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Problem Solving
Planning for Theoretical Problems
Problems I may encounter when researching
and planning
- Due to how complex some key themes in my
production “The Ballad of a Psychopath” are I
could quite easily get lost ‘in a rabbit hole’ and
ultimately make my research less
effective/efficient.
- It may be difficult to find videos to analyse for
inspiration as a result of how unique the
production is.
- During the test shoot section of my research it
may be hard to truly replicate how they will
appear in the final project as a result of how
much effort some effects will take (I won’t be
able to have my whole location free besides
when I am actually filming.
- Writing the script may prove to be a difficult
task because of how I have to make Killer be
both charismatic and a horrendous serial killer.
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How I plan to resolve
- To overcome this I will make sure that I reflect
on how my research is going during the
weekly vlogs that I will produce, so that -
when I get overcome with the sheer amount
of information that I can collect – I can stay
on task. Provided I do this (and am honest
during my weekly vlogs) my research will be
efficiently conducted within the time limit;
more importantly will significantly better and
useful.
- There is no real explicit way in which I can
completely solve this problem, that being said
I will spend a long period of time to find
films/clips that could relate to my
narrative/theme. I will also make sure to ask
both fellow students and the teacher for any
suggestions that I might not be aware of.
- I will just produce test shoots of easier to
replicate scenes to analyse, however when I
can I will test the effect scenes but just on a
far smaller scale. Even though this will mean
that the tests will not look similar to the final
product, I will still be able to discover certain
aspects of the effects that I may have to
change in time for filming of “The Ballad of a
Psychopath”. The specific scenes that will be
hard to test are the dead body effects and
the torture scene at the finale of the
production, to test these therefore I will focus
on small aspects of them like the fake blood
for instance.
- To solve this I will produce multiple drafts of
the script before I complete a finalised
version, in between each draft I will collect
feedback from both members of my target
audience, this will mean that I can study
feedback in order to change and adjust the
script to create it specifically for my audience.
Whilst also ensuring that the character of Killer
is both horrifying – when he needs to be – but
also charismatic enough so the audience
back him.
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Planning for Practical Problems
Practical and Technical Problems that I may
encounter
- The finale of my film will contain a vast amount
of practical effects, that if not done correctly or
to the high quality that they need to be could
look horrific and cheap, making any of my
attempts to create a professional production
pointless.
- Due to the production for “The Ballad of a
Psychopath” having no financial backing
whatsoever, the crew is very limited; in fact only
a maximum of three people will ever be on set.
This means that certain shots may be difficult to
shoot because I myself could be in the scene.
- The microphone that I have is not of the best
quality and unfortunately due to lack of funds I
will not be able to replace it in time with
something more appropriate. Meaning that
some the audio quality could be poor because
of the distortion that the microphone records
with.
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How I plan to resolve
- In order to resolve this possible problem, I will
have to make sure that the Actor’s are
comfortable and prepared to do multiple
takes of effect shots, which may ultimately
mean that they have to get covered in fake
blood more than once. This will make it
certain that I do not face the problems
surrounding the effects used looking poor due
to the fact that I will be able to have a quality
control ‘net’ on set and, if there are any shots
that aren’t up to the high value I set then they
will have to be redone either immediately or
on another day of filming.
- I will have to make sure that the other two
Actors I use can also act as crew and are
competent with using my camera, so that
they can double up as camera operators in
scenes in which I have to be in front of
camera. To make sure that this is successful, I
will also record a rough draft of the scene
(with me behind the camera and the other
actor filling in where I would be in the scene)
this means that they will have a point of
reference for when it comes to filming the
actual scene and I could make change the
Camera settings accordingly.
- Whilst this is a problem that, unfortunately, the
only real solution will be from investing in a
better microphone that has a higher
professional quality than that of what I am
currently recording with, I will still be able to
take precautions to ensure that the audio
quality is the best that it can possibly be.
These being mainly solutions that I will
undertake during the post production in
which I will most likely add a low pass filter on
to the recorded audio to lose the high
distortion. However, like in “speak” this could
cause the audio to have to strong bass
frequencies and not much else. So I will have
to adjust the levels accordingly.
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Mid Point Project Check Up (After Research and Planning)

So far – roughly hallway through my journey of making “The Ballad of a Psychopath” – I have
faced, thankfully, no major problems that have drastically taken their toll on the production as
a whole. However, in my natural style things have gone far from completely swimmingly. This is
mainly due to, as I have mentioned in my recent vlog entries, I became too focused on
certain aspects to my research rather than following the guidelines for how I should be
spending my time, this caused me to go down some seemingly endless rabbit holes
surrounding the psyche of Serial Killers as opposed to other equally important factors such as
techniques for instance. That being said, once I was able to identify that I was becoming
slightly overwhelmed with the research for my production, I was able to gather feedback on
how I should alter my website and findings. This is because, I had actually found incredibly
important points that I could use in my production but it was, in reflection of my head at the
time, completely illogically set out essentially just put on my website in one big mess. But, once
I gained feedback from my Teacher’s, I was able to spend a vast amount of spare time
organising my research and making sure that it was all relevant to my project. Whilst this took a
large amount of time, I am very happy with how the situation has turned out because of how
deep my research explores the themes of “The Ballad of a Psychopath”, so ultimately even
though it appeared as if I was never going to get it completed in time for filming my project, I
was able to do just that.
End of Project Review

Now that I have completed my Final Major Project for this two year course of Creative Media
Production, I can thankfully say that – despite how stressful producing this project proved at
times – I faced no drastic problems that caused the production to come to a halt or have
diminished quality. That being said there were some minor problems that I encountered during
the filming/editing of “The Ballad of a Psychopath” and as I could’ve predicted, they mainly
revolved around the lack of a sufficient microphone. Whilst I managed to rid the audio of most
of the distortion captured in the original recordings, the remanence of it can vaguely be
heard in the final product, which is incredibly disheartening, even if most of the audience will
be likely to not even pick up on it. Another problem with audio that I faced – as mentioned in
detail during the vlogs I conducted during the production process of my film – was that
because of my tendency to want to improvise lines on set and only use the script as a rough
guideline, I forgot to note down the changes so that for shot reverse shots the lines would be
the same, meaning that they would cut perfectly in the final edit. However, as a result of my
ignorance towards dialogue, when I began the edit there was one specific scene that the
lines between the shots changing were different and ultimately each character’s actions
were different. The only way to solve this – unfortunately – was to cut out some long periods of
shots changing and just keep them on one perspective; whilst it works it is frustrating.

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