Reflective Log: Beginning the pre-production stage of the digital video project!
The Brief:
Since we are creating digital videos for our school PE department, we were able to obtain a brief directly from our client explaining what they want us to do, but very little about how to do it. Although this is not particularly helpful, this presents the opportunity for us to create anything we want to, within relevant reason.
Firstly, our brief expressed the fact that our digital video would be designed for an "Interactive Media Platform" and therefore, should fit into the style of an interactive interface. In addition, our video must promote sport within school as well as for the public. In doing so, it should raise the profile of the PE department`s ethos and good work in the world of sport.
More specifically, the department want the platform to show the benefits of a healthy lifestyle as well as continuing with the Olympics legacy. Therefore, if we could include some of these topics in our digital video, it will fit nicely onto our Interactive Media Platform that we will eventually create.
By reading the brief, it is also possible to infer that the PE department what to show the inclusion of everyone - regardless of religion, race or ability. They say that they want out platform "to improve social and moral attitudes" and therefore, make people feel good, satisfied and included by PE as well as being taught to be a moralized and sociable person who now find sports in school "Fun"
Also, the PE department has specified a handful of websites which we should use to base our ideas. Personally, I feel this is excellent since it gives us a clearer idea of what the PE department are visualizing when they think of this project. Therefore, a fail-free idea is to use ideas from some of these websites to improve our ideas and enhance our videos.
(E.g. http://www.eis2win.co.uk/pages/default.aspx )
By reading the brief, it is also possible to infer that the PE department what to show the inclusion of everyone - regardless of religion, race or ability. They say that they want out platform "to improve social and moral attitudes" and therefore, make people feel good, satisfied and included by PE as well as being taught to be a moralized and sociable person who now find sports in school "Fun"
(E.g. http://www.eis2win.co.uk/pages/default.aspx )
Aside from the brief set by the PE department, our project brief also states that our general task should be to "Devise a digital video sequence for an interactive media product" Therefore, this assignment is aimed solely at the planning and pre-production of our video in high levels of detail. This planning must be approved by the PE department during a meeting that we will begin to plan shortly.
When creating any piece of media, research is always important. Firstly, it is a way to identify what is already on the internet in order to find out what works, what doesn't, what is successful and what isn't. Therefore, using YouTube to research existing sport promotional videos will generate many ideas for us in the form of additional stimulus to accelerate our ideas. In addition, such research can show us what sort of content is well received by target audience. Namely, by looking at the number of positive comments or "likes" on each YouTube video will give an indication of how successful each video is.
More negatively but equally importantly, online research is also an excellent way to find out what not to do. Weather this is because something has been tried, and has failed or weather it is something that is already "out there" and a success (Copy-rite would be violated if we were simply to use other ideas), it is important to know exactly what we want before we begin to devise our own sequence.
As you can see by this unsuccessful video on the right, we can learn from the mistakes of these producers in order not to make similar mistakes. For example, the poor quality and lack of varied camera angles renders the clip unprofessional and amateur looking. Similarly, the fact that the video has no clear narrative reduces the relevance of this "promotional video" since the audience are not 100% sure of what the video is trying to promote. However, the soundtrack on this video is modern and up to date, making it suitable for an interactive media platform for students!
Thinking ahead, planning a short digital video is far less simple that it first appears. Subsequently, I will now list each key aspect of the planning process and why it is so important. In addition, I will also list the less major aspects along with short descriptions about them at the end of this article.
1 - Market Research
As mentioned above, research is very important in order to discover suitable content, target audience and interesting themes.
2- A Meeting With the PE dept.
Since our client is the PE dept, it is essential that we find out exactly what they want us to create and how to create it. Since their brief was so... brief, it is important that we look further into what they want to get out of the platform, what it will promote and how it will promote it. Despite the ideas coming from us, it is important that we explain legal, representational and decency issues in order to ensure that the product can be released to the public further down the line.
3 - Selecting and evaluating software and equipment
Despite none of our equipment never appearing on camera, it is still important that we make informed decisions about what equipment we use - based on what our final result shall be! HD cameras are an obvious choice since we want our product to be high quality and professional. Perhaps less obviously, selecting tools such as tripods require a more informed choice. For example, a tripod must be selected that is capable of supporting a camera weighing more than a compact. This is important since, in the industry, if a tripod was to fail, much damage could be done to equipment (or the crew) if proper precautions were not to be taken. In addition, it is important that we select the highest quality equipment so that it can be relied on whilst shooting and can survive the torment of heavy use.
Similarly, when choosing software, it is important that it will be compatible with our hardware as well as having the capability to edit HD footage efficiently and quickly.
4 - Choosing a suitable narrative and purpose
After our meeting with the PE department, our narrative and purpose may be somewhat clearer. None the less, it is still important to have one since our audience need a clear idea of what is trying to be achieved by the digital video and what actions they can take to get involved! Therefore, sufficient planning is in order to ensure that such information is supplied in the form of a narrative thought the video.
5 - Risk Assessments
Clearly, the safety of all personnel's both on and off camera are of paramount importance. Firstly, this is because we value the good health and safety of all who are involved (especially in the light that this particular project is aimed at the sporting community) and also, if an actor or on-screen-person was injured and unable to continue, the entire project could be hindered as a result of their absence. Therefore, precautions must be taken to ensure the well being of everyone involved.
6 - Location
Possible locations shoot must be scouted prier to the shoot to confirm their availability and suitability. For example, if a space is too cramped to house all of our crew and equipment, a more suitable location should be looked for. Similarly, if we were planning to shoot on a muddy field, we would have to conciser our equipment, actors and the final product. After all, a muddy scene may infer some negative connotations about our PE department. Therefore, we should settle for nothing other than the best locations to ensure the desired effect on our video.
7 - Team Roles
To eliminate confusion, each member of the team should be assigned to different roles prier to the shooting. This will ensure the maximum efficiency of the team as well as ensuring the talent of each member is channeled into their particular skill area such as cameramen, editors or scriptwriters.
8 - Legal Rights and Issues
Unfortunately, there are some limits as to what can be heard or seen in a professional video. For example, music, video clips, products and famous faces may have copyright restrictions. For example, if a company logo was seen in a professional video and had not been accounted for, then action could be taken due to a copy-rite violation. Similarly, if a piece of audio used in a video was not royalty free, unexpected (and sometimes high) charges can come into play. And, especially if a production is a low budget one, could seriously ruin the chances of the video becoming a success or even being released.
9 - Budget
Unfortunately, most things come at a price and, if you don't already own them, things like cameras, tripods, microphones and actors may need to be hired or borrowed. Therefore, it is important to find out about prices, durations and terms of equipment or actor hire simply so that finance can be prepared to cover these costs. Normally, the higher quality the equipment/actor, the higher the price, so getting the balance right is something to be considered.
10- Shooting Schedules
Having planned a clear shooting schedule is essential in order to conduct a smooth operation. Therefore, considering the time of day, weather and availability of equipment and locations, a shooting schedule should be devised. This allows the whole shooting process to be organized and smooth. In addition, having a clear schedule ensures that each cast and crew member will know exactly when they are needed and for how long so that additional plans can be made.
Digital Video Research in the sporting World:
When I began my research, I decided to use YouTube to locate a range of promotional videos in the sporting world in order to asses and evaluate them. I decided to use YouTube since it is a platform that holds many, many videos all of which are at very different professional levels.
The first two videos I found are as follows:
As you can tell, both of these videos have the sole purpose of promoting. However, in my opinion, they both do so in rather a bad way.
From a technical point of view, both of these videos were shot with very little equipment and low quality cameras. Despite the first video using a tripod from time to time, the second video is almost completely "freehand". However, this may have been intentional; the video is about sport. Therefore, the shakey nature of each shot may be trying to reflect the exciting and pressurized world of sport. Even if this was the case, the shakey camera movements appear rather unprofessional and restrict the quality of the video quite extensively. To improve, I would suggest adding these shakes afterwards in post production to make the shaking look more purposeful.
Despite video one using a tripod, panning is never smooth and actors appear to be completely oblivious of the camera`s presents. Negatively, this means that the audience feels blocked out of the equation and, as a result, the video is rather uncomfortable to watch. However, since the camera is never acknowledged, each shot appears a lot more natural to the viewer. As a result, this technique should only be used when aiming for a desired result and, for a promotional video, I personally think it would be better if the actors acknowledged the audience so that they feel compelled to get involved and are "beckoned" into the activity.
Alternately, both of these videos are of similar length. Both videos are around the two minute mark. I feel that this a good point since that two minutes is a perfect time frame to maintain the attention of the audience while, at the same time, putting sufficient information into the video in order to make it effective.In my opinion, the reason why these videos are no shorter is because vital information my be missed or the video may feel rather brief. Similarly, the audience may fail to realize the importance of the promotion if everything is finished after 30 seconds or a minute. Alternately, if these videos were much longer, audience members may lose concentration on the subject and, in doing so, loosing all interest in the promotion.
In contrast to these two, this particular video is far better in my opinion. Firstly, a key difference is the quality of each shot. For example, each camera angle has been carefully considered in order for them to look professional. Even from the first frame, the choice of colour mixing and camera angle gives the audience a clear idea of the narrative. For example, the low saturation and high green colour implies negativity towards the subject of the video (over use of alcohol in sport) Similarly, the "Rule of thirds" has been considered with the tree on the right and the subject on the right. The tree, which covers most of the right third, implies that alcohol addiction is hard, rough and obstructive; it obstructs the audience`s view of the football pitch. This implies that alcohol also clouds the mind and vision of a sportsman if used excessively.
Interestingly, while still related to sport, the video above is completely different. Despite being similar length to the first two videos, the pace and style of this video is far different. The pace is dramatically faster than any other video I have found. I think that this was an effective choice since it reflects the high speed and dramatic nature of sports and transmits these ideas directly to the target audience simply with the style of editing.
However, much of this content is based on gaming and 3D graphics and, despite these being related to sport, they do not reflect the ethos of the PE department since gaming will not assist target audiences to increase their health and chances of a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, if our video is created in this style, we must ensure that it remains relevant to the PE department`s ethos - as were the first three videos I have posted.
