Final Film & Evaluation

After multiple complications due to the COVID-19 virus, and the nation going into lockdown as per government rules, we managed to complete the final product. The video is shown below:

Looking back at what went well, I would say our team coordination and communication was our strongest point. As none of us have ever worked together before, I was pleasantly surprised at how fast we managed to sync with each other and the dedication we put into the project. We met every week on a Tuesday, setting ourselves tasks to do for each week. We started off with brainstorming ideas for the RSPCA project, which was unfortunately not carried out due to the lack of response from the RSPCA Centre in Coventry. We then decided to come up with a new idea, and through a team effort, we came up with the story of a stray black cat, which was owned by Evie, one of the group’s members. When further developing the idea, we decided to plan out a 3-act structure, which I believe worked very well. The 3-act structure ensured a distinct narrative which was easy to understand and wouldn’t bore the audience. We decided on narrating the documentary video and give it a “voice of God” narration. This would ease the audience into the video as well as conform to the expository mode of documentary. We had some really good shots however, I believe that due to the COVID-19 virus we were limited to a range of pre-shot footage which we intended to use as B-roll. We believe we utilised the footage we had to the best of our ability to support the narrative. We used some uplifting ukulele music for the background as we tell the story of Jack. This ensures the audience that stray cats are no different from friendly domestic cats. We also used some sad piano music when we told the story of the conditions Jack was found in. This was used to make the audience feel sympathy for the cat and understand that adopting strays is an alternative option to buying normal pets. The moral of the narrative is that black cats don’t always bring bad luck, even though that is how society views them. Overall, I believe this is the best we could do as a group in order to create the video with the pandemic limiting us to the content we could include. We could have had a better range of shots for the video had the lockdown and self-isolation not been reinforced across the nation. I believe we all put our best efforts into the project.