Context

Final Major Project

Rationale

During the first seven units I have acquired a better understanding of the media industry. I have done primary and secondary research, analysed movies and advertisements. I have looked at the industry from the perspective of someone on the inside rather than a viewer. Before starting the course, I had little to no knowledge on how any of the Adobe software works, but after completing multiple assignments using Adobe, I am very comfortable in my abilities to use the software for all subjects. I have also used Logic Pro X to create my own original music and atmos sounds, this was difficult at first but in the end I got the hang of it. This course has made me more creative and allowed me to see ideas from different points of view rather than just my own. This has influenced my choice for my FMP as doing a documentary will test my skills on Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop, as well as testing my knowledge on shot types, framing and audio.

Project Concept

For this project I will be working with Dan and Cheye, we will be producing a documentary about YouTube. It will consist of the history of YouTube, what YouTube is today, how people earn a living and how it’s impacted generations. We will look into how YouTube has changed from a website where people uploaded home videos into a billion dollar business consisting of high quality content.

For our primary research, we will need to interview younger people who watch YouTube frequently, as well as that we will also be interviewing YouTubers who have successful channels. We also intend on going to London to the YouTube space which will give us an insider’s perspective.

Our documentary will include several sub-headings where we will discuss various topics about YouTube. I will be looking at the most successful past videos on YouTube and the difficulties in getting a popular video today.

In the documentary we want to offer a non-biased view on YouTube to see the positive and negative points about it. However, at the end we will give our final opinion on YouTube after doing this project. We have seven weeks to complete the FMP, so to ensure we complete the whole production process on time we will allocate each other specific roles to get everything running efficiently.

Resources needed:

• Camera(s)
• SD card(s)
• Computer
• Editing equipment
• Tripod
• YouTube
• Bus tickets for London

Evaluation

I will be documenting my research using my blog, this will allow me to keep on top of the paper work and prepare me for my production. When we interview people, we will be recording them, and taking photographs for our evidence. To ensure the project is completed we will be meeting up over the 2 week half term to record interviews. To minimise disruption in a group, we will assign each other individual tasks and communicate via social media.

Project Idea Generation

Before deciding on a YouTube documentary I went through a few other ideas.

We had the option of including one or more of the following project starters in our project.

• Re-tell, reboot, reimagine
• Fake news
• Screen life
• Discarded
• The role of the Observer – In today’s society and with the digital revolution we are constantly observing and being observed

I know I want to create something live action as that’s my preferred story telling method, so after looking at the project starters I decided to look into doing a reimagine first.

A few films we have looked into for a reimagine is –

• Harry Potter
• Bruce Almighty
• Back to the Future

Idea 1 – Harry Potter

The Harry Potter movies are some of the most iconic films of all time. The effects used in all of the movies are mesmerising. To reimagine a scene from Harry Potter I wanted to find out how to create a realistic wand effect as that’s a staple effect for the Harry Potter franchise. I looked on YouTube for some tutorials and ultimately decided on watching a video created by Cinecom.net who I watch frequently anyway.

The thing I liked most about this tutorial was that the whole effect is created in Premiere Pro. Usually effects like this require you to take the composition into After Effects.

The effect seems relatively simple as the lens flare is majority of the effect. During production, using an above head light is critical in ensuring this effect comes out well in post production.

Idea 2 – Bruce Almighty

Bruce Almighty is a film that we all loved the idea of reimagining a scene from. The God powers seemed like a good place to test our editing skills.

We began by looking at a scene from Bruce Almighty, a scene which everyone is likely to remember from the movie.

We thought about possibly recreating this scene but on a smaller scale. We know we can recreate the easier parts like when he changes clothes as his body isn’t in frame during that shot, but to do the walking on water scene and some of the others proved to be slightly more difficult. We came up with the idea of using a green screen and then adding in water in post production, but we don’t feel that it would be as realistic as we wanted it to be.

