In the first week of our second year on the course we were given a week to produce a video. I wanted to stick to the theme of independance that is running for the mini masterpieces contest.
Loosely based on a true story, this drama piece followed Chris Johnson at university, he just wants to be alone but this is made increasingly difficult by Ved (played by himself, me) and Will.
I was pleased with the filming process, it was a lot of fun and everyone worked really hard. I was pleased with Reubens camera work also, especially the opening shot.
The finished film suffers slightly because it starts off following Chris, however half way through the camera starts to follow me which is a confusing way of telling the story, the style of the piece also changes when we start to follow Chris and myself using the camera handheld which gave it more of a documentary feel when it was originally meant to be a drama. I'm glad I've learnt from this as it's the first time in the course I've done a drama video and that is the area I'm most interested in working in.
Thursday 9 October 2008
Tuesday 7 October 2008
Classroom Exercise on storytelling
It was a Monday morning and Phil was late for work at the university, he hoped his students would still be there as he was going to be at least a quarter of an hour late.
Whilst in a traffic jam just a few minutes from Uni, a crazed old man starts attacking Phil’s car, at the same time gibbering madly.
In fear, Phil pulled out a gun, which he keeps in his glove pocket and threatened the crazed old man by pointing it towards his head. The crazed old man pushed his own head into the barrel of the gun; Phil pulled the trigger, blood poured down the man’s face, yet he remained alive.
Phil’s face turned white and Mandy, who was in the passenger seat, glanced at her watch and realised it was going to be a long day.
Just then, the lights ahead turned green. Phil gently tapped the accelerator and ran over the crazy old man, continuing on his journey.
Mandy looked back and noticed the car tyre had squashed the crazy mans head and now lays motionless. Could this be the solution to killing these…things…if there were more of them?
Phil looked at Mandy with a approving nod, as if saying that was the best journey into uni yet but as they were driving up the drive they spot another of these “creatures” but it turned out to be another crazed old man.
Phil and Mandy decided that the solution was inevitable, they would have to begin therapy sessions for their prejudices against old men and would have to stop calling them creautures and things and just accept that the old are always going to be here. They kissed.
As they were kissing Phil crashed into a fence and they both laughed heartily at their impulsive actions. They carried on to the Uni and Phil arrived at his lesson two hours after the lesson, however his students were waiting there with him and when they saw him they all cheered.
Whilst in a traffic jam just a few minutes from Uni, a crazed old man starts attacking Phil’s car, at the same time gibbering madly.
In fear, Phil pulled out a gun, which he keeps in his glove pocket and threatened the crazed old man by pointing it towards his head. The crazed old man pushed his own head into the barrel of the gun; Phil pulled the trigger, blood poured down the man’s face, yet he remained alive.
Phil’s face turned white and Mandy, who was in the passenger seat, glanced at her watch and realised it was going to be a long day.
Just then, the lights ahead turned green. Phil gently tapped the accelerator and ran over the crazy old man, continuing on his journey.
Mandy looked back and noticed the car tyre had squashed the crazy mans head and now lays motionless. Could this be the solution to killing these…things…if there were more of them?
Phil looked at Mandy with a approving nod, as if saying that was the best journey into uni yet but as they were driving up the drive they spot another of these “creatures” but it turned out to be another crazed old man.
Phil and Mandy decided that the solution was inevitable, they would have to begin therapy sessions for their prejudices against old men and would have to stop calling them creautures and things and just accept that the old are always going to be here. They kissed.
As they were kissing Phil crashed into a fence and they both laughed heartily at their impulsive actions. They carried on to the Uni and Phil arrived at his lesson two hours after the lesson, however his students were waiting there with him and when they saw him they all cheered.
Monday 9 June 2008
Day Four: Editing Group Project 30/05/08
This is the point where the control freak in me came out. At very few points did I let the other members of my group take over the computer to edit. Although having them at my side during the editing process made me feel that was good enough to satisfy them. I honestly think it was very unfair of me now but at the time I simply just wanted to be rid of the project and start on the portfolio work.
It was the previous day in editing that we decided to cut the footage of Mike Johnstons interview, so Balve and I filmed some cutaway shots of the Main House to splice in while he is talking about the lack of space for a radio station at Bath Spa university. We also realised the documentary didn't work very well without a soundtrack, I decided on using the song "Don't You Evah" by Spoon for the introduction sequence and the scene on the green outside the Main House.
I liked the fact that I got a long with the crew and the interviewees we spoke to, I feel like we had a great time during filming however this may have resulted in a lack of professionalism. I think some of the things we could have benefited from was reviewing the footage after shooting to ensure that we were happy with the shots compositions and how some of the interviews would look in playback. It would have been a good idea to run through the interviews several times so that the interviewees could have possibly tightened up their answers as all the interviews were done in one take.
Here's the finished version of On The Air
It was the previous day in editing that we decided to cut the footage of Mike Johnstons interview, so Balve and I filmed some cutaway shots of the Main House to splice in while he is talking about the lack of space for a radio station at Bath Spa university. We also realised the documentary didn't work very well without a soundtrack, I decided on using the song "Don't You Evah" by Spoon for the introduction sequence and the scene on the green outside the Main House.
