Evaluation: Corporate Video Production

- What was the task (overall)?, include details of the brief and the clients -

The task we as a class were set was to independently plan, film and edit a complete corporate video which fit a specific brief we were given by members of our sixth form, John Dack and Lotty Lanham. The brief asked us to create a video revolving around a particular section of the college which was offered to students in order to entice potential new students and keep their attention enough to convince them to look into joining in Year 12. The class was split into seven small groups, with each being set to create a video based on a different offering from the college: UEA, T-Levels, Extend, 'Why I chose EN', support, the curriculum offer and, the topic my group ended up working on, Enhance. Each group, had to include different things in their videos as to show off the subject they were set, but as a whole class, we were all given more general instructions within the brief, such as wanting to get footage of students not wearing masks as much as possible as to not date the video, and having the length be roughly ninety-seconds long.

- What was your specific, allocated, role? -

As mentioned above, the specific role me and my partner were assigned with was creating a promotional video revolving around the college's 'Enhance' program. This is a program which consists of one extra lesson a week for first year students, including a large variety of different subjects to choose from to attend as the enhance lesson, such as extra help for existing subjects the student already attends, or more creative, club-like lessons.

- What did you have to do (specifically?) -

Specifically, we were set the task to independently create a roughly ninety second video from scratch which managed to introduce and explain the Enhance programme to people who have no prior knowledge of it, in a way which keeps the viewers interested (as to not bore them), potentially leading them to visit the college's website and look more into the specifics for themselves and perhaps even attend the college the following year. This involved us needing to plan the video, which included sorting out pre-production paperwork related to locations, talent and permissions (specifically location recces and releases, independent and group talent releases for those we were planning to include in the video either visually or audibly, and an insurance form in order to allow the equipment to be taken outside of college grounds for a specific enhance lesson's filming). This, of course, also included the actual filming, which had to be planned before hand with each lesson's teachers, and the editing and post-production section of the project to end it off, putting all of our footage and ideas together in order to create our final product.

- What was you favourite aspect of the task? -

Personally, my favourite part of the whole task I took part in was the post-production phase; more specifically, the editing of the project was my favourite aspect of the video creation. Likely because I do a lot of video editing in my own time and because I really like the process of seeing the finished product after spending time on this part of the process, I enjoyed this part above all of the others we spent time working in. Also, this part to me was notably slightly less difficult and stressful than some of the other aspects we had to spend time on before getting to this point in the project.

- What was the most challenging aspect of the task? -

As for the most challenging aspect of the task we had to deal with, I would definitely say that this would be the actual planning with teachers of when we had the permissions to film their classes. Due to needing permissions from both teachers and students before knowing if we could get certain pieces of footage we wanted for our video, we had to email each teacher requesting their permission, then, depending on their response, figure out a day we could film with them, then attempt to fit that date in with the rest of the lesson's dates we also needed to plan. Frustratingly, we had some issues in terms of fitting all of the lessons into a simple schedule, with some finishing before we realised leading to us missing them, (meaning that at times, the actual filming process of the project was also pretty challenging), but we also had multiple issues with teachers of lessons we were requested to include in our video never acknowledging our emails, meaning we either had to give up on the idea of filming them, or turn up unannounced and hope they would let us film there and then on the day.

- What do you feel you took from the project? e.g., what will you reflect on as being particularly useful / developmental? -

Once the project was fully completed and behind us, I personally feel as if I walked away from it with slightly increased confidence when it comes to walking into active classes the way we did and then proceeding to film them as they worked, I found this extremely awkward and difficult when we first began the project's filming phase, but, as much as I am still not one hundred percent great with it now, I feel like I am a little bit better with it due to being forced to do it for this project and being pushed out of my comfort zone a bit. As for the emailing of teachers and staff during the initial planning part of the project though, I do believe that this is something I am able to do a lot more confidently now than I initially was before we began this unit's work.

