2. Project Overview
In this section you will outline the aim of the project/task and give an
overview of the activates you undertook to complete it.
3. What was the theme of your project and
what attracted you to it?
• The theme for my project was to explore the idea that mountain biking has an effect on people’s mental
health both positively and negatively. As a mountain biker myself I know that the positive effects that riding
has is a regularly talked about subject between riders and online, whether that’s news articles in mountain
bike magazines or short documentaries, but I didn’t feel that there were enough discussions about the
negative effects that it can have, more than often enough caused by withdrawal. I was attracted to it like I
said because it’s a very common topic of conversation for me between myself and other riding friends, but
more specifically recently I have found that I haven’t been spending as much time on the bike as I normally
would and it’s caused my mental health to decline, that being bad mood and irritability. It gave me the idea
to explore what the negative effects could cause and maybe ho they differ from person to person. Knowing a
riding friend that has recently had time off the bike, he became an obvious choice for a subject in my
documentary. As well as that, I realised I knew what you could call a semi-professional racer and I wondered
whether there would be any negative effects of taking a hobby and acting upon it in such a way that could
cause stress and whether there has been any negative effects. Again I was really attracted to this theme
because it’s something that means a lot to me and I felt as if it hadn’t been explored to the lengths that I
could take it to.
4. What research did you undertake and how
did it help develop your project?
• To help develop my project there was research that had to be done. For example, I researched generic
documentaries to understand the base skills and techniques that are required to help pin my project into the
documentary genre. It was after finding the basic skills and techniques that I took to researching more
specific products that linked to my own, that being mountain bike documentaries and short films. It was
from that how I researched the basic skills and techniques that I had leant before were adapted and used to
suit a mountain bike video. And I also learnt techniques specific for the mountain bike film genre such as the
usage of zooms and the way the audio could be edited. The specific way that I learnt to edit the audio was
for the clips that involve riding. To get a better sound of the bike without just deafening the audience by
turning the audio up, I realised the correct technique is to use keyframes and tun the audio level up when
the rider is further away, turn it back down as the rider gets closer then back up as they ride away. The
keyframes allows you to change the audio level through the video keeping a consistently loud audio of the
bike without the part where the rider is closet to the camera being way too loud.
5. How did you develop and improve your ideas
throughout the project?
• Through the project I continued to develop and improve my ideas. One major factor that developed through
the whole project was the concept for my documentary. Originally my idea was to focus on the positive
effects that mountain biking can have, I realised though through my research that there wasn’t enough
discussion about the negative effects that it can have and I really wanted to try and be new and talk about a
subject that maybe some people don’t acknowledge or even want to acknowledge. At first, my idea was to
use the riding clips as something to stop the audience from becoming bored and losing interest by
overlaying the audio of the interviews with clips of riding, it wasn’t until I was editing and realised that
actually the interview clips held a lot of importance and weren’t boring. So the riding clips went from being a
boredom buster to a helpful transition from one interview to another. Even as a transition from the intro to
the documentary to the interviews, something lighthearted to stop the documentary from becoming to
morbid and glumb.
6. What was the outcome of the project/task?
• The desired outcome of the project was to create a documentary that uncovered the negative effects that
mountain biking has on mental health as well as how it can also be what you could call the cure for it’s own
negative effects. Looking back at my documentary, I’m very happy with what I created and I believe that it
has become the desired outcome exactly how I had wanted. I believe that I have created a documentary that
explores the link between mountain biking and mental health and have created what I would call a very
insightful look into a side of a topic that I believe for some reason has been purposely ignored. I have an idea
that it has been ignored because know one wants to look at the negative sides of a hobby of there’s and
point them out to everyone, but with the outcome of my project you can see that although I did that, you
can see how I still linked in that the positives outweigh the negatives and actually help overcome the
negatives. Looking back at my project and how I designed it, using a term such as withdrawal I feel could
have created a good link between mountain biking and maybe addiction. In the mountain bike social media
world people joke of riding being like an addiction but after what I found through interview’s in my project
you could certainly say that a lot of people are actually almost addicted to mountain biking and I wish that I
had shown this link in my documentary to help portray the feeling of the withdrawal from it.
