How to evaluate your work

[persephone]

I hope I've put this in the right place, if not - sorry

I really need some help, the organisation I work for has just produced a peice of online content with some of our volunteers and we now need to work with the group to evaluate it.

I'm sure when we get together to look at it everyone will know what they like and what they don't like but we won't really have much idea of how to evaluate from any other perspective other than personal opinion.

You can view our content here www.hmcm.org.uk/?q=node/1141 Any help you could give me in how we might go about an evaluation exercise would be very much appreciated.

[lordsmurf]

I watched the first minute, then scrubbed/skimmed a bit.
From a technical stance, it looks great. (I generally expect to see crap, so it's always nice to see good work.)
Audio probably fine, too (my speakers on this laptop aren't great, so hard to tell)

As far as content, why was this made?
If it met that goal, you're good.

Was it boring to the intended audience? If not, great!
If so, get more creative.

The first reporter needs to enunciate more.
I don't think her accent is as thick as she makes it sounds, due to non-enunciation.
The guy at the end did better.

That's really all I have for you, as a quickie.

[jagabo]

The audio in the intro was distorted (overmodulated) although this appears to have happened at some intermediate step. Several other places were overmodulated too (for example the narrators voice at 7 minutes in). In general the audio is too soft and too loud at times.

[persephone]

Thanks for that Lordsmurf - it's good to know you thought the volunteers did well from a technical point of view. It is the first time most of them have done anything like this and the ones that have done something before, were nvolved in a previous project where we produced a couple of live shows, which is another story lol

If anyone has any resources of how to evaluate a peice of content like this with the volunteers who produced it - that would be really, really helpful. But I'm sure they would also value your comments on their efforts

We have been funded to produce four more programmes so anything we can do to improve what we are doing would be great.

[persephone]

Hi jagabo - thanks for the feedback Is it possible to tell if the problems occured with the audio during the filming or during the editing or at some other stage?

We have got funding to bring professionals in to work with our volunteers, and we have someone who will be doing a sound workshop tomorrow. But is very useful for us to have feedback from other people who can give a professional point of view.

[jagabo]

Is it possible to tell if the problems occured with the audio during the filming or during the editing or at some other stage?

You have to check the sound levels of the source videos and recordings. Someone should be "riding the pot" while recording, making sure the sound level stays optimal. I don't know what equipment you're using but cheaper, consumer grade, equipment often doesn't have manual adjustments so you just have to live with what you get and make adjustments while editing.