- What would you change of you were to undertake the task again? -

If I was to take part in this task again from the beginning, there would be some changes which I would at the very least attempt to make, either in order to make the project as a whole a smoother operation or to create a better final product. One change I would make would be to do with what we filmed, as even though we were initially requested within the brief to attempt to get footage of students and staff members not in masks, we ended up not really trying too hard to get this done due to concerns with health or making those students we were filming any more uncomfortable being on camera than they already were in some situations. Despite the fact that the footage of people in masks didn't end up being a complaint in the end once we showed those who set us the brief our first draft, I feel like it would've made for a better end result if we were to at the very least discuss the possibility of getting mask-less shots of those we filmed, even if that meant we had to film from a larger distance from them for example. As well as this change, something small but very important I would attempt to do next time would be to take a good look at the college timetables and schedules of the following months ahead of us during production, due to us having problems with unexpectedly having a day off due to 'teacher training' on a day we were initially planning to film on. This change would allow the project to be completed in a much smoother way, also potentially even leaving for extra time to complete certain tasks needing to be done to a perfect standard.

- In what ways can you choose to present feedback / a review of your work and which have you used / experienced during this unit? -

There are many ways in which feedback to a project of this type can be given and/or presented to those it is directed towards, some being able to be described as more 'confrontational' than others. For example, in the case of a professional situation where feedback is being given, those giving the feedback could choose to present their notes in a written form, such as a formal email listing all of the positive and/or negative parts of the product they would like to comment on. As well as this though, there are of course more interactive ways of giving feedback, such as having a face-to-face discussion between the person who worked on the brief and those who set it, discussing any changes and features they want or like, while allowing there to be much more transparency and understanding in the feedback there and then (as opposed to needing to email back and forth if some pieces of the feedback were at first unclear). As for us, we received feedback multiple times from multiple sources, from the point of us beginning making the project to the point where we had finished our first edit. The first piece of 'feedback' we received was given to us before we had even began the main production phase of making the video. This was given to us by Simon Fox who, as the head of the subject we were making the video about, discussed both our and his ideas for what should and could be included in the video once we got to making it, with us noting down each idea he had, as well as anything he definitely wanted to be in the video.

Our second (and technically third) piece of feedback was done in our class, yet again in a face-to-face manner, where the two people who had set us the brief, John Dack and Lotty Lanham, came in to watch our first draft of the video, then proceeded to give us positive and negative notes on what they had just seen. At the same time, our peers gave us their own feedback, as they were watching the video at the same time, each giving us one negative and positive each that we also noted down along with John and Lotty's, with those two's being the priority to get to first when going back to the video's post-production. Finally, our last piece of feedback was given digitally by our subject teacher, being given in note form over our college's 'Student Portal' site, each being changes which, if done, would lead us to getting closer to a better grade.

[John Dack + Lotty Lanham notes at the top, class notes at the bottom]

[StudentPortal Feedback from subject teacher]

- What constraints did you experience when researching, planning, filming and editing your corporate video? -

As usual when making a video project, especially one of this type and for the intended purpose of being a promotional tool such as our work was, there were many constraints and rules we as creators had to abide by. As an example, in order to make sure that when our video was completed, it was legally allowed to be published into the public eye online, we made to sure to not use any resources in our video's edit that was not allowed for commercial use without a fee being made in order to have a legal license to do so - this meant that the music we used was a piece from the website 'Bensound.com' which was explicitly labelled as allowed to use in videos like ours for free without their being any copyright issues, as well as any images and pieces of video footage included in the final edit also being only ones of which we and/or the college owned, and so definitely had the rights to use. There was a point where we wanted to include a rainbow graphic in the video's introduction, and so found one on Google images to use, but eventually made the decision to remove it and make our own graphic from scratch just to be extra sure that there would be no issues in the case that the graphic online was copyrighted. As for any other restraints we experienced while working on the project, there were not many other issues we ran into. With the video's intended purpose being told to us in the brief as being that of a promotional video to be placed onto the college's website and social medias in order to promote the sixth form, there are of course regulatory constraints of which we had to make sure to follow, like the social media platforms' guidelines on what they would allow to be posted on their site for example. However, due to the type of content in our video simply being promoting our college, never including any inappropriate inclusions or ever mentioning our 'competition' negatively for example, we did not run into any issues in this area. Financially also, there were never any problems, as all of the equipment we needed in order to make the video to the standard we wanted were already owned by the college, with them giving us permissions to use it all free of charge, and as mentioned above, things like the license of the music we decided to include was also free, not having to pay for permissions.

