Reflections

I was thinking about how our group worked together throughout this project, and I think that we had both good and bad aspects to how we worked. I think at the start of the project we were much more motivated and had our tasks sorted out. For example, in the pitch, we all were coming up with lots of ideas and each one of us had different ideas about how the piece should look. We all had different things to do- I had to research camera and stuff, Louise the history, Cal the visual, Ella the sound, and all of us different periods of time, which we brought together.
I feel like after this initial spurt of ideas, we then lost momentum. I think this was partly to do with Cal leaving, so we were very unsure which ideas would work, and it was partly to do with the dome writing to us and telling us that we weren't allowed to do quite a few of ideas- this just made us feel like all the things we'd came up with were for nothing, and so we lost motivation.
After this, it took quite a while for us to get back on track. We spent quite quite a lot of time still trying to do the ideas we had come up with at first, as we hoped to not have to change them. In fore site  this was a silly thing to do, as we knew we couldn't do them after Cal/the dome. So, instead of focusing on what we could do, Louise was looking for interviews, I was trying to do re-enactments, and Ella was trying to soundscapes. As a group, this was the lull/bad part of the project , and i feel like because we were unfocused, our shoots were also not very good. We all wanted different things and didn't have roles sorted out- we were all doing a bit of everything (which we thought was collaborative)
However, as a unit, we did realize that we needed to change, which happened around the middle of March. I would say Ella was the first to admit it. And we also got a boost to change after showing our work to our tutor. This was a turning point, and after this, we sat down and really decided to hone down our ideas. After this, we changed a lot, and became motivated and decisive, and decided to focus on our roles. This was when our roles really came into practice and this meant (strangely) less work for everyone, as each of us had our own things to do, and this meant that everything was done, as our roles encompassed the tasks needed. This meant that things got done faster, and we shot less (good for editing) and could feel happy to say "thats a wrap."
I think as a group, we did work well- with roles and collaboration, though I would say that non of us took a definitive lead, or decisions maker. This was in a  way good, but It did mean that we took a long time to make decisions. I personally didn't want to be the leader as I felt this would be imposing on the other members. I feel like I could have taken more initiative than this, however. I think we should have stuck to our roles more, also- I know I personally let the others do as much camera as they wanted. This was a pretty silly idea, as it took far longer to film, I wasn't in control, and we had lots of footage. Once Ella got to the edit suite, she was the one making all the decisions and had the trump card that she was editor, so we got a lot done quickly. I should have done as she did and insisted that as I was camera person, I should be mostly in control of the camera- so we didnt get repeated shots.  I will do this next time.
I think though, as a group, we did get the film done, and I am happy with it, which therefore we did know how to work together properly and how to create media together under pressure. Therefore, I was happy with our performance as a group and working together.