I liked the fact that I got a long with the crew and the interviewees we spoke to, I feel like we had a great time during filming however this may have resulted in a lack of professionalism. I think some of the things we could have benefited from was reviewing the footage after shooting to ensure that we were happy with the shots compositions and how some of the interviews would look in playback. It would have been a good idea to run through the interviews several times so that the interviewees could have possibly tightened up their answers as all the interviews were done in one take.
Here's the finished version of On The Air
Tuesday 3 June 2008
Day Three: Re-filming at Spa 29/05/08
Day three of filming… We had come across a few problems with our footage
1) We had lost the footage of Balve’s introductory scenes at the SU.
2) After watching the scene where Balve is waiting for a bus to go to Bath Uni, it’s pretty obvious that he’s reading off a page!
We filmed a totally new scene to replace the bus stop scene which is Balve walking across the green outside the main house and we decided to do it without a script. So Balve had to learn his lines before filming which he assured me was not his strongest point. We re-filmed the scenes of Balve outside and inside the SU, which the SU president James Anderson was courteous enough to do again posing as a receptionist of some kind, this gave us an opportunity for Balve to introduce the David Jones as he had not been mentioned by name at all in the previous footage.
We then headed over to the Gatehouse to finally finish up the edit for the deadline which was that same day!
1) We had lost the footage of Balve’s introductory scenes at the SU.
2) After watching the scene where Balve is waiting for a bus to go to Bath Uni, it’s pretty obvious that he’s reading off a page!
We filmed a totally new scene to replace the bus stop scene which is Balve walking across the green outside the main house and we decided to do it without a script. So Balve had to learn his lines before filming which he assured me was not his strongest point. We re-filmed the scenes of Balve outside and inside the SU, which the SU president James Anderson was courteous enough to do again posing as a receptionist of some kind, this gave us an opportunity for Balve to introduce the David Jones as he had not been mentioned by name at all in the previous footage.
We then headed over to the Gatehouse to finally finish up the edit for the deadline which was that same day!
Day Two: Filming at URB Radio and Spa 28/05/08
On our second day of filming we decided to scrap using the marantz as it was more trouble than it was worth. I opted to use the R09 instead as a backup for the sound. We met Tim Dye URB’s station manager who was happy to do the tour and was helpful in pointing out different things we could film for cutaways such as the old newspaper articles from back when URB was first set up.
We couldn’t film in Studio1 because there was broken glass all over it and Tim’s key for Studio 2 was broken so we filmed Balve’s final scene in studio 3. We filmed Tim giving us a tour and a brief history of the station as well as some interview questions we wanted to use as cutaways from footage of Balve in the studio.
Once we’d finished at Bath Uni we got back on the bus to get footage of Balve explaining how he felt that he could not set up a radio station at Bath Spa, however the R09 and the Panasonics internal mics were picking up too much noise from the buses engine, so we decided to get some footage of balve sitting on the bus and possibly adding a voice over of his explanation. We also agreed to film him doing this scene at the bus stop at Bath spa’s bus stop and run with whichever sequence looked better. And that was to be the end of our filming and the beginning of editing…
We couldn’t film in Studio1 because there was broken glass all over it and Tim’s key for Studio 2 was broken so we filmed Balve’s final scene in studio 3. We filmed Tim giving us a tour and a brief history of the station as well as some interview questions we wanted to use as cutaways from footage of Balve in the studio.
Once we’d finished at Bath Uni we got back on the bus to get footage of Balve explaining how he felt that he could not set up a radio station at Bath Spa, however the R09 and the Panasonics internal mics were picking up too much noise from the buses engine, so we decided to get some footage of balve sitting on the bus and possibly adding a voice over of his explanation. We also agreed to film him doing this scene at the bus stop at Bath spa’s bus stop and run with whichever sequence looked better. And that was to be the end of our filming and the beginning of editing…
Day One: Filming Group Project at Bath Spa 27/05/08
It was Tuesday and the deadline for our Group Project was Thursday. We had already interviewed our lecturer Mike Johnston and the shoot went really well, although the shotgun mic is obviously in shot in the interview!
We finally got permission from David Jones to interview him and wanted to film Balve’s introduction scene outside the SU.
We picked up the equipment for the shoot, which was two Panasonic DV cameras, a Marantz Audio recorder with a directional mic. We spent about an hour trying to figure out how to make the marantz work before going to rich the gatehouse technician for help.
We decided that Lance would be the cameraman while I acted as sound recordist and Balve would be the presenter and finally got to interview David even though the mic sound I was getting was horrendous and kept cutting out. After this we filmed Balve walking up the stairs and through the SU office on the way to speak to David. I wanted the interview to be conducted using one camera as most fly on the wall documentaries uses just one camera.
We proceeded to film Balve’s introduction scene, and eventually concluded that we should start it with Balve waiting for us to get the equipment ready as opposed to a more clean introduction we wanted to embrace the fact that we were first year media students and start off with the crew fumbling around.
