Introduction
This report contains details on my involvement of the River Tees Rediscovered project. We were given a brief by River Tees Rediscovered a company that aims to promote local businesses and projects along the whole of the river tees. The brief we received tasked us with making a short promotional film to showcase local businesses. It read:
“As part of our Marketing and Communications strategy we would like to commission a short film which highlights the range of projects we deliver.
We would like the film to be 2-4 minutes long, include visuals and text, ideally we would want the video to show as many projects as possible and be interesting to watch.”
Content:
- Brief Requirements
- Individual Duties & Responsibilities
- Legal & Ethical Considerations
- Post-Production
- Negotiation & Feedback
- Evaluation
Brief Requirements
The brief requested that the video be able to increase awareness of the RTR project to more demographics and increase people’s interaction with RTR. They wanted the video to encourage discussion of their project and more engagement with with future activities up and down the river tees. The video was required to be a high enough quality and to a professional enough standard to be used at public presentations. The services requested included storyboards, direction, editing, camera crew and credits.
We began working towards this project by gathering together as a group and noting down information, such as contacts and location, and brainstorming ideas on mind maps. This was a good start to our work as it allowed us to simplify and make everything clear to each member of the group and easy to follow.
We discussed how we wanted to the promo to look and work. Different ideas were passed around in the meeting such as how the video could work as a montage of the different subjects/events and It was also discussed whether we were going to use a voice over on the project or whether we would just let the visuals show off what river tees has to offer.
We realised when looking at the brief and trying to plan that there were a lot of areas and projects up and down the river tees that were listed on the brief. It was a concern that we wouldn't be able to cover all of them in the time that we were given due to travelling issues or just not being able to get in touch in the time we had. We had to co operate with the people at River Tees Rediscovered in order to decide which projects were most important to cover in our promo. It was discussed that we would only need to cover so many and only the more local ones which were closest to us.
It was important for the promo to be consistent for it to achieve a professional standard. In order to do this we needed to make sure that the style of filming done by each crew would stay the same. This is more difficult when, as we had, there are different film crews on each shoot. We managed to stay consistent by using more basic shots and framing rather than doing more stylised shots.
Individual Duties & Responsibilities
After we understood the brief and knew everything we needed to we were able to organise who would work on filming each part of the promo. We split up into teams of 3/4 and split the filming of different events and locations between each other. The main group I worked in was with Taylor & Chloe on the Tees Cottage Pumping Station however I also did paper work for others shoots despite not going there for the filming.
I worked on the shot list for the Preston Park Bat Box Building shoot along with Adam and Rhys. A shot list is very important on any shoot, giving guidance and instruction on what is needed to be filmed.
However, with this being a promo video and a real time shoot we had to just make the shot list more of a basic guideline for the filming on that day because, with it being a public event, there was no knowing exactly what would be there to film and it would have to be more improvised. This meant we put down more vague/generic shots.
I also worked on the shot list for the Pumping Station with Chloe. Similarly, we used this as another guideline for the filming. We wouldn't be filming at a public event on that day so we knew we could definitely get the shots we wanted however we were only able to see the exterior of the pumping station before we went on the day. This meant we could cover the exterior in the shot list but the interior filming would be improvised on the day to get as much as we could.
Also amongst the paperwork for the Pumping Station filming was the Daily Production Diary which was filled in on the day of the shoot. This covered everything we had filmed on that day along with a description of the kind of shots we got. The production diary also included notes we gathered. In this case the notes were about the Pumping Station being closed which meant we didn't get many action shots of the machinery working as it would be if it was open to the public.
The shoot itself was successful. Taylor, Chloe & I arrived at the pumping station and met with the volunteers who were going to guide us around the station so we could get every part filmed and covered. I was in charge of the camera for the majority of the shoot which involved finding the best place to set up shots and framing them before filming. We started with the exterior and then we began to go through each room one by one, filming various things in each.
We had to make do with what we had as none of the machines were running meaning shots could easily look flat and boring. We had to make sure the shots were interesting visually and would keep an audience's attention because if not we would not be meeting the requirements of the brief. After a while Taylor took over camera and we worked together to decide on shots and what to film.
Another section of the promo I did paper work for but didn't film was the Tees Barrage shoot. I worked with Taylor on the research for this part of filming. The research was done for reference to the location and to add some background for the crew who were going to film. The research included information about the Barrage, images for reference and a map which would help the crew with directions from the college and to the barrage.
Legal & Ethical Considerations
When making a promotional video like this it’s important to consider both legal and ethical issues that may occur.
