With FIJI BC done and dusted, I’ve decided to take a pause and do a self-post mortem so to speak and see the lessons I’ve learnt along the way, as well as look towards the next cool thing to work on.
Fiji BC was an attempt to teach myself the basics of video production, from prepping for a shoot, directing, then editing, fixing it up and posting the work online. And boy did I learn and will still need to learn heaps more as I attempt to get more into this.
Just for fun, I’ll list the things that were…interesting…during production:
- Before we started the shoot, one of Dave Lavaki’s lights failed, so we ended up using just one light. Which turned out to be alright, but it goes to show that nothing ever really goes according to plan.
- Midway through shooting one of our episodes, we had to pause because the owner of Mana Coffee, who had been chilling in the room before we showed up, came around to look for his keys which he thought he might have left behind. ‘No worries!’ I said, ‘we can just pause this, it’s not live’. Didn’t find his keys, and we proceeded without a hitch.
- After shooting 2 episodes, when beginning on the 3rd episode, 1 of the cameras went out of focus. This wasn’t noticed until video editing began. So we couldn’t use the footage from that camera. If you watched all 4 episodes, you’ll notice that I stopped cutting to close ups of Mr Sevudredre because that was his camera closeup that was out of focus. There were a few potential workarounds to this, none of which were great, so I elected to just not use his close up for the 2 episodes.
- One of the cameras ran out of battery mid-shoot, but that was more…I guess normal? To be expected? We had a backup battery so that was fine.
- The close up sound recorder actually ran out of space on the final episode shoot. That was something new for me to learn. Thankfully I had the camera microphone audio to use, which, while not great, was still a backup that I could use. It always helps to have 2 of everything doesn’t it.
- Looking at how I presented, I’m cringing internally at all the ‘uhhs’ and ‘umms’. I did Toastmasters for a year and that’s one of the things they work on to eliminate when you present in public. And here I was, bringing it all out in full force. I briefly dabbled with the thought of cutting out all the ‘verbal crutches’ as they’re called, but decided against it as I didn’t want it to feel like a Youtube sort of video.
Although I listed things that went wrong, I should state that overall, the shoot went pretty great for a first time production. Granted, the setup I choose i.e. a podcast interview isn’t the most demanding as far as video production setups go, but it’s certainly a start.
On the editing side of things, I literally googled ‘how to edit a multi-cam setup in Adobe Premiere’. Over the years, the internet has been my teacher on all things production, and this was no different. Thanks to the tutorials on both video editing as well as sound editing, I was able to output a good enough 4 episode show on the first try. One of the first things I noticed when I started editing was the echo of the audio recording. Granted, we didn’t exactly hire a proper sound/video studio, it was just a room that was given by Mana Coffee Fiji, but it was good enough for a recording and I tried to lower the echo in post-production.
Taking a step away from all the production talk, I must add that I did indeed learn much about Fiji’s pre-contact past in a way that I never would have otherwise, with the help of Mr Sevudredre, who has been instrumental in both being a crucial part of the show as well as a cultural advisor in general.
I met Mr Sevudredre a few years back when I was doing research into Fiji’s pre-contact history for one of my side projects that I hope gets to see the light of day…some day. He had a ton of information about whatever questions I asked and more, and was as excited to share as I was to learn.
The reception so far from the comments on social media has been great. The majority of the viewers had stated a wish for more content, more episodes, but alas, this was only meant to be a 4 episode run, with a bonus Q&A Live episode on Mana Coffee’s Talanoa Tuesday. I’m shelving this project for now, but should there be an increase in interest as well as other potential sponsors, perhaps I’d revisit this. It’s definitely been a great source of learning for both me as well as Fijians both local and overseas.
Once again, I’d like to heartily thank everyone involved with the production:
- Mr Sevudredre for being the main content of the show. Without him, I’d just have a fancy intro and that’s about it.
- Mana Coffee Fiji for sponsoring a room and almost kava (thankfully I didn’t drink it during the shoot or else we’d have Fiji Grog Doped instead).
- Dave Lavaki of First Fighter who was eager to be part of the production by donating his camera, lights and sound equipment for the shoot.
- Michael Jon Light and Verdine Lee for stepping in for the camera work.
- Archives Fiji for supplying some photos that I scanned and used for the intro and outro videos.
And you – the viewers! Vinaka for watching, commenting, liking and sharing the Fiji BC Show. It’s really heart warming to see everyone discussing Fiji’s past. I hope that this has ignited more interest in our very storied history and I look forward to more Fijians being inspired to share their own journey of discovery.
And where to now from here? Well, I have another exciting announcement to make in the coming weeks about my next project.
Vinaka vakalevu and stay tuned!