Through pre-production I had asserted in all production meetings that I wanted to take a producer/director role as a lot of the vision and the original concept were mine. However when it came to shooting I was happy to see Balve and Lance interjecting their own ideas when it came to shots and even the content, as it was Balves idea for him to fix his hair using the camera! I was totally comfortable with letting them have their own say and this resulted in almost no conflict between the crew during filming.
We finally got permission from David Jones to interview him and wanted to film Balve’s introduction scene outside the SU.
We picked up the equipment for the shoot, which was two Panasonic DV cameras, a Marantz Audio recorder with a directional mic. We spent about an hour trying to figure out how to make the marantz work before going to rich the gatehouse technician for help.
We decided that Lance would be the cameraman while I acted as sound recordist and Balve would be the presenter and finally got to interview David even though the mic sound I was getting was horrendous and kept cutting out. After this we filmed Balve walking up the stairs and through the SU office on the way to speak to David. I wanted the interview to be conducted using one camera as most fly on the wall documentaries uses just one camera.
We proceeded to film Balve’s introduction scene, and eventually concluded that we should start it with Balve waiting for us to get the equipment ready as opposed to a more clean introduction we wanted to embrace the fact that we were first year media students and start off with the crew fumbling around.
Through pre-production I had asserted in all production meetings that I wanted to take a producer/director role as a lot of the vision and the original concept were mine. However when it came to shooting I was happy to see Balve and Lance interjecting their own ideas when it came to shots and even the content, as it was Balves idea for him to fix his hair using the camera! I was totally comfortable with letting them have their own say and this resulted in almost no conflict between the crew during filming.
Monday 2 June 2008
Editing the Individual Project
The editing process for this project was very straightforward. After putting all the footage in the timeline on FCP and syncing up the audio tracks from the R09, all I had to do was create a title sequence and title screens before each lesson.
I was really happy with the title screens and the use of additive dissolves into a freeze frame. Before handing in I decided to crop the intro and outro clips with Chris facing the camera as he is far too close to the left.
Here's the finished projected entitled 'How to DJ with Chris Bibby'.
I was really happy with the title screens and the use of additive dissolves into a freeze frame. Before handing in I decided to crop the intro and outro clips with Chris facing the camera as he is far too close to the left.
Here's the finished projected entitled 'How to DJ with Chris Bibby'.
Thursday 29 May 2008
Filming the Individual Project
I'd done my recce the day before filming, Chris had his decks set up in his room so we were to film there. Although he had to fit into a small gap between his desk and the wall, the location checked out pretty well. the lighting was great and there was a huge space to set up my tripod to face the decks. I planned to set the tripod in front of Chris while I filmed from the side to get a closer look at the decks but that's not what ended up happening! Here's a look at the side shot I had planned...
On the day of filming it took me around an hour to set up the tripod camera till I realised that if I left it alone it would tilt upwards, so I had to abandon the use of it. I ended up getting behind the decks next to Chris and filming the decks. This actually proved to be the best method cos the focus should really be on the decks as he's explaining the buttons, features and techniques. I filmed an intro and outro using the tripod because I could actually control it. I placed an Edirol R09 microphone on the desk to record the sound and it proved to be a lot better than the internal mic on the mini-DV camcorder. For all the continuity geeks out there you can blatently see the R09 at the head of the mixer sometimes...
I enjoyed working with Chris, he was quite a natural performer, and although I had asked if he wanted to script his lines beforehand he was much happier to just explain things off the top of his head, which proved to be great because the explanations are very clear, and clarity is the key to a good instructional video!
I enjoyed working with Chris, he was quite a natural performer, and although I had asked if he wanted to script his lines beforehand he was much happier to just explain things off the top of his head, which proved to be great because the explanations are very clear, and clarity is the key to a good instructional video!
Researching the Group Project (Here we go again...)
So it's time for a bigger project, all new responsibilities, and I definitely decided to take this one easy. Our individual projects were to be 3-5mins long and could be a documentary or instructional video.
My original plan was to document the trials and tribulations of my friend Balve as he attempted to set up a radio station at Bath Spa University. A documentary that would involve interviews with several members of the faculty, student union and the members of URB Radio at Bath University. I was curious to investigate why exactly Spa couldn't didn't have a radio station but Bath University did. A bold project that would have never fit into a 3minute video.
The idea I ended up running with was to do an instructional video on how to DJ. Earlier in the year Balve and I had attended a How to DJ workshop held by the Bath Spa events DJ Chris Bibby (aka Mister Bibby). I emailed him a few weeks before the deadline asking him if he was interested and he (luckily) replied saying he'd be happy to help.
After the DJ Workshop I searched the web and found a series of How to DJ Hip Hop videos by DJ Colione. The videos I'd seen all used the same fixed angle but I wanted to use different angles in my video and make it professional looking.
Searching for How to DJ on Youtube leads you to a lot of videos of people taping themselves DJing but not actually explaining anything about the process. This was the only video I could find that had some explanation involved:
My original plan was to document the trials and tribulations of my friend Balve as he attempted to set up a radio station at Bath Spa University. A documentary that would involve interviews with several members of the faculty, student union and the members of URB Radio at Bath University. I was curious to investigate why exactly Spa couldn't didn't have a radio station but Bath University did. A bold project that would have never fit into a 3minute video.
