratchy so I had to find a different sound and file)
• How to put effects through - video transitions, video filters etc

Discuss your feelings about the production task:

• Are you satisfied with the final result?

I am not satisfied with the final result. I do not think that my group had enough footage to create a professional short film of the drama genre.

• Did the editing require more/less time than you had thought?

The amount of time it took to edit took the amount of time than I thought it would. But when I was looking for sounds on the internet to add, I thought it would have been really easy to find the sounds that I wanted, but it was really hard to find sounds that matched my film, and in the end I couldn't find the right sound that I was looking for. This wasted a lot of time.

• Would like to change any aspects of your final edit (music, editing techniques etc)?

With the time that I had, I would not change any aspects of my final edit. I wish that we had more and better footage, and that knew how to use Final Cut Pro properly, but other than that I wound’t change the music or editing.

• If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

If I could start the project again, I would have re shot some of the scenes, shot scenes that were never shot, and used the storyboards better. I would have made sure that we were organized from the start so that we had more footage to work with.