Instead of shunning away the idea, I decided to look for a tutorial on YouTube to create this scene. Luckily for me, Cinecom.net posted a tutorial on this exact scene from Bruce Almighty.

Cinecom also began with attempting to use a green screen, but once edited it didn’t look realistic and the lighting was completely off. They then decided to use boxes under the water and put a plastic cover over to walk on top of. They then filmed the empty lake at the same angle to take into Premiere Pro. To make the effect realistic they placed the clip of Jordy into the timeline and then added the clip of the empty lake on top. They then created an adjustment layer and used the mask feather tool to blend the water together to make the effect realistic.

After watching the effect in Premiere, it seems to be quite simple if you film the clips right. This effect is definitely a possibility and I will refer back to this tutorial if we do decide to use it.

Idea 3 – Back to the Future

When initially hearing that we could do a recreation, I instantly thought of doing Back to the Future as it’s my favourite movie. Reimagining a scene from Back to the Future will definitely be more challenging than one from Harry Potter and Bruce Almighty as the iconic scenes revolve around the DeLorean and time travel. I could however do something more basic, but I don’t think there would be any point in creating something Back to the Future related if it didn’t include the time travelling car.

The scene I want to try and recreate is this one below. I think this would be a great scene to recreate as the effect is fantastic and the foley I could produce for it would end up being really well.

I’m assuming to get a disappearing car effect i would need to use After Effects as it’s going to require a lot of animation.

Because I’m not entirely sure where to start, I looked up a tutorial on YouTube.

To get this effect they had their camera man on a skateboard following the car. This proved to be difficult because they had to get the framing correct while moving on a skateboard.

The effect in after effects is extremely complex and requires a lot of attention to detail and a lot of after effects knowledge. This effect would definitely be the most difficult to pull off, so I think I won’t be doing this one.

My Decided Project – YouTube Documentary

After looking into the reimagine title, my group and I have decided against doing it as we would prefer to do something original. When going through each of the project titles, we all seemed to be interested in ‘screen life’ and ‘discarded.’ We then discussed creating a documentary about YouTube as we all share an equal passion for it. Creating a documentary on YouTube will test my ability to use all of the skills I’ve learned throughout this year. I will be using Adobe Premiere Pro for the sequence, Adobe After Effects for animation work, and Adobe Photoshop for any thumbnails/posters I create.

Project Title

Now that my group and I have decided on creating a documentary about YouTube, we need to pick a title. Our title needs to be captivating as it’s the first thing people will hear and see when our documentary is completed.

We decided on the title: YouTube – Beyond the Screen. The reason we have titled it this is because we’re going to be looking into YouTube on a deeper level. Instead of just watching the content provided on the platform, we’re going to look into the statistics, talking with YouTubers, and researching into the background of the company, essentially going beyond what we see.

USP – Unique Selling Point

The unique selling point to our chosen project is that we are travelling to London to gather evidence and information from the company itself. Our documentary is going to include interviews with people who work there and people who use the platform as a source of income, which I believe no one else is going to be able to do.

Target Audience

Although our documentary will revolve heavily on YouTube and children, our target audience isn’t children. We want our documentary to be serious and informative, which is why our documentary will be aimed at adults. We wanted to target an older audience because they’re the ones who are going to be curious about what their children, grandchildren, nieces/nephews, brothers/sisters etc are watching. I’d say our target audience would be anywhere between the ages of 21 – 50. I’ve chosen this large of an age gap because that’s where adults with younger family members are in age. Having a more mature audience means we will need to be careful to not lose their interest when discussing YouTube. The topic of YouTube can wander over the line of being too puerile, depending on how we go about it. We will need to script our documentary strategically to appeal to the mature demographic.

My Finished Project Location

Once I have completed my documentary I will be posting it to my YouTube channel. The reason for this is not only because our documentary is based on YouTube, but because YouTube is a free to upload site. Furthermore, the majority of people use YouTube and will be able to access our documentary without any issues.