The idea I ended up running with was to do an instructional video on how to DJ. Earlier in the year Balve and I had attended a How to DJ workshop held by the Bath Spa events DJ Chris Bibby (aka Mister Bibby). I emailed him a few weeks before the deadline asking him if he was interested and he (luckily) replied saying he'd be happy to help.
After the DJ Workshop I searched the web and found a series of How to DJ Hip Hop videos by DJ Colione. The videos I'd seen all used the same fixed angle but I wanted to use different angles in my video and make it professional looking.
Searching for How to DJ on Youtube leads you to a lot of videos of people taping themselves DJing but not actually explaining anything about the process. This was the only video I could find that had some explanation involved:
Tuesday 6 May 2008
Bath Rugby
Last week I helped Rob out doing filming for Bath Rugby, we got to use their equipment which was refreshing as I found their tripod a lot easier to use than the ones we have at the Uni! They had two Sony Handycams and a tripod. We had to film Kate the clubs media manager interviewing Coach Steve Meehan. We decided to place one camera on the tripod which I volunteered to operate since I was quite nervous, Rob used the other camera to film cutaway shots.In the editing stage I was quite embarrassed looking at what I'd filmed, I did a lot of panning between Kate and Steve I think it would have been best to leave the camera focused on Steve. None of the zooms or pans that I did were particularly smooth and a lot of times there was no cutaway footage to use to cover it because Rob changed the location of where he was filming quite often.
The final product wasn't bad, David who is the other media manager seemed happy with the footage, however we all agreed that next time we shoot an interview we should use a 2 camera set up, one for each person. There's a work placement that students can apply for to do this job every week, I know Reuben is applying and other people on the course might be as well so good luck to them!
You can find our work at Bath Rugby TV here
Editing the Montage
After collecting my 3 tapes of footage for my one minute montage our lecturer Phil put forward the idea to enter the finished products into the Bath Music Challenge. The rules were simple, submit a 60 second video using one of the music pieces provided on their website.
I immediately decided to do two different edits, one for my official submission and one to be entered into the challenge.
There was a description about using the 60x 60 theme in your work. After a few days of sitting in front of my project attempting to edit to a song by the Apostates I thought about making the montage up completely of sixty 1 second shots. After a trial edit I decided this would help me since I was in a bit of an editing slump, however I had my heart set on using a split screen sequence, so I decided to incorporate those shots and let them run for longer, for example if i split the screen into 4 shots then i would let the sequence run for 4seconds.
Although I felt I'd taken a massive leap in the editing process, I found I had to recapture shots completely because now I had to come up with 60 unique shots and for some reason there were about 15 of Mike, the Apostates' drummer! This was extremely time consuming but once that was done all I needed to do was create my split screen sequence using a youtube tutorial video I had found earlier, which you can check out here:
One of the biggest problems I had was that after capturing my footage most of the shots were in different aspect ratios, even when some of them were done in the same session. I spent days trying to recapture and reconnect the media with no luck whatsoever. Eventually Phil helped me by creating an EDL (Editors Decision List) and using that to source a new sequence and connect to the relevant media clips, through this method my work was saved. A solution to a problem neither me or Phil could quite understand.
I'm quite proud of my montage, the footage is cut so quickly that it fits with the up-tempo punk song I chose. I was also happy that at a couple of points some of the footage matches in time with the song. I feel this has so far been the most rewarding experience of using Final Cut Pro because I had to deal with certain problems I'd never encountered before such as rendering media, using multiple tracks and the overwrite key and motion tab to create split screen sequences, and exporting EDL's which I don't quite understand but saved me from having to re-edit my montage completely which was a really tedious process of finding sixty 1 second shots that looked good!
Check out the finished montage:
The Apostates can be found on their myspace
I immediately decided to do two different edits, one for my official submission and one to be entered into the challenge.
There was a description about using the 60x 60 theme in your work. After a few days of sitting in front of my project attempting to edit to a song by the Apostates I thought about making the montage up completely of sixty 1 second shots. After a trial edit I decided this would help me since I was in a bit of an editing slump, however I had my heart set on using a split screen sequence, so I decided to incorporate those shots and let them run for longer, for example if i split the screen into 4 shots then i would let the sequence run for 4seconds.
Although I felt I'd taken a massive leap in the editing process, I found I had to recapture shots completely because now I had to come up with 60 unique shots and for some reason there were about 15 of Mike, the Apostates' drummer! This was extremely time consuming but once that was done all I needed to do was create my split screen sequence using a youtube tutorial video I had found earlier, which you can check out here:
One of the biggest problems I had was that after capturing my footage most of the shots were in different aspect ratios, even when some of them were done in the same session. I spent days trying to recapture and reconnect the media with no luck whatsoever. Eventually Phil helped me by creating an EDL (Editors Decision List) and using that to source a new sequence and connect to the relevant media clips, through this method my work was saved. A solution to a problem neither me or Phil could quite understand.
