Difficulties Of Getting Back To University

This week has been one a great struggle for myself personally. If I'm being honest I have struggled to get back into the routine of doing my work and getting a good nights sleep. Personally this has been something that has effected my first two years at university anyway and sometimes it is something that I have perhaps brushed under the carpet a little and hoped it was something that would go away.

With this being my third year and final year I want to make sure that I can form some kind of routine that will help with my work not just at uni but outside and personal activities. In a few weeks I will be doing some filming and hopefully this will help things click for me but now I have booked myself a session with a student mentor and hopefully this will give me some help with getting a timetable or routine.

Once I have done this it will hopefully help me get back into a routine and help me focus more on my work. Even though this week I have been distracted I have still help start an idea for my group project on the Nottingham Makes

48 Hour Challenge....Conclusion

Today was the conclusion and presentation of our 48 hour cricket challenge. For me I was happy with the outcome of the video even though looking back there was certain things that I would do different. With this being third year I need to say something if i feel unhappy with a certain shot or idea as this will be the best way of me growing into the practitioner I want to be.  Saying that the last two days has been a great way of helping my creative mind and hopefully now I can carry this onto the following few weeks at university.

Watching some of the other videos made me think if only we had perhaps a few more days on this challenge and how potentially good our video could of been. On the project I have worked with two new people on the course and I have got on well with them and has shown to myself that I have the potential to develop a lot more this year in terms on being in charge of certain things. Looking back at some of my placement work I have relied on other people sometimes but with this I took charge in getting things filmed without worrying about the quality of my work and this helped me feel a lot more relaxed about my work. It also made giving out team roles a lot more easier.

Our idea for the video was to make a video that would keep the audience engaged. With it being young children we want to make it fun. Micah had a problem with the video and the when it come to presenting the video we had to remove the audio which had got a lot of content which we needed but we feel the video we would present would be good. Jules and Danny felt we had a good start but felt that we went down hill a bit from there due to how we presented some of the shots such as when i demonstrated some shots in the middle of the wicket.  But overall I felt that we got a positive feedback from the class as people felt it was fun and if i'm being honest I feel if we had got the audio micah had done it would of looked a lot better.  Looking at some of the videos that people presented it was obvious that some people had not done enough research on the game and we had demonstrated the  thought of just going with traditional test cricket but thought about going with a game which anyone could play even though our video at times didn't showcase this.

Hopefully this will be the same team I stay in for the group projects because I feel i could learn more about after effects from the people in my team. But it will be more then likely that I will have a new team for next weeks Made In Nottingham.

Below is the video produced for the 48 Hour Challenge

48 Hour Challenge....DUM DUM DUMMMMMM

Today Jools has put us in groups which I assume is the same one I will be working in for my group project on Nottingham Makes. This is a test to see how we work within a team and working with new people from outside the Fda Course. The challenge set to us was to see if we could produce a video that would explain the rules of cricket to children aged nine to ten.

For me this great because I am a fan of cricket anyway but the hard part was thinking of a way of showing kids how to play it. The game of cricket has so many rules explaining it to children without it being boring would of been near on impossible. So as a group we sat and discussed what we thought would be the best way of showing a game of cricket without being boring. So we went with kwik cricket which is a fun way for all players to get involved with the game.

The best way of showing this would be filming a small game of how to play it. We want to avoid lots of speaking because we want to keep the game engaging and encourage the kids to actually play the game. The first part of the process was getting a kit which would include a bat, ball and bails and stumps. Once we had that it was a case of getting my kit and going out and filming the whole thing. Because we only have 48 hours to do this I wanted to make sure that at least some of the filming was done tonight to make sure we can finish off and that is what we did.

Tomorrow it is about finishing the filming off to allow the time to edit the video together to hand in wednesday.

Third Year Start

As part of my first week back at Trent I had the challenge of showing my creative work life so far in thirty seconds. For my I found this a challenge because being honest I didn't really know how to tell my story without talking about it? Part of the challenge was to explain myself to someone who did not know me at all. My strengths? weaknesses? and showcasing some of my work.