Day 2:
Today, having realized the importance of excellent time management, we have both created a Gantt chart detailing the key stages of the project and specifying deadlines for each task. This is a brilliant idea since it ensures that we will never fall behind with our work since we have the computer alerting us when each task is scheduled to begin and end. So far, it has been a learning curve using "Microsoft Project" but I now feel more confident with using the program and feel able to explore it`s features more extensively.
When creating this Gantt chart, I feel that my weakness was the fact that I was unfamiliar with "Microsoft Project" which seemed to hinder and slow down work during the creation of the chart. However, I have a positive outlook since Microsoft project was an excellent leaning curve and means that we now have the ability to efficiently create time management in the future. In terms of strengths, I feel that I succeeded when splitting tasks into sub tasks. I feel that this is important since I have established clarity in our schedule in order to pave the way to a smooth production process.
Subsequently, I have also begun to write a first contact email to our client requesting a meeting to discuss the details and technicalities of the digital video section of the project. Since sending this email, we will both devise a set of questions to ask about both digital graphics and digital video production so that we can base all of our ideas on market research as well as our client`s opinions.
The Email is as follows:
Dear Mr Hutchinson,
I am writing to inform you about the first stages of our project and what they entail.
As you may know, Myself and Joshua Wing have been assigned to your PE department project with the intention of re branding the department through the medium of an interactive media platform. With the news of this exciting development, we are both eager to schedule a meeting with you to discuss the following elements of our digital graphics and digital video sections:
- Project time frame
- The End products required by yourself
In more detail, our meeting will be to discuss deadlines and release dates as well as specific content that you would like to appear within the final product. As a result of this meeting, we will take forward your ideas in order to create sketch ideas, design ideas and initial designs for the first instance of the project relating to the digital graphics for the department.
In addition, we would like to discuss our digital video production unit; we feel that some sort of digital video would be an excellent way to demonstrate your ethos and to promote your ideas. Therefore, our designs and ideas can also be discussed at this time as well as the digital graphics.
We will mainly aspects of digital graphics such as backgrounds, logos, colour schemes, images and animations. In addition, we will be carrying out market research to further enhance our choice of ideas so that the final product will be of the highest possible quality to suit your needs. Similarly, when discussing our digital video, we will also talk about the key content of the video as well as any legal or ethical considerations which are necessary.
Therefore, we would like to ask when would be a good time to schedule this meeting in order to ensure that the entire process is as easy and convenient as possible for you.
Since this is our first contact with yourself, we would both like to take the opportunity to invite you to contact us at any time if you require further discussion on any aspect of the platform. More specifically, you can find both I and Joshua on the following email addresses:
Me: a07sturner@bluecoat.uk.com
Joshua: w07jwing@bluecoat.uk.com
We are both very enthusiastic about the prospect of this project and are looking forward to hearing from you in the near future.
Yours Faithfully,
Samuel Turner – Giga X Studios
Finally, we also began to conduct a recce in order to discover suitable locations in which to film. On our recce, we first visited the Gym followed by the sports hall and the underground fitness suite. In the gym, we were intrigued by the changing room space where we feel that, in professional sports, much of the inspiration occurs in there. In addition, we found that the gym itself offered a large space in order to shoot some professional footage to suit our client`s needs.
Despite the underground gym being the most modern part of the department, I feel that the lack of natural light will imply negativity towards our audience if we were to film down there. In contrast to this, I feel that the sports hall has a more perfected balance of natural and artificial light. In addition, the sports hall is more of a typical sporting place as apposed to a fitness suite. Therefore, I feel that the sports hall is a far more appropriate filming location.
Clearly, the large space outside the school on the field is an excellent location since there is relatively low noise, plenty of natural light and many sporting events that are contained there.
In conclusion, I feel that a mixture of three of these locations will make for an engaging and professional video which will show the PE department in an inspirational and positive light. In terms of strengths, I feel that my eye for effective camera angles means that we were able to find professional shots rather quickly. However, I feel that I only documented a selection of these shots with the camera. Therefore, to improve, I feel that I should photograph every shot - despite the large numbers of shots that we discovered.
Day 3:
Today, we have listed some questions to ask our client at the meeting. These are as follows:
Day 4:
Today, it is our task to write a blog post about the use and importance of pre production. However, similar to most ares of production, some research was necessary. Luckily, we were provided with a presentation which contained websites and guidance to aid us in preparing for writing the post. This post was to include the following:
- Finance
- Time-scale
- Personnel
- Facilities
- Materials
- Contributors
- Locations
- Codes of Practice
My job is to research the uses and importance of each aspect in order to do it myself when it comes to producing our own project. In addition, I feel that I should include how professional industry practices conduct themselves in each aspect of pre production and compare it to how myself and Josh will conduct our pre production. Due to factors such as budget, limited team members, limited equipment and different timescale, there will be many differences to compare. In addition, I also plan to describe and evaluate the key similarities - detailing how we will need to achieve each one.
Day 5:
We have just undergone our meeting with our client in regards to our digital video. I feel that we both conducted ourselves in a professional manner and have extracted an informative video clip of the meeting which lasted for around 20 minutes. Our client responded excellently to our questions and provided us with informative answers which will provide us with a sturdy base on which to build our video project. I will also analyze the video file in order to create a document with a more detailed brief to work from.
Despite being nervous, I feel that our meeting went very well and was successful as we gained answers to many, if not all, of our questions. In terms of performance, I feel that my strength was the ability to talk confidently through the meeting despite being under pressure. However, I feel that I should not have been afraid to ask additional questions - instead of sticking to our designated questions. If this had been the case, we could have obtained even more information from our client to gain more information.
Day 6:
As part of today`s lesson, we have begun the story boarding process for our digital video. This contained thirteen drawings which were intended to show the key stages, shot types and content of our digital video. For example, these storyboards contain establish shots and camera angles.
I feel that these images are fairly effective however, I also feel that our lack of drawing skills were a limitation to us when creating our storyboard. Therefore, I think that photographing parts of our storyboard would mean that our work was more detailed and professional and would give external personnel a clearer idea of what was being portrayed by the images. However, I feel that our drawings did succeed in maintaining the balance of comic and formal effect. If possible, I believe that we should try and retain this balance for the remainder of the project.
In addition, we now have a clear image of the exact content of the video. Namely, an external being will enter the school from the sky and and witness the good work that goes on within the PE department. To maintain a level of formality, we will base the entire event as a documentary style video including interviews, special events and a narrator. We hope that having this extravagant plot to our video will make it stand out, make it unique from other videos. In addition, we hope that this idea will be suitable for every single age group and therefore, suitable for anyone.
Day 7:
In order to refine our stoyboard, we have decided to take our photos as apposed to drawing them. Despite drawing being a limitless techique of portraying ideas, the photographs will give a more detailed and realistic image of what we are planning to create in a more professional manor. We have therefore visited all of our forseen locations in order to photograph them ready to import into the story board.
In terms of my strenghts, I feel that my photography skills were put to good use when choosing some ideas for the storyboard. However, I feel that a weakness would be the lack of creativity within the shots. Therefore, when we film the project, we will have to ensure that our camera angles are as creative as humaly possible.
Day 8:
On completion of our storyboard, today`s task was to write the script. I feel that the use of a script is a slight step up from the storyboard since it offeres a more detailed and refined description of the content of each scene. Despite no illustrative examples, the script can be more descriptive as well as being specific when describing action and dialogue.
Using the storyboard for assistance, I began by detailing the location and time of day, followed by the action in each respective scene. After that, I was able to specify the dialogue and content of each scene as well as providing details reguaring the tone and angle of each shot. I feel that the use of a script not only creates a solid base on which refer to our ideas, but also offeres a medium on wich we can develop our ideas in order to make them as creative, humerous and informative as possible.
Unfortunately, since a large proportion of our dialogue involves spontanius interviews, it is impossible to acurately predict what our interviewees replies will be. As a result, I have replaced their speech with "Mr Hutchinson gives an improvised response to the interview style question." Subsequently, when we have filmed our production, I will substitute the actual response to each question into the script in order to develop a detailed and completed script in order for it to assist us with post production.
When writing the script, I felt that the fact that my script was breif and yet consise was a key strength. This meant that the script is easy and quick to read without being too breif for any reasonable use.
Day 9:
Today, it has been our task to consider and create a risk assessment. A risk assessment is a document listing any precautions that need to be taken with re guards to hazards in a particular filming location. This is designed to assure the protection of "anyone who may be affected by your activities" - as stated by the " Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992"
For example, these hazards may include anything as minor as a small trip hazard to as large as an unsafe building. Despite the size, providing they are significant, all such hazards need to be addressed on the risk assessment in advance of the filming procedure.
According to the website http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/art_and_design/studios/media_centre/ the following steps can be taken in order to remove or avoid such risks:
- Eliminate the hazard altogether
- Reduce the scale of the hazard
- Isolate the hazard
- Control the hazard
- Use protective equipment to soften the hazard.
In the media production industry, risk assessments are used to ensure the safety of the entire cast and crew. However, in most cases, risk assessments need only to be carried out for locations other than those owned by the company in question. However, it is my opinion that for the sake of safety, a risk assessment should always be carried out, just in case there are any unseen risks around the corner which may hinder or halt the project further down the line. Normally, the production`s producer will be the one to create the risk assessment. For convenience purposes, risk assessments should be completed during the recce so that decisions can be made early on before the storyboard and script are completed in order to eliminate the chance of an unexpected calamity.
In terms of a good example of a risk assessment, I feel that this template from ed excel is an excellent example since it offers a simple yet concise way of registering risks of each location.
It includes details such as "type of hazard" and possible injury"
In terms of strengths, I feel that this risk assessment is effective since it covers every possible type of hazard and leaves no possibility of a hazard not fitting into these categories.
However, in terms of weaknesses, a risk assessment is supposed to be in the form of a tick list in order for it to be filled out quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, this particular risk assessment appears to be based on text. This just means that filling out this risk assessment may take longer than others - and may offer some inconvenience to those who have a rather tight schedule. However, it must be said that this risk assessment leaves room for detail and will be easily filled out in order to ensure the safety of all involved.
For another example of a risk assessment, this particular assessment leaves some room for detail however, it does not allow users to map every possibility of a hazard since each Field is fairly specific. As a result, some users may find that their hazards are "not applicable" to this risk assessment and may find that, subsequently, there are gaps in the safety precautions of the team.