I'm quite proud of my montage, the footage is cut so quickly that it fits with the up-tempo punk song I chose. I was also happy that at a couple of points some of the footage matches in time with the song. I feel this has so far been the most rewarding experience of using Final Cut Pro because I had to deal with certain problems I'd never encountered before such as rendering media, using multiple tracks and the overwrite key and motion tab to create split screen sequences, and exporting EDL's which I don't quite understand but saved me from having to re-edit my montage completely which was a really tedious process of finding sixty 1 second shots that looked good!
Check out the finished montage:
The Apostates can be found on their myspace
Filming the Montage
The easter break was filled with festivity, drinking and chocolate and by the final week I needed to get my head down and do some work. I had previously brainstormed ideas for a montage which included concepts such as transportation, travelling, food preparation, dancing and musical instruments. None of these involved a specific narrative but instead would be an experimental collection of shots.
I decided to go with the musical instrument concept and got my main inspiration from music videos that use montage to show different live clips, sometimes showing energetic performances played to slow songs, I was particularly interested in the Strokes music video for Reptilia in which the majority of the shots are close-ups of the bands instruments and shown in a split screen format, I was keen to emulate this video using lots of experimental shots of the instruments, but I ended up simply capturing the bands playing instead. I was mainly looking forward to this exercise as a way of experimenting with shots and becoming more confident using a camera. I managed to do two different shoots for my montage, one which involved me filming my friend practicing on drums and playing guitar on his roof.
Since filming the footage I have only reviewed it once but I am happy with some of the composition for the shots of him playing guitar and on some overhead shots of him playing drums where I stood on his window ledge and pointed the camera downwards. I also consciously did crane, panning and tracking shots at this point.
The second film shoot was of a friends band practice where i collected an hours worth of footage. Problems arose with lighting, as I had left the white balance on the outdoor preset from filming on the roof so the majority of the shot looks quite dark and slightly brown. After changing the white balance to indoor the colour looked a lot better. I had a lot of trouble getting any two of the band members in shot at the same time as the room was too small, even standing in the very corner didn't help much. I've definitely learnt that recceing a location with a camera before shoot is the best thing to do, and the more open the space the better the shots will be.
I had planned to film the Apostates at band practice however they had to cancel at the last minute, luckily I already had footage of a gig they played a few weeks earlier so I decided to use that. The venue is far too dark so I had to use nightvision which gives everything a green tint, during this shoot I moved around a lot to get different shots and found that there were some decent shots of the band and they are very energetic performers which made it interesting to watch and provided a contrast to the previous bands laid back band practice.
Here's the video for the Strokes' Reptilia:
I decided to go with the musical instrument concept and got my main inspiration from music videos that use montage to show different live clips, sometimes showing energetic performances played to slow songs, I was particularly interested in the Strokes music video for Reptilia in which the majority of the shots are close-ups of the bands instruments and shown in a split screen format, I was keen to emulate this video using lots of experimental shots of the instruments, but I ended up simply capturing the bands playing instead. I was mainly looking forward to this exercise as a way of experimenting with shots and becoming more confident using a camera. I managed to do two different shoots for my montage, one which involved me filming my friend practicing on drums and playing guitar on his roof.
Since filming the footage I have only reviewed it once but I am happy with some of the composition for the shots of him playing guitar and on some overhead shots of him playing drums where I stood on his window ledge and pointed the camera downwards. I also consciously did crane, panning and tracking shots at this point.
The second film shoot was of a friends band practice where i collected an hours worth of footage. Problems arose with lighting, as I had left the white balance on the outdoor preset from filming on the roof so the majority of the shot looks quite dark and slightly brown. After changing the white balance to indoor the colour looked a lot better. I had a lot of trouble getting any two of the band members in shot at the same time as the room was too small, even standing in the very corner didn't help much. I've definitely learnt that recceing a location with a camera before shoot is the best thing to do, and the more open the space the better the shots will be.
I had planned to film the Apostates at band practice however they had to cancel at the last minute, luckily I already had footage of a gig they played a few weeks earlier so I decided to use that. The venue is far too dark so I had to use nightvision which gives everything a green tint, during this shoot I moved around a lot to get different shots and found that there were some decent shots of the band and they are very energetic performers which made it interesting to watch and provided a contrast to the previous bands laid back band practice.
Here's the video for the Strokes' Reptilia:
Research for the Montage
Our first exercise in the Introduction to Video module was to create a 60-90 second video montage. We were given mostly free reign to experiment with different shots and clips. A quick check on the wikipedia page for montage sequence will define it as " a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots is edited into a sequence to condense narrative." Montages in film are almost always used in this way.
Sergei Eisenstein is the most well known figure when discussing montage, he has been noted for his use and academic writing on montage techniques, contributing to what is known as soviet montage theory. This theory describes 5 different types of montage sequence which differ in the complexity of the meanings its trying to communicate and of the cinematic techniques it uses.
Upon reviewing my finished montage my work falls into the "metric" montage category.
