Reflection

As an overall I am very pleased with the final out come of this project as I stepped out my comfort zone and attempted a style of documentary I’ve never done before. I felt like I excelled to my true potential and my skills in camera, editing and colour grading have all improved noticeably since I started the project.  Originally I wanted my film to contain a list of high end racing drivers or anyone who’s highly respected in the motorsport industry. Due to them being so busy as it was start of the season when I was asking drivers,  I was unable to get anyone big in film which was a let down as I felt in order for it to be as strong as possible, it would need very highly respected people in it. However I have been able to arrange a shoot and interview with Thomas Onslow-cole who I originally wanted to be the main part in my film, however he was busy over the months I hoped to film him. I’ve re-arranged to meet up with Tom at the end of May (after hand in) to shoot some final section where I shall add to the interactive part of my film as the interactive part of this project could very easily be an on going thing with weekly/monthly updates with new video and story’s always being added. With this whole interactive part of the project being fairly new I’m hoping its as fun to watch as much fun as its been to produce. I feel having the film interactive, viewers are able to choose what they watch, so they don’t have to waste time watching section they have no interest in. I feel my film has benefited a lot with the interactive part as I’m able to get all the information I want to the viewers with out giving them to much at once. If I was to do this again I would make sure that I have the site, I’m uploading the project to ready as I left it 2 weeks before the deadline and it still wasn’t fully working then. This is also because I’ve been stepping out my comfort zone buy hosting servers for sites and creating interactive videos. I’ve had to self teach my self though YouTube in order to get what I vision in my head. I had been fine with everything until getting the project up on line for submission. Luckily I was able to hand it in on usb, but the way the public are going to be able to see my film will be through the interactive site. So I need to make sure that the site is all up and running ASAP.

In my original idea I wanted to hear people talk more about the politics side of things in motorsports. My interviewees where happy to talk about this to me in person, however they didn’t feel comfortable being filmed talking about it as they don’t want it to reflect bad if they where to be back mouthing someone in the motorsport industry. This meant my film didn’t have as much of a dark side to it as a liked but still got around it. You may realised that my film goes a lot more in depth to drag racing than it does to track racing. This is because all the information from the interviews on track racing where all very dull simple answer, which most people know the rules off by common sense. I felt having these interviews in my project that a lot of viewers would lose interest very quickly and may stop watching the video

At the begging of this Project I was using a wide range of cameras when on shoot from Canon 6D,60D,600D,C100, Sony A7s,SF700,gopro, black magic. This was because I wasn’t fully 100% sure on what camera suited this kind of shooting best for this project. Half way through the project I came to realise how great the Canon C100 really is, however a lot of the stuff I have been shoot as been in very low light such as the 24 hour racing. No camera compared to the Sony A7s for its low light capturing. With this camera I was able to film in very low light with out needing any additional lighting for the shot. This meant what I was filming, I was able to keep it look natural as possible giving the views what its really like. Where as If I was using the C100 for the same shots it would either be very dark or grainy, which would ruin the experience for the viewer. For the majority project I’ve filmed, most of the shots where with the Sony A7s. This is a great camera, and especially for what I’m trying to capture with it also being so small. Going though footage I’ve shot with the A7s from the start of this project too know, I’m able to see how my camera skill with this camera have improved as this camera is know becoming second nature to me. From the start of this project it was also the first time I had ever colour graded. Luckily I’ve had so much footage and time to experiment with colour grading that I know feel very comfortable I can achieve the look I have in my head very easily with the skills I have self taught my self and from a few tips from the DOP of this project Russell Dixon.  I hope to carry on these skills as they have enhanced my skills as a film maker. While on the production of this project I found a new passion for motorsports photography. This is something I had never done before until shooting for DRIVE. I’ve planed to g to a couple race events over the summer to carry on my motorsports photography as well.