7. Personal Response
This section will explore your thoughts and feelings about the
experience. This will help gain a understand of how your personal
feelings may have impacted the final outcome.
8. How did you feel about the project before
you started?
• When the whole project started, I was very excited to take on my idea for my documentary, but I wasn’t
initially sure how I was going to try and tackle it. I knew what I wanted to do and what I wanted to portray
but showcasing that was slightly a struggle at first. As usual I already knew that I wanted to create a video
based product simply because film is what I’m most interested in and what to pursue a career in later in life.
But it was how I would create a documentary that I wasn’t initially sure about. I had a few ideas that floated
around my head such as just simple interviews with people that I knew, but I soon shot that idea down
because I felt as if that could get boring too quickly causing my audience to lose interest. I then had the idea
to instead interview people that I knew, interview strangers out on their mountain bikes. I felt as if it would
give this abstract and different style to the film, but after some consideration I though that maybe that
wouldn’t be the best idea cause I would get a combination of either simply not very good answers from
people, rushed ones because they wanted to get back to riding or worse, people simply maybe wouldn’t
want to. So, I kind of circled back round to my first idea but and produced a plan to add footage of people
riding between interviews or use the audio of interviews over riding clips to reduce the chance of my
audience to become bored.
9. What do you think about your project development and
how did it help you to refine your idea?
• I feel as if through my project, there weren’t really any major developments but rather a few smaller ones
here and there that overall made a decent difference allowing the outcome to be a lot better than planned.
For example one part of my development was comparing techniques in a generic documentary to one more
specific for my project, a mountain bike one, it allowed me to grab the basic conventions used to create a
documentary and see how they can be applied to a mountain bike film. It also showed me some different
techniques that were more specifically used for mountain bike films that you wouldn’t find in a generic
documentary such as they way that the audio can be edited like I mentioned before. Another part of
development that you could say had a rather large effect on my idea was researching into the idea of
mountain biking having an effect on mental health. I found with my research like I’ve mentioned before that
there has been a lot of talk about how mountain biking can have a positive effect but not a lot of talk about
how it can have a negative effect. Working upon that, I didn’t wan to just copy a lot of products that are
already out there, I wanted to create something new so I had the idea to create a product that focused on
what the negative effects are caused by mountain biking as well as how mountain biking can then counter
the negative effects.
10. Did you collaborate on your project or engage
contributors, etc?
• For my project I used contributions to help gather information to prove the point that mountain biking has a
positive and negative effect on people's mental health. To do so I used three contributions towards my
project, one person helping with two contributions. The contributors towards my project were; Lewis Rudd,
Jade Limpus and Winston Styan. Lewis was used for an interview because it was not so long ago that he had
a crash that required him to stay off of the bike for a while to recover and I wanted to investigate how that
had a negative effect on his mental health and how he had to substitute riding. Jade was used for an
interview because she is a successful semi-professional racer. I wanted to investigate how taking what is a
hobby for most people and adding stress and pressure changed the effects it had on her mental health and
how she was able to tackle it to try and get round it. As Jade and Lewis’ interviews were used to try and
investigate the negative effects towards our mental health that mountain biking can cause, Winston’s
interview was used as a way to prove that riding still has its positive effects and that in fact it’s its positive
effects that help battle the negative effects that it can cause. His interview was also used to help stop the
interviews exploring the negative effects from making the documentary from being to glum. As well as that,
Lewis also helped by being the rider for the riding footage, again which was used to stop the film being too
boring and morbid.
11. How did you feel when the project was
completed and why?
• The way the project went you could almost say that I completed it twice. This is because I got to point where
I felt as if I had finished the project but it wasn’t until I rewatched it all the way through I realised a problem.