However, having such detail means that the assessment is easily filled out since the sub categories only require a sentence each.
In terms of a weakness, this risk assessment leaves only a small space for text and the space is fairly badly managed. This may make the risk assessment hard to interpret and resultantly, hinder the safety of the team.
However, a key strength of this assessment is how concise each category is; users are easily able to see the type of hazard and possible resolutions without having to sift through masses of text to find a simple result.
In conclusion, I feel that both risk assessments have their straights and weaknesses and that both have qualities that the other does not. However, in terms of a more ideal risk assessment, I feel that the first one is far more appropriate simply for ease of use - which is simple and effective.
Day 10
Today's task was primarily to plan for our shooting schedule so that we know exactly where we will be filming and when we will be doing this. Fortunately, we were able to use Celtx to formulate our schedule for the following two weeks. This is extremely useful since it enhances our professionalism my centralising all of our work within one document. This means that all of our work is easy to access, easy to edit and simple to view.
However, due to having every single piece of work contained within one file means that the file size is incredibly large. The only problem with this is that if I want to save the project at any point, I must allow for anything between 5 and 10 minutes for Celtx to save - which is clearly an inconvenience.
As well as creating our personal schedule, the PE department have conveniently provided us with their timetable detailing each lesson for each period throughout the year. Despite this plan being rather hard to interpret, we were easily able to find which days we would be able to film badminton, football and basketball. We have also added such events to our schedule.
In addition to such events, we have also contacted our clients in order to request a suitable time to visit them to collect our interview footage from them. My contact email is as follows:
As you may know, myself and Josh are in the process of creating a promotional video for your department in order to show the good work and positive ethos that the department supports. Therefore, we would like to invite you to take part in an interview in order for us to record your views and ideas for the department.
If you are interested, we have a selection of windows available on our timetable which we will provide below. If you are free for any of these slots or would like to ask any questions, please feel free to reply to this email to let us know. If you choose to accept it, our interview will last no longer than around 15 minutes.
Our available periods are as follows:
- Monday 14th Jan p2
Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you,
Sam Turner, Giga X Studios
Unfortunately I teach on all of your free lessons listed below. I could do a Friday lunch if this helps but it would need to be prompt at 12.20 as I have to get back to Wollaton Campus
Thanks
Sarah Jackson
However, before filming began, we decided to establish some of our techniques which we would use whilst filming. We chose to stick to the very basic concepts of film making using ideas such as the rule of thirds, 180 degree rule (if necessary) as well as fundamental camera controls such as white balance, shutter speed and exposure. If all of these are set up and used correctly, each shoot cannot fail to look professional providing creativity is also involved.
In terms of strengths, I feel that my moving shots came out very professionally and will look excellent in the modern and fast paced video that we will eventually produce. Due to the fact that the area was relatively well lit, we were able to increase the shutter speed so that we could reduce motion blur of the game and, on reviewing the footage on the computer, this effect was excellent and worked very well.
For the next session, we plan to collate and store our footage in a suitable manor in order to be able to access and use our footage quickly and efficiently in the future. Thinking ahead, this will ensure that our post production process will be as simple as possible with as little disruptions as possible. In more detail, I have created separate folders for each section of footage - for example, 'basketball' and 'Gerald's entrance'.
In terms of permissions and legal issues, we will return to the lessons we have filmed this coming wednesday in order to distribute consent forms to the students which will give us permission to display their faces on the school website legally. If we do not receive a consent form from certain students, we will have to ensure that such students are not to appear in the video by either not using particular clips or using fast blurs on particular subject's faces.
Day 11:
After consulting the PE master timetable, we were able to deduce that none of our required lessons were being held in our available periods. As a result, we made the decision to shoot some of the theatrical scenes with "Gerald" which did not need and PE lessons in order to be effective.
Firstly, we took the relevant equipment to the main reception and, as planned, we set the camera up for an "eye level" shot of Gerald sitting in front of the trophey cabinet. We chose to use the trophey cabinet since it indirectly implies that the schools PE department are high acheivers and succeed drasticly in many sports. In terms of dialogue, Gerald spoke for 10-15 seconds about how welcoming the department is and how they continuously want to encourage and help students to get involved. I feel that since we had plenty of time, a strength was that our camera angle and audio quality were as excellent as they could be. In terms of a weakness, we unintentionaly picked a shooting time when the main reception was rather busy. As a result, we had to wait rather a long time before the area would clear in order to assume perfect silence. Therefore, in the future, we should visit each filming location shortly before filming commences in order to check that the area is clear, quiet and also safe for filming to proceed.
Looking back at the footage, I feel that the sound quality is extremely high and of a professional standard. Although we did experience such teething problems as noted above, I feel that our final product was more than satisfactory. Similarly, the visual element of our footage was just as pleasing as we feel that it was well framed and professional, despite the film grain generated by the camera. In order to eliminate such film grain, we are only able to film in completely well lit areas such as outside since our professional cameras are unable to cope with indoor lighting without the final product being grainy. If this does not improve, I may use my own personal cameras from home to ensure that our shooting quality is as high as possible.
We found that another way to reduce grain was to increase the shutter speed and increase the exposure to counter the darkening effect. However, despite the exposure being on the highest level, the high shutter speed still means that the image is too dark to be acceptable for indoor situations.
Day 12:
Today, with the addition of snow, we attempted to cover an outdoor football match. However, due to snow on the ground, the lesson could clearly not go ahead outside. As a result, the lesson was held in the sports hall. Although this was not ideal, we have no reason to believe that the snow will be leaving any time soon and, as a last resort, we decided to film inside just in case we could not use the outdoors, as planned. For this section of the shooting, we had year 7 students participating in the sport. In order to make these students look as professional as possible, we focused on filming them from a low angle in order to make them look bigger and, as a result, more impressive to our viewers. Looking back on the shoot, we are happy with the final quality of shooting and hope that such footage will be professional and creative enough to appear on our final promotional video. After discovering how much we enjoyed the low shots, we decided to take such ideas one step further by allowing the camera to film parallel to the ground. This meant that the main subject of the footage was the football and created an interesting effect as players weaved in front of and behind the ball. However, we found it important not to overuse this technique and made sure that we shot a mixture of different angles to ensure a varied final production.
After this, we decided to film our sand pit scene in the snow. Firstly, this is a good idea because it makes the video more interesting to see the school in the snow. In addition, filming in the snow shows the devotion and enjoyment of sport of the students; they still want to participate despite the inappropriate weather. Clearly, in real life, the department would not force pupils to go outside in such weather but the purpose of this shoot was to emphasise the enthusiasm of pupils. As before, we shot the scene as planned and are happy with the footage. However, the falling snow caused an inconvenience during the shoot due to the fact that we had to keep the camera covered at all times. This had two key effects on our footage. These were as follows: firstly, the creativity of our shots were limited by the fact that the camera had to be on the tripod in order to be safe. Despite this small problem, the angles of the camera help to show the chaos of being outside in the snow and aid the shoot in being more dramatic and entertaining. Secondly, we feel that the microphone may have been slightly covered in the shielding process. We plan to combat this by overlaying audio with stock ambience and pre recorded speech in order to maintain a high quality shoot.
On the whole, I feel that todays filming was a resounding success and that both members of the team have performed their roles exactly as planned. In terms of my strength, I think that I did a good job with coming up with contingency ideas in order to utilise or avoid the snow for respective scenes. This proved valuable when we were able to film additional content using the snow and altering our script slightly to fit in with the indoor football match.
In terms of Josh's strengths, I think that he did an excellent job of not only formulating creative shots to use in our project but was able to protect the camera in the snow to avoid equipment damage. As a result, we were able to return our equipment in excellent condition in order for use at another time.
In terms of a weakness, I feel that the snow slightly hindered our filming schedule since we had not planned for such rare issues. In order to combat this problem, we will just have to work slightly more quickly on future shooting days. However, to prevent such issues from occurring in the future, I think we should include some contingency time on our shooting schedule in order to plan for any more unexpected problems.
Day 13:
Today, on the event that the sports hall was empty, we were able to go there to film Gerald taking part in a badminton match. By using the audio from our previous filming, we plan to be able to make todays scenes appear to be at the same time of our previous shoot.
Specifically, we tried to film creative shots such as focusing on the badminton nets and, using depth of field, film moving shapes in the background so that we could play our interview audio over the top.
After this, we filmed shots of Gerald playing with a student who was offscreen. The purpose of such shots were so that we could return to Gerald after he has lost the game so that we could make the point of that it is the taking part that is important.
For todays session, I feel that our strengths were the filming of the shots; we used techniques such as depth of field and rule of thirds in order to make the footage appear professional and creative. I feel that this was especially successful when achieving the comedy aspect of Gerald failing to win the game.
In terms of interviews, we were able to interview two learning support students in order to retain their views about the PE department. We feel that it is important that we interviewed such students- not only to promote equality, but to ensure that we gained a mixture of ethnic backgrounds but mainly, students of different level of ability. In terms of permissions, we plan to distribute a consent form to both students in order to gain permission to post sections of the footage to the school website.
In terms of weakness, I feel that our planning only allowed us to spend one hour in the room before the next lesson would commence. As a result, I feel that we were not able to take our time with the filming and we did not get as many different shots and angles as we had planned to.
In terms of our job roles, I feel that we shared the role of cameraman and director equally. We do this on the basis that if one person has an excellent idea, we will allow each other to carry the shot out and we will review it later on to decide weather to keep it or not. On this occasion, Joshua was the director. However, on equal occasions, I played the role of director also. I feel that this is another of our strengths since I feel that we both input our creative ideas equally in order to make for a professional production.
Day 14:
Today, for our final filming session, it was our task to briefly interview two members of the PE department staff. Ideally, we would have interviewed one male and one female in order to get a reasonable gender balance. However, due to terrible weather when our scheduled interview with Miss Jackson was due to take place, we were unable to take the interview. However, we were able to interview our client, Mr Hutchinson as well as school employee Mr D.
With Mr Hutchinson's interview, we are very happy with the footage. However, when filming the interview with Mr D, he was in a lesson. As a result, he was not able to leave the room he was teaching in. Unfortunately, this resulted in a large amount of background noise. However, we are confident that the audio will be acceptable in the final product. We are aware of such audio issues and are normally able to consciously avoid them on most occasions.
