Report - Assignment THREE

1. The challenges and tribulations of being a group assignment
Since we were in the same group from our last assignment, assumingly the same challenges and tribulations we encountered before would appear in this assignment. However, to some extent, our communication problem from our last assignment had improved which allowed for easier group work. This may be due to understanding this problem and resolving it during the practical lessons way before we started this assignment. Furthermore, we separated the assignment clearly into different sections this time so that there will be no unfair distribution of work. This clearly helped to resolve the unfair distribution of work that had occurred during the last assignment.

However, this time we had new problems and challenges which we encountered. We had trouble collaborating and taking each other’s ideas into account when deciding on what to do. There were a lot of disagreement of what the subject of the video should be, who would do what part, when things should be done, when to meet up and finally, after deciding the topic, we had trouble deciding what to film. We were put through a lot of frustration but after calmly looking at it and taking a step back; we managed to cooperate and set up a schedule and assigned roles that everyone was satisfied with.

During the process of filming and editing, the video editor realized that some of the videos were redundant, while others had really bad quality. This made it really hard to edit and thus in the end, the video editor had to do some re-filming and extra filming. This was obviously due to the lack of experience in filming and video editing (for the camera person) and lack of attention to detail. But this wasn’t too much of a problem for any group member, despite being a big part of the assessment as it was an understandable problem/mistake and it was easily resolved.

Another problem the video editor encountered was a lack of narration. This may have been a communication problem as there was a misunderstanding when drawing up the storyboard. However, it was easily solved by assigning a narrator and writing up a short script.

2. The process of creating the video
Our group generally took an ordered method in creating a video. We basically used the stages of planning, filming, editing and evaluating.

Planning: The topic was chosen through large amounts of discussion. We then drew up a storyboard where we clearly pointed out what we were going to film, who was going to feature in the video, who was going to film and who was going to edit. We basically ran through a brief idea what the script was going to be like, how the video was going to look, what background music was going to be used and what software and hardware we were going to use. During this stage we had also decided when things were going to be done and how they were going to be done.

Filming: During this process, one person went around the university to do some filming using a camera. Unfortunately some of the videos were unusable due to the poor video quality and thus another group member had to do some more filming. Another group member had to memorise her script and basically play her part featuring in the video. This step was really straightforward and was done really quickly.

Editing: This step was quite challenging because the video editor had a lot of problems finding enough footage to use (as the quality to poor). But basically the video was made using the storyboard. The video editor also added in a narration as the script wasn’t written clearly to suit the storyboard. The finished production was then uploaded on youtube (as a private video) and embedded onto a blog post.

Evaluation: In order to attain constructive criticism, we asked other people to look at the video. Most of the people liked it and found the video done well. The only problem we found was the quality of the videos that were used. Since the iphone had poor video recording technology, it resulted in videos that were quite blurry, pixilated and slow. This is clearly seen in the video.

Overall, the video was created using a very standard process.

3. How does the video relate to your blog?
Basically, our blog was about food and our video is about food. This already suggests that we decided to clearly make something related to our blog. Since we realized that we were spending most of our time on campus therefore we decided to make a video on food at campus. We thought this would be a great aid for students at MQ (well for some extent).

Furthermore, since most of our blog readers were ISYS100MQ students (our target audience) we thought it was relevant to create a video that would interest our target audience. This would greatly improve our blog readership.