Sergei Eisenstein is the most well known figure when discussing montage, he has been noted for his use and academic writing on montage techniques, contributing to what is known as soviet montage theory. This theory describes 5 different types of montage sequence which differ in the complexity of the meanings its trying to communicate and of the cinematic techniques it uses.
Upon reviewing my finished montage my work falls into the "metric" montage category.
Our visit to the egg
In early March our class took an impromptu trip to the egg theatre, a small theatre that is part of Bath Theatre Royal. We went to recce the theatre in order to film a performance of 'A Midsummers Nights Dream' which was part of their two week Shakespeare season. Our lecturer Phil made inquiries about the sound, which was a smart move considering sound is often the main aspect of filming that is neglected. The egg theatre was small and well sound proofed which would work to our advantage.
We decided on using a Sony Z1 and placing it at the very back of the theatre facing straight at the stage and to use two handheld panasonic cameras to make up a mult-angle film shoot. At the time Balve, Reuben and Mike volunteered to be cameramen while Phil would be the sound recordist setting up a directional mic to record the sound.
For more information on the egg theatre log on to http://www.theatreroyal.org.uk/the-egg
We decided on using a Sony Z1 and placing it at the very back of the theatre facing straight at the stage and to use two handheld panasonic cameras to make up a mult-angle film shoot. At the time Balve, Reuben and Mike volunteered to be cameramen while Phil would be the sound recordist setting up a directional mic to record the sound.
For more information on the egg theatre log on to http://www.theatreroyal.org.uk/the-egg
Saturday 26 January 2008
Audio Project: Wired 4 Sound Podcast
I took on the role of being a sound editor and interviewer for the project. I know the band we interviewed so I think it could tend to be a bit biased. Luckily this kind of interview doesn't suffer from these matters but had it been another group of interviewees and a different subject I think the interview would be a lot less credible. Using one microphone between the four of us made it difficult to get a really good sound, this is where I should have manipulated the interview further somewhat but the only way would have been to script it. At the beginning I told them the questions I was going to ask which gave them a chance to really think about their answers. This was probably a good way of conducting the interview instead of telling them what to say which would really make the interview bad as an informative piece. I think I should have also rehearsed the interview so that they got used to their answers.
I approached the interview thinking that I would ask the questions but re-record them later which was a terrible idea it left a lot of time spent on re-recording and editing the dialogue in. It was a result of me not being confident enough to be a radio personality. I really think that I should have approached it with a degree of professionalism and I think that's what I really learnt the fact that being professional and just good at the job you have to do is the best way to handle a situation. I think that I should have got more advice on how to handle the microphone because they are aimed at certain directions so the way you hold it can really influence the sound that you get. If there are any chances to interview or present for small pieces of filming or audio I would gladly take it, I think that it's worth challenging myself to get better at something that I don't think i'm that good at. The job as interview has also taught me that I would be better of handling the technical side of broadcasting, I don't think I've got to grips with the soundtrack pro software as well as I could have and that could be improved upon.
I think that the jobs I took on appeared to be easy but going through the process really made it obvious how difficult it could be and little attentions to detail and experience can help you improve at the craft a great deal. This is key to the broadcast industry I think, where having multiple skills is important but really being good at each of those things will be essential to your success in the long run.
I approached the interview thinking that I would ask the questions but re-record them later which was a terrible idea it left a lot of time spent on re-recording and editing the dialogue in. It was a result of me not being confident enough to be a radio personality. I really think that I should have approached it with a degree of professionalism and I think that's what I really learnt the fact that being professional and just good at the job you have to do is the best way to handle a situation. I think that I should have got more advice on how to handle the microphone because they are aimed at certain directions so the way you hold it can really influence the sound that you get. If there are any chances to interview or present for small pieces of filming or audio I would gladly take it, I think that it's worth challenging myself to get better at something that I don't think i'm that good at. The job as interview has also taught me that I would be better of handling the technical side of broadcasting, I don't think I've got to grips with the soundtrack pro software as well as I could have and that could be improved upon.
I think that the jobs I took on appeared to be easy but going through the process really made it obvious how difficult it could be and little attentions to detail and experience can help you improve at the craft a great deal. This is key to the broadcast industry I think, where having multiple skills is important but really being good at each of those things will be essential to your success in the long run.
Thursday 24 January 2008
Visit To Endemol Studios Bristol, Deal Or No Deal
We got the chance to visit the Endemol studio’s in Bristol to watch deal or no deal being filmed. I’ve never actually watched the show so I did some research and realised that it’s become a bit of a phenomenon, quickly becoming one of the nation’s favourite television shows. I read a few articles on the show done by journalists who had the same experience we were about to have, it sounded really fun, most of it was about the contestants. The contestants all stay in a hotel together, partying and having fun in the evenings then spending their days filming three episodes of deal or no deal. Each episode sees a contestant stepping up and therefore leaving the group by the end of the show and people can spend months as a contestant until they get picked. I was also interested to find out that some people had even left their jobs for this opportunity.After a short wait we met Annalise who had us wait to join the rest of the audience who had probably just had a talk about their roles as an audience. We joined the end of the audience queue and were ushered onto the set. We got a chance to speak to the audience researchers who were getting the audience to their seats. I learnt that getting to that position was the same as I’ve learnt so far, which is starting as a runner and working your way to researcher, this was also the first time I’d hear about the lack of people working in media in the southwest. We were seated according to height and within a few minutes the warm up guy took the mic and started telling a few jokes, one of them aimed at reuben, I think he told him to smile and made fun of how low he was wearing his beanie hat. We spent some time practicing our reactions, like clapping and cheering, and saying ooooooh when something bad happened. I was glad that there were only two reactions; it made it easier on my brain. The contestants were ready, having their make up done, they were a really good laugh and you could see they all got along really well with each other which made it really enjoyable to watch.
