Week 1

I am interested in creating a video essay on a subject I am most knowledgeable about so I can provide something to the audience that is both informative and entertaining. This video may be based around a favourite movie of mine, or around a media franchise that means something special to me, such as Pokémon. I would like to create a documentary based on the Pokémon media franchise that will cover all 9 generations at the time of the documentary's release. The video will speak about the core aspects of each generations line of Pokémon games, it's general reception from fans and critics alike, and whether said generations were successful.

It is likely that the style of documentary being produced here is to be "participatory". I have decided that I will be using Harvard Referencing templates to allow myself to easily break down each aspect of my research methods and effectively contain all my efforts in one document.  

Originally, I was going to include a whole breakdown of the Pokémon anime alongside the games in my video essay, but I have since decided to scrap that idea. It sounded good at first because the anime has been a huge part of the franchise's legacy, and I believed it would round the video essay out. But upon drafting the script and sequentially going over each Generation, I realised that the video was becoming less concise and more bloated, straying away from the original vision I had in mind for the type of video it would be.    

Week 2

I will be breaking down my project into 3 bigger sections that each will be built off a certain number of sub-sections. These sections will simply be known as the Beginning, Middle and End. The beginning will cover all the "GameBoy" related mainline Pokémon games, while the Middle will go over all Nintendo DS mainline titles, and the End will cover what is known as the "Modern Era" of Pokémon, spanning the Generations 6-9.

Beginning: Gen 1-3

Middle: Gen 4-5

End: Gen 6-9

I have decided that I will no longer be including remakes in this video due to time constraints and to avoid redundancy. The context of remakes when it comes to Pokémon is a somewhat faithful adaption of an older generation's mainline title, in the style of the current gen at the time. For example, the first Pokémon line of Pokémon Games was Pokémon Red and Blue, two versions of what is essentially the same game with very minor differences such as exclusive Pokémon availability. These games were Generation 1 titles but were later remade during Generation 3 in the same engine as the games that made up Generation 3 (Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald). The remakes were known as Pokémon Fire Red and Pokémon Leaf Green.  

Week 3

When planning this video essay, I aimed to create more than just a historical summary of the Pokémon franchise. I wanted to evaluate its cultural and design evolution through a cinematic, nostalgic, and informative lens. Early on, I decided the video's tone should reflect a balance between personal reflection and objective critique. However, upon drafting the script, the video became more narratively guided and grounded in research.   

Structurally, the script needed to be chronological yet theme driven, so I used generational divisions (Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3, etc.) to both organise information and reflect the franchise's evolving identity. Each generation wasn't just a new set of games—it was a reaction to the one before it, shaped by audience expectations, hardware limitations, and broader trends in game design. This evolution is something I wanted to consistently highlight throughout the video's duration.  

A key goal was to match the narrative pacing with detailed visual storytelling, short, curated gameplay clips aligned with the script's tone, using audio cues and transitions that felt cohesive with the all-encompassing Pokémon theme.

This research and early scripting phase also helped me realise the importance of including contextual commentary, like the impact of the link cable in Gen 1, or the controversial rebooting in Gen 3. These moments allowed the script to evolve from being descriptive to analytical, which I believe is essential to achieving a high grade.  

Final Script Citation: The Evolution of Pokémon Script

Week 4

Today I focused on creating a full presentation that pulls together all of my research and contextual development so far for my FMP. I made sure to break the slideshow down by Generation, starting with Gen 1, and I have aimed for a style that closely reflects the tone of my video essay—simple, energetic and nostalgic where necessary.

Design-wise I've matched each gen's slide with its era visually. Gen 1, which comprised of Pokemon Red, Green, Blue & Yellow has a retro vibe with Game Boy text boxes and sprite art, and I will continue to proceed with this concept for the next few Generations. Matching each Generation to their respective visual eras, so Pokemon Fire Red & Leaf Green, which were released on the Game Boy Advance, will be presented in a style that matches the UI of that system.

Today, I focused on editing my video essay "The Evolution Of Pokémon". I spent time refining the final cut by cleaning up transitions, tightening up the pacing, and adjusting the audio levels to make the piece more polished and professional. I added extra visual and audio elements to keep the audience more engaged—this included sourcing relevant images to support key points, layering in background music to build atmosphere, and using sound effects to enhance specific moments. Overall, I have made strong progress toward finalising the project and ensuring it meets a high standard for presentation, and viewer engagement.

