Proposal

For this project, I would like to present two final three-minute documentaries on different sets of research. The first will be looking into the the history and impact of one of the largest anime studios, Studio Ghibli. I will be working in a group of six, mainly focusing on part of the research as well as finding and organising archive footage to use in the video.

The second production will be done on my own, steering more towards the subject or genre that is connected to my final major project. This way I will have contextual research on the subject I choose – which is looking to be a music video or short horror. 

Research

Final Video

Evaluation

The final documentary video has come out extremely well, keeping to the style of a YouTube documentary commentary, with Gareth’s editing of archive footage and voice-over fitting nicely, showing specific clips relating to each part of the dialogue and having a relaxing yet dynamic flow. The script has been produced (by Harley) referencing initial group slideshow, as well as the crew’s research papers on the subject and additional research. Harley has been able to hit all the points that have created a compelling narrative, read by Adam, who has been able to use a high quality microphone, which I think adds to the professional appearance of the video as a whole.

For my role of collecting archive footage, I did find it slightly difficult to find specific videos to fit with each part of the script. It was the initial plan of mine to keep to public domain resources in order to avoid potential copyright infringements, however it was clear that interesting and just relevant videos were not going to be under this category, which had lead us to utilising segments of YouTube videos, including anime clips, trailers, and visuals of a documentary. This has worked out well and, as our production is for educational purposes and will not be monetized, it is unlikely that we will run into those issues. Another issue relating to the collection of footage was that Gareth and I had gotten the links to a few of the same videos, which we could have possibly prevented. This could have been done by sending and saving these links to a shared area, like a chat or Discord channel, that the crew could see and stop any repeats from happening, as well as wasting time on scanning through the same clips.

As for the editing, I really enjoy the movement of the images that were used, by zooming in slowly with the keyframes and scale adjustments, continuing the life and interest throughout the video.  When certain images did not fit the entirety of the screen, a larger image has been blurred and placed behind them, which ensures that you’re not being taken out the the Ghibli world, and the frame looks more complete. It’s the small touch that I really enjoy about the video. This also contrasts with the comedic plain black and white screen of text that we see occasionally in the video, giving it a new kind of look, keeping it captivating.

The only areas of this production that could be improved upon, include more practising of the difficult-to-pronounce names and words (like certain anime titles) originating from Japan. I think that making the pronunciation precise would possibly push a more thoughtful and insightful experience for the audience, who may know these specific words, or if not, bring authenticity to the documentary.