There was about seven cameras set up, the most interesting looking was attached to a cameraman in a kind of suit where he controlled the camera while walking around the set. Before filming of the show began we practiced our reaction shots while the cameramen took some close ups of some of the audience.
The show began as they picked a contestant randomly; it was genuinely done at random by the computer because they had to stop the filming to give the lucky contestant a lapel mic. The show took about an hour and a half to film and it was hugely entertaining. I thought that Noel conducted himself really professionally on and off camera but was still very friendly and joked with the audience, the crew and the contestants.
It became clear that the camera crew were taking directions from the gallery team as they freely moved around the set circling noel and the female contestant as well as the other contestants. There were a few stops for where the adverts would be where the make up team would come back to touch up anyone that needed it. At these times the floor manager and would direct us at our clapping when the show would resume controlling us like a conducter.
After the excitement of watching the show being filmed we were taken on a tour of the facilities at Endemol. There seemed to be a lot of outsourcing going on as both the editing suite, which was just round the corner, and the camera crew were hired from a different company. I think they called the editing suites ‘The Farm’.
Overall it was a great trip but I think it may not have been as informative on roles as our BBC trip was.
Visit to BBC Bristol, Points West
My fellow students and I had the pleasure of visiting BBC Bristol recently for a tour around the site and a chance to sit in the gallery for their regional news programme Points West.
Our first stop was the main office, which was so busy that hopefully no one noticed me walking straight into a waste bin. I assume that all the chaos was because it was nearly time for the news to be broadcast but wouldn’t be surprised if it was always like that. We quickly walked past the journalists’ desks that were preparing their stories for 12 o’clock. Our guide showed us their central server, the hub, which is more or less in the centre of the room. This is where all the stories, graphics and other files are uploaded to.
The next stop was to the desk of Points West’s weatherman Richard Abgwin who explained that the introductory graphic for the weather contains a ball which is graphically altered to show an overview of the weather for that day, so if there a lot of snow or icy weather the ball would be snowy or white. Theoretically you wouldn’t even need to watch the weather just have a look at the ball! The weatherman is surprisingly self-sufficient, as he handles the meteorology graphs that will appear behind him on the show and prepares his own scripts. He explained that another job he has to do is act as a kind of buffer for the shows running time, so if the programme is running over schedule he would have to cut down his segment to fit in the rest of the shows running time, I had no idea the news was that rigid with running times.We met the man who’s job it is to post up the news stories on the BBC website for the Bristol and Gloucestershire pages and ceefax, he took us through how once he and his co-worker have decided on the text to be posted up then it’s his job to look over it once more, spell check it, edit it and then post it up using the system, typically one page can only post up to 11 news stories at a time so usually the ones that are the oldest will get replaced, generally these stories stay up for as long as 48hrs. He explained that the system is used at Birmingham as well and generally between Bristol and Birmingham there will be someone to cover stories 24hours a day.
We were ushered into the bristol radio room, which had a reception area and two studio’s. A presenter Steve Yablsey was finishing up his show, and got a glimpse of us saying something like “and now it we have what appears to be a bunch of tramps in the studio.” That did make me think that maybe we were a little underdressed for the occasion. He called us into the studio, and for a while none of us moved till Will decided to be there first one in, he asked us what our names were and even said I had a “rock star name.” He asked Will what we were studying and eventually he answered the question, Steve thanked us because he needed to fill in a few extra minutes of the show before going off air. It was looking pretty good we’d been live on the radio and called tramps by a radio presenter, I thought that we were now seriously interacting with the crème de la crème of the entertainment world. . We wenr into a studio which wasn’t in use, where someone explained the ease of which to use the studio kit which boiled down to a few faders and a stop and play button. They showed us what some of the lights meant, apart from the obvious red ‘on-air’ light; one of them was blue and only really goes off if Prince Charles, Prince William (but not Harry) or Tony Blair has died. I don’t know how serious they were about that though. I have to admit it looked great and until then I’d never been too fussed about radio work but I’ve become more interested with this visit, combined with the work I’ve done on the course.We then met the Graphic Designer who showed us briefly what he had been working on which included a graphic for a sports promo which has about 3-4 different layers of imagery. We didn’t get much time to see the actual process involved in this as Point’s West was beginning to start filming.