Day 15:
Since we have finished our shooting, I have decided to begin the edit with the adobe creative suite. Having decided to overcome the most difficult shots to begin with, my first task was to impose Gerald onto the sky shots to give the impression that he is falling from the sky. In after effects, I began to mask out Gerald from his background and placed him on a perfectly black background. Then, I cropped and animated our sky shot in order to give it the impression of mechanically opening in order to 'spit' Gerald onto earth. Also, behind the two pieces of sky, I created three animated lightening bolts. This was to make the shot look more unnatural and realistic. Also, I feel that it emphasised the hole in the sky since the lightening was very vibrant.
Then it was a simple case of adding Gerald to the sky shot, adding motion blur and speeding his footage up in order to make him look as though he was falling. Unfortunately, the edited footage does not look realistic (remotely) however, I am hopeful that the comic effect of the piece of footage will prevail over the realism. This was the initial intention for the opening scene since we wanted to start the production in a light hearted way. As apposed to the weakness, I feel that this was the key strength.
Day 16:
Today, It was time to press on with the actual editing of the project. Personally, I think that it will be an excellent idea to edit separate scenes in separate sequences then, edit these sequences together in a master sequence. This means that if anything needs to be changed in the project, It can be done easily without having to conform the rest of the project in order to accept the changes. In addition, this method is more efficient since it is far easier to understand what is going on - as apposed to a potentially confusing editing layout.
To begin with, I edited together our initial filming session of one of the groups playing basketball. Despite these scenes having no particular narrative, they are very handy for cutting in and out from to make sections of the video more vibrant.
However, due to the noisy environment of the gym where the clips were filmed, certain audio continuity errors occurred when flicking between clips. This was due to different positioning of the camera, different people talking at different times, and varying levels of reverb. To counter such issues, I used audio crossfades whilst using clean cuts in the video tracks to ensure that audio tracks appeared rather smooth. In other clips, where audio was less relevant, I decided to remove the audio completely and just extend or repeat audio from the previous clip. The strengths of doing this are that there are no audio continuity errors whatsoever. However, in terms of weakness, on closer inspection, the audio does not gel with the video quite so well - especially when people's mouths are visible. However, this problem is not huge due to the fact that nobody's mouth can be seen moving.
Day 17:
Today, having completed editing our basketball scenes, I decided to edit our football and badminton scenes which were filmed inside the sports hall. Immediately, when editing, it was clear that the yellow tone to each clip was not professional and was rather distracting to viewers. However, instead of discarding the footage, I used the three way colour corrector to counter the yellow tinge that occurred on each clip. As you can see by the image on the right, such corrections have made the video look slightly more natural and less awkward to look at. Although colour correction has had mainly positive results here, it has made the image look rather pasty and old fashioned. However, I have decided to retain these changes since they are better than the alternative.
In order to keep the video fairly short, I decided to combine such football shots with our interview shots of Mr. D and Mr Hutchinson. By using audio overlays, the interview begins before the footage is shown. This technique gives the footage a more documentary style feel as well as letting the audience visualise what is being said at the exact time that they say it. After a few seconds, the person speaking appears on the screen in order for the audience to see and relate to who is talking with the hope that they will better understand what is being said when such individuals are on-screen. The razor tool was very useful when editing such scenes as removing sections of footage was essential to maintain narrative flow during these scenes.
In addition, it was necessary to reduce the background noise levels in order to hear what is being said. This is convenient since the audio of a football match is clearly louder than that of an interview. Therefore, using keyframes, the background audio levels are reduced before the talking begins and then increased back to 0db as soon as the speech has concluded. This helps to retain a professional audio track.
For todays editing session, I feel that my strengths were in the documentary style editing of the interviews; the order that clips are shown looks professional and satisfying to watch. In my opinion, this helps the general flow of the video and makes it much more logical and easy to follow. However, I feel my weakness was getting the correct levels of colour balance when using colour corrector since the footage looks rather unnatural but, as said before, it looks better than it did originally and as a result, I am happy with the eventual outcome.
Day 18:
In this editing session, I began to edit our shots of badminton shots. Since these shots were filmed in the same location of the football, I automatically added the colour correction effect in order to remove the yellow hue mentioned in the previous entry. This edit was relatively conventional since it was intended to simply show a given badminton lesson conducted by the department.
With this in mind, I tried to use shots that looked professional and interesting; many of our badminton shots included a variety of field depths - a few of which I have used in order to achieve an interesting outcome. Using shots with a shallow depth of field means that the audience can feel more involved with the subject as the background and immediate foreground are out of focus. This means that the audience's concentration is maintained on the subject: the audience focus on what we want them to.
The only other thing with this editing session was subtly including a shot of Gerald joining in with badminton. This would normally be no problem since the footage was shot at the same location. However, such footage was shot at a different time and subsequently, lighting conditions were slightly different. Normally, this would be a problem, but luckily these issues are unnoticeable since Gerald is onscreen for such a short length of time.
In todays session, I feel that my strengths were in maintaining a professional editing technique that fitted in with the rest of our project. This ensures that the final export will flow continuously without hitting any snags or pieces of footage that do not fit in. In terms of a weakness, I feel that I should have given some thought to the potential flaw mentioned in the paragraph above in order to avoid problems. Simply because I was lucky this time does not mean that we will be lucky again in the future. Therefore, we will ensure that the camera settings are exactly the same for subsequent projects in order to avoid such issues.
Day 19:
For todays editing session, I decided to assemble the light hearted long jump scene. The purpose of such scenes were to make the final project appeal to a wider range of audiences as well as to add a more humorous dimension to the project. As well as this, we have used such scenes to subtly imply messages about the P.E department. For example, the fact that Gerald still does the long jump in the snow shows his motivation and hunger to join in with the sports at bluecoat. Looking at the footage, I was very pleased with the way such clips turned out in the snow. However, to reinforce the fact that the weather conditions were dire, I reduced saturation and added blue filters to the snow scenes so that the falling snow stood out slightly more. As well as adding to the humour in the situation, it also made Gerald's determination more apparent.
When creating this Gantt chart, I feel that my weakness was the fact that I was unfamiliar with "Microsoft Project" which seemed to hinder and slow down work during the creation of the chart. However, I have a positive outlook since Microsoft project was an excellent leaning curve and means that we now have the ability to efficiently create time management in the future. In terms of strengths, I feel that I succeeded when splitting tasks into sub tasks. I feel that this is important since I have established clarity in our schedule in order to pave the way to a smooth production process.
Subsequently, I have also begun to write a first contact email to our client requesting a meeting to discuss the details and technicalities of the digital video section of the project. Since sending this email, we will both devise a set of questions to ask about both digital graphics and digital video production so that we can base all of our ideas on market research as well as our client`s opinions.
The Email is as follows:
Dear Mr Hutchinson,
I am writing to inform you about the first stages of our project and what they entail.
As you may know, Myself and Joshua Wing have been assigned to your PE department project with the intention of re branding the department through the medium of an interactive media platform. With the news of this exciting development, we are both eager to schedule a meeting with you to discuss the following elements of our digital graphics and digital video sections:
- Project time frame
- The End products required by yourself
In more detail, our meeting will be to discuss deadlines and release dates as well as specific content that you would like to appear within the final product. As a result of this meeting, we will take forward your ideas in order to create sketch ideas, design ideas and initial designs for the first instance of the project relating to the digital graphics for the department.
In addition, we would like to discuss our digital video production unit; we feel that some sort of digital video would be an excellent way to demonstrate your ethos and to promote your ideas. Therefore, our designs and ideas can also be discussed at this time as well as the digital graphics.
We will mainly aspects of digital graphics such as backgrounds, logos, colour schemes, images and animations. In addition, we will be carrying out market research to further enhance our choice of ideas so that the final product will be of the highest possible quality to suit your needs. Similarly, when discussing our digital video, we will also talk about the key content of the video as well as any legal or ethical considerations which are necessary.
Therefore, we would like to ask when would be a good time to schedule this meeting in order to ensure that the entire process is as easy and convenient as possible for you.
Since this is our first contact with yourself, we would both like to take the opportunity to invite you to contact us at any time if you require further discussion on any aspect of the platform. More specifically, you can find both I and Joshua on the following email addresses:
Me: a07sturner@bluecoat.uk.com
Joshua: w07jwing@bluecoat.uk.com
We are both very enthusiastic about the prospect of this project and are looking forward to hearing from you in the near future.
Yours Faithfully,
Samuel Turner – Giga X Studios
Finally, we also began to conduct a recce in order to discover suitable locations in which to film. On our recce, we first visited the Gym followed by the sports hall and the underground fitness suite. In the gym, we were intrigued by the changing room space where we feel that, in professional sports, much of the inspiration occurs in there. In addition, we found that the gym itself offered a large space in order to shoot some professional footage to suit our client`s needs.
Despite the underground gym being the most modern part of the department, I feel that the lack of natural light will imply negativity towards our audience if we were to film down there. In contrast to this, I feel that the sports hall has a more perfected balance of natural and artificial light. In addition, the sports hall is more of a typical sporting place as apposed to a fitness suite. Therefore, I feel that the sports hall is a far more appropriate filming location.
Clearly, the large space outside the school on the field is an excellent location since there is relatively low noise, plenty of natural light and many sporting events that are contained there.
In conclusion, I feel that a mixture of three of these locations will make for an engaging and professional video which will show the PE department in an inspirational and positive light. In terms of strengths, I feel that my eye for effective camera angles means that we were able to find professional shots rather quickly. However, I feel that I only documented a selection of these shots with the camera. Therefore, to improve, I feel that I should photograph every shot - despite the large numbers of shots that we discovered.
Day 3:
Today, we have listed some questions to ask our client at the meeting. These are as follows:
- Well clearly, it is important that we establish which target audience you have in mind so that we can target the project at an individual age group or party. What are your thoughts on this?
- You mentioned that you want to establish sports within the school and to promote you ethos and to continue with the Olympic legacy. Could you at all expand on this , or do you require this to be the sole purpose?
- Specifically talking about the video, what content are you expecting to be included within the video itself and, similarly, within the digital graphics?