Having a short amount of time to do this as well meant I had to look back at everything I had done so far. So because I had to explain without telling my story I decided to take pictures to explain myself. So I found a variety of pictures to do with strengths and and weakness and let that build up a overall picture of me. Including this I put some videos from work I have done and this would be used to explain everything about myself.

With this is as a first challenge to come back it was quite a challenge and shows to myself that I need to work a lot harder this year to accomplish what I wanted to do when I come to university in the first place. Personally with my work I always think I have had to prove to myself I can do it.

In terms of next week hopefully I will get a better understanding of the course and what is going to be expected of me for the next nine months.

My Poster

This is my poster which I have produced based on my research. For the title i went with planning a film trailer. Within the poster i have included information on what i have researched. The things i have found out and a little about my results

Health And Safety Video Problems

Issues with the Health and Safety production has led to the completion of the video being delayed. Before Easter we had shown the video to Sally Wain and her team and she had given us a list of notes which would be needed to make sure we met the brief that was given to us. As a team we had agreed to make sure that the video would include more information and pictures that would accompany the dramatisation in the video.

On our return to the placement we had problems with notes that had been taken at the meeting were misplaced which meant that we had to start all our plans for the improvements of the video again. For future productions it is vital to be more organised and make sure we have a dropbox set up to put anything we have done on to it this way any documents we have got will not be misplaced like this again.

In the next few days we will be sitting down with Phil Nodding to discuss the script and the plan will be to then do a bit more filming to help us finish off the video so we can get paid by Sean and Sally

My Small Viral Trailer

Tonight I finally filmed the small viral trailer which will accompany my current research. As I only had a limited time to get filming done I had chosen to strip back from my original ideas and make the trailer a lot more simple. I had watched the viral trailer for the movie "In Time" within the trailer it shows a man cutting a parking metre with a chainsaw. As a viewer you would not really understand that this is a viral video at first so I wanted to make a similar concept to this.

I wanted to keep the same storyline that I had planned but for viewers watching i didn't want them knowing anything about the plot while watching the trailer. At first I used the song "Who are you" but as I felt this could give away a idea i decided to go with a song which is also a bit of a mystery. In the trailer I have shown two of my house mates asleep and a point of view shot of the robber taking the biscuits from the kitchen. The influence for some of it was from Indiana Jones.

The idea of doing this would be to then go on and make a full trailer for the film. This is something that I will be looking to work on in the future.

Survey Results

I have sent out a survey to ask the questions for my research. The results i got gave me a help in what I will be filming for my trailer. One of the questions i asked was what is the last trailer people had watched. The next question was asking what appeals to the viewer when watching a trailer. A lot of people had been watching the trailer for the latest X-Men film but when asked what appeals to the them as a viewer most people said it come down to the storyline shown in the trailer. So this puzzled me a bit it. I think if i was going to do more research into this I would select a variety of trailers and film peoples reactions to see what they think about each trailer. This way I am engaging with my audience and when it comes to actually showing them my trailer I can get feedback on the trailer. When it comes to doing work for third year it will be an area that i would seriously considering doing for my artefacts and in terms of my blog work i can show this.

As people had said they like a good storyline I'm glad i asked the question can a trailer show too much. From the responses that i got a lot of people felt that a trailer can ruin a movie for people. Straight away this made me think about my original idea for my trailer where I was going to have a lot more shots and storyline in the trailer. Instead now I will be making a small viral video which will give nothing away from the plot  because one thing I want to do is engage people with the trailer. The idea would be to show the small trailer and get a buzz and feel for the film. Then going on to doing a longer trailer which show a bit more but still leaving the audience guessing as to what the movie will be about.

A lot of people had said music is important for a trailer. In my original ideas i was planning on playing "Who Are You" by the Who. But because i'm leaving this trailer as a mystery i have changed this to make it something random.

I'm Hoping to share my video on social network and get people to share as a word of mouth thing

My Survey

This is a list of the questions I have asked in my survey on Trailers:

-When watching a film trailer what do you expect to see?
-What was the last film trailer you watched?
-When it comes to film trailers what appeals to you the most?
-Do you think music is important in a trailer?
-What do you think of viral videos as trailers?
-Do you think a trailer can ruin a movie before you have seen it by showing too much?
-How important do you think trailers are for films?

