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I've watched this documentary before, and watched it again for some help with this project. Whilst the circumstances of this is far from this project's, I drew similarities that they are both disasters that broke their small communities, left a lasting effect on the location and never truly recovered. This documentary also focuses a lot on the community and their lives, which is what I wanted to do with my edit.

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Meltdown: Three Mile Island | Official Trailer | Netflix

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This wasn't the only reference video, as I also took inspiration from other scenes from the film, but Polar Express is similar to the edit that I was grading; sad scenes about loss and loneliness, feeling isolated and the Santa scene, expressing happiness, joy and hope.
I drew the colour palettes from these scenes, with blue, grey and darker colours for the sad scenes, and red, yellow, green and lighter colours for the Santa and christmas day scene.

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This video was recommended by the client, as it was from his previous workplace. He wanted a similar style, with the interviews cross-cutting to B-roll. The upbeat music, the information being conveyed, the positive light and processes were all things the client wanted.
During my shoot, I drew examples from the video in terms of shots; artwork, wides inside the building and a variety of interview settings were inspired by this video.
During the edit, I used elements such as the graphics and text used to introduce people, the slow shots and incorporated the general calm feeling of it.

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Whilst working on my first project, a friend on the course had just finished working on a colour grade project for a production student. We talked and suggested that I could also grade it, just for the portfolio and not to be used in the final product. I agreed, and so he got me in contact with the filmmaker for the next day.

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I first came into contact with the client through my mum, as he is her manager at her place of work, an NHS mental health clinic.
At this point I only knew the basic idea of what he wanted so setting up a meeting was essential, so we set-up an in-person meeting for February 7th.

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(Messages post-meeting between me and client as evidence)

Meeting the client, Dean, for the first time went well, he had plenty of ideas for us to go back and fourth on about the structure, the part I played in the project among other ideas. This meeting lasted roughly an hour, in which the project evolved greatly, going from a simple promo video to a more fleshed-out 5-6 minute long introductory, documentary-style promo video. From this, he wanted me to not only edit, but to shoot as well as assist in the scripts, etc.
We exchanged details, and he informed me that after his annual leave was up he would contact me with a plan and dates. Leaving the meeting I felt both excited and a bit nervous, as I had gone from being the editor of this project to now shooting and assisting-director, however I knew that this is a great opportunity for me to broaden my skills and my experience.

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(Email containing a basic script, credits, etc. from the client)

The client sent me, as promised, an email containing a basic plan and messages concerning the first few dates for me to come back and shoot, the next Wednesday and Thursday (1st and 2nd March).
With this, I utilised the universities kit store to book the necessary equipment, a lavalier mic (or a lapel mic), a Canon DSLR (EOS C100 mk2) and a Manfrotto tripod. Whilst a short list, this was all I needed as I'd be shooting interviews, interior and exterior of the building. If after shooting for the first time I thought I needed more (such as a lighting rig, additional microphones) then I had access to that too.

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Despite booking within the timeframe provided, the kit store did not get back to me until this date, to request a risk assessment that previously was not needed. I filled this out, however they then did not confirm my booking in time and so I did not receive the equipment I needed to shoot.
To adapt to this, I kept the client up to date with the situation and informed him that the equipment did not come through. This pushed me back by a week, and I now had to make other arrangements regarding equipment, however I kept my spirits high and reassured myself that this was out of my control, and moved on.

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1st-2nd March- Meeting & Discussing the Project 

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1st-2nd March- Meeting & Discussing the Project 

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(Photo taken from inside the building by me, acting as a potential shot for when I shoot)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DEoaHzzzbObKCfSG4vGvQiK5XyMA4xwJ-yCBcOUCBUU/edit?usp=sharing
(Link to notes and other writings by me from these days)
Despite not having the equipment to shoot, I still commenced with the plan for me to visit the building on Wednesday and Thursday.
My aim was to meet with the client in person again, further plan my shooting and properly introduce and discuss who I was and what I was doing.
I discussed the clients script and further ideas with him, developing a shot list and other information regarding the shoot alongside his notes on my phone on Wednesday.
On Thursday I explored the building, taking photos of potential shots and angles to act as a visual aid for myself and the client, both helping myself and bidding my time from when I arrived to the meeting.
During the whole team meeting I introduced myself, who I was and what I was doing/ going to do, talking about the interviews and the product I was creating. I took photos of the team, talked to most of them and learnt a lot about what sort of team they were and how passionate they are to their work. I assured them that I looked forwards to working with them, and that I would hopefully see them a lot in the coming weeks.