Recently I have decided to change the documentary type from being a strictly participatory production to something more freeform in the realm of both expository and participatory. The video essay will not only narrate over the franchise's history but will also critique certain aspects of different games that have been released over the years. These critiques will not only be the same as the ones prevalent at the time of each games release but will also be of my personal "participatory" analysis of the franchise.  

Presentation Citation: Product Presentation   

Week 5

After reviewing my script drafts from the first four generations, I started identifying some pacing issues and tonal inconsistencies. These weren't major flaws, but they did threaten the cohesiveness of the overall documentary. As a result, I made several alterations of the script to reshape the tone of the essay. One of the biggest shifts was the removal of a planned "brief history" section that was originally going to introduce the origins of Game Freak and the concept of Satoshi Tajiri's childhood experiences with bug-catching. Although this idea was well-researched through the usage of websites such as IGN and Bulbapedia, it ultimately slowed the pacing down and detracted from the smoother momentum I wanted to establish in the intro. I made the decision to cut it entirely and instead embed those historical insights organically within the Generations themselves—for example, referencing Game Freak's humble roots during the Gen 1 section when discussing Pokémon Red & Green's development challenges.

Another idea I scrapped was a segment called "Pokémon Legacy moments", which was going to appear after each Generation to highlight long-term fan-favourite features (like breeding in Gen 2 or Natures in Gen 3). Feedback from peers alike confirmed that this approach would bloat out the videos length and might work against my originally more fast-paced concept.  

Week 6

This week I sought feedback from my classmates and my younger cousin, who's an active Pokémon fan. I wanted to test whether the tone of the script was too formal or too insider focused. The feedback was incredibly helpful: my cousin said some terms felt too "wordy" or assumed the viewer already knew the games. This prompted me to revise certain terminology (e.g, explaining "EV training" simply or using gameplay clips to visually clarify terms like "meta" or "region-locked"). It was a good reminder that while I'm making this for fans, I also want it to be accessible to more casual or nostalgic viewers.

I have also recently made changes to my montage structure. Originally, I was cutting clips together in chronological order with some generic background music, but after reviewing my Week 4 progress, I realised that I wasn't emotionally guiding the viewer through the video. So, this week, I began testing out a consistent musical theme that could evolve with each generation, starting with chiptune-inspired tracks in Gen 1 and gradually moving toward orchestrated, cinematic music by Gen 9. I'm still refining the music choices, but it already adds emotional weight and cohesion to the piece.  

Week 7

I have recently encountered a serious technical setback that tested both my problem-solving skills and my ability to stay organised under pressure. While editing in Adobe Premiere Pro, I experienced a file corruption issue that caused my entire soundtrack and all my sound effects to be wiped from the timeline, leaving only the voiceover intact. The audio layers had inexplicably vanished, and the project autosave unfortunately preserved the corrupted state, making it impossible to "undo" without losing other progress I had made. Thankfully, I had taken the precaution of backing up my assets and timeline markers in a separate folder structure on an external drive. Using this backup, I began the time-consuming task of rebuilding my soundscape manually. I didn't want to rush this process, because sound is such a vital part of the viewer's emotional experience.

I reimported each audio file, BGM track, generation-themed music, environmental ambience, and cue-based sound effects and began lining them up with the voiceover cues using my original timestamps that were still saved. This process took me several hours to complete, but what stood out to me was how much more deliberate I became with my editing choices the second time around. 

Week 8

Today, I completed some final contextual research that helped me understand the importance of using the video essay format to get my points across to the audience and help them understand just how divided the Pokémon fanbase has been over the years, and how this has and hasn't affected the quality of the games. By looking at the franchise's development, I'm showing that I have a deep understanding on how Pokémon as a media entity has evolved and changed, also providing context on how the consumers of media can shape said product.

A fine example of controversy within the series I went over was the infamous "Dexit" controversy of 2019. When Pokémon Sword and Shield launched, and as always, fans expected all Pokemon from Generation 1 onwards to the latest at the time (Generation 8) to be useable in the game. However, half of the 800+ Pokemon available at the time in the National Dex were completely cut from the game, and only 400 of them remained accessible in the game and as part of the Pokedex. This was the first time in the franchise that many Pokemon from previous games were made simply unavailable, and caused widespread uproar within the fanbase, as this meant many could no longer transfer old favourites from titles released years ago.

Contextual Research Citation: Contextual Analysis