Life in a Day - Entry 4: Evaluation

Looking back, I had the potential to do more in my segment. I could have shown more parts of my daily life, and I could have used different shots and techniques. I also think I could have done more in the post production of my segment, such as colour grading. During the part where I opened my laptop, I could have instead shown a screen recording of it rather than physically filming the display to show a clearer view of what I was doing.

In my segment, I was acting more of a director rather than participant because I filmed others more than I filmed myself. I think it's easier to be a director because you have much more control over your actions and you know what you want to shoot, whereas being participant requires someone to film you and it may be difficult for you to get your ideas across to them. Also, in the context of this documentary, when being the director you can really just record anything and let anything happen as long its not something extraordinary, since you're supposed to show your daily life.

In my opinion, I think Ershad had the best segment technically because he used a variety of shot types and techniques to show different aspects of his life. In my honest opinion, none of the segments strike me as very aesthetically pleasing. Some clips look better than others, but I honestly don't have a favourite. However, my favourite segment overall has to be Fajar's. While I find some if it unfitting for a documentary, the humour is actually quite amusing. Nonetheless, he still managed to accurately show his life.

The original Life in a Day used minimal editing effects, and I think it's better to have some effects, but not too much. Going back to Fajar's segment, I believe his use of editing effects was a bit over the top, but at least it was funny. I think it would have been better, and more fitting if we used special effects only when needed. I think it was better if we showed the time directly in the filming of our segment rather than in post production.

I have mixed feelings regarding the music used in our documentary. Each piece of music fits with the segment individually, but not with the documentary as a whole. I think it felt weird when we heard one song in one segment, then a completely different one in the next segment, and then silence in another. If we could somehow connect each piece of music together while still making them fit each individual segment, I feel it could work better.

I think I would have done things differently if the audience was different. I would either keep the concept the same and executed it differently, or used a completely different concept. Speaking of target audiences, I think its important for filmmakers to think about their potential audience so that they can catch their attention better and still keep them interested. Target audience is very important in filmmaking because if you didn't know who your target audience was, you could lose potential viewers, or never get them at all. So that is why I think they should think about their target audience.

Wrapping up, I think this documentary was a success. The intro really grabs the audience's attention, and the different segments can really work well together to bring different feelings for the viewers. I just wish to compare our Life in a Day with those from the past years and future years.

Life in a Day - Entry 3: Post Production

During the post production process, I was also tasked with compiling the entire documentary together. As usual, the software I used was Adobe Premiere Pro. I had decided to edit my segment directly within the documentary project rather than on its own, so it wouldn't need to be re-rendered. In addition to my own segment, I also helped edit Min Kee's, Ajez's and Luthfi's segments. I had Ajez and Raihan Y come over as they still needed to finish up their segments, while they also assisted me at the same time.

During this process, we used different production techniques to construct an image of ourselves, and other people. For example, everyone tried to link their segments together using transitions, such as similar clips, or simple cross dissolves. This is most evident between Sebastian and Sasha's clips, where Sebastian ends his clip in his car and Sasha starts her clip in her car.

We started compiling the entire documentary first, and I decided to edit in my segment when the part comes. Luthfi's segment came first. We wanted to incorporate it with the intro sequence somehow, so we just put the segment in first and touched it up a bit. At this point, we still haven't came up with an idea for the intro, so we just left a space between his and Ajez's segment. Speaking of which, his segment was particularly 'fun' to edit because there were so many special effects. We color graded the first and second running scenes yellow and blue, respectively. After Ajez came Min Kee's segment, which also happened to take place at a McDonalds. We decided to transition the two segments using Min Kee's clip of the purple mascot and an intertitle. The rest of the clips was as simple as dragging and dropping them in order and adding transitions such as fades and cross dissolves.

The idea for the intro was thought up by Raihan and Ajez. The song used was "Everybody Loves The Sunshine" by Roy Ayers. We timed the start of the music to the part where the toast came up and inserted the title and introductory credits, which were also timed to parts of the song. In the end, we agreed it worked very well.

As for my own segment, I also just had to drag and drop my footage in the order I wanted it shown. Because I ended up shooting on two different Fridays, and some shots weren't in order, it was slightly difficult to tell which clip goes where. However, I did manage to figure it out. I did not put any special effects because I didn't think they were needed, and I didn't put any subtitles because there wasn't any important dialogue.

In the end, I exported the movie in the H.264 format and set the framerate to 24 fps. The total time it took to export was about half an hour.