After a semester of studying documentary, I finally completed my practice. During this semester, I think the most important thing that I have learnt as a media maker is we should never limit our brains. This semester of study has completely subverted my understanding of documentaries. I have learned how to use all the available materials
around me which already exist. Also, I found that it is useful to stick to blogging, and I may keep doing it as a media maker. I think the blog made me reflect on what I learned this week and deepen my impression. And after a period of time, I can clearly see the changes that learning has brought to my thinking. In addition, I think the readings and films shown in class are very inspiring to me. They can all be regarded as typical examples of each topic. Every time after watching them, I would think about how to apply these ideas to my work. And those video examples let me know what are the components of a good documentary. This semester we faced some special constraints. The most serious constraints for me contain two main points. The first one is we can not have efficient communication as usual in class. All we can do is exchange ideas as much as possible during group discussions. Another point is that it is difficult for us to go outside and get the materials in such a situation. But for some necessary materials, I chose to go out and shoot while wearing a mask and taking disinfectant. In my project, I think some sound parts and editing parts are not bad. To be more creative, I used some sound effects recorded by myself like the bubble sound in the popping out of news. I think it ’s not only fun to do this, but also makes the whole work become my own style. In the editing part, I went online to learn some transition effects in order to make my videos more interesting. Since making these effects is troublesome, it also strengthened my patience. Throughout my entire work, I think I did not do a good job in choosing the topic. The victimized animals in bushfires are not very creative as a topic. SoI will spend more time on choosing the topic next time to make my video more meaningful.