I felt as if the documentary didn’t have a very satisfactory ending, it felt as if the film was only just getting
going and then it just stopped. So I realised that I had to try and create and ending for the film but I didn’t
have any parts of the interviews that really rounded out the documentary. To get round this problem I
resulted in using b-roll footage to draw out the video slightly longer and faded out the audio to draw the film
to an end. Once I made that correction and rewatched it back to make sure I was happy with it, I was
unbelievably happy with the outcome. It resulted in the product that I was hoping to create which not only
made me simply very happy, but it also took a lot of stress off of my shoulders because going through
production I had a lot of problems that caused filming and editing to be very last moment and I was getting
worried that it would turn out badly. So realizing I had created the product that I had planned and to a
standard that I was happy with was a massive stress reliever.
12. Evaluating the project
In the previous sections, you have been commenting upon the project development. The
evaluation may include some similar information but it will also include critical comment.
An evaluation must include information about the good and bad points of the project and it
is important to be honest. Finally, you should make a judgment about the effectiveness of
the success of the project
13. What were the good points about the project/task and what did you
learn from them? [try and think of at least 3, more if possible]
• I believe that one good point of my project was that I created something new and original. I decided to
create a documentary that tackled an idea that maybe people don’t think about that much and definitely
don’t talk about, or at least certainly not enough and I’m glad I made that choice because I feel as if it has
turned out really well and has created an outcome that I was hoping for.
• Another good point of my project was that I believe that my editing skills really improved through
production and I feel as if it is my best edited project that I have made so far. Just some simple techniques
really helped elevate the production value of the film. I’ve noticed that in my past few projects there has
been a slight problem with the pace of my products and the flow and I found that using certain techniques
such as J-cuts and L-cuts really helped me tackle this problem and I feel as if it really helped make this
project flow a lot better and have good pacing.
• I find that another good point of my project that was because I was making something that meant a lot to
me I put a lot more effort into it and created something all-round very good and high production quality. I
mentioned before that I wanted to create something that looked professional and I believe that it did.
14. What challenges did you face and how did you
respond to them? Try and think of at least 3...
• One problem that occurred during production was that the weekend that was set with my actors to film, I
tested positive for Corona virus meaning that I wasn’t able to film that weekend. This resulted in a
downwards spiral of organization. Because the fact that my actors are adults and have full times jobs paired
with my part time job, there was no time for me to meet with them over the Christmas break to film. What
happened in the end was that it ended up being very last minute and it resulted in me having to film in the
last available weekend of the project and then edit in the last week.
• Another challenge that I faced during production was a combination of poor weather and two of my actor's
calendar. At first the plan was to film on the Saturday, but the weather was forecasted to be 40mph gusts
and none stop heavy rain, so I had to reschedule to the Sunday, but the problem was that two of the actors
were busy on the Sunday. To get around this challenge we settled on using Microsoft Teams to video call
each other and do the interview via that.
15. What were the negative points about the
experience, and what could you have done to
improve them?
• As I was saying on the last question, one main negative point was that a combination of poor weather and
two of my actor’s calendars resulted in having to conduct two of the three interviews via Microsoft Teams
and that really disrupted the aesthetic style that I was hoping for. One of the ways I could have tried to get
round the problem was to organize back up actors for the interviews, but because I hadn’t, it resulted in
using a video call for the interview. I’d say another negative point of the experience was the result in poor
time management due to testing positive for Corona virus. Because of everything ending up being last
minute, the whole project ended up being a very stressful situation for me due to the increasing pressure of
not being able to complete the project in time.
16. How would you rate the final piece? [think along the lines of
poor, satisfactory, good or excellent...justify your rating]
• Looking back on my finished product, I’m very happy with the finished outcome. Especially with how rushed
and stressful production resulted being. I feel as if it ticked all the boxes that I had created during pre-
production, I believe that it conveys the message that I was trying to create that mountain biking can cause
negative effects on people’s mental health but at the same time the cause of the negative effects, mountain
biking, can be what you could call the “cure”. It also follow the aesthetic style that I was going for, that being
an uplifted and professional look and I feel as if that is shown through the cinematography, that being the
usage of riding clips and the way I did the colour grading.
