Evaluation 

The idea behind our Liverpool documentary is that we will be doing about the oldest Chinatown in Europe. This means we will have to research about Chinese culture and Chinese food as these are the two specific areas we will be focusing on. As it is a documentary we will also have to explore the structure of documentaries and look at documentaries that have already been done. We decided to do Chinatown in Liverpool as it is the oldest in Europe which would give our documentary a unique twist. To go forward with our idea we had to arrange interviews and even visit Liverpool Chinatown prior to the residential visit so that we could get recce photos which would help us put a shot list together. I think the feeling that our group had as a whole was that we wanted this to be quite factual and classy shedding a positive light on Liverpool Chinatown; we also wanted it to be very stylistic and to be very aesthetically pleasing. In this project I had been chosen for the role as sound editor, I was excited at this prospect as I hadn’t done this role before and I felt I could learn something from it.

 I want this documentary to be seen as something factual and enjoyable to watch. I want our audience to have a pleasurable viewing experience; I want them to feel that they can take something away from this documentary, whether it is that they have learnt something new from it or even if it makes them want to visit Chinatown to experience it for themselves. I am hoping that this film will be seen as positive and natural and when I say natural I feel that I want to it to come across as off the cuff and so that you can see Chinese people living their everyday lives. I feel that this is something that we have done. I believe that the age range for this piece of work could be for people of any age, as I feel that someone of any age could take something from it, maybe a younger person could learn something new or maybe an older person can feel nostalgic watching looking back at their history and heritage. Then I feel that someone who is perhaps interested in film could find this to be an artistic piece.

I think this film is strong in terms of a documentary and getting our point across. I think that the shots are very sharp, clean and show Liverpool for what it is. The detail shown in the shots is very important as it can help people who are watching understand the narrative and the interview. The use of neon lights is also very effective, as in the dark light they are very bold and show strong imagery, aesthetically this looks really nice. I think the colours in Chinatown show up very well in our documentary they are also very bold and strong as the we see the use of gold’s, reds and greens,

The editing of this piece is strong and runs very well using the interview as the centre piece and narrating the documentary and telling us all about the history of Chinatown, by doing this it keeps the edit smooth and also keeps the movement of shots nice and smooth, it is also kept together nicely by some music which helps cuts flowing. I think if there is something that could be worked on in this piece it is the use of pull focuses although I think that we have some lovely pull focuses which help the piece aesthetically I think that we could perhaps not use as many I think they may have been overdone and used a bit unnecessarily.  

The process of this work was to get all our ideas out on the table; we researched about Liverpool trying to see if we could find something unique and try and find a bit of a nice. We spent a lot of group time talking about what we felt would be a good idea, initially we spoke of doing something surrounding food in Liverpool and looking into the local cuisine. We thought that this was a could idea, but it didn’t have a lot of originality, so we started to look closer and we found out that the Chinatown in Liverpool is in fact the oldest in Europe, by finding this out it helped our idea to progress which turned into the idea of doing about the Chinatown and also doing about the food in Chinatown.  When researching even more we found that Chinese New Year was at the weekend coming up, this was good news as it would perfectly fit into our idea. So three members of the group went to Chinatown on the weekend of Chinese New Year to get some shots and possible find some leads for interviews. This trip was positive and some interviews were negotiated for when we went back in a couple of weeks’ time. The group that went got a lot of useful shots and good leads for interviews. I feel that the three days that went to Liverpool were very successful; I think that we got a great interview and we also got a lot of useable footage that would fit well with the direction that we were going with. In terms of development in this project I think that the most development we had was at the beginning of task when we were discussing what we actually wanted to do as our topic. I believe that when we were actually in Liverpool our idea didn’t develop a whole lot and we knew what we actually wanted to get. I believe that the biggest way it developed in Liverpool was when we got the interview and we found out more about Liverpool so then we knew where to go and what shots to get.

Over the course of this project I have learnt a lot, especially to do with editing sound as this is something that I only had little experience in. Doing something like this has helped me open my eyes to a lot of different techniques that I hadn't even thought of using before. This project has also taught me to play around a lot more as it helps to gain experience with soundtrack pro and now I feel a lot more competent with it, I also feel as though I have gained a lot of confidence for it and found it to be quite enjoyable, as I found it so enjoyable I would possibly consider going down this route in the future. I think that process of researching beforehand was very helpful and give me a lot of tips and ideas when it came to soundtrack pro. Creatively I have learnt a variety of new skills that I will be able to take into future projects. The skills that I have gained are that of cleaning up the sound and also syncing up sound. I think that this task was very good as I was thrown into something I was very confident at and I think this has helped me to gain a lot more skills in sound editing.

In terms of creativity I think the group worked very well in all parts of the project, when coming up with the idea everyone was putting ideas out and even in production and also post. This is good work ethic and it shows that everyone is confident in their own abilities and willing to help each other with ideas and also with the skills side of things.

I think as a team this worked very well and believe this to be the case as it ran so smoothly. I believe there is a number of reasons why such as the group enjoy working with each other and aren’t afraid to say when someone is doing something wrong and everyone is willing to give each other advice and if they are a bit more knowledgeable on a certain area they are more than happy to show them how it’s done properly. This is a key trait to working in a team as it means that everyone develops their skills as everyone can always learn something new from someone else. Everything also ran smoothly as we all stuck to the roles that we were assigned to, this meant that everyone was doing their bit to the best of their ability and knew what had to be done. Although we all had our own roles we all chipped in with different ideas, which have helped contribute to the final piece as it feels everyone has had a say and nobody can dispute the final piece as everyone did get their own say. Organisation was also key in getting a good final piece as everyone needed to know where they had to be and what time. This was a big task for the producer as we were going to another city and a lot of things had to be filled out, such as health and safety forms and call sheets. The producer also had to arrange interviews and if communication was to break down we could have went to Liverpool with no interviews and no idea on what we were actually going to base our idea around.

So overall I think that as a group we worked very efficiently and we have got what we set out to achieve, I also think that being the role of sound editor has helped me to understand the job a lot better and I would be very willing to work on sound editing in a future project. 

Sound Editing

In the sound editing process my biggest role is syncing up the interview and making the sound crisper and sharper. 

It will take me a large amount of time to search through all the recordings finding the certain points in the interviews that i need to use to, although time consuming it will be worth it to have the best sound possible on the documentary. 

Sound Log

First of all i listen through the interview, making notes of important points. 

Secondly i look through the edit of the video, taking note of where i will not to put the sections of dialogue. 

Now i will go through the interview chopping it, ready for section of the video it is needed for.

I will now begin to sync up the correct bits of interview with the images. 

This is a difficult job getting syncing up each bit perfectly. 

Now i have the interview synced up, i can no begin on the music and wild track sounds. 

I cut the music so it flows well with the video edit. 

The wild track is also synced up to relevant video. 

I now begin to master the track making sure levels are right and i also begin to clean up the sound.