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(Screen capture of one of the audio test files I recorded using my lavalier mic and transferred to my laptop)
After the kit store failed to provide the required equipment, I turned to sourcing it myself. A friend owned a DSLR and a tripod, but I had to find my own audio equipment (a lavalier microphone and a shotgun mic), so I bought them online. I got familiar with the DSLR and the other equipment, as well as doing a mock shoot using the equipment, then transferring it all to my laptop and syncing it.
I informed the client that I had everything I needed, and we arranged for me to shoot on the 16th of March)

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Once I had the equipment, I went ahead with shooting. I spent the first day shooting primarily pickups and B-Roll, as well as discussing ideas and my plan for the shooting days with the client, settling on two additional dates; the 21st and 28th of March. I also briefed everyone in the building during a meeting that I'd be shooting on these days, as well as interviewees to be prepared. I spent these days in the building, shooting the interviews on the other dates (and additional pickups). The team was great, letting me have access anywhere I needed, shooting what I wanted, even mock scenes which required some of them.

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(The timeline for the completed project)

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1st-4th April- Editing, Finalising and the Future of the Project 

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1st-4th April- Editing, Finalising and the Future of the Project 

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After the shooting days passed, I had everything I needed. The client and I had a final talk on what he wanted, and I set out to deliver.
The main issues with editing were that the audio and the visuals were recorded on separate devices, the camera for the visuals and the audio from my phone (via external microphones), so I'd have to sync nearly every video with the matching audio. I had prepared for this by naming every piece of audio recording, and sorting by date, so this took an hour or two at most. The second issue was finding music tracks, as this was a professional edit that is made for a service. There's plenty of services out there that provide royalty-free music at a price, but I could not afford nor want these when there are free alternatives. This, again, took a few hours but eventually I found a few tracks that were royalty-free and available to use.
I edited it over four days, discussing feedback with the client and incorporating it into the edit. I structured it as if going through the process that the edit is about, starting with a booking, an intervention/ first session, etc.
Eventually coming to a final edit, I presented to the client and he had no more feedback.
Once finished, and the client was happy with the final product, we'd meet again on the 3rd of May for a "screening" with the whole team there.

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10th April- Planning and Finding the Project

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10th April- Planning and Finding the Project

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Born on the Island is one of the many projects in the university's storage, and is from a previous assignment in the Professional Skills unit. I selected it as I enjoy and am good at editing documentaries. There was an issue with the downloads in that the scripts and other PDF files were not working. This was a problem, but not one that would stop me from doing the project, so I continued with it.
I like finding out the story and listening to the characters, so I downloaded them and made notes on what I wanted my edit to be like, drawing examples and inspiration from the reference video, notably the amount of interview and character monologues that it featured.

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21st March- Discussing with the Filmmaker

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21st March- Discussing with the Filmmaker

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After getting into contact with the filmmaker, he agreed that I could grade his project, and that I knew he wouldn't use it as the final piece. We arranged to meet on the 26th of March for me to get his external hard drive that contained the edited piece and footage that was prepped for grading.
(This conversation happened in an online voice chat, so recording it was not an option).

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26th March- Obtaining and Downloading the Project

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26th March- Obtaining and Downloading the Project

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We met, talked a bit and he handed over his hard drive to me. I returned home and started downloading the rushes straight onto my laptop for security, plus I find it easier to work on a project when I have everything in one project folder. Transferring from the hard drive to my laptop was a lengthy process as some of these rushes were upwards of 9gb, so I didn't start working on it until the next day.

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After writing notes, and knowing what I wanted the edit to be, I got started on cutting up the interview clips, taking anything I thought was interesting or relevant to the edit. This took a while as I did not have access to the transcripts (as previously mentioned).

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(Part of a shot that I graded in Resolve)

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27th March- 7th April- Grading the Project

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27th March- 7th April- Grading the Project

