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