My channel link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWQbnpDAIuJc1MnuEZYWp5Q

Other Information

Knowing that YouTube is a large social media platform, we decided that we would advertise and post about our progress on the documentary on social media. The best location we found for this was Instagram. We set up an instagram page and posted a variety of different things regarding the documentary, including highlights with the script, behind the scenes and our personal progress under our names.

You can view our instagram page at: https://www.instagram.com/ytbeyondthescreen/

Mind Map

Now that we have decided on creating a documentary about YouTube, we can begin the production idea generation process.

In our documentary we want to begin by going through the history of YouTube. We want to discuss where it all started and what it is today. YouTube started as a place to upload home videos to share with friends and family, since then it’s grown into this huge phenomenon in which anyone can upload anything and possibly make a living by doing so.

To embed my ideas together, I created a mind map. Creating a mind map allowed me to categorise my initial ideas and develop them further.

As you can see, my mind map includes a lot of information on what I plan to do for this project. I wrote about my research ideas, which include primary and secondary research. For my primary research I will be creating surveys and conducting interviews. For my secondary research I will analyse viral videos, research books written by YouTubers and do general research on documentary styles.

In my mind map, I have included several different headings that relate to YouTube. These are going to be potential topics for the documentary. A lot of these topics do merge with each other. YouTube becoming mainstream is something that’s happening and companies using YouTube and posting everyday is proof of that as they can see there’s a market.

After creating a mind map with no limit, I created another mind map on one of the sections we are going to discuss in the documentary.

In this mind map I added YouTubers that have the most influence on their impressionable young audience at the top, and what YouTube as a whole could encourage children to think down the bottom. Since children are exposed to YouTube and YouTubers showing off their lavish lifestyle, this may give off the impression that they need to start YouTube to get that same lifestyle. This will result in children begging parents for expensive camera gear and the children having large expectations and believing that they will be a big YouTuber too which will likely lead to disappointment. Something that YouTubers seem to be doing a lot of these days is promoting their merchandise numerous times in each video. YouTube merchandise can be expensive, which is why instead of asking their parents because they’ll say no, children may use their parents credit/debit cards without permission. On the other hand, YouTube does show a lot of creativity, there’s videos that are incredible and this would make children become more creative when growing up. I can say that YouTube would help with a media career for a few reasons, the first being that I’ve seen it happen with a lot of my favourite YouTubers. I also got into media more because of YouTube and what my favourite YouTubers would say about the creative industry.

Mood Board

I created a mood board in order to visualise what I plan to do for this project.

Documentary Timeline

I wanted to create a timeline of what we plan on including in the documentary. Doing this was necessary in order to arrange the order of the main topics.

This timeline includes all of the different stages in our documentary from start to finish. I’ve assigned us all individual sections in the middle to distinguish our work apart from each other. Each of us have a topic that we will focus on for the documentary. I will be responsible for creating the title sequence, the history of YouTube section and any additional animation throughout the documentary as well as my individual section.

Project Action Plan and Timetable

Pitching and Feedback

I presented my FMP idea to five other people to see if I’m on the right track with my project concept. The feedback I received was mainly positive. However, I did receive some constructive criticism. This criticism was necessary to ensure that I produce work to the best of my ability and it was helpful to see some outside points of view. I also reviewed some of my peers blogs and gave them feedback.

What Went Well

I was told that my general idea had potential and it garnered some interest amongst my peers and my tutor, which is a great sign. My peers knew exactly what I was creating when I had explained it. They also liked my idea to research into the different documentary modes.

What I Can Improve on

I was told to rearrange some posts on my blog for it to flow better and told to add more detail in certain areas to reach the criteria given. Another part of my blog I was told to expand on was my project concept. My original concept was too complicated to understand what exactly I wanted to produce, so I decided to change it to give anyone reading a better understanding. I was also told to have a group meeting with my team members about the editing style, this is due to each individual having a their own personal style and when we join our individual sections together, the edit will likely be jumpy and lack any flow. To avoid a puzzling edit, we will be discussing what editing style we will all follow.

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