Evaluation

     The end of a project which is yet to shape the history of mankind. It�s time to sit and reflect on the final, historic outcome. (arse)

  The topic may not be particularly interesting or, by any stretch of even the longest imagination, our first choice of what we wanted to do. We had more enthusiasm for the Barnsley football club option but this failed to materialise despite the valiant efforts of Mr Ashdown. We had to make the most of an average situation, it wasn�t that bad to have found someone willing to participate. The second option was an old age pensioner, a suggestion that was scuttled due to a lack of contacts in that area.

     At the start of the production we fade from black. The use of this editing technique can be justified and works quite well. It might be the case that, due to the dark nature of the image that fades up, this is hardly noticeable. The sound of a tractor provides a chilling insight into the nature of the piece before the audience can register the visual dimension.

   The first pan shot is perhaps a bit too long, considering the product runs around 15 seconds over the devoted time. Perhaps not an overwhelming issue in the current context but, I�m lead to believe, very important outside the cosy little environment of degree work. If it came to the crunch and it was on the BBC, I�d demand my licence fee back. As if I�ve paid it anyway. I think this shot is one that could be pruned to meet the demands of time, which would bear more weight in that context. In it�s current context it isn�t an overwhelming issue, and does help establish the setting of the entire piece, just, perhaps for marginally too long.

      The next shot we come to is the sunrise shot. I like this, even though it involved getting up incredibly early in the morning (for us anyway). It�s a true passage of time indicator. The mechanical sounds in the shots preceding it implies that the farm is active well before sunrise and before the film crew turned up. It was the only time we saw the sun all day. I think the static shot works a lot better than the moving shots we tried of the sunrise. These are destined for a short life on the rushes tape, and rightly so. I tried to pan from the road, through the sunrise to the entrance of the farm. A noble effort, but the end result looked jerky and�I�m so ashamed. Oh for the smooth camera mastery of Kingsley Scott, who was encountering traffic related frustrations in Doncaster.

    It was important to have the sign near the beginning of the production. This is a true establisher. The audience knows clearly what the institution that will be featured in the film is. If they choose to leave the room at this point then I fully understand them. From now on there can be no doubt about the topic of the production, although previous shots of horses might have given it away.

   The shot of the guy cleaning up the stables forms an essential part of the production. In terms of including the theme there can be no doubt, but the technical ability in which it�s conducted has room for improvement. Not bags of room, just the space of the boot of a ford Cortina. As the man nears the completion of the tasks in the particular stable he moves closer to the camera in order to shut the door. This means he flickers in and out of focus for the briefest moment, but it�s a moment too long. Another obstacle on the path to perfection, the bliss of media heaven is a few more strides away.

     At the start of our greatest cutaway, the horse doing the weird thing with its mouth, there is a slight glitch. You can hear the tail end of my voice. It took us a while to notice this, so it isn�t an overwhelming concern, but still it�s annoying. Especially as we took about ten minutes of the horse showing off. We could make a follow up programme �a day in the life of a horse with a weird gob�. 
Out of all the footage we had available we used the bit when I talked. I think it�s mildly out of focus too, so selecting the material a bit more wisely could be in order. However, in terms of subject matter, it�s just ace. To non-horse lovers it could be a speck of interest against a grey sea of monotony.

  To the vet sequence. What we briefly call the vet sequence but it�s probably best described as �horse being taken away by van�. I like this as I feel the event is rounded and well covered. We start with an establishing shot of the horse in the stable. This establishes there is a horse in a stable (I�m not doing this to add to the word count, honestly!). I took this with the notion that it could come in handy in the future, at the time we didn�t know which horse was going to get taken away. Then we see the horse getting taken away, being led out of the stable via a nice pan from Kingsley. Then we cut away to see two observing horses, watching their mate being taken away. A cutaway was required to break up the section, make it more compact. The horse stood about on that ramp for around the best part of a minute. This couldn�t be fully included because it�d mean the horse standing around for a quarter of a day. We wanted to see the horse coming up to the ramp and it leaving, so we needed to plaster the gap.

Cutaway to empty stable.

Someone laughing, but it might be the horse.

     Then there�s a couple of static shots. These are fine and are needed to help communicate passage of time. A lull in the middle of the day. I quite like them, but they refuse to marry me. Ff

  This marks the start of the second half, the afternoon. The first half of the day ran over, possibly to the lengthy pan which I opposed in the editing stages but since have come to see it�s merit. In order to communicate the passage of time we had to adopt more of a multi-strand narrative. This was evident to a lesser extent in the first half of the production but, due to the rapidly diminishing quota of minutes, we had to get passage of time over, fast. Try and work that sentence out. We decided to cut our material together in a way that focused on the riding school which was to be sprinkled with a generous selection of cutaways in order to achieve this aim. The success of this is successful, or at least it would be. It seems that night springs on us a bit quickly. There�s no wind down time, which may seem a little strange considering the build up and the morning shots. It would have been great to get a shot of the sunset, to link the two ends of the product, making it seem more of a rounded whole. However once the sun rose it seemed to have the day off and was never seen again. Capturing its departure from the sky might be tricky. Anyway, the way we were going we might not have had enough time to include such a shot. We couldn�t do it because we didn�t have it anyway. 

   One of the more experimental parts of the rushes, soon to be re-released like a Beatles anthology*, was a selection of extreme close ups of various parts of a horse. I was responsible for this. Shots where the screen was occupied solely by an eye or an ear. The end of the nose shot was quite good. However none of these found themselves in the final piece. They were quite dramatic and would have added another dimension to the piece. The fact that they were neglected was more due to finding a place for them. They were overlooked in the first half of the piece; everyone opted for a magnificently interesting bail of hay. In the second half of the piece we couldn�t use this as a cutaway during the riding sequence as it would confuse the audience. Imagine you�re seeing a picture of a brown horse riding around a dark room with an incorrectly white balanced camera, cut to shot of black horse�s nose, cut back to brown horse riding around. Audience: What? It wouldn�t work because we automatically assume that the horses nose should belong to the horse, the riding school horse. This is brown. My close up is black. Perhaps he changed his clothes for the benefit of my shot but the sane audience members wouldn�t draw this conclusion.

  There are some elements in the sequence which have artistic merit. The cutaway of the horse roaming free after witnessing the controlled environment of it�s colleague, the riding school horse, draws a stark comparison to the different parts of their lifestyles. I think the camera movement adds to this shot, as the fluid movement adds kind of a rough edge to it. This is an unintentional effect, which was achieved by having to capture it quickly.

   Overall I think the product is a sound depiction of what many would see as, a dull subject. Apparently there is more activity on the weekends, but I have a suspicion that this refers to quantity and nothing else really happens. They clean the stables, feed the horses, one shows off his teeth and then they ride around. Therefore you can understand the disappointment when we discovered that the blacksmith was there a couple of days before. This would have added far greater depth to the product. As it stands, the product covers 3 main interspersed themes. The cleaning of the stables, one horse being taken to jail and a riding lesson, including the build up. These were interspersed with a vast array of cutaways. I actually suspect that 3 themes are about all that can be covered in the devoted time. It�s impossible to speculate what material we would have gathered if our visit had coincided with that of the blacksmith but it would have spread more interest throughout the piece, if it had been used.  Still, we all live with regrets.

*I�m lying