The studio for Point’s West is surprisingly small compared to how it appears on television, I realised this was due to clever placement of the cameras. The studio had 3 cameras mounted onto large mobile stands, the floor manager demonstrated the ease of moving the camera which greatly pleased Reuben, who is interested in being a cameraman. Chris Vacher , Points Wests main presenter walked into the room and we were introduced to him, he wasn’t too chatty though and I think it’s probably because he was focusing on the task at hand. Before we left the floor manager said we could come back to play with the cameras, which never happened, Reuben was not pleased about that.Being in the gallery was probably my favourite part of the visit. We sat behind the gallery team, which consisted of the producer, director, vision mixer and sound engineer. I fear that we may have been on this visit a bit too early because I was totally overwhelmed by watching the news being filmed right in front us, because it was live it felt like anything could go wrong at any minute, however this is obviously not the case as apart from being experienced professionals I realised that to them this was simply their day job. In front of the crew were about 5 widescreen plasma screen TV’s with all displaying smaller boxes which included things like images being used in stories, the auto cue, the 3 camera’s set up in the studio and a camera feed from a field reporter at a Bristol museum. The show ran smoothly with Vacher pre-recording the headlines, and a signer being pre-recorded. The only obvious concern from the director (apart from her game of solitaire) was that the field reporter was conducing an interview using a boom mic, which looked really stupid however the reporter explained it was the only mic available.
I really liked the visit to BBC although I do wish that there was enough time to give us a proper explanation of osme of the roles and I will look forward to gaining that knowledge and experience during work experience next year.
Thursday 3 January 2008
Social Networking
For our presentation on new digital media I chose to do mine on social networking as I enjoy using several different social network sites.
It's interesting to look at this presentation now, in the last slide I mentioned 'the next big thing' in social networking which is still unclear and at the same time Facebook was clearly the most popular. Less than a month after I gave the presentation I've heard people say that Facebook's days are numbered and I've come across an article from Guardian Media about Facebooks possible successors. One of the sites mentioned in the article, Twitter, introduces SMS text messaging to social networking so I wish I had mentioned it in the presentation.
You can read the article on the future of social networking here.
Licensing Music
As far as researching tasks went this was the toughest as it was extremely hard to find relevant sites and once I did, I found they were very vague about the process. This project made it clear how difficult and expensive it is to gain licenses to use popular artist's music, an important lesson when it comes to making video projects in the future.
Audience Research - Children
This is mine and Balve’s presentation on the characteristics of children (under 16) as a target audience.
| View | Upload your own
| View | Upload your ownThis was my first (and only) attempt at using the 20/20 rule for presentations, which probably wasn’t too wise as it makes it seem overrun. I am proud of the inclusion of graphs and pictures in this presentation and learnt a lot about how media affects children. I noticed that children of different ages have different experiences of the world and the media around them, the life of a 5yr old is completely different than that of a 15yr old.
Newsdesk - The end of EMAP
Media company Emap has sold it’s business-to-business division to Guardian Media Group and private equity firm Apax for £1bn, this appears to be the final nail in the Emap coffin after the sale of its magazine and radio divisions to german publishers Bauer for a joint price of £1.14bn.
Earlier in December Emap looked unlikely to sell its business-to-business division, as they believed the offers were too low but GMG and Apax recently returned with the offer of £1bn. The chairman of Emap Alun Cathcart felt sadness seeing the end of 60 years of Emap as a publishing company but considers the investors their top priority. "Our job is to look after shareholder value. We now have an offer that is substantially better than the one we had two weeks ago."
It is believed that GMG and Apax will run the newly acquired division as one company together.
GMG's chief executive, Carolyn McCall, said the deal helped meet the commitments of its owner, the Scott Trust, formed in 1936 to safeguard the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian.
It’s been interesting to see this development over time as I was assigned to research Emap at the beginning of the semester and now the company effectively no longer exists, it seems that this has been set in motion in the absence of Chief Executive Tom Moloney who resigned last May however it is believed that this has happened due to the advertising markets moving from print and radio to the web, a true example of how broadcasting is rapidly changing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/dec/22/emap.emapbusiness?gusrc=rss&feed=media
Earlier in December Emap looked unlikely to sell its business-to-business division, as they believed the offers were too low but GMG and Apax recently returned with the offer of £1bn. The chairman of Emap Alun Cathcart felt sadness seeing the end of 60 years of Emap as a publishing company but considers the investors their top priority. "Our job is to look after shareholder value. We now have an offer that is substantially better than the one we had two weeks ago."
It is believed that GMG and Apax will run the newly acquired division as one company together.
GMG's chief executive, Carolyn McCall, said the deal helped meet the commitments of its owner, the Scott Trust, formed in 1936 to safeguard the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian.
It’s been interesting to see this development over time as I was assigned to research Emap at the beginning of the semester and now the company effectively no longer exists, it seems that this has been set in motion in the absence of Chief Executive Tom Moloney who resigned last May however it is believed that this has happened due to the advertising markets moving from print and radio to the web, a true example of how broadcasting is rapidly changing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/dec/22/emap.emapbusiness?gusrc=rss&feed=media
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