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.