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After transferring the materials used for the edit, I conformed the edit from Premiere to Resolve (using an XML file of the timeline), importing the timeline and the materials to relink them. The graphics and some of the transitions did not carry over (as evidenced by the FCP translation results text document) which was to be expected, this didn't matter as I'd be conforming back into Premiere to relink the missing credits anyway. I then brought the footage into the media pool, relinking all of the missing media.
Once bringing in the timeline and relinking everything, I prepped for the colour grade, watching every scene and writing notes about what I needed to edit (Luminance, colours, tracking elements, skin tones, etc.). After finishing my notes, I started with the sad, hopeless scene, so draining the luminance, less warmth and more blue, grey and darker elements. I followed a simple node structure, each node being an individual edited part of the overall grade. Starting with the offset and other whole-image editors, I gave it a blue hue, cold temperature and reduced luminance, then moving on to editing the waveform. The scene had a high level of red, largely due to a lamp, so I reduced the red whilst upping the blue and white, also using the white balance picker to clean up some of the shadows. I moved on to the shadows, highlights and other smaller details. After completing the grade for that scene, I generated an LUT to then use on every shot for the scene, before fine tuning them. I rinsed and repeated this for every scene, excluding shots with Santa Claus (which I created a separate grade for alongside the scene LUT).
A few shots included a rose, which symbolised a key part of the short-film, so I created a mask around the bud of the rose, then tracking, grading and keyframing it to make the rose have a better contrast.
Finishing the grade, I exported as an XML again and conformed into premiere to relink the graphics and credits, before exporting as an MP4 (with a H.264 Codec).

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14th- 16th April- Continuing and Finalising the Edit

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14th- 16th April- Continuing and Finalising the Edit

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Referring to my notes and the plethora of clips I had cut out from the interviews, I assembled my story using them as the structure points, then adding in B-roll and various shots and music around them. My main points to convey was how Hurricane Ike had affected Galveston's inhabitants and populace, who they are, information about Galveston and the future of the island. The subpoints were covering the individual character's stories; Leon's life on the island, Jada's experience with the hurricane and Johnathan's view on global warming, the aftermath of the hurricane and the future of the island itself.
After covering these points, I had to run over it all and correct the audio levels, add transitions, effects, etc. before exporting as MP4 (H.264 Codec).

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(An email with some feedback from the client)
Even though the piece has not officially been shown yet, I feel completed with it. I put in a lot of work, troubleshooted issues and faced problems that were unexpected, but unavoidable. It was my first time doing work with a client, my first time doing editing work professionally, my first time shooting and editing something no less this substantial. I met new people, had new experiences and made mistakes, but in the end I see my work on this project as exemplary. I threw myself into it, and this is by far the biggest and best piece in my portfolio so it paid off. I've learnt a lot; managing equipment and time, scheduling, working efficiently whilst shooting, shooting for the edit, working with a client and characters and most importantly how good it feels when it pays off.
I've learnt a lot about shooting as I've not done it since college, and this was totally unexpected as the original idea was for me to edit something the client shoots themselves.
I'd do shooting and editing again, and I'd definitely be better at it with extra technical knowledge and general knowledge. Something that will always be with me from this is time management, I need to be better at scheduling and planning as a lot of the shooting days were no breaks and constantly moving from one place to another for different interviews. Coming up with a more comprehensive plan and using my phone's calendar may be a great way of organising myself compared to just holding it all in my head.
My client was incredibly pleased, and I want to maintain the level of communication we had with other clients in the future.

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Critical Reflection- Short-Film Colour Grade

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Critical Reflection- Short-Film Colour Grade

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Finishing this project, I learnt a lot about grading. My strong suit is editing, and whilst good at grading, I dedicated much more time to this compared to other grades I've done. I kept a proper node structure that genuinely helped me as I could fine tune things a lot easier. I also did more than just the base grade, masking and tracking the rose was not something specified to do, but I'm glad I did it as I pushed myself to do something that was not asked of me, setting a good precedent for future work. I'm also a lot more open to working on Resolve now, and grading in general, so I'm going to take the Resolve test in a few weeks after doing their built-in tutorials. I definitely challenged my norm with this project, but taking the time to fully understand a grading process over using two nodes for twenty different changes was a far better strategy that improved my work and my wellbeing.

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Out of the three, this was the least challenging, I've done short documentaries before, and the unit that this edit came from was where we had to review other's work, so I had a good idea of how others edited it together as well as the feedback from myself. Whilst not the most challenging, I still pushed myself, completing the edit in around 3 days of work when I could've spaced it out over a matter of weeks, but it still wasn't very challenging. I did try to work differently on the timeline, completely editing the video and leaving any audio to the end bar assembling it, compared to my usual practice of editing everything as I go along. I think it made a difference to the overall time spent, but not by much. I think I'm going to stick with my previous practice, as it helps me feel like I've genuinely finished a part of the edit (minus the look over later), even if the way I edited this was slightly faster I'd prefer to give myself more time for a proper sense of accomplishment. However, I still pushed myself and this did encourage me to switch up practices more often, this one didn't turn out but I'm sure others will replace my old ones.