- We know that Blue coat is a very active school, so with this in mind would it possible that we could attend any events or lessons in order for us to catch any sports in action for the shoot?
- In addition, getting the right balance between content and length is important. What do you consider to be a sensible length for the digital video?
- Within the media industry it is important to avoid indecency and any other ethical issues such as balancing the races and genders that appear within the video. In order for us to avoid any of these issues, are there any precautions or steps you advise us to take?
- In your brief, you included a small range of recommended websites. Are there any of these websites that you would specifically like us to base all or some of our ideas?
- The video needs some sort of theme. Do you have any particular input on the sort of slant we should take with this? For example, comic, cinematic, documentary, action or commercial styles?
- We understand that the school loves sports, so we were thinking of using any footage or images which are free from copyright and royalties that we could/ should include? For example you may have a video which you want people to see and would like to include this in out video?
- Finally, do you have any suggestions as to what we should include in the video with regards to audio? E.G. music, narration, dialogue or sfx?
- Is there anything else you feel you could add with regards to our digital video, or are you happy to move on to discussing the digital graphics element?
We hope that these questions will give is sufficient information for us to begin the planning stage for our digital video product. More specifically, we will be able to decide on a colour scheme, a narrative, images, provided footage, themes and messages.
I feel that it is also important to ask for additional ideas from our client simply so that we can pin-point the project to his needs to ensure the maximum satisfaction possible. In terms of strengths, I feel that these questions will gain a wide range of results which, with the aid of our questionnaire, will draw a clear picture of what we want to achieve. However, in terms of a weakness, I think that our questions should have been more summarized in order to take less time since we realize our client has a very busy schedule and may respond more effectively to more simplistic questions. However, we are both confident that these questions will be sufficient to collect a large amount of information.We hope that these questions will give is sufficient information for us to begin the planning stage for our digital video product. More specifically, we will be able to decide on a colour scheme, a narrative, images, provided footage, themes and messages.
Day 4:
Today, it is our task to write a blog post about the use and importance of pre production. However, similar to most ares of production, some research was necessary. Luckily, we were provided with a presentation which contained websites and guidance to aid us in preparing for writing the post. This post was to include the following:
- Finance
- Time-scale
- Personnel
- Facilities
- Materials
- Contributors
- Locations
- Codes of Practice
My job is to research the uses and importance of each aspect in order to do it myself when it comes to producing our own project. In addition, I feel that I should include how professional industry practices conduct themselves in each aspect of pre production and compare it to how myself and Josh will conduct our pre production. Due to factors such as budget, limited team members, limited equipment and different timescale, there will be many differences to compare. In addition, I also plan to describe and evaluate the key similarities - detailing how we will need to achieve each one.
Day 5:
We have just undergone our meeting with our client in regards to our digital video. I feel that we both conducted ourselves in a professional manner and have extracted an informative video clip of the meeting which lasted for around 20 minutes. Our client responded excellently to our questions and provided us with informative answers which will provide us with a sturdy base on which to build our video project. I will also analyze the video file in order to create a document with a more detailed brief to work from.
Despite being nervous, I feel that our meeting went very well and was successful as we gained answers to many, if not all, of our questions. In terms of performance, I feel that my strength was the ability to talk confidently through the meeting despite being under pressure. However, I feel that I should not have been afraid to ask additional questions - instead of sticking to our designated questions. If this had been the case, we could have obtained even more information from our client to gain more information.
Day 6:
As part of today`s lesson, we have begun the story boarding process for our digital video. This contained thirteen drawings which were intended to show the key stages, shot types and content of our digital video. For example, these storyboards contain establish shots and camera angles.
I feel that these images are fairly effective however, I also feel that our lack of drawing skills were a limitation to us when creating our storyboard. Therefore, I think that photographing parts of our storyboard would mean that our work was more detailed and professional and would give external personnel a clearer idea of what was being portrayed by the images. However, I feel that our drawings did succeed in maintaining the balance of comic and formal effect. If possible, I believe that we should try and retain this balance for the remainder of the project.
In addition, we now have a clear image of the exact content of the video. Namely, an external being will enter the school from the sky and and witness the good work that goes on within the PE department. To maintain a level of formality, we will base the entire event as a documentary style video including interviews, special events and a narrator. We hope that having this extravagant plot to our video will make it stand out, make it unique from other videos. In addition, we hope that this idea will be suitable for every single age group and therefore, suitable for anyone.
Day 7:
In order to refine our stoyboard, we have decided to take our photos as apposed to drawing them. Despite drawing being a limitless techique of portraying ideas, the photographs will give a more detailed and realistic image of what we are planning to create in a more professional manor. We have therefore visited all of our forseen locations in order to photograph them ready to import into the story board.
In terms of my strenghts, I feel that my photography skills were put to good use when choosing some ideas for the storyboard. However, I feel that a weakness would be the lack of creativity within the shots. Therefore, when we film the project, we will have to ensure that our camera angles are as creative as humaly possible.
Day 8:
On completion of our storyboard, today`s task was to write the script. I feel that the use of a script is a slight step up from the storyboard since it offeres a more detailed and refined description of the content of each scene. Despite no illustrative examples, the script can be more descriptive as well as being specific when describing action and dialogue.
Using the storyboard for assistance, I began by detailing the location and time of day, followed by the action in each respective scene. After that, I was able to specify the dialogue and content of each scene as well as providing details reguaring the tone and angle of each shot. I feel that the use of a script not only creates a solid base on which refer to our ideas, but also offeres a medium on wich we can develop our ideas in order to make them as creative, humerous and informative as possible.
Unfortunately, since a large proportion of our dialogue involves spontanius interviews, it is impossible to acurately predict what our interviewees replies will be. As a result, I have replaced their speech with "Mr Hutchinson gives an improvised response to the interview style question." Subsequently, when we have filmed our production, I will substitute the actual response to each question into the script in order to develop a detailed and completed script in order for it to assist us with post production.
When writing the script, I felt that the fact that my script was breif and yet consise was a key strength. This meant that the script is easy and quick to read without being too breif for any reasonable use.
Day 9:
Today, it has been our task to consider and create a risk assessment. A risk assessment is a document listing any precautions that need to be taken with re guards to hazards in a particular filming location. This is designed to assure the protection of "anyone who may be affected by your activities" - as stated by the " Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992"
For example, these hazards may include anything as minor as a small trip hazard to as large as an unsafe building. Despite the size, providing they are significant, all such hazards need to be addressed on the risk assessment in advance of the filming procedure.
According to the website http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/art_and_design/studios/media_centre/ the following steps can be taken in order to remove or avoid such risks:
- Eliminate the hazard altogether
- Reduce the scale of the hazard
- Isolate the hazard
- Control the hazard
- Use protective equipment to soften the hazard.
In the media production industry, risk assessments are used to ensure the safety of the entire cast and crew. However, in most cases, risk assessments need only to be carried out for locations other than those owned by the company in question. However, it is my opinion that for the sake of safety, a risk assessment should always be carried out, just in case there are any unseen risks around the corner which may hinder or halt the project further down the line. Normally, the production`s producer will be the one to create the risk assessment. For convenience purposes, risk assessments should be completed during the recce so that decisions can be made early on before the storyboard and script are completed in order to eliminate the chance of an unexpected calamity.
It includes details such as "type of hazard" and possible injury"
In terms of strengths, I feel that this risk assessment is effective since it covers every possible type of hazard and leaves no possibility of a hazard not fitting into these categories.
However, in terms of weaknesses, a risk assessment is supposed to be in the form of a tick list in order for it to be filled out quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, this particular risk assessment appears to be based on text. This just means that filling out this risk assessment may take longer than others - and may offer some inconvenience to those who have a rather tight schedule. However, it must be said that this risk assessment leaves room for detail and will be easily filled out in order to ensure the safety of all involved.
For another example of a risk assessment, this particular assessment leaves some room for detail however, it does not allow users to map every possibility of a hazard since each Field is fairly specific. As a result, some users may find that their hazards are "not applicable" to this risk assessment and may find that, subsequently, there are gaps in the safety precautions of the team.However, having such detail means that the assessment is easily filled out since the sub categories only require a sentence each.
In terms of a weakness, this risk assessment leaves only a small space for text and the space is fairly badly managed. This may make the risk assessment hard to interpret and resultantly, hinder the safety of the team.
However, a key strength of this assessment is how concise each category is; users are easily able to see the type of hazard and possible resolutions without having to sift through masses of text to find a simple result.
In conclusion, I feel that both risk assessments have their straights and weaknesses and that both have qualities that the other does not. However, in terms of a more ideal risk assessment, I feel that the first one is far more appropriate simply for ease of use - which is simple and effective.
Day 10
Today's task was primarily to plan for our shooting schedule so that we know exactly where we will be filming and when we will be doing this. Fortunately, we were able to use Celtx to formulate our schedule for the following two weeks. This is extremely useful since it enhances our professionalism my centralising all of our work within one document. This means that all of our work is easy to access, easy to edit and simple to view.
However, due to having every single piece of work contained within one file means that the file size is incredibly large. The only problem with this is that if I want to save the project at any point, I must allow for anything between 5 and 10 minutes for Celtx to save - which is clearly an inconvenience.
As well as creating our personal schedule, the PE department have conveniently provided us with their timetable detailing each lesson for each period throughout the year. Despite this plan being rather hard to interpret, we were easily able to find which days we would be able to film badminton, football and basketball. We have also added such events to our schedule.
In addition to such events, we have also contacted our clients in order to request a suitable time to visit them to collect our interview footage from them. My contact email is as follows:
Dear Miss Jackson,
As you may know, myself and Josh are in the process of creating a promotional video for your department in order to show the good work and positive ethos that the department supports. Therefore, we would like to invite you to take part in an interview in order for us to record your views and ideas for the department.
If you are interested, we have a selection of windows available on our timetable which we will provide below. If you are free for any of these slots or would like to ask any questions, please feel free to reply to this email to let us know. If you choose to accept it, our interview will last no longer than around 15 minutes.