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VGJR6ZH

A view interesting videos

This is a small little documentary on the history of the movie trailer though different decades. It is a great watch and shows how the release of the movie jaws changed the dynamics of the trailer it opened up a bigger viewing audience.

This next video is based on voice actor Don LaFontaine who has voice for over 5000 movie trailers including one of my favourite movies off all time "The Terminator".  Though most modern trailer use voice overs from actors in the film a voice over can make a trailer a lot more tense and with music blends nicely

Small Trailer Idea

Based on the research I have been doing so far with my research report I will be making a small trailer of my own to go with my poster. This is because I wanted to be creating a artefact to go with my research.

I have recently been watching detective drama Whitechapel on ITV and have enjoyed how different it is to other shows. It is a lot more darker the other crime drama's with its low key lighting and creative story telling. The film idea I have had is going to be blending elements of a detective drama with comedy. The basic outline for the film will be an investigation into the robbery of a pack of biscuits from the central character. The idea would be that the police treat this is as a serious crime and unravel the past of the central character and find out who would have a motive to perform such crimes.

In the trailer it would be a slow-mo of the biscuit tin dropping to the ground and a few cut away shots of the detectives actually starting to investigate the crime. Below is the trailer for The Usual Suspects

As I had found that British trailers show parts of culture in the UK I decided to use Tea and Biscuits as it one of the things that people think about when it comes to this country

British Trailers

Doing research on "300 Rise Of An Empire" I wanted to start looking at trailers for British productions. Currently British actors are having a lot of success within America. Game of Thrones has helped showcase the best of British acting and now because of this some of the cast are now moving into other franchises for example Emilia Clarke will be playing "Sarah Connor" in the rebooting of the Terminator franchise. Then there is Andrew Lincon who is currently playing lead character "Rick Grimes" in The Walking Dead.

One of the things that is great about British productions is that they often rely on the acting more then special effects and make-up.  Watching the trailers for British trailers shows that a lot of them showcase different sub cultures within the UK and a lot of the time deal with a lot of social issues. Films such as "The Full Monty" and "Billy Elliot" are two different types of movies but both deal with closure of the mines during  Thatchers rein as PM which led to hundred of workers losing their jobs.

There are certain trailers which are American influenced such as "Dog Soldiers" but it also has elements from British hit "Zulu" and its great watching how success in the industry has helped boost the quality in films that this country is producing.

The trailer for E4 smash hit "Skins" is one of the first drams I really got into. The trailers for it make it seem like it was just going to be about drug, sex the usually youth culture. But the trailer was deceiving as the more i got into the show the more involved you get with the characters. Each work it deals with a range of issues such as eating disorders, religion, sexuality, peer pressure. As a viewer you feel like you are watching these characters develop from where the trailer where they are so care free. So one thing i have learnt from this is that a trailer doesn't have to give to much away without revealing a plot.

Shane Meadows work are a great at showing the kitchen sink drama within a production of a film. "This is England" is a story of about his own youth and growing up as a skinhead. This too deals with problems during Thatchers Britain (she really is a popular women...) the trailer for the film though only mildly hints at the racism during the film and as viewer watching the trailer it makes the film seem more of a comedy drama coming of age tale. Even the location are a lot more realistic compared to American trailers. Another example of British production like this is "In The Flesh" though it is a drama about zombies the location in Lancaster gives it a more British feel to the show.

Watching some of these trailers has helped my understanding a bit when it comes to producing my trailer. I want to make something a lot more subtle. I will be now thinking about what i want to produce for my small trailer.

Below is an article about how creative industry in the UK is growing
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-celebrates-success-of-growing-creative-industries-in-britain

Start Of My Research (American Trailer)

As I had decided on what I would be researching it was time to look into what needed to be done. I had chosen that I wanted to make a trailer of my own so the first part of my would be looking into what we see in movie trailers. This would mean watching a variety of trailers to give me an idea into what would be needed for me to produce a decent enough video.

