Here is my weekly progress and plan for the documentary project
WEEK 1
We did not have class on the first week
WEEK 2
This week our teacher informed us of our very first film project and briefed us on our documentary project. This project will be done as a team of 4 which I had initially dreaded as I wasn't so fond of the idea of working with others/preferred working alone on big projects. We also began on researching the conventions of the genre as well as understanding what makes scenes suspenseful by looking at the opening of 3 different documentaries in class and then was tasked to continue the research for 2 others in our own time.
To-do : Find my group and complete my research
WEEK 3
This week I secured the group I was going to be working with throughout the term for this documentary project and we dove straight in by working on the statement of intent in class. This task included discussion on the plot of the documentary, the representations, the targeted audiences and the reasons for each choice we made. Me and my team discussed on the possible sub-genres and settled on a medical crime documentary. Lastly, I decided to change the format of my weekly progress to have a general description of my activities for the week and followed up with a reflection and a to-do list for next week as I believe this will help me effectively summarize my week in a more efficient manner.
Reflection: I have always found the statement of intent extremely boring to do however it is a much more mentally taxing task as it became harder when working with a group as we must find a compromise for each decision we make because we all believed that each members ideas should (ideally) be aligned to make sure the documentary would have a clear tone and message.
To-do: Finishing the statement of intent is my teams priority. Starting with finalizing the plot of the documentary is the first step to become the foundation to decide everything else, such as demographic, characters needed, etc.
WEEK 4
In this weeks lesson, our teacher was absent due to a school competition he had to attend so during our project lesson, we kept to our schedule of continuing to statement of intent, storyboarding and location scout. My group first split the job between each other (me and Aurel on script and statement of intent, Sharon on location scout, and Beatrice on storyboard). In our other lessons during the week, we also did a recap lesson on representation by revisiting the theory by Stuart Hall. Although the topic of power in the media was offtopic or unrelated to the documentary, I thought revising representations would be helpful in aiding the decision making of how I wanted the characters to be conveyed to represent them.
Reflection: I recall this week to be extremely overwhelming as I was feeling demotivated after doing statement of intent. I'm not used to working as a group so constantly having to discuss, compromise and fix certain things felt repetitive and tiring to me. However, I understand that building a strong foundation will help to increase the chances of success of the project so I endured the struggle to ensure the statement of intent was finished and detailed.
To-do: Before week 5, we plan to finish all planning such as storyboard and location scout and begin taking test shots.
WEEK 5
This week we had another lesson on representation theory on foreign companies depicting Indonesia and its people which I found to be interesting as the representation shown wasn't accurate. I aim to avoid this misrepresentation of Indonesian people by using the retained information from the class in my documentary. This week, my team and I had also conjured a filming schedule, beginning with interviewing the nurse.
Reflection: Although we discussed to be 50% finished with filming by the start of week 6, I doubt that it would be possible. It has suddenly has become extremely stressful as it constantly feels like there isn't enough time to complete this project on top of other classwork/assessments. I will ensure to clear my schedule as much as I can to complete the task however with such a packed schedule, I worry it may not be possible.
To-do: Finish 50% of filming, including interviews with nurse, investigator and one student character.
WEEK 6
On this week, we continued filming the investigator and the character for the prepertrator's friend. In class, we were introduced with a prompt made by our teacher for our critical reflection to help guide us which we were encouraged to not leave it till the last week. Other than that, this week felt uneventful and was more focused on finishing filming all the scenes so my team can begin the editing process as I believe it will be the most time-consuming task. Our teacher also handed us a small paper and tasked us to write a checklist of what must be done by next week.
Reflection: I felt as this week was slow as it mostly involved finding and scheduling a time where majority of us (actor, cameraman and helpers) could film. Scheduling has definitely been a major problem in my team as it seemed as if our free times were never aligning. At this point, our filming progress has reached 70% which is definitely making me more anxious as the deadline is peering closer.
To-do: An actor has not been feeling well so we may need to find a substitute if she is unable to film again by next week. Finishing filming must absolutely be done by this week.
WEEK 7
This week we checked back on our checklist we had previously done on the week prior to check of finished task and or add on to the list of things to be completed. At this point, we are about 90% of the way done with filming, only requiring to film small bits such certain voiceovers. Our teacher informed us to begin our thumbnail creation which was allocated to Aurel and Beatrice to research and make them.
Reflection: A sudden announcement that the deadline was cut from week 9 to week 8 had everyone groaning and whining about it. We were all at an agreement of how stressed we are about this whole project but theres was nothing to do about the issue but push through and get majority of our blogs done with.
To-do: I plan to begin editing by this week as the major scenes were completed and I was advised to begin editing and simply leave empty areas for those minor scenes.
WEEK 8 (DEADLINE PART 1)
This entire week was dedicated to our project thus there was much more progress done. It first began by getting feedback on my current progress of editing from my teacher and then moved on to getting much more tasks complete such as the self reflection for each blog post, continuation on the critical reflection and preparing to submit our entire planning of our documentary.
Reflection: This week flew by so quick as I felt like I had to catch up on finishing blogposts that were lacking but I feel proud of myself to be able to get them done on time without feeling like there was a drop in the quality of my work. This project has been a mess but I've enjoyed participating in creating an idea and watching it come to life. It has gotten me to look towards the next project as I am confident I can do better with the skills and lessons I have learnt from this experience.
To-do: Finish draft of filming and have it reviewed and revised before the actual submission as well as creating my critical reflection in the form of an essay
WEEK 9 (DEADLINE PART 2)
Self Reflection ; Having a reflection and tracking my progress was never my favourite part of projects however, I understand it's a necessary task to compare my working pace to the schedule and thus determine whether I need to speed up my work. Admittedly, I found myself overlooking this task frequently by only jotting down notes of my tasks during classes and not truly reflecting on myself and led to me slacking behind or procrastinating. When I began actually paying attention to what I wrote, I began undertsanding that I have much to catch up with and finalize. I believe if I reminded myself to complete each week with the same amount of effort as any other task, it would have greatly improved my awareness on time and the deadline. I will definitely take this lesson into account on my future projects by setting a reminder to have it done in my to-do list.