SACM Anti-Smoking Video Evaluation

My Job Role/s & Contribution
I began Habit as the Sound Operator, which meant my job role was making sure the sound worked on set and recording the sound on set using a boom microphone. In pre-production my job was to find music tracks and sound effects the sound effects had to be in the theme of a college environment and the music had to be eery and horror-style. After we began the production I switched to being the camera operator for the production as it was best for the team and for the better of the end production. This role meant I set up the shots and talk with the director about how the shots should look and record the film.

Success of Final Production/Cut Films Relevance
The overall final production came out not so bad. After having to switch actors we managed to get it all filmed in one day, but the rushed filming didn't come without consequences, we had some continuity errors because of the non-linear filming.

After the video was put together with all sound effects, music and screen effects the final product looked a whole bunch better. The video portrayed smoking effects in a more original way than most anti-smoking videos, at first it doesn't make sense as an anti-smoking video but once the video is over it makes complete sense.

The success of the film to the Cut Films criteria is very well done. The research is shown with some of the voiceovers in the film that talk about Dopamine. Before doing this I had no idea what it was but after researching I learnt what it is and how it is a big trigger in smoking and the effects of stress. The planning is shown with the shot lists and storyboards, this shows we went into the production with a visual plan and didn't wing it by just taking a camera and pressing record.

The technical expertise of the film is very well done with a few minors in places. The framing of the film is done well but a couple of shots could of been tightened more to lose the dead space around the subject.The acting was very well done, although the character has next to no lines the feelings of the character are portrayed greatly by the actor. The storyline is structured well but I think some of the voiceover clips are misplaced slightly which make it feel odd.

The film doesn't have an impact on me because I don't smoke and have never considered it so it doesn't make me not want to any less. I do think it is attention grabbing though, if it was on TV and I was flicking through and seen it mid way through I'd want to watch to see what it was. I think the film is original because it shows how smoking can effect you in a different way to most other videos. Most either show a family falling apart or what you're putting into your body when you smoke, this one shows how it can effect you mentally and in a stunning horror style.

I think the message of the video is shown clearly because of the voice overs, without the voiceovers the video just shows a person going insane from a cigarette but with the voice overs the story is well told and gives facts about the smoking effects.

Audience Feedback
After the creation of the video I posted it on my Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QNBl-kPQ18
Then created an 8 Question Survey for people to answer after watching the video:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6Q9FM82
After waiting a day I checked the survey results, we had 12 responses. All results came from males, the ages all ranged between 13-20+. 11/12 of the survey participants were non-smokers, 7/12 of them knew some stuff about how smoking effects you mentally and 11/12 of them thought the message of the video was shown clearly.

Conclusion
In conclusion I think we made a very well done anti-smoking video that came across well with a global audience.

Production Blog

03/03/15
1st Production Team Meeting
Today we got put into our groups for creating the anti-smoking videos. My team is me, Jamie & Richard. In our first meeting we discussed whose film we would be creating we looked at what each of us had pitched and found out, my idea was about how smoking affects the body, Richard's was about how it affects you athletically and Jamie's was about how it affects your mood.

We decided on Jamie's idea because we thought it had a good story and trying to combine the 3 ideas would have been to difficult. After deciding on the idea Jamie went to work on the script some more and me and Richard went to do some Primary Research, after not being ballsy enough to ask a lot of people and wanting to get out of being surrounded by the smoke we resulted in one reply for our questionnaire I then decided it would be easier to do the questionnaire on Survey Monkey because that way it broadened the audience of the questions and was a lot less pressure on us asking them, after several hours the survey only came back with 4 responses one of which was what we done by putting in the answers from the one result. We decided on what job roles we would each have for the production, as it was Jamie's production idea he was chosen as director, Richard was chosen to be Camera Operator and I got Sound Operator.

After sharing the questionnaire on Facebook we had dinner. After dinner we reviewed Jamie's Script, then Richard & Jamie worked on the Storyboards and shotlist. Me being the Sound Operator I looked for sound effects to use in the production for footsteps and a school bell. To end the day we got our Make-up artists for the production.

04/03/15
Today started with a team meeting with Neil to discuss what we were going to be doing, my job as the sound op' and everything else sound related to the production was to find music and sound effects for the film. I found 2 new music tracks and some other sound clips for ambience, that was all that was done today as it was quite a short day and we had already got a lot of stuff done yesterday.

12/03/15
Today was our first day of filming the video, we filmed with Chloe Wood, the only actress needed for our production. The filming was only in a classroom in College so getting the equipment had no difficulties. Being the first day of filming, job roles went out of the window and we rotated a few times, I began as sound operator but after Richard's incompetence on camera, I took over the camera, then Jamie took over camera and I became a back drop for a little while, then done camera a little more, then ended the first filming day as a back drop again.

13/03/15
Today we done the voiceovers for Habit, the day started with some technical difficulties with the recording equipment (Friday 13th...something had to go wrong) we decided to switch to using a camera and just taking the audio from the clips. We got the voiceovers done, then checked them on the computer which is where Friday the 13th struck again and the sound wasn't working from Windows Media Player, we decided to let the voice actors go then Jamie took the clips home, he tried them there and they worked so we were happy with them.

17/03/15
Today began terribly, after waiting nearly two hours for Chloe we decided to drop her as the main character and switched it for one of our other Voice Actors, Leo. We began by refilming the classroom stuff with had already done with Chloe. We then went to Norton to get the entire film filming finished. We started in Jamie's house, Jamie started on camera because the room we had used was very tightly spaced, after the first shot change the camera moved to the doorway so was more accesible for me and so I took over on Camera again. After finishing in the house we went to our next location, still in Norton, a bridge. The hardest thing about filming there were constant ducks and there crazy annoying but yet mildly funny quacking. After pulling through we went to our final location of the day, a bicycle track. The filming today went really well, we got back to College, got the footage from the camera and we were done for the day.

19/03/15
Today was a smooth running day, and was a quick one, I got the rough cut of the film complete but in doing so I made the mistake of only getting the video footage and not music and sound effects, so I just left it as it was without the sound and left it with Jamie to complete the final cut.

24/03/15
Today Jamie got the final cut finished but he had to leave for a doctors appointment, after he left me and Neil watched what Jamie had done, it looked really good but Neil pointed out some visual things that could be nice to change, he tried to introduce us to a new programme called "Speedgrade" it confused me so I left it and went with the effects on Premier. After some experimenting and laughter the final cut was completed, until Jamie returned from the doctors he watched it with the newly added screen effects, made some final tweaks and we got it exported and ready to be put on a DVD which will be my Job tomorrow.