To start with I watched the trailers for "300 Rise Of An Empire" as this is one of the best films I have seen in 2014. The first trailer was released in July of last year even though it was going to be in cinemas till March. I feel the reason movies do this is because they want to start generating an interest in the film. Having a trailer come out so early will make viewers become more involved with the film. As a viewer if a trailer appeals to you it will make you become interested with what will come next.

Another thing I have found that with American movie trailers they show a lot of footage from the film. As a viewer I like this because personally I feel with trailers they need to showcase why people should watch these films. But in another sense it can sometimes take something away from a film as there is no element of surprise when it comes to actually watching the film at the big screen.

In the trailer as well the opening seconds show gerrad butler who was the star of the first movie. It slowly builds up the tension until it shows the blood thirsty action. Because 300 is a franchise they want to bring back fans of the first film into watching the film. So by having stars from the first one it creates excitement about the next film. Another factor about these films is that the stories are based on true events and one thing I did was look into the history of the battle of marathon which is in opening sequence in the film. And its brilliant watching great victories come to live on the big screen

Idea For My Research Poster

For my assignment for my research report i am required to make a research poster on photoshop. I have made the decision to look into film trailers. I want to see if it is possible to make one of my own. For it i will be looking into what it is about a film trailer that appeals to the audience. This will be researching different production trailers and what you visually see within them.

The reason I will be looking at trailers is because when it comes to promotion within the film industry trailers are one of the first visual things we see from the film. Without them it would be hard to generate a buzz around a film. It gives the audience a understanding about what they are going to see and its a way of pulling in an audience. Different genres will appeal to a variety of people, so i will look into what it is that draws in a crowd. Is it a brand of a film? Actor or Actress in the film? Storyline or special effects?

The research i do will then allow me to start a small trailer of my own. So my question is how to plan a film a trailer.

Three Sources

So for Shaun's session we have been given the task to find three relevant sources that i find useful for my specialist skill which for me at the moment is video production/documentaries. I will be discussing a little bit about three of them.

The first one i will be talking about is the Creative Skills Set website. This is organisation which is used by people in the creative industry. On the site you can find information about film making,animation,tv,radio etc. What i like about this site is that it tells about different careers you can get. It explains a lot to the users and i find it is quite helpful in getting information if it is required. On the site you can access things such as courses you can get involved in, events coming up, funds for training. Overall i think for students or graduates it is a great site to try and go forward with enhancing your career.

Below is a screen shot of the site

http://filmmaking.net/

The next site i will be talking about is a site which has various articles on it with various information about a range of video stuff, editing, equipment and books. This is a cracker for anyone who has a love for making films, watching and are looking to get into the industry. It has various write ups on new equipment and it is a great way as a reader to make sure that you are up to date with what is relevant in the market. As well as this it shows future events and festivals which is similar to what the skills net shows too. Finally it has a message board where you can interact with fellow practitioners.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shut-Shoot-Documentary-Guide-Production/dp/0240809351/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392345473&sr=1-12&keywords=documentary This is a book i have ordered from Amazon to get some tips from

Other Cool Stuff:

If you are interested in all things Nottingham then you will like Left Lion which reviews films,music and shows upcoming events in the Nottingham area.

http://www.leftlion.co.uk/ 

The BBC now has make a virtual documentary section where you can download unedited footage and then create your own documentary http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/makeyourown.shtml

Test Shots

So today me and James did a few test shots at the location in Newton Building for where we will hopefully get some filming done. The shots will be uploaded next week when james gets his laptop fixed. We also inquired about the permission to film in the building and we have been pushed in the direction of a Dave Hughes to see if we can get permission as we feel that for location would be ideal due to the lighting and the fact that it would give us room to get all our shots done such as high and low angle shots.

The shots we did where to see if it would look good if we push the crash dummy from a height and we are also planning to use a go pro to show the fall and have someone underneath it while it happens. All that needs to be done before we shoot is make sure all the permission is done and that we have got some actors ready for the shoot. Max is currently doing a location recce of the building for us then all i will have to do is a health and safety form.

