DRUG USE IN LYRICS COMPLETED + EVALUATION

MY EVALUATION OF DRUG USE IN LYRICS 

Today is the day that I have completed my work, finally! Here I present to you the final edit of Drug use in lyrics. The documentary duration is 11 minutes and 57 seconds. I am very happy with the duration of my documentary and planned for it to be around 10-15 minutes.

EDITING PROCESS + PROBLEMS

Most of the problems I had experienced with this documentary have been posted about in previous blog posts. Here I now present the other problems that I had faced but have not talked about.

The editing process was quite hard as I had several technical difficulties with the sound. I had to re-upload my documentary twice and when I did, the voice still sounded un-professional.

Here is a clip of how my voice sounded after the 1st voiceover was put on.

You don't have to watch all of it to notice that their is a significant problem with my voice.

As you can see from the clip, my voice sounds very harsh and the acoustics is not quite right.

Another problem that I had experienced was with one of the Voxpops and how to spell Voxpops. I was not fully aware of the word Voxpops and only have learned to spell it now correctly. Which is why in some of my previous blogs posts and previous projects you would see that their is an error with the spelling.

One of the problems that I had faced, was with her interview. The audio was a problem again and the quality of recording. If you see in the video her voice is not loud and the background noise is more present than her voice. The background noise sounds a lot like static, this resulted in me not adding this interview into my final edit of Drug use in lyrics.

The best parts of my documentary.

CHOICE OF MUSIC

Now that I have listed all of the problems that I had faced with my documentary, Its time to list all the   best parts of my documentary. I believe that one good feature that was included in my video was my choice of music. In my piece I added a lot of beats that were very in-sync to my recordings rather than out of place. The music choice that I added to my piece allowed my documentary to flow naturally. 

THE EXAMPLES OF CELEBRITIES 

Another feature that made my documentary good was the variety of topics, choosing relevant examples that related to the subject. Such as presenting how the Beatles had promoted drugs in their lyrics and how singers from way different genres had drug use in their lyrics too. 

My research was also a successful part of my documentary, as the research allowed me to fully be acknowledgeable of drugs on a deeper level, which made me add these detailed features about drugs in my final piece. Such as finding out the different street-names of drugs, finding drug use in songs in different eras, and how drugs can be helpful, despite people being vague and only mentioning the negatives of drugs. 

VOXPOPS

The Voxpops went really well as I managed to capture the interviewee in a good light and background.  The interview allowed people to have a balanced debate, where they can found out for themselves if they know the underlying messages that are being presented in lyrics, through different types of genres such as Rap and Pop Music.  The Voxpops allowed me to gain information and see wether the members of the public are aware of what some songs contain in their lyrics. 

STRUCTURE 

The structure of my documentary was very organised. It was in-sync and was consistent. When a topic was finished talking about it was presented in a time-lapse, which allowed viewers to watch and not get un-interested as the pace was regular and steady rather than fast. The structure of Drug use in lyrics was slick and smooth. 

WHAT I COULD IMPROVE AND CHANGE.

 ↓ VISUAL WRITING

One of the things that I could have changed in my documentary, was the clip where I was writing on the whiteboard. There was ways where I could approached it differently. If I could approach this in a different way I would have presented this word and edited it on KeyNote, where I could add various effects such as ''typewriter'' which could have made my documentary have a professional look rather than a decent look. 

If you look at the words on the whiteboard you can see that their is a significant problem with the lighting. The whiteboard is reflective. If I would have done this again I would most likely have to assure that I shoot the whiteboard in angle so it is not reflective and does not show an uneven light. 

 ↓DURATION 

Another thing that I could have changed was the duration of my work, If it was not limited I could have made my documentary be a lot more detailed and I could have had the opportunity to approach it deeper, but because the documentary time was limited I made sure to add as much detail as I could. 

Reflection 

From starting in September to now, I have learnt alot of things and I have gained new skills. When I started in September I was shy and new to media. I had previous experiences with editing but not with the software final cut pro. This experience has been truly amazing and has allowed me to express my creativity through my work.

I went from having little knowledge about media to having a good understanding of media. 
I would say that now, I am fully confident in editing and using a camera. Infact one of the most things that I really enjoy doing is editing! 

In the future I hope to do more documentaries, this experience with Drug use in lyrics

 was hard and tiring, but it has not stopped me from being motivated and wanting to make more documentaries in the future.


Thank you for reading my last blog post!