Our available periods are as follows:
- Monday 14th Jan p2
- Monday 14th Jan P3
- Tuesday 15th Jan P4
- Tuesday 15th Jan P5
- Wednesday 16 Jan P1
- Wednesday 16 Jan P2
- Wednesday 16 Jan P4
- Wednesday 16 Jan P5
- Thursday 17 Jan P3
- Friday 18th Jan p3
Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you,
Sam Turner, Giga X Studios
In response to this email, we had the following reply:
Hi
Unfortunately I teach on all of your free lessons listed below. I could do a Friday lunch if this helps but it would need to be prompt at 12.20 as I have to get back to Wollaton Campus
Thanks
Miss Jackson
Sarah Jackson
Physical Education
Bluecoat Academy
As you can see, our original plan to meet during lesson time is impossible. As a result, we plan to meet with her, has suggested by her, during next friday lunch time in order to interview her.
After we had formulated this plan, we decided to drop into a small basketball lesson being held in the gym by Tim Salmon. Since we have not yet decided on a costume for Gerald, this was an appropriate place to begin since we only needed shots of the sport. Despite being harassed by children in the smaller parts of the the school - who were being rather crude as well as asking multiple questions, we were able to fight our way to the gym where we were able to begin filming.
However, before filming began, we decided to establish some of our techniques which we would use whilst filming. We chose to stick to the very basic concepts of film making using ideas such as the rule of thirds, 180 degree rule (if necessary) as well as fundamental camera controls such as white balance, shutter speed and exposure. If all of these are set up and used correctly, each shoot cannot fail to look professional providing creativity is also involved.
In order to ensure our filming was professional, we began by shooting some wide shots - at eye level - using the tripod. After this, we used the camera by hand to get some low shots, close ups and tracking shots of the game - as well as trying not to get in the way of the teaching. Looking at out footage, we feel that 80% of our footage is usable which is more than enough for our purpose.
In terms of strengths, I feel that my moving shots came out very professionally and will look excellent in the modern and fast paced video that we will eventually produce. Due to the fact that the area was relatively well lit, we were able to increase the shutter speed so that we could reduce motion blur of the game and, on reviewing the footage on the computer, this effect was excellent and worked very well.
In terms of a weakness, despite the camera being semi-professional, looking back on the footage reveals grainy footage - possibly caused by the low shutter speed. However, if our shutter speed was any higher, we would lose quality due to darkness. However, I hope that for outdoor shots, low light situations should not be a problem.
For the next session, we plan to collate and store our footage in a suitable manor in order to be able to access and use our footage quickly and efficiently in the future. Thinking ahead, this will ensure that our post production process will be as simple as possible with as little disruptions as possible. In more detail, I have created separate folders for each section of footage - for example, 'basketball' and 'Gerald's entrance'.
In terms of permissions and legal issues, we will return to the lessons we have filmed this coming wednesday in order to distribute consent forms to the students which will give us permission to display their faces on the school website legally. If we do not receive a consent form from certain students, we will have to ensure that such students are not to appear in the video by either not using particular clips or using fast blurs on particular subject's faces.
Day 11:
After consulting the PE master timetable, we were able to deduce that none of our required lessons were being held in our available periods. As a result, we made the decision to shoot some of the theatrical scenes with "Gerald" which did not need and PE lessons in order to be effective.
Firstly, we took the relevant equipment to the main reception and, as planned, we set the camera up for an "eye level" shot of Gerald sitting in front of the trophey cabinet. We chose to use the trophey cabinet since it indirectly implies that the schools PE department are high acheivers and succeed drasticly in many sports. In terms of dialogue, Gerald spoke for 10-15 seconds about how welcoming the department is and how they continuously want to encourage and help students to get involved. I feel that since we had plenty of time, a strength was that our camera angle and audio quality were as excellent as they could be. In terms of a weakness, we unintentionaly picked a shooting time when the main reception was rather busy. As a result, we had to wait rather a long time before the area would clear in order to assume perfect silence. Therefore, in the future, we should visit each filming location shortly before filming commences in order to check that the area is clear, quiet and also safe for filming to proceed.Looking back at the footage, I feel that the sound quality is extremely high and of a professional standard. Although we did experience such teething problems as noted above, I feel that our final product was more than satisfactory. Similarly, the visual element of our footage was just as pleasing as we feel that it was well framed and professional, despite the film grain generated by the camera. In order to eliminate such film grain, we are only able to film in completely well lit areas such as outside since our professional cameras are unable to cope with indoor lighting without the final product being grainy. If this does not improve, I may use my own personal cameras from home to ensure that our shooting quality is as high as possible.
We found that another way to reduce grain was to increase the shutter speed and increase the exposure to counter the darkening effect. However, despite the exposure being on the highest level, the high shutter speed still means that the image is too dark to be acceptable for indoor situations.
Day 12:
Today, with the addition of snow, we attempted to cover an outdoor football match. However, due to snow on the ground, the lesson could clearly not go ahead outside. As a result, the lesson was held in the sports hall. Although this was not ideal, we have no reason to believe that the snow will be leaving any time soon and, as a last resort, we decided to film inside just in case we could not use the outdoors, as planned. For this section of the shooting, we had year 7 students participating in the sport. In order to make these students look as professional as possible, we focused on filming them from a low angle in order to make them look bigger and, as a result, more impressive to our viewers. Looking back on the shoot, we are happy with the final quality of shooting and hope that such footage will be professional and creative enough to appear on our final promotional video. After discovering how much we enjoyed the low shots, we decided to take such ideas one step further by allowing the camera to film parallel to the ground. This meant that the main subject of the footage was the football and created an interesting effect as players weaved in front of and behind the ball. However, we found it important not to overuse this technique and made sure that we shot a mixture of different angles to ensure a varied final production.
After this, we decided to film our sand pit scene in the snow. Firstly, this is a good idea because it makes the video more interesting to see the school in the snow. In addition, filming in the snow shows the devotion and enjoyment of sport of the students; they still want to participate despite the inappropriate weather. Clearly, in real life, the department would not force pupils to go outside in such weather but the purpose of this shoot was to emphasise the enthusiasm of pupils. As before, we shot the scene as planned and are happy with the footage. However, the falling snow caused an inconvenience during the shoot due to the fact that we had to keep the camera covered at all times. This had two key effects on our footage. These were as follows: firstly, the creativity of our shots were limited by the fact that the camera had to be on the tripod in order to be safe. Despite this small problem, the angles of the camera help to show the chaos of being outside in the snow and aid the shoot in being more dramatic and entertaining. Secondly, we feel that the microphone may have been slightly covered in the shielding process. We plan to combat this by overlaying audio with stock ambience and pre recorded speech in order to maintain a high quality shoot.
On the whole, I feel that todays filming was a resounding success and that both members of the team have performed their roles exactly as planned. In terms of my strength, I think that I did a good job with coming up with contingency ideas in order to utilise or avoid the snow for respective scenes. This proved valuable when we were able to film additional content using the snow and altering our script slightly to fit in with the indoor football match.
In terms of Josh's strengths, I think that he did an excellent job of not only formulating creative shots to use in our project but was able to protect the camera in the snow to avoid equipment damage. As a result, we were able to return our equipment in excellent condition in order for use at another time.
In terms of a weakness, I feel that the snow slightly hindered our filming schedule since we had not planned for such rare issues. In order to combat this problem, we will just have to work slightly more quickly on future shooting days. However, to prevent such issues from occurring in the future, I think we should include some contingency time on our shooting schedule in order to plan for any more unexpected problems.
Day 13:
Today, on the event that the sports hall was empty, we were able to go there to film Gerald taking part in a badminton match. By using the audio from our previous filming, we plan to be able to make todays scenes appear to be at the same time of our previous shoot.
Specifically, we tried to film creative shots such as focusing on the badminton nets and, using depth of field, film moving shapes in the background so that we could play our interview audio over the top.
After this, we filmed shots of Gerald playing with a student who was offscreen. The purpose of such shots were so that we could return to Gerald after he has lost the game so that we could make the point of that it is the taking part that is important.For todays session, I feel that our strengths were the filming of the shots; we used techniques such as depth of field and rule of thirds in order to make the footage appear professional and creative. I feel that this was especially successful when achieving the comedy aspect of Gerald failing to win the game.
In terms of interviews, we were able to interview two learning support students in order to retain their views about the PE department. We feel that it is important that we interviewed such students- not only to promote equality, but to ensure that we gained a mixture of ethnic backgrounds but mainly, students of different level of ability. In terms of permissions, we plan to distribute a consent form to both students in order to gain permission to post sections of the footage to the school website.
In terms of weakness, I feel that our planning only allowed us to spend one hour in the room before the next lesson would commence. As a result, I feel that we were not able to take our time with the filming and we did not get as many different shots and angles as we had planned to.
In terms of our job roles, I feel that we shared the role of cameraman and director equally. We do this on the basis that if one person has an excellent idea, we will allow each other to carry the shot out and we will review it later on to decide weather to keep it or not. On this occasion, Joshua was the director. However, on equal occasions, I played the role of director also. I feel that this is another of our strengths since I feel that we both input our creative ideas equally in order to make for a professional production.Day 14:
Today, for our final filming session, it was our task to briefly interview two members of the PE department staff. Ideally, we would have interviewed one male and one female in order to get a reasonable gender balance. However, due to terrible weather when our scheduled interview with Miss Jackson was due to take place, we were unable to take the interview. However, we were able to interview our client, Mr Hutchinson as well as school employee Mr D.With Mr Hutchinson's interview, we are very happy with the footage. However, when filming the interview with Mr D, he was in a lesson. As a result, he was not able to leave the room he was teaching in. Unfortunately, this resulted in a large amount of background noise. However, we are confident that the audio will be acceptable in the final product. We are aware of such audio issues and are normally able to consciously avoid them on most occasions.
Day 15:
Since we have finished our shooting, I have decided to begin the edit with the adobe creative suite. Having decided to overcome the most difficult shots to begin with, my first task was to impose Gerald onto the sky shots to give the impression that he is falling from the sky. In after effects, I began to mask out Gerald from his background and placed him on a perfectly black background. Then, I cropped and animated our sky shot in order to give it the impression of mechanically opening in order to 'spit' Gerald onto earth. Also, behind the two pieces of sky, I created three animated lightening bolts. This was to make the shot look more unnatural and realistic. Also, I feel that it emphasised the hole in the sky since the lightening was very vibrant.