Filming JaffnaSpeaks (Pre Production)

So this week during a meeting at The Hive we finally managed to get hold of our injured boss Sean Macaskill and he informed us that the owners at Jaffna Speaks would be in Nottingham for a few days so it would of been our only chances to get filming done with them as they both live in Germany and London. This was a great chance for the team to prove ourselves. It will prepare us for any future roles where time management will be a major factor and sometimes working in a team it is important that you prepare for things such as this. Especially when we know we only have a week to prepare

Most of the meetings we have had up to this point had been mainly based around the Health And Safety videos as we felt this was the most important to get done first. But the planning for the Jaffna took over. The first part was looking at research and we looked back over the work we had done the year before for Boo Boo Kitty. Working on a documentary style project really helped me last year as it felt good working on a project though all the different stages. Pre-production was most important for me personally as it allowed us to work as a team and get to know each others strength.

Then it was all about making sure we had done our research on Jaffna Speaks as this would allow us to make sure that we would ask the right questions. Once we had done that it was about establishing the right questions. With videos like this it is important that we engage with the audience and make them feel some form of empathy for the cause. The video that we make will be going on the kick starter website which is a website used to raise funds so we wanted to make sure that we engage with the owners and let them explain why people should donate. As well as this it is important that we get to know the owners.

With this done it is now about making sure that all equipment is booked ready for the day of filming.

Trent Tv( Second Project)

So today i got the fantastic chance to film the musician beans on toast today at the Capital FM arena. This was my second time working for Trent TV and i thought it would be a great thing to add on to my CV. For anyone who isn't aware of his music i will add a link to his site and a link to one of his tracks. I actually got the  to the arena a bit early and i had to wait till the two of the girls from trent tv. Lucky i have done stuff with the cameras so setting up was pretty easy and Beans asked to film in the laundry room and it made for a very different interviews background. I was on still camera and Anna was on the cut away cameras. Then Kat was interviewing.

Beans was a great guy to interview it was kind of surreal meeting him because as soon as he started talking his voice sounded just like his singing voice. He was so laid back and what was obvious to me he is doing the music for his own enjoyment and not for the need of money. This made the filming a lot more easy because we didn't have to fuss about with him. It was great hearing about his stories and it was nice to see that he is cracking america.

Got to say was a lot of fun filming it and once the edit is done i will link it up. Hopefully i will get chance to get involved with a few more projects at Trent Tv.

https://www.youtube.com/user/beansontoasttube that is a link to his website
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTRENTTV if you are curious about Trent Tv is here a link to some more of the videos

Planning For The Health and Safety Video

So today was our first team meeting for the Hive project. We had arranged a room with sean so we could throw some ideas around and actually start to plan what we would be doing for the videos. Our plans got hampered a little bit by the fact that Sean has sustained a foot injury at home so he is unable to come in for a few days so it means that as a team we now have to work together to make sure that everything is ready.

The first thing we did was email Sally Wain asking if she could send us over a brief and a video. This way we could have then have an idea of what we needed to produce for the videos. Then as a team we all started to discuss what our roles in the team would be. Working with most of the people before it was easy to know what we all needed to do for the project.

Overall it was a productive day for us as a team and we managed to get a few ideas together. We are going to do a split screen off someone doing the right thing one side and the other side doing the wrong thing. We then looked at a few videos of the health and safety videos to get a better idea of what we wanted to do. We also wanted to make the videos a bit more interactive for the students so we looked at the "Pushing Daises" narrative and we thought of having the idea  that the two characters "Jenny" (my creation) and "Tom" interacting with the narrator for the video. In terms of humour we will include a crash dummy and make it very obvious that it is being pushed. We looked at the videos that dr pepper made with the "worst that could happen" campaign

We have arranged to meet up on Thursday to make sure all the task set where done. Then we can think of locations, scripts and making up a plan for filming

The Hive Project Part 2

So this week was the start of my placement at the Hive with Sean Macaskill again. We have been given a few different video projects to complete and the first one that we are having a crack at is the Health and Safety video as this will be our paid project. I will be working on the project with the team from last year and a few new faces so it will be interesting to see how this works with a larger team. Last year as a team we worked well and i am hoping everyone brings a lot into this project.

