Evaluation of Age UK Project
We believe that the video that we have produced is fit for the intentions of the brief which has been set for us and the way that we have edited the video with the clips that we have included shows a variety of different areas within the charity; from working within Age UK itself, helping at one of their clubs & societies and the people who Age UK actually help to defeat loneliness.
We tried to show as many different positive areas within the charity, whether it being in Hullbridge Community Centre, or an Age UK charity shop. We also wanted to show some of the people who actually work for the charity to help it become what it is. The woman who was in the video was Jean, one of the people in charge of the financial side of the charity and we thought that this would be a good idea to show in our social action video because although it’s about the people they help, it’s also about showing the public about what stories they have and how they’ve helped older people.
The majority of the shots we chose to include was to show that Age UK helps create friendships and for some of the people that we showed in the video, may be their only time to go out and socialise with the other people who turn up to these events. Although the vast majority of them were shown to be sociable, a couple turned up just to be around other people and to not be alone. During some of our shots we were unprepared and whilst we saw some of our colleagues taking time out of their production and talking to the regulars of the Age UK club, we had started shooting immediately and whilst getting some more footage, in the process the camera had decide to go out of focus and because that footage was so raw, we had decided to keep it in because it wasn’t scripted, nor staged. For a couple of other shots, we had decided not to edit them because the wobble of the camera added an effect of it being in first person, especially the shot which was in the charity shop whilst looking at a poster.
The first shot that we had put into our video was to highlight the talent that these people had, despite their age. In that same shot which we eventually decided to cut down to a shorter time, he had been playing the piano for a few minutes, and even after we had finished filming and said goodbye, he was still playing and that is how important that that Age UK club is to him, to help him play the piano and be around other people. All of the shots that we had filmed and edited were perfectly naturally created and we filmed out of their way to try and get as much authenticity into our video to portray what it’s actually like to be at that community centre on a normal day when an Age UK event is happening there.
The audio that we decided to use was based on three track layers: one of which was muted because of unnecessary background noise, another was the music that we decided to use which was Florence & The Machine and our third track layer was either background noise of the people laughing and having fun, or the interview scenes where there was talking. The start of our video was a member of Age UK playing the piano which we thought would mix perfectly into our background music of Florence & The Machine, which has a reasonably slow start to the song. The negatives to using background music in a social action interview is that we needed to fade the music in and out whenever an interview scene came on without making it terribly noticeable, however at some points during the video it is quite noticeable when the audio drops down to almost inaudible levels within the matter of a second whilst an interview scene is happening. The fading of audio could’ve been smoother and more efficient if I faded out the audio using the effects in the sidebar, rather than trying to do it manually, which I had thought was a better option at the time.
If I was to revisit this project and try to make it even better, I would’ve chosen to shoot even more footage so that we had a wider range of what we could’ve included into our video. Although our shots were unique and informative, we struggled to edit them together to create a storyline so that the audience could follow the video along and understand to a fuller extent of what was actually happening, rather than throwing all of clips together and putting a voiceover on top of it all- even though this is one of the main aims of having a voiceover on videos of social action. If I had known about the audio issues we had had with our interview with Jean, I would’ve used a shotgun microphone and placed it nearer to her to prevent the background static noises, which makes it seem unprofessional.
Despite a few setbacks during editing and in pre-production, I am very pleased with what we have produced and I think the whole video has a professional look about it.