Television Production Project - Assignment Example

What were the aims of your project and how far were you successful in achieving them? For our Television Production project, our team planned to create a documentary about a Chinese chef in May Flower Restaurant. We projected the length of the documentary to be around 4 minutes as a long documentary is more likely to get audiences bored. Our aim for the documentary was not only to introduce audiences to the unique features about Chinese cuisine; but also to make them discover how the Chinese chef encounters various cooking (working) difficulties. Some of the difficulties include how to deal with the problem of inadequate Chinese ingredients and cooking equipments, and how to adjust foods to British and Chinese tastes. Before shooting, we already knew getting good materials from the chef was going to be a challengeable job. It is because of the career itself. First, the environment for this subject could not be well controlled as the kitchen space was limited and people were always moving around, especially in the restaurant during the shooting days. This did not favor us to set up camera and lighting equipment. At the same, it was not possible to shoot any close up shots with different angles when the staffs were making customer orders. Second, there is limitation of shooting objects (non-useable ingredients). Once the food has been cut or cooked, it would not return to its original condition. We were lucky in that, the owner of the restaurant and chef allowed us to shoot on their closing day as well. We were therefore able to move the equipment whenever we wanted in the kitchen so as to capture more choice of shots and angles, including both horizontal and high. This became a major contribution to succeeding with our aim because it gave us the opportunity of bringing the audience close up with what went on with the chef’s professional roles. Furthermore, the chef came to the restaurant on the closing day to record his part of the interview. Although he could only give as two hours, we were still appreciative of his generosity to help us finish this essential session. With the help and corporation from the owner and chef, we could successfully capture different mise-en-scene (scenes) in the film including daily working scene in kitchen, dining scene of customers and close up scenes during preparing and cooking foods. In my opinion, we have already achieved the basic goals of the project, which was to present the features about Chinese cuisine and the way the chef encounters difficulties during cooking. Moreover, we kept the rawness of the materials. We did not re-set the props and shooting location intentionally. Although we understand it might not favor to shot stylistic. For example, we did not place the cooking ingredients in the kitchen but tried to capture the original setting and the natural movements (normal working procedures) of the cooks in the kitchen. However, we could not avoid the unwanted sounds during shooting because the environment’s limitation. We also found that it could be better if we add music to cover those unwanted sounds. At the end, the length of the final output was longer than we projected as it was five and half minutes long. In general, we are satisfied with our documentary as it is engaging and interesting. How could your programme be used? What was your target audience? How did you seek to involve them? We imagined and designed our programme in the web forum call LeicesterBBS. The forum was formed by a group of International (Chinese) students who studied in Leicestershire. This is the largest and most organized forum to engage with the Chinese society in Leicester. There are over ten thousand (10,000) registered members and its page views are more than five hundred (500) a day. The function of the forum is to provide information to users, which include non-members. For example, house-letting services, foodie page (include restaurants list and take away number), tourist guide in Leicester, second-hand trading, blog, etc. We would simply share the documentary in the foodie page and blog secession in order to promote Chinese cuisine and make more people understand the position and duty of the Chinese chef. The documentary would target Chinese people, especially international students. For example it is our goal that freshmen would visit the forum more frequently to get familiar with this place and find for the updated news. The senior students (like me) would check for deals or discount promotion regularly. So it is a good platform to distribute our documentary because it is easier to seek. In sum, our target audience was the Chinese international student community and we sought to engage them through their interaction on LeicesteBBS. What genres/programmes were you emulating and what were you influenced by in your planning, filming and editing? “A Bite of China”, the popular Chinese documentary television series talk about the history of food, eating habits and cooking style in China. It not only inspires us about an old Chinese saying that ‘Hunger breeds discontentment’ but also highlights the uniqueness of Chinese cuisine. So we decided to make a documentary about Chinese chef and foods by emulating “A Bite of China”. For the filming technique, we have emulated “Secrets of the Kitchen” which is episode 5 of “A Bite of China”. Our motivation was emulating this episode is that like our documentary, it has large amount of scenes which were taken in the kitchen and restaurant in the latter part. Thus, we marked all the scenes that we thought were visually attractive and ensured we did not miss any of them. For example, it inspired us to take close up shot with different angles when the chef is cutting. In addition, this television series also contribute some ideas in the ending such as to include customers’ dinning scenes. We came to learn that doing this helps to create a harmonic atmosphere and easy to empathy audience. How well did your group work together? Our group consisted of six people and we each took different roles of director, producer, editor, camera operator, lighting director, and sound recordist. We created our own WhatsApp and wechat group to communicate and share ideas. Through these social media groups, we posted video links and meeting times to enhance communication with each other outside of face-to-face meetings. Also we set our meeting to a week before our presentation to share our film’s ideas and build a backup plan. The meeting place was the group study room at the university library. This face-to-face meeting helped us to get familiar with each other and to build team spirit. During the face-to-face meeting, all group members were willing to express their ideas than in WhatsApp group. Generally, the rate of progress was smooth because each member contributed to discussions and was willing to pull out weight to support the success of the project. I feel that our preparation was efficient and progress fast because we got things sorted out during the seminars. For example we got the permission to film from the restaurant’s owners as early as in lecture 2. Because of this, we did not need to spend extra time to figure out back-up plan and it made our group more focused on the theme and content about the documentary. When it came to filming, everyone was punctual and prepared to participate. This notwithstanding, the filming did not run as smooth as we imagined in the first day because of two reasons. The first reason was the cooks and chefs were busy preparing dishes for customers so we could not move our equipment around in the kitchen to change the filming angle whenever we wanted. Secondly, our director did not provide shot-list to us so the ideas only existed in her head so majority of shots only had one angle (wide shot). Thus, there were some disagreements and short tempers in the group after hours of working together. Luckily, most of us felt it was important to solve the recent problems together and support our director in her choices even if there were some disputes. Doing the editing with the director, our progress was smooth and on schedule on the first two editing days. However, things messed up on the last editing day because of the technical problem. Some soundtracks of the clips were missing and the video order was jumped. We spent an afternoon to resolve all the problems and the voiceover. Unfortunately, the volume of the voiceover was low and did not sound natural so we used subtitle in the end to keep the originality. When the film was finished the whole team was satisfied with the end result but most of us thought it would be better if we added background music in film. I think that the strength of our team was the team spirit and our ability to resolve issues quickly before they got out of hands. Critically reflect on your role in the group and production. In the planning and preparation, my main duty was to organize the group meeting and help translate the Chinese to English to our director because she is not good at communicating with other group members and the interviewee in Mandarin. It was a challenging duty because I needed to translate precisely in order to help them to exchange ideas without any language obstruct. Another role I took was to suggest the interview questions and the storyline of our film. Thankfully, my group mates supported my suggestions and we modified those ideas together. Thus, it helped to form a basic flow and initial structure of our documentary efficiently. When filming, as editor, my role was to stand back and raise issues other members may not be noticing while fulfilling their practical roles. For example, I suggested to them to try and use different camera shots and angles to make the editing interesting. Although my main role was in the editing process I not only edited the film but also worked with the director in exploring likable and useful inputs. When it comes to editing, director and I had disagreement in cutting materials. In The Parade’s Gone By, Brownlow wrote: “Editing is directing the film for second time” (Crittenden, 1995:83). As an editor therefore, my job was to make the materials organised and accessible. So in the course of the shooting, I marked down the shot in the shooting days and spent a day to organize the materials. To critique my roles, I would say that selection, structuring and sequencing are the most important skill that I brought to the group as an editor. I am confident I was a successful editor and I think the project provided me a great opportunity to learn new things in outer field. Read More