The first project we will be working on is the Health and Safety Videos for the art and design. We will be getting in touch with Sally Wain so we can get a potential brief and this way we will have a clearer idea of the things that we will need to include in the video. What we have got so far is that we need to include a lot of humour inside the videos and we will be meeting Monday to discuss ideas as this is the video we wanted to get done first as it is our paid one.

The second video is a kick starter project for a school in jaffna ( Sri Lanka) and they are teaching languages to children who have been effected by the civil war. We have already started looking at other similar videos to get an idea of how to lay it out. We want to keep the videos in a similar style to the interviews we did last week.

The third video is out the pop up shops that are opening up by the Hive and Sean wants us to do a before and after video. The fourth video is basically about teaching all the schools in the university about becoming about more entrepreneurial and how the Hive can help them.

Got to say i am looking forward to working on these projects and hopefully i will be working at Screen 22 aswell.

Soooo Team B won

So yeah good news after a few weeks off hard work our efforts paid off and team B won the competition. Got to say i really did feel sorry for the other team because their videos were brilliant and it came down to the fact that our team had kept to the brief just that little bit better. But it was so rewarding being on the winning team compared to last year were i feel that my team was let down by the fact we had no help from any of the second years and I hope that next year the first years on our team can step up and take charge of the team.

Also I managed to get up and talk in front of around fourty-five people which for me is a win because i went up without any fear and this is something i have wanted to work on for a long time and i feel now I am starting to get a lot better at talking to people. It was great seeing everyone staring at me and if i am being honest i felt great explaining the concept for our video ideas. Hopefully we will enter our videos into the Nottingham Young Creative awards and there is even talk about sending the videos to Paul Smith himself. What i like about this assignment is that you get to work with the first years and it is good experience in getting contacts and for some of them i might be working with them on placements.



So with this competition over it is time to start on placements I have got a few offers and had an interview with screen 22 on Wednesday. I am thinking about doing how i benefited from placement last year and what i want to get out of this year in terms of thinking about my future.

Placements 2014

So once the Nottingham Loves Paul Smith work is done out the way it is time to start on the placements. I will write a blog about what i am looking forward to this year and the potential placements that i could/will work on. I will write i hope to get out of this year of placements and obviously once i start i can keep a little record of all the work that i am doing.

My Speech

So today i had my practice at talking about the videos we had produced in front of team B. I had an idea in my head of what i wanted to say but i was feeling a little bit nervous with how thing were going to go. But luckily everyone said i did a good job and Janet was impressed.

So my speech for tomorrow is going to go like this:

I just want to say thank you for everyone who has come today.

As a team we have produced three videos for the Nottingham Loves Paul Smith. Our first idea is going out and talking to the public of Nottingham and asking them to describe Paul's work in four words which is in the form of vox pops. The second idea was linked to the exhibition in London celebrating Fourty years of Paul Smith so as a team we all brought in small quirky items so the concept is fourty objects for fourty years. There is also the story of one of Paul's fans who sends items each year to him for inspiration. Our third video is based on Paul's passion for cycling so we hired a raleigh bike and we filmed around locations in Nottingham.

A big thanks to all the team on the production team.

I hope that you enjoy the videos after that i will pass over to Harry to talk about the graphics. Thank You

*Jake Plays The Videos*  

Preparing For The Presentation

So being group leader for the video production i thought it was only right that i go up to do the presentation for our part of the team. This year at university one of my two aims was to work on my editing skills and to conquer my fear of public speaking. So there is no way i will get over my fear unless i practice doing it. With my presentation last term i felt i took a step in the right direction.

So I have started writing a speech for Thursday today we took the day writing out the speeches as a team and i just asked my team to make sure everything was ok. Tomorrow we will be talking to Janet Wotton and then have a few practice runs of the speeches as there will be four of us talking

Team Hard At Work

The Song For The Bike Video

So the video we have chosen for the Paul Smith bike video is The Clash "Train In Vain".The reason behind our choice is we feel that it worked well with the video and because it was recorded in the late 1970's when the Paul Smith was getting into the big time. Also the song complements the video well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNot47WRBFk

The Bike Shoot

So on Friday it was time for the filming of the bike video and i also helped Ashley with the vox pox later on that day. Everything was ready for the filming of the bike as we had risk assessment done, recce done it was just up to our team to make sure that we made the most of filming.

