Project evaluation

In my opinion, this unit was very interesting and unique because it forced me to step outside of my comfort zone on numerous occasions, for which I am grateful. In this unit, I learned many new skills and refined some that I already owned.

We were tasked at the start of the project with coming up with a live television idea that was both unique and achievable, and it had to be something that could be repeated several times. For this part of the project, Glenn and I collaborated to come up with an idea for the show. The first thing I decided to do was look into an antique episode of The Wheel of Fortune from 1995, which was hosted by both Nicky Campbell and Jenny Powell, with Steve Hamilton voicing the show's cutaways. I looked into these shows because I was thinking about doing something that might include a wheel spin in the game and just small clips that I had seen previously. After watching the episode, I realised how important the hosts of the show are. Jenny is a very confident and entertaining character, and the way he talks and interacts with people is just really enjoyable to watch. Another thing that really stood out to me were the voice overs done by Steve. I believe that the episode was as entertaining as it was because of the hosts of the show, not just the game that was played. 

After watching the Wheel of Fortune episode, Glenn and I decided that we needed to start brainstorming ideas for our pitch. The first thing that came to mind was a gaming talk show because it is achievable, different, and something that a wide audience enjoys. However, we wanted to do something interactive, so we decided to include a game show segment into the show, but the idea began to fall apart. After talking with Jonathan, we discussed doing something with an impostor-inspired game on a channel called beta squad, but it was simply not feasible due to the size of the game and the lack of time. We finally decided to focus on something we both enjoy, geoguessr. It's a geography guessing game that Manny enjoys, and we decided to turn it into a game show with a similar flow to the game show pointless. The idea was solid, and the pitch was good, but after all of that, we realised it was just a safe and boring idea, and instead of that, we should have focused on the less achievable ones and worked around it. 

The interview process was quick, I originally applied to do either audio or behind the scenes for the production of cosmic snatchers, but at the end I was given the role of locations manager, which is very different from what I expected, but it's not something I can complain about. I wasn't entirely sure what my role entailed, so I decided to do some research into it. For that, I looked into a few YouTube videos on people's days in the life of a location manager, which I found very informative. I've learned that location managers have a lot of responsibilities and are critical to the success of a production. Dale Dreher discusses what he has to do on a typical production, which is a lot, including 12-15 hour shifts and nearly 1000 photos per location that must be organised and edited for clients, among other things. I was a little worried about what would happen after looking into it, but I was also excited. 

The first thing that happened was that we looked for potential locations. We initially found a cave location that fit the theme of our project, but due to factors such as our budget and how small the location was, we decided to abandon it. We were then directed to a location known as Chatham Dockyard. Chatham Dockyard is a beautiful location with Manny post of it looking off planet like we wanted and luckily for us previous UCA students used the location for free. The first thing I did was contact the dockyard and try to schedule a recce to see what was available to us out there. After some back and forth, we were able to secure a date for 9 of us: myself, Glenn, Heather, Elsie, Ruby, Hev, Vicky, Joey, and George. When we arrived on site, we were greeted by Steven, who gave us a tour of the dockyard and some locations that were not open to the public. During the recce, I ended up taking photos in order to have something to show the rest of the group when deciding what we could use from those locations. In addition to photos, I created 3D scans of the rooms so that the set designer could look at the layout and dimensions and put something together. After the recce, we decided that the three locations we wanted to use were slip3, the tarred yard store, and the Edward hall room, with the first two being used for the games and the Edward room serving as a changing room for the cast and equipment storage. 

I started emailing Stephen, and we went back and forth until we agreed on a date, but because the dockyard is such a busy place, the date had to be changed, and the cast that we had was unable to attend the new dates, so we had to find a new cast by the 15th. Fortunately, we were able to find a new cast for that date, and everything went as planned. Prior to the shoot date, I had to create a map of where everything is located, such as bathrooms, filming rooms, and parking. On the day of the shoot, I had to be the first person to arrive in order to direct people where to go; once the majority of the people arrived, it was time to ensure that everything was unlocked and ready to go. Once that was determined, everyone was directed to their respective locations, the cast to the changing room and the crew to the locations. As a location manager, I had to oversee everything that happened during the setting up process to ensure that nothing on the location was damaged once filming began. I had to direct a couple of location marshal on what to tell people during the shoots as we did not want people waling freely on set, so I decided to let people come through but taker an alternate round which would be directed by the marshall so that they could still look at the locations and no one was hurt. Once the shoot was completed, I had to ensure that everything was removed from the location and that nothing had been damaged. 

Once the games were no longer being filmed, I didn't really have a set role for the rest of the show, but that doesn't mean I did nothing. Throughout the show, I worked as a stand in, worked with lighting, made parts of the set and props, worked with audio, and a few other little things to make myself useful. 

One of the roles I ended up doing the most was lighting and stand-in, because lighting wasn't really assigned a role, it was given to me once the lighting was all figured out and set up. I was mostly acting as a stand-in. Being a stand in was an interesting experience for me because I had never done anything like it before. Being a stand in allowed the people working on set to get everything working perfectly before the final day and have plenty of rehearsal time. 

During the unit, there was an outbreak of covid, which meant I had the stand I and helped out with audio for a few days, which is something I wanted to do from the start. For the audio, I was setting up clip mics for the stand ins and making sure the mics and receivers were on the right frequency and making sure there was enough charge for whatever we were doing, so I took it upon myself to go out and purchase batteries for the shoot day so that the fresh ones 

In my opinion, the overall project went extremely well; at first, I doubted that we would make it, but as the deadline approached, everyone pulled through and completed their tasks, including myself. There were definitely a lot of mistakes on both my and other people's parts, but that's all part of the learning process. However, I believe that I could have done better in my overall organisation as a location manager. Instead of waiting for the cast to be confirmed, I should have taken more control and communicated with people about booking the locations first. I believe I should have planned some backup locations in case the dockyard did not work out in the end, as it could have ended disastrously. Overall, I had a good time, but I could have done better.

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