- How well did you and your partner manage the task? -

Looking back at how me and my partner managed and planned our project overall, I personally feel as if we did pretty well and to the best quality we could have worked at given the circumstances we were given while making it. In terms of our time management when it came to working to the correct times and deadlines we were set and had agreed on, we did very well to stick to these, showing up to the lessons we planned on filming with the teacher on the days we had planned with them over email, and always managing to complete the pieces of our project we needed completed by each deadline set for us. There were a couple times where our original planning had to be changed last minute, but these times were out of our control to an extent, such as when two of the lessons we had planned to film on the same day ended up having to be rescheduled due to both of them ending very quickly without us being made aware while planning around our other lesson plans over email; this lead to us having to complete the filming of these particular classes quite last minute, due to the day we needed available being one where the college was closed that week, something again we were originally unaware of, although looking back, we should have made sure to check dates like these before planning everything to do with filming permissions and equipment just in case. When it came to the communication throughout the project, both me and my partner worked quite equally on the project when looking at each section overall, both giving ideas and discussing them to get the best ones chosen, as well as sharing responsibilities like the emailing of people and editing for example between the two of us. As a result, there never seemed like there needed to be much 'leadership' given to either one of us, as both of us worked just as hard as each other to complete the product the best of both of our abilities and get the best grades as a result once it was all finished. Speaking of which, whenever it came to the moments of our project where we were given feedback on our video up to that point, such as John and Lotty viewing our first draft edit or the extra feedback from our teacher, we did well at making sure to do what we could together in order to make the changes that were asked for as to improve our work the way that was requested of us, to a good standard.

- Feedback -

In terms of all the feedback we were given and all the different forms each piece took, each were helpful and easily understandable in different amounts. To start with, the most common type of feedback we were given was face-to-face, whether that being a meeting with somebody or a viewing of our video in class, This type of feedback route is, in my opinion, one of the best types, as it allows much more discussion and quick back and forth communication between those giving and receiving the feedback. We were given feedback in this form by multiple sources: our peers and our clients. As already stated, this face-to-face type of feedback was very nice to have when it came to our clients, due to them being an important source of opinions of our product, since they were the ones who wanted it to be made by us in the first place, so having the best communication when it comes to changes with them is extremely important. As for our peers', the feedback they gave was quite simple - one positive and negative aspect they saw each. Due to this being quite a simplistic type of feedback, face-to-face was nice, but not necessarily needed here, as the same affect and detail could have been given over email for example. A written approach was taken by our teacher when she gave us feedback, slightly after we were given some from the client and our peers, choosing to present it in a text, bullet-point form, listing things we should change or improve on in order to approach the next grade up for our work. Finally, my own opinions on our work and how well I managed to complete the task can be considered a type of feedback and/or assessment of my overall work and skill at creating the product we did. In terms of the project as a whole, as much as I do believe there are a few things which could be improved on, whether that be if we were given more time or if Covid-19 wasn't an issue for example, I do believe that me and my partner did a good job and ended up creating quite a professional looking, useful corporate video. As for me personally and my own 'suitability' for a position in corporate video production, I do think that I would suit the position in terms of the pre-production, filming and editing/post-production parts of the project, but the issues of communicating perfectly and planning with people I may not know well or are above me in some way is still a slight struggle for me in terms of being comfortable while doing it, which would be a slight issue if I were to be a part in future productions of this type and do not approach in that aspect.