17. How well did your project apply the characteristics
and conventions of the medium you worked in?
• Looking back at the final product that I have made; I believe that after researching existing products to learn
about the characteristics of documentaries and comparing that to my own I have created a film that would
slot into the documentary genre. I have used characteristics such as interviews, J-cuts and L-cuts and videos
depicting what the interviewee is explaining. I believe that the technique that really helped my project was
the usage of J-cuts and L-cuts, as I’ve said earlier, it really helped with the flow and pacing of my film. But the
characteristic that helped fit my film into the documentary genre the most has to be the usage of interviews.
I believe that having interviews is a bas characteristic for documentaries and although it’s simple, creating
one well is a big key to success for a documentary and I feel as if I did that. One of the largest parts behind
that I think were my questions. I believe that I asked the right questions that opened up the interviewee and
gave me answers that I was looking for to create a successful film.
18. How did you design appeal to your target
audience?
• One of the ways that I designed appeal to my target audience was by creating a project on a topic that has
not been discussed enough. I believe that creating something new and refreshing for the target audience. I
believe that is a simple first step towards appealing to the target audience. No one wants to constantly
watch the same thing over and over again so creating something different for people to watch so having
something new to watch creates appeal. Another way I designed appeal for my target audience was by
introducing the riding clips in between the interviews to stop the film from boring the audience. I believe
that if the film were to be just interviews, after one or two questions the audience would get very bored
very quickly and it would possibly result in the audience turning off the film to watch something different.
19. Analysis
In this section, you will focus on the details of the project and make
sense of what happened in the project. You should demonstrate how
your decisions informed the project development and the success of the
outcome.
20. In what ways was the overall project a
success?
• Looking back at my finished project I feel as if there were a few points of success. One being that I managed
to create the project that I was envisioning during preproduction. After completing my research I realised
that there were already products made by others focusing on the topic that I was tackling, so I realised that I
had to try and change it up a bit and make something slightly different so I decided to focus more on the
negative effects rather than the positive like others had. I believe that doing so resulted in the product that I
wanted, that being different to others and holding standing out qualities whilst still almost tackling the same
topic. As well as that, another success that I would say occurred during my production is that I believe that
my editing skills improved. As I said before, looking back I feel the way I approach editing has changed
allowing me to create a better flow through the film as well as good pacing which I felt was one of my
downfalls during other projects.
21. How did your skills develop during the portfolio? [remember,
skills aren't just technical, remember things like organisation,
time management, communication, etc as well]
22. What meaning and messages did you want to
convey and were you successful?
• The message that I was trying to convey through my film was that mountain biking although has positive
effects to our mental health, it also has negative effects that can cause changes in mood and behavior. But at
the same time, I wanted to show that although there are negative effects that can be caused by mountain
biking, it can be the positive effects of mountain biking that you could call “the cure” for the negatives and
how that happens. But the real main message for the project was to show that although mountain bike is
such a loved sports by many, some people may not realise it’s not always the best for you and I wanted to
open people’s eye to reasons that their mental health could be negatively affected by the sport that they
feel as if always has a positive effect.
23. What would you do differently in the future
and why?
• If I was to make this project again in the future there would be some factors that I would do differently. For
example, I would make sure that I had back up interviewees so if I had people who were making the project
difficult by not being able to attend filming days, I would be able to fall back on my back up actors to use.
This would stop me from having to use something like Microsoft Teams to conduct two thirds of my
interviews which had a negative effect on the aesthetic style of my film. Another factor that I would change
if I were to create this project again in the future I would plan some different questions or just simply an
extra question that helped round off the project and give it a better and more satisfactory ending. I realised
once I thought I had finished it the first time that the film didn’t have a very good ending and it felt as if it
just stopped abruptly, to get around it I extended it with some b-roll and fading of the audio but I still feel as
if some ending questions would have made the end of the film a lot better.