I made sure the team met at half eight. This was to run though one last plan and that everyone knew what we would be doing on the day of the shoot. The team for the bike video was myself on camera Max who would be the cyclist one of the reasons we wanted him to wear vintage clothes is because we wanted the audience to think it is Paul riding the bike when he was younger. Zac who would also be filming and Charlie and Louis who would be keeping an eye on the equipment and blocking anyone from getting in the way of the shots.It also gave us the chance to make sure everything with the bike would be ok.

So the shoot got off to a bit of a shaky start when Louis go pro battery broke but lucky he had a back up plan.  The second set back we had was that the time we was filming out was pretty dark which effected the lighting but the reason we went out that early was to make sure that we got shots without members of the public getting in the way. I had checked the weather forecast and it had predicted this weather.  But we could sort this kind of thing out in the editing stage but once we got into the filming we the sun did come out which helped us. A few off the shots got ruined by people walking infront of the camera or looking directly into it so a few of the takes took us about four shots to do. A lot of the shots used where low angle this is because wanted the focus of the video to be the bike and the clothes that Max was wearing. and i thought while filming the town hall to get a long shot and have max cycle though the people and it turned out to be a decent shot in the end. Then obviously the go pro shots will be for the first person view shots.

We also had problems filming outside the Paul Smith store due to the staff not wanting any footage to go on social media sites. But we managed to get all the shots needed by around 12:30. We put the footage onto Charlies and Zacs computer and both we going to make an edit on Premier Pro.

I will write up about all three videos and the outcome of our presentation after Thursday. This way i can write about how successful the work we have done will be. It will also give me a chance to reflect on things. But before this it is our final week coming up and this means it is time to write my speech.

Below is a couple of images of us guys on set of the shoot.

The Day Before Filming

So I have gone down with illness today but we managed to get the filming done yesterday. I will write how the shoot went tomorrow. I feel bad because today i have let Ashley down with filming in market square. I have tried to get some people down to help him but a this stage I am not sure how this has gone.

But i wanted to write a little about the day before filming and what we had planned. So as i put we had planned a few shots we wanted to use with the go pros but we needed to plan a route. We wanted to include both Paul Smith stores to show the journey that Paul has had in his career. Tuesday we chose what equipment we was going to be using and this is the list:

-Bike
-Canon 600d and 7d for filming we wanted to use this because we wanted to film in 1080p and we felt that it gave the video a crisper showing then a camera such as the z1e. It also gave us the chance to use a few different lenses.
-Go Pro this was for the first person angle shot
-Duck Tape to keep the go pro in place while it was on the bike
-Sd Cards
-Tri-pod
-Audio (for the interviews)
This was all picked up on the thursday

The production team who would be working on this shoot came out and we then planned out where we wanted to film. We brought out the bike with us and it gave us a chance but with fifty seconds off video we just planned to get enough footage and then see how it works in editing. The first shot we planned was going out the first paul smith then him going down the hill then our second shot would be going past the town hall on market square. Then the third shot is Max coming around the corner and going down to the new Paul Smith store then walking into the store. Then the logo will come into the ending.

After doing this I asked all the team to arrive for filming at 8:30 to start filming. So all our planning this week let us to the shoot day and i will be writing about that tomorrow

Planning For The Bike Video

The idea to film the bike scene was going to take a lot of planning before we actually filmed anything. The first task was to actually get our hands on a bike. We managed to get our hands on a Raleigh bike which is a Nottingham based company and we felt this would fit in well with the whole Nottingham loves theme. So before filming on Friday we needed to make sure that we got the recces sorted for the shots that we wanted and the route for filming was going to be planned out properly. As well as doing the reece for our shoot i had to do the risk assessment to make sure everything will be safe whilst we are filming.


