MoonFruit.com

Looking at where to develop my site will be key. There is various I have been looking at such as Wix.com.. But one wesbite I have come across is MoonFruit. It allows you to build up a website for free. Which for me is something that is quite interesting because this is a great chance for me to get my work out on a public domain for people to see.

 As you can see from the page before there is a range of different pages you can pick to start your website from. This can range from a gardening and travelling site. One page I have come across is one called something called minimalist. Because one thing I want to do is make sure that my website is something and a viewer can use it this is something I want to look into.

So once I've clicked on minimalist it then comes up with this page above.



One of the things I have noticed though even though it says it is free you are only allowed to make one website with it unless you upgrade it. So this might mean me looking at using wix as my main source for my portfolio. But for now I will give MoonFruit a go just to see what the quality is like.

Once on the page you get four pages come up. The first page is a home screen. It has an about section on it. Then there is a work page where you can add youtube links to your work with a description of what should be on the site. Then there is also a contact page where people have got enquirers.

I will update my blog once I have started a site doing a prototype of my site on here. But one more site I want to look at doing is wix which i feel could be a little easier to navigate.

Looking At A Practitioner

http://www.calthomson.com/


Cal Thomson is a freelance camera operator and editor from Manchester. In his about me section he has decided to use a third person description. I think the reason behind this is because he is selling himself more as a practitioner. For me personally I think at first I will be doing mine in first person because when people enter my site I want a more friendly approach and at this current time I don't feel I have enough clients to warrant a third person approach. I feel once I have built up a better amount of work that I could then ask clients for example to give me a reference on my work which I could put on my website. He has also a wrote about his background work and equipment. Once again this is selling himself as a freelancer for me at this moment I think my main aim is actually looking for work and freelancing could be something that is more of a side project.


His showreel which is in the link below is a great example of what I want to aspire to in a few years. He has got a good blend of independent work such as short films. Corporate work such as promotional videos. For me I want to get into a position like this is because I in terms of the future I would maybe look into getting into more freelance work which could help me bulk up not just my work and showreel but my experience but I think going into the work I think I could do more experience of bigger scale productions to help me







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsdakQsiqOM

Just some quick layout ideas for my portfolio

the plan will be to hopefully start developing and testing the designs online. I have got a rough idea of how i want it too look but its just now putting it on paper

Potential New Client

Today I got in contact with Phil Nodding as i was worried by the none reply by Sean Macaskill from The Hive. However when i met him he offered my a client based project at Clifton. I will be receiving a brief from Phil tomorrow and this will then lead to a meeting with him and the two first year students from the Fda.

Hopefully this will allow me a good project and will allow me to move my current client project back to a later date where i feel i will have more time to sort out a plan and have a bit more free time to film and edit the video.

Researching For My Portfolio

The start of research into my portfolio meant I had to think about what line of work I want to go into. My experiences so far have had me been involved in a variety of roles such as camera operator, director of photography, runner just to name a few. Doing research into some practitioners has kind of opened my eyes a bit about where I currently am as a practitioner. I feel with the time I have left I want to get involved with a few more different projects


http://www.scotthouston.co.uk/- Scott Houston is a freelance camera operator and editor based in Glasgow his website is something that I enjoy watching his work. It is polished and has great colour grading. As you can see by his homepage he has got splash shots of some of his work he has done. Personally I don't think I will be doing this for my website because i don't feel currently I have enough work of a high quality. But obviously I'm hoping once I grow as a practitioner it will allow me to develop my show reel and work. So what I will do to for my site is having a show reel of some of my work and just had a few splash shots of videos I have done. But as a great reference this has given me a lot. The colour scheme is black and white so I think because he does video work it always makes me think of VHS videos are a source of inspiration.

below is a link to a showreel on his vimeo: -

https://vimeo.com/79488095

PORTFOLIO PLANNING ARGHHHHHHHH

On the 6th March we have to deliver a plan of what we want to our portfolio too look like. It has something that has troubled me for a little bit because if i am being honest I am not sure how i want it to look right now so I will be starting a bit of research into different practitioners sites to determine a few of the basic things such as:

-Content
-layout
-background (Colours maybe a problem due to being colour blind)

I think I will have a website for my portfolio because I feel that is a something that seems a bit more professional and in terms of access and applying for jobs you have something visual for them to see.

Methodologies (Negotiated Client Project)

Today I am back in Nottingham and our first seminar was learning about four different methodologies which i will be using when it comes to my negotiated client project. They are SCAMPER, User Centred Design, Ethnography and Creative Practice.

SCAMPER stands for:

Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Modify
Put to another use
eliminate
Reverse

Personally when putting this to a product i feel the purpose off it is to take a product and improve on it or taking two products and then combining then into one. I got two examples for this the first one was the selfie stick it has taken the craze of big group selfies and then the stick allows it to make doing it a whole lot easier. My second example was Coca-Cola which has used the original brand and added different flavours and the using the method you can reverse it for example and still have the original coca-cola brand.

User Centred Design (UCD)

This is where the end product is designed for the need of the user. every aspect of the video will be designed to allow the user get what is required from the product. This more common use for something to with software but I believe that it can be put to use with a video and a client. It is simply taking the brief and using the same thinking process. The first part of it is making sure you know who your target market is once you have established this it is then a case of making sure that all the work done from that point is used for your target market. This means that doing things such as questionnaires will become important.  My two examples for this were the editing keyboard. this has taken the aspect of using a simple keyboard but making it so in edit suites it can be used to help with products such as premier pro. My second example was Fotmob which is a football app but allows the users to keep updated on their favourite team aswell as live football scores.

Ethnography

This is where a practitioner will spend a certain amount of time in a "alien" environment which will hopefully allow them the time to get to know the people a lot better and even at times feel sympathy for a certain extreme group for example. For this i used the example of Louis Theroux who usually spends long amounts of time getting to know certain cultures which are usually seen as extreme or not well liked. My other example of this was to the "Benefit Street" documentary which allowed to us to get a better insight to what people living on the dole live like and at times you warm to the people even if they are doing bad things.

Creative Practice

To me this is where as a practitioner we take our own creativity into our own work and work out a style that we like. Anytime we do a project or something it is allowing a creative thoughts to flow a bit more