Then it was a simple case of adding Gerald to the sky shot, adding motion blur and speeding his footage up in order to make him look as though he was falling. Unfortunately, the edited footage does not look realistic (remotely) however, I am hopeful that the comic effect of the piece of footage will prevail over the realism. This was the initial intention for the opening scene since we wanted to start the production in a light hearted way. As apposed to the weakness, I feel that this was the key strength.
Day 16:
Today, It was time to press on with the actual editing of the project. Personally, I think that it will be an excellent idea to edit separate scenes in separate sequences then, edit these sequences together in a master sequence. This means that if anything needs to be changed in the project, It can be done easily without having to conform the rest of the project in order to accept the changes. In addition, this method is more efficient since it is far easier to understand what is going on - as apposed to a potentially confusing editing layout.
To begin with, I edited together our initial filming session of one of the groups playing basketball. Despite these scenes having no particular narrative, they are very handy for cutting in and out from to make sections of the video more vibrant.
Day 17:
Today, having completed editing our basketball scenes, I decided to edit our football and badminton scenes which were filmed inside the sports hall. Immediately, when editing, it was clear that the yellow tone to each clip was not professional and was rather distracting to viewers. However, instead of discarding the footage, I used the three way colour corrector to counter the yellow tinge that occurred on each clip. As you can see by the image on the right, such corrections have made the video look slightly more natural and less awkward to look at. Although colour correction has had mainly positive results here, it has made the image look rather pasty and old fashioned. However, I have decided to retain these changes since they are better than the alternative.In addition, it was necessary to reduce the background noise levels in order to hear what is being said. This is convenient since the audio of a football match is clearly louder than that of an interview. Therefore, using keyframes, the background audio levels are reduced before the talking begins and then increased back to 0db as soon as the speech has concluded. This helps to retain a professional audio track.
For todays editing session, I feel that my strengths were in the documentary style editing of the interviews; the order that clips are shown looks professional and satisfying to watch. In my opinion, this helps the general flow of the video and makes it much more logical and easy to follow. However, I feel my weakness was getting the correct levels of colour balance when using colour corrector since the footage looks rather unnatural but, as said before, it looks better than it did originally and as a result, I am happy with the eventual outcome.
Day 18:
In this editing session, I began to edit our shots of badminton shots. Since these shots were filmed in the same location of the football, I automatically added the colour correction effect in order to remove the yellow hue mentioned in the previous entry. This edit was relatively conventional since it was intended to simply show a given badminton lesson conducted by the department.
With this in mind, I tried to use shots that looked professional and interesting; many of our badminton shots included a variety of field depths - a few of which I have used in order to achieve an interesting outcome. Using shots with a shallow depth of field means that the audience can feel more involved with the subject as the background and immediate foreground are out of focus. This means that the audience's concentration is maintained on the subject: the audience focus on what we want them to.The only other thing with this editing session was subtly including a shot of Gerald joining in with badminton. This would normally be no problem since the footage was shot at the same location. However, such footage was shot at a different time and subsequently, lighting conditions were slightly different. Normally, this would be a problem, but luckily these issues are unnoticeable since Gerald is onscreen for such a short length of time.
In todays session, I feel that my strengths were in maintaining a professional editing technique that fitted in with the rest of our project. This ensures that the final export will flow continuously without hitting any snags or pieces of footage that do not fit in. In terms of a weakness, I feel that I should have given some thought to the potential flaw mentioned in the paragraph above in order to avoid problems. Simply because I was lucky this time does not mean that we will be lucky again in the future. Therefore, we will ensure that the camera settings are exactly the same for subsequent projects in order to avoid such issues.Day 19:
For todays editing session, I decided to assemble the light hearted long jump scene. The purpose of such scenes were to make the final project appeal to a wider range of audiences as well as to add a more humorous dimension to the project. As well as this, we have used such scenes to subtly imply messages about the P.E department. For example, the fact that Gerald still does the long jump in the snow shows his motivation and hunger to join in with the sports at bluecoat. Looking at the footage, I was very pleased with the way such clips turned out in the snow. However, to reinforce the fact that the weather conditions were dire, I reduced saturation and added blue filters to the snow scenes so that the falling snow stood out slightly more. As well as adding to the humour in the situation, it also made Gerald's determination more apparent.
Purely for humorous reasons, I obtained a royalty free copy of "Chariots of fire" in order to create a slow motion section of the jump. By shortening clips and then slowing them down, the results were rather entertaining and added a section of the video for younger viewers to enjoy. However, the main reason for adding this was to introduce a different pace to the video as well as lightening the mood throughout the video. This was made easier by using the roll edit tool which enabled me to shorten and lengthen clips accordingly. In addition, I added a strobe light effect in order to emphasise the comical situation.
This was the final scene of my project and as a result, the post production process was complete. I then proceeded to export the project using the technique described in my "post production considerations" post.
Day 20:
The video is now exported and personally, I am very happy with the results: I feel that the final video is very light hearted and fairly humorous which means that it will appeal to all ages. In terms of the length, I feel that the length is long enough to develop character ideas and convey messages. However, I feel that it is not so long that it loses the interest of the audience by boring them. On the effects side, I feel that the subtle effects make the video feel more professional and brings the film closer to the industry standard. However, I feel that the special effects at the start appear rather cheesy and imply to the audience that the video is not completely serious. In the future, I would choose to enter Gerald in a different way in order to avoid such troubles.
Despite the fact that I am pleased with the final product, it is equally important to gain the opinion of other students and members of staff to see weather they feel that the video is effective. As a result, I plan to carry out many market research techniques in order to collect information when reviewing my work. Firstly, I have uploaded my video to youtube (unlisted) so that anyone can easily access the video for reviewing purposes. However, we did not want unauthorised people to access the video since we have not yet determined a proper release date for the video. Then, I created a short survey designed to review my video based on the project brief.
More specifically, the questions related to weather or not the video reflected the department's ethos, weather it encouraged students to participate more in sport and questions with regard to the shooting and editing of the production. I then sent the survey to as many students as possible in order to gain a wide variety of results. In a few days time, I will analyse the results and prepare a report stating my findings. This particular research technique focused on gaining quantitative results for my video and therefore, I will construct diagrams and charts from this piece of research.
In the mean time, I plan to physically show my video to students and teachers through the use of the I-pad in order to get footage of their responses. This method of market research will be more of a qualitative research technique and as a result, I will write about my findings instead of creating charts. I expect that this type of feedback will be more constructive than the survey since we will be conducting it in far more controlled circumstances. In addition, we will either email or visit mr Hutchinson in order to gain his feedback on the project - after warning him about its content and providing reasons for certain choices.
A copy of the E-mail I sent to our client is as follows:
Dear Mr Hutchinson,
We are pleased to inform you that due to the setbacks in our digital graphics production, we have been able to complete our digital video project for you somewhat earlier than expected. As a result, we would like to schedule a meeting with you some time this week in order to show you our two finished products. During this meeting, we would like to ask you for some general feedback.
In the mean time, we would like to thank you for your support in allowing us to capture the relevant footage for our project and for making our shooting as smooth as possible.
Other than that, is there any particular time that a meeting would be possible, taking around 20 minutes?
Thank you,
GigaXStudios
If we receive no replies, we will place the link to our youtube video, as well as some short questions, in an email to our client so that he can answer them online. However, we realise that this is not preferable and will try our utmost to gain a audio/visual response as opposed to a digital one. Although, a digital response will at least be constructive and is far better than nothing at all.
Day 21:
For the survey I sent, I have now received around 40 responses and I now feel that this is a substantial number of results on which to base our market research. I will now analyse each result below:
Question 1: Please select as many words as you like that reflect the video that you have just seen. In the interest of time, I have grouped responses into positive and negative results so that we can see how they compare. Despite having a high number of negative results, more than 60% of the results are positive. Bearing in mind that people may not have taken the survey as seriously as they should, this is a very satisfying result.
Interestingly, 38% found the video funny, 32% found that our video was suitable for all ages and 22% of answers said that the video was informative. (these results are combined since participants could select more than one answer)
Question 2: Rate the following question - the video reflects the aims and ethos of the PE department.
As we can see, the vast majority of the results said that interviewees agreed with the question. This is very pleasing since this meets the brief that we were given which stated that our video must reflect the good work and ethos of the PE department. Interestingly, a result that this chart does not show was that 45% of students were unsure about the answer. As a result, I feel that I should have emphasised this idea slightly more in the video to ensure that this message was passed to the audience.
Question 3: Do you feel that the style of the video was relevant to the PE department?
Similar to the other results, we can see that around 75% thought that the video was relevant. Despite this result being very pleasing, I feel that I could have made the video more relevant by including more interviews and reducing the amount of "Gerald" content in order to prevent the video from straying from the point.
Question 4: Would you agree that the video demonstrates the good work, success and enthusiasm of the PE department?
As we can see from this result, more than half of the results agreed with the statement. However, it was strange to see that around 25% had no opinion. As a result, I feel I should have included more footage of the success of the department as well as showing much more of the good work that goes on with the department. However, on the whole, this result was generally very positive and I am pleased with the result.
Question 5: If at all, did the video change your opinions about the PE department?
As we can see from this result, the vast majority of those interviewed said that they felt better about the department - which is a fantastic result since this was our main aim in making the video. Also, this result is especially pleasing due to the lack of people who said they had "no opinion". This proves that their minds were clearly made up about this question and that the answer was fairly obvious: and mainly leaned towards a positive answer.
Question 6: Finally, please could you select the words that you now associate with the PE department as a result of this video?
As we can see from this pleasing result, over 80% of our people gave a positive result from this question. As we can see, words such as welcoming, enthusiastic and happy were mostly associated with the department as a result of the video. This is very pleasing since our video has clearly increased the general positive opinion about the department - which was one of our key aims!
Day 22:
As a finalised video, I feel that in general, it is a success. Despite a small amount of negativity in our survey, the reviews were generally good and I am pleased with the final result. In particular, I feel that my video excelled within the post production stage - simply because shots were made to look far more professional and presentable during this stage. In addition, I feel that the filming process was efficient and professional since we were able to stick to our schedule and collate all of the shots we needed without having to make many changes to the original plan.
In terms of strengths, I feel that our shot angles were highly professional, creative and interesting to watch. With only a few exceptions, I feel that most of our shots were relevant to our documentary theme and only deviated from such themes for specific comic effect. In addition, I feel that the editing process was a key strength since it allowed me to assemble our footage in a professional manor which conveyed our messages as planned.
