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As a group we decided that our main concept would explore the diverse lifestyle of living in London. Although the idea was originally centred around the lively city, other factoring ideas were discussed to enhance to project. As transport is a major factor in the stereotypical London life, we ensured it was featured in the film. In which we wanted to show how everyday life is constant and continuous. Another concept we wanted to portray through the project was escapism, the idea of leaving the reality you are living in and taking a moment to allow yourself to be comfortable in your surroundings.

After settling on our concept, we thought about other ways to add an extra layer to our original idea. Therefore, we added the use of colour and black and white to reflected on emotions. We then matched certain videos clips from the film and applied the required tonal range to the featured performers mental state.

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Within our working group the roles and responsibilities were discussed very early on in the process. As a group we recognised the importance of understanding our roles within this project.

Various projects contain many roles however most projects consist with a standard 4/5 main roles and have additional roles that can be paired with another role to help work at an optimum. Therefore, to help assign roles we recognised each other’s qualities and discussed any previous experience to help pair us up to a suitable role. This was a key component of success in our groups collaboration.

Our Roles:

Karly- Producer/Director

Lily- Editor

Ellie- Videographer

Ebony- Featured Performer/ Choreographer

Within the group, each individuals’ roles slightly crossed over due to the workload required to produce the project. Meaning Ellie was set out to be the videographer however, due to us needed a variety of angles all group members contributed to videoing.

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Within the group my designated role was the Producer/ Director. This consisted of me overseeing the project as a whole and taking creative ownership of my group. As I was comfortable within my group there was no issue with me taking on a more direct role with my team. However, as well as tackling my own roles I also helped with some of the groups filming, as a variety of angles were need for certain shots. This allowed me to explore different roles within my group, although I ensured my role was my focal point in this group project.

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Although our initial individual ideas were different, to conclude to our final idea, we combined a variety of our individual concepts we explored at the beginning of this project. The collaboration of each of our ideas help develop our base idea and build context on top of this to allow the film to get to where it ended up.

When generating ideas for the project the use of other creators’ materials helped inspire and create a flow in our creative process. Our group found that using the Point of View filming (POV) and Day in the Life filming technique helped push forward the projects concept. Both types of videography allowed for our creative interpretation to be enhanced.

The video inspiration (Animesh., 2018) highlighted to us the different forms of escapism- in this video the featured performer uses painting as their escape in everyday life but also enhances an idea of imagery. Our group found a connection with this video in the way that it portrayed the cycle of life, repetition of everyday tasks and how daily life is a continuous pattern of events.

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During the earlier stages of our planning, we created a story board to help visualise our idea. The story board enabled us to explore different shots and angles we wanted to capture within our film. This way of accumulating concepts allowed for change and adaption of our ideas throughout the project. It encouraged the evolution of ideas and assisted in mapping out our inspirations.

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Although we did not meet up each week, we ensured that as a group we continued to log our progress. Therefore, we put all of our developing clips and photos into a folder so we could keep track of the data we can created. The clip above shows a week where we did not meet up. However, that weekend, I took public transport and captured a few videos with the possibility of being able to adapt them into the project.

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Throughout the process our group faced a variety of challenges. The main barrier we encountered was scheduling dates to meet up. Having different timetables within our scheduled hours, rehearsals out with university hours and weather constraints were factors that hindered our groups face-to-face discussions.

We found that the weather had a major impact on our filming process. Not only is it difficult to film in wet and windy conditions, as a group we found these conditions to be demotivating in trying to put our idea into motion. However, we decided it was best to try and film some clips even if they were not going to be used in the final footage. We concluded that the difficult weather gave us the practice that we needed, for when we had better weather to concisely film our ideas.

To help move our project forward as a group we also came to a realisation that we wouldn't all be able to attend each collaboration meet up. Therefore, instead of cancelling group meetings if a team member could not attend, we met with who was available and kept the other members updated.

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To add another layer to our film concept we decided to connect aspects of it with music. The piece of music we used was Back On 74 (Jungle., 2023). The song and music video express exactly what we wanted to portray in our choreographic section of the piece - fun and diverse movements.

With reference to costuming we wanted to ensure that we used clothing items that we already had so we didn’t have to source any costumes, as we agreed to having a limited budget as a group. It was also essential that Ebony- our featured performer felt comfortable with what they were wearing. Securing comfortability was paramount, as the group wanted to ensure that Ebony’s performance was not hindered within the film.

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Our finished films target audience focus on those who use escapism through the medium of dance. However, we wanted it to still be relatable to a variety of audiences who do watch and don't relate to dance. The escapsim concept allows viewers to interpret and incorporate their own individual ways of leaving reality.

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The whole creative process undergone allows room for reflection in which Gibbs (1988) Model of Reflection can be used to evaluate my personal time spent working on the project. The model is split up into six stages consisting of description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan.  Firstly, I looked back on the task in hand which was to create a 4 to 5-minute collaborative performance or video work.

During the process I felt a variety of emotions which links to the second stage of Gibbs (1988) model. Fear was something that I came across during this project. This was always in the back of my mind when trying to create our film as I doubted our idea at first when I learned what other groups ideas were fearing ours was not good enough.  I was helped overcome this by my group putting the confidence in me that we will make it work by each session developing our idea further and looking into different routes to take it.

The next phase of the cycle focuses on the positive and negative experiences faced in our project. My positive evaluation is learning to work in a group and take direction from each other the develop our idea to it's optimum. A slightly negative aspect of the process was reliability and availability within our group as our schedules were getting busier closer to the deadline.

In the analysis stage of Gibbs (1988) I reflected on all the experiences and concluded that the time we spent on our project allowed area to gain new skills that can be used in later life and provide personal challenge in completing a task that I never would have before.

In the last two stages of the cycle, conclusion, and action plan I focus on if I would change anything that I done during the project (Gibbs., 1988). As an individual I’d maybe change my decision making, as due to my role within the project I had to make final decisions and therefore I feel like I could have been more definite in my decisions and been confident in myself choosing and adapting.

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Animesh- Altinfinity (2018) 'Escapism' Short film [Online Video]. Available at: Escapism | Short Film - YouTube (Accessed on 7/11/23).

Gibbs, G. (1988). 'Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods'. London: Further Education Unit.

Jungle (2023). 'Back On 74' [Online Video]. Available at: Jungle - Back On 74 (Official Video) - YouTube

(Accessed on 12/01/24).