Media Studies Evaluation.
I will start off by saying process of making a 6 to 8 minute length documentary was a very enjoyable one from start to finish. Planning the documentary, gathering footage, editing and working as a team were all enjoyable aspects of the film making process, and the end result was satisfying. This being said, we did get off to a rather shaky start and many weeks passed before we actually got around to capturing any decent footage.   Originally we planned to do a drama piece for our film. We had a script ready, shots and locations planned out and a cast of actors ready to go. On the day of filming this drama, the three of us group members all felt there wasn’t something right, and that we were being too ambitious trying to create this drama piece.  We then made an on-the-spot decision to start over, to create a documentary about something we knew a lot more about, Longboarding.
Planning the locations and interviewees for the documentary was easy enough, there are many hills and longboarders in Nelson and Miles, one of the members of our team, is himself a longboarder and therefore knew a lot of appropriate hills and valuable contacts within the longboarding community.  Luckily we managed to get hold of Kris Seymour, a longboarder who agreed to be a part of our documentary and he featured prominently in a lot of the longboarding footage and interviews.
Technology-wise, we were sorted. At any points during shooting we had at least two cameras filming. During the long, following shots of Miles and Kris cruising down the entire length of the port hills, we had three cameras rolling. The larger camera was held carefully by Jack, who was leaning out of the car window as it followed the longboarders down the hill. I was manning the two smaller cameras with were on tripods, one positioned looking up the hill the two were descending, the other on the corner. This setup allowed us to capture almost every angle and aspect of the longboarder’s descent.  For the interviews we used a simple two-camera setup, with one of the smaller cameras mounted on a tripod facing the interviewees head on and the larger camera being held by hand, capturing the interviewees at closer, more varying angles. This setup worked well as we edited the varying angles together to get one solid yet dynamic looking interview.
As a group we all worked really well together, each contributing our own input and ideas, making the production process a very smooth one.  Each member of the group undertook their own roles and stuck by them, contributing a considerable amount to the process by putting a lot of effort into their own role.
As Miles was the only person in the group with any longboarding experience, he featured a lot in the film as a longboarder and as an interviewee. The majority of the longboarding footage has Miles in it, as does the main interview. Miles also took it upon himself to capture a lot of the artier and scenic shots which contributed a lot to the style and aesthetic of the documentary. His musical taste was also valuable in the process of creating this documentary as a couple of the songs featured in the film were his suggestion.
Jack played an important role during production by deciding what shots were appropriate and how they should be done. He also did most of the potentially dangerous out-of-car filming when following the longboarders down the hill. A lot of location, song and style choices seen in the film were Jack’s doing.
My main contribution  to the film was the editing. Although we all contributed to HOW the film should be edited, it was me who did the majority of the hands-on editing (cutting, pasting, splitting, montage etc.). When it came to shooting, I was manning the static cameras positioned at the base of the hills.
There were many roles that were shared, for example the handheld filming for the up close longboarding shots, but it is fair to say each person had their own aspect in which they did more than the other two members.
If we were to repeat the experience, I’d say it is implicit that we would allow ourselves a lot more time for production. Due to the change of subject we made past the halfway point of the assessment’s timeframe, we could only allow ourselves one day to get all the footage used, constricting us to a limited amount.  The film, which was meant to be a documentary, was nowhere near as informative as you’d  expect a documentary to be, due to the time constraints we faced. Had we given ourselves more time to plan and film, I believe we would have created a better documentary. This being said, I am still satisfied with the end product and I believe the other two members of the team are too.