Danny Hewitt's Television Production Blog

In conclusion, this project has given me a real insight on what it is like to work for an employer, rather than myself. One of the biggest challenges I faced creating a video for someone else was the fact that I had to constantly think about what they wanted, even if I didn’t agree with some requests. This adds more pressure when filming as you’re ultimately recording and creating a video to please employers, and if you don’t get it right or accurate, then you would receive negative feedback that could lead to a drop in self-confidence. I have gained a lot of experience working for ACT, improving my social as well as technical skills that I will definitely take with me into future productions. This project has made me realise how important planning, time management and teamwork is to creating a successful production, and how difficult it can be without them

We planned our shoot heavily leading up to the Cambridge trip, as we learnt from our mistakes from the French production. This time we were given more detailed instructions including what exactly our client wanted from the interviews. I was very happy with this, as it meant we knew what it took to impress Amie (the client), which ultimately is the aim when creating a video for someone else. Another major difference in our favour was the fact we were given a lot more time to film the interviews. This made my role slightly easier to the French trip, as it meant I didn’t have to rush with each interviewee and could get the best answers out of them. My director role played a big part again, as I told everyone what I wanted prior to the shoot. I used my people skills to not only inform, but also motivate my team who have now formed a close bond. I have always believed in having high team morale, as I believe work gets finished quickly and accurately when everyone is pulling together as a team and enjoying it at the same time. We got to the location early so we had time to scout the place and work out where was most ideal to film the interviews. The room we were given was quite small and plain, however I asked someone to go and get us some posters so we could make the background of the frame a bit more interesting for the audience. We filmed most of the interviews before the show, which was great as it meant we didn’t have to chase after many people afterwards (when they want to go home after a busy day). We still had the director, executive director and conductor to interview after the show, so I decided to film them on stage. This gave us a very interesting background for each interview, which not only made the film more aesthetically pleasing for the viewers, but also helped to highlight the important characters in the production. One problem with doing this was the sound. Audience members were still leaving and therefore chatting amongst themselves, which in-turn created a horrible background noise when recording the after-show interviews. I checked with Chris if the sound was manageable, and we both agreed that it was easily going to be fixed in the editing process. Overall it was a very successful trip, and I am very happy with the footage we got. I believe we all worked really well as a team, and improved from the last trip due to more planning and teamwork.