On the subject of weakness, as mentioned briefly above, I feel that our evaluative research consistantly showed that, at times, the video strayed from the point and that some of our Gerald scenes were irrelevant. Personally, I agree with these comments but also feel that such scenes were excellent at providing bulk and variety to our video.However, in the future, I feel that it would be beneficial to include more information and motivation to such scenes in order to emphasise the meaning of the video but chiefly to stick to the point and keep everything as relevant and purposeful as possible.
On the whole, I am very pleased with our project and feel that, if nothing else, myself and Josh have learnt something new about networking and working as part of a production team. I feel that our ability to organise has been essential for this particular project and that our skills have particularly improved in this area.
Exporting:
Here is the exported version of the promotional video - which, to prove that it is suitable for web use, has been uploaded to youtube for web use. To get to this stage, the video was exported as a .mpg video - with moderate compression in order to reduce file size and, therefore, loading times. In addition, streaming the video from youtube is a way to further increase loading times for reasons discussed earlier. The final size of the video was slightly over 350mb which is a very reasonable size for web use - especially given the high quality of the export.
In addition to this master export - which was in 1080p, I have exported the video in another four formats - all of which are suitable in different situations. In addition to this .MPG version, I have also exported two .WEBM (with different codecs), a .3GP and an .MP4. Instead of embedding each version, I will show a screenshot of the video details and explain their meanings:
.WEBM (1)
Here is a shot of the first .WEBM export - as you can see, the smaller file-size of 16.3mb is considerably less than the 1080p.mpg version which was in excess of 350mb. Clearly, such a small size did come at a cost: resolution and compression. Instead of 1080p, this file is at a much smaller 360p. Since this resolution is so much smaller, very little compression is needed to maintain such a small file size and as a result, most of the quality is retained. However, the video runs at a very small bit-rate of 0.087mb/s which does reduce the overall quality of the video is lower than the higher quality version. Despite this, the 360p version does have its uses when embedded into smaller viewing windows or viewing for referance (e.g note-taking or learning). However, for entertainment purposes, the lowest preferable resolution is around 480p - which is the second .WEBM export!
Webm (2)
As you can see by the screenshot, this video file is significantly larger than the last by around one third. This size of 23.9mb means that the bit-rate has increased to 0.128mb/s but this is still relative to the resolution. Due to the higher resolution and bit rate, the key advantage with this export is that the viewing experience will be improved by the superior quality of the export. However, due to the larger file size, loading times will be increased. Therefore, I reccomend that streaming is used instead of direct downloads in order to decrease waiting time for the user when viewing online.
.MP4
This is the 720p version of our promotional video. Due to the higher resolution, the viewing experience is dramatically better despite the much higher total bit-rate of 0.289mb/s - which is more than twice the bitrate and, therefore, size of the 480p version. Indeed, the file-size is just over 53mb and, for the same reasons as last time, streaming is the only option for such high quality videos. This format is ideal for presentations hosted on a local hard-drive or on a streaming website such as YouTube or Yahoo. However, this type of video is not ideal for direct download from a website due to the significantly larger file size.
.3GP
This was the smallest version of the video I exported. At a minimal file-size of just over 5mb and a tiny resolution of 360x180, this type of export is only really suitable for mobile or tablet use - which is what the .3GP codec was designed for. With such a tiny bit-rate, such files, in my opinion, are totally unsuitable for web use in terms of desktop computing. However, in terms of advantage, loading times would be tiny weather using either direct download or streaming methods to view the video. However, such small resolutions are certain to ruin the viewing experience on machines with a screen any larger than, say, 8".
This was the final scene of my project and as a result, the post production process was complete. I then proceeded to export the project using the technique described in my "post production considerations" post.
Day 20:
The video is now exported and personally, I am very happy with the results: I feel that the final video is very light hearted and fairly humorous which means that it will appeal to all ages. In terms of the length, I feel that the length is long enough to develop character ideas and convey messages. However, I feel that it is not so long that it loses the interest of the audience by boring them. On the effects side, I feel that the subtle effects make the video feel more professional and brings the film closer to the industry standard. However, I feel that the special effects at the start appear rather cheesy and imply to the audience that the video is not completely serious. In the future, I would choose to enter Gerald in a different way in order to avoid such troubles.
More specifically, the questions related to weather or not the video reflected the department's ethos, weather it encouraged students to participate more in sport and questions with regard to the shooting and editing of the production. I then sent the survey to as many students as possible in order to gain a wide variety of results. In a few days time, I will analyse the results and prepare a report stating my findings. This particular research technique focused on gaining quantitative results for my video and therefore, I will construct diagrams and charts from this piece of research.
In the mean time, I plan to physically show my video to students and teachers through the use of the I-pad in order to get footage of their responses. This method of market research will be more of a qualitative research technique and as a result, I will write about my findings instead of creating charts. I expect that this type of feedback will be more constructive than the survey since we will be conducting it in far more controlled circumstances. In addition, we will either email or visit mr Hutchinson in order to gain his feedback on the project - after warning him about its content and providing reasons for certain choices.
A copy of the E-mail I sent to our client is as follows:
Dear Mr Hutchinson,
We are pleased to inform you that due to the setbacks in our digital graphics production, we have been able to complete our digital video project for you somewhat earlier than expected. As a result, we would like to schedule a meeting with you some time this week in order to show you our two finished products. During this meeting, we would like to ask you for some general feedback.
In the mean time, we would like to thank you for your support in allowing us to capture the relevant footage for our project and for making our shooting as smooth as possible.
Other than that, is there any particular time that a meeting would be possible, taking around 20 minutes?
Thank you,
GigaXStudios
If we receive no replies, we will place the link to our youtube video, as well as some short questions, in an email to our client so that he can answer them online. However, we realise that this is not preferable and will try our utmost to gain a audio/visual response as opposed to a digital one. Although, a digital response will at least be constructive and is far better than nothing at all.
Day 21:
For the survey I sent, I have now received around 40 responses and I now feel that this is a substantial number of results on which to base our market research. I will now analyse each result below:
Interestingly, 38% found the video funny, 32% found that our video was suitable for all ages and 22% of answers said that the video was informative. (these results are combined since participants could select more than one answer)
Question 2: Rate the following question - the video reflects the aims and ethos of the PE department.
Similar to the other results, we can see that around 75% thought that the video was relevant. Despite this result being very pleasing, I feel that I could have made the video more relevant by including more interviews and reducing the amount of "Gerald" content in order to prevent the video from straying from the point.
Question 4: Would you agree that the video demonstrates the good work, success and enthusiasm of the PE department?As we can see from this result, more than half of the results agreed with the statement. However, it was strange to see that around 25% had no opinion. As a result, I feel I should have included more footage of the success of the department as well as showing much more of the good work that goes on with the department. However, on the whole, this result was generally very positive and I am pleased with the result.
Question 5: If at all, did the video change your opinions about the PE department?As we can see from this result, the vast majority of those interviewed said that they felt better about the department - which is a fantastic result since this was our main aim in making the video. Also, this result is especially pleasing due to the lack of people who said they had "no opinion". This proves that their minds were clearly made up about this question and that the answer was fairly obvious: and mainly leaned towards a positive answer.
Question 6: Finally, please could you select the words that you now associate with the PE department as a result of this video?
As we can see from this pleasing result, over 80% of our people gave a positive result from this question. As we can see, words such as welcoming, enthusiastic and happy were mostly associated with the department as a result of the video. This is very pleasing since our video has clearly increased the general positive opinion about the department - which was one of our key aims!
Day 22:
As a finalised video, I feel that in general, it is a success. Despite a small amount of negativity in our survey, the reviews were generally good and I am pleased with the final result. In particular, I feel that my video excelled within the post production stage - simply because shots were made to look far more professional and presentable during this stage. In addition, I feel that the filming process was efficient and professional since we were able to stick to our schedule and collate all of the shots we needed without having to make many changes to the original plan.
In terms of strengths, I feel that our shot angles were highly professional, creative and interesting to watch. With only a few exceptions, I feel that most of our shots were relevant to our documentary theme and only deviated from such themes for specific comic effect. In addition, I feel that the editing process was a key strength since it allowed me to assemble our footage in a professional manor which conveyed our messages as planned.
On the subject of weakness, as mentioned briefly above, I feel that our evaluative research consistantly showed that, at times, the video strayed from the point and that some of our Gerald scenes were irrelevant. Personally, I agree with these comments but also feel that such scenes were excellent at providing bulk and variety to our video.However, in the future, I feel that it would be beneficial to include more information and motivation to such scenes in order to emphasise the meaning of the video but chiefly to stick to the point and keep everything as relevant and purposeful as possible.
On the whole, I am very pleased with our project and feel that, if nothing else, myself and Josh have learnt something new about networking and working as part of a production team. I feel that our ability to organise has been essential for this particular project and that our skills have particularly improved in this area.
Exporting:
In addition to this master export - which was in 1080p, I have exported the video in another four formats - all of which are suitable in different situations. In addition to this .MPG version, I have also exported two .WEBM (with different codecs), a .3GP and an .MP4. Instead of embedding each version, I will show a screenshot of the video details and explain their meanings:
.WEBM (1)
Webm (2)As you can see by the screenshot, this video file is significantly larger than the last by around one third. This size of 23.9mb means that the bit-rate has increased to 0.128mb/s but this is still relative to the resolution. Due to the higher resolution and bit rate, the key advantage with this export is that the viewing experience will be improved by the superior quality of the export. However, due to the larger file size, loading times will be increased. Therefore, I reccomend that streaming is used instead of direct downloads in order to decrease waiting time for the user when viewing online.
.MP4
.3GP
This was the smallest version of the video I exported. At a minimal file-size of just over 5mb and a tiny resolution of 360x180, this type of export is only really suitable for mobile or tablet use - which is what the .3GP codec was designed for. With such a tiny bit-rate, such files, in my opinion, are totally unsuitable for web use in terms of desktop computing. However, in terms of advantage, loading times would be tiny weather using either direct download or streaming methods to view the video. However, such small resolutions are certain to ruin the viewing experience on machines with a screen any larger than, say, 8". 
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