This is the bike we will be filming with:

Tuesday we went out and did a few reece shots around Nottingham and these are some of the pics that we took. This was a great chance as a team for us to get an idea of the kind of shots we wanted and this allowed to us work a storyboard and it helped us get an idea of the locations we wanted to use

Yesterday me Charlie and Max used the go pro for some practice shots so we could decide which shot would look best and these are the two shots we felt would look best. The first shot is the go pro at the back of the bike. The second shot is a chest shot which we think looked good because the beauty of the go pro is that it gives you a brilliant point of view shot. It shows what it would be like filming around the Nottingham area.

So now we can start planning a route for Max. We have made the choice that we want him to dress smartly so we will have him slick his hair back. And he will be wearing a blazer, smart shoes and skinny jeans to fit in with the fashionable Paul Smith

First Problem Encountered

So on Thursday we met a former employee of Paul Smith to get a feel of how he runs his business and get a bit of an inside to who he is as a person. From the presentation that she gave us we learned that the strips that had become associated with Paul Smith has become outdated and a little bit chavy. So we made the de scion  to change the strips we had started using on the posters to make the colours more into block bright colours that we saw on some of his clothes and on his bags. Mary's insight to Paul Smith was great as she gave us some great feedback on the ideas for our work and she also gave us light of what Paul has gave to Nottingham and how he has always been a down to earth guy who cared for all of his staff. From it i found about how it is important to look into the future and what will be popular in two years as we are in an industry which is changing all the time

The Assignment First Week

So this week was the start of the second year of the assignment. The aim this year is a bit different instead of competing just against the other team there is all of Nottingham. The first thing i did on this project was research Paul Smith and get to know who he is as a person. The first thing i found he is a very down to earth person who is very proud of his roots. His clothes are very much respected world wide and he has used Nottingham as a spring step to worldwide fame. This week we will be storyboarding the ideas for the videos.

This year I am hopeful that I am on the winning team. We have got some brilliant ideas floating around and i feel that as a team we have come together well. With in a few days we have managed to come together well as a team and have managed to come up with three ideas. The first idea is based on Paul Smiths first passion cycling and we are going to be using go pros on the bike to film locations around Nottingham. Tomorrow we will be discussing locations we feel that would be right for the video. The aim of the video is to make the audience in gauge in the video they won't know what the video is about really until the end of the video where he cyclist will walk into the Paul Smith shop. Its relating to the BMW advert recently where the advert had nothing to do with the product. In the video we are going to be changing the clothes for each decade.

The second idea is related to the reason we are making the videos 40 years of his work. The people in our group are going to bring in four items each and we are going to use 40 items for 40 years. We are using the items like Paul Smith would use items to inspire his work. The past fifteen years he has got items from someone and he uses these to inspire to his work. We are hoping to have interview with members of his staff playing over the top of these items.

The third idea is to have micro interviews with members of the public and ask them to describe Paul Smith in one word. We are not just aiming at people who know his work its for people who are unaware of him so everyone in Nottingham gets the chance to know about his work.

Image of a few of the object that will be used

Team Roles

So we have discussed everyone's role in the team and wrote down what each person will be doing. This way it gives us a chance to get to know peoples strengths and then it will give me a chance to get to know the first years

Happy New Year and The Assignment 2014

So Happy New Year to anyone who reads my blog. I am now back in Nottingham and have started the competition. Last year was a useful experience for myself as our lecturers threw us in at the deep end with it to see how we would cope with a pressure situations as we had three weeks to come up with an ident, logo, marketing campaign for Notts TV. For me personally i embraced it and though in the end other people let the team down i was proud of our teams effort. This year we have been given the task to produce a similar concept except this time it is celebrating the life of Paul Smith. Also this year it is up to me take more responsibility being second year and as i know what the competition holds and I hope to help the first years out.

This year i feel we have a good team which can produce a better campaign. I will be working on the production side of things and have been given the responsibility of being in charge of things. As well as working on the video production i will help with pre-production making some idea of who Paul Smith is and then creating a template for the video with things such as risk assessments, story boarding. Our aim is to create three different videos with each one not making it obvious we are talking about Paul Smith and let Nottingham talk about one of their most famous people. This was only day though and there is still three weeks to go. Tomorrow we are meeting Sean Macaskill at The Hive which will be good to hopefully make a few ideas of how we can go forward.

I will be keeping an update of the progress of how it goes and hopefully Team B will be winners