For example, it’s very important to make sure that when you are using footage of somebody to have the correct documents. On our day of filming at the Pumping Station we only filmed one person, Brian, who was a volunteer. We got him on camera because we wanted him to talk to us about the machinery and the pumping station and how it works. For us to use the footage of him, it isn't enough to simply ask permission. We needed him to sign a release form which gave all the legal permission to use him in our promo. It wasn’t sure whether we were going to use the footage or not but it’s necessary to get the documents incase the footage is used. The footage of Brian was used in the final product.
We also needed to complete risk assessments for every location we would be visiting when filming. This is important in case anything was to go wrong. If something is covered on the risk assessment then it should be easily avoided and everything should be done in order to avoid the risk.
It was important that any music we found to use in our final piece would be copyright free and we were allowed to use it in our promo. There are many sites you can visit in order to find royalty/copyright free music such as: ‘Incompetech’, ‘Purple Planet’ and even YouTube has its own library of copyright free music in its creator mode. Most free music requires you to give credit to the artist in some way for you to be legally allowed to use it. The copyright music we used was from YouTube’s creator mode and was named ‘Safety Net’. It did not require any credit and was completely free to use.
Post-Production
Once all pre-production and all filming was completed we moved on to the edit of the final product. We once again had to revisit the brief and make sure the product we were putting together still met the requirements we were requested to follow.
To begin with, each member of the class did an individual edit of a single section of the promo. After discussion we decided that each had to last 30 seconds. I worked on a piece showing off the pumping station. However, before i started putting the edit together, I began by labelling my footage via the shot types.
The next step was to import the footage into Premiere Pro and begin putting the piece together. I had to think of a structure for my edit. I decided I would try and use the footage in the order that we filmed it as we took the same route visitors would take on the tour of the pumping station. I decided to use my footage in the same order a visitor would see it.
It was very difficult to fit everything into 30 seconds which meant my edit needed to be fast paced and upbeat to fit in as much as possible. To help with this I gathered some copyright free music which was quite fast paced but at the same time had a calm tone as I didn’t want my edit to make the pumping station look like it was over the top in how exciting it was. I think the music I chose matched the edit very well.
Once my edit was completed I needed to export it. The brief we received gave specific instructions on the format we needed to export to, which was AVI. This format was important and had to be followed because this was the format they needed to upload the video to their website and have it be accessible to use in different places as mentioned earlier. Exporting the video to the correct format was both an essential part of the RTR brief but also the assignment brief for Digital Media Production.
After we had all completed and exported our individual edits, the next task was to put them all together to create a final product for River Tees Rediscovered. Not everyone could work on a final edit so it was left to Kane & Jess to do. They took the classes separate pieces and cut them together, slightly changing some parts to make it a better fit. We decided on which of all the music used was the best to fit the overall project and that was the music used as the backing track to the final product.
Negotiation & Feedback
After we had completed the promo to a standard we were happy with and we felt met all the requirements from the brief we invited the people from River Tees Rediscovered to come and watch the promo and give us any feedback they wanted to give.
After viewing the promo, the RTR contacts began their feedback by telling us how happy they were with the final product. They went on to mention some things they would like to change. This included updating the statistics we used to be more recent and accurate, changing one of the cuts in the editing which one of them felt was jarring and took them completely out of the video and lastly a change of logo due to them undergoing a rebrand which also meant a new logo. Changing the logo also meant we had to change the intro and it was an intro which specifically worked with the old logo.
There was more positive feedback than there was negative and more positive feedback than we had anticipated. They mentioned specifically the upbeat nature of the promo that engaged them as audience members and the consistency in filming amongst the different projects on the river tees and how it made the promo look slick. One of the final comments they made on the piece was that it was of a higher standard than some professional videos they had seen in the past. In the end they were very pleased and with the minor adjustments we needed to make the video would be ready to use.
Evaluation
As a group we managed to all work together, each contributing something of our highest standard in order to make the best promo we could. There were some issues in the process but for the most part it went smoothly. The organisation of the teams and filming dates worked great, especially when contacting the people we needed to speak to to organise the dates. Contact could have sometimes been quicker and more efficient but that was no fault of the group and more a difficulty contacting people with the contact details we were given. Despite this, we were still able to organise everything on time.
I feel like, by the end of the project, I contributed the best of my ability and gave the most I could in order to have impacted the group work in a sufficient way. I used my strengths in making shooting schedules/storyboards and being on camera when filming. I could have maybe done more in the pre-production work as some people did do more and we had hoped to share the work evenly however the work I did do was done to my best efforts and my highest standard.
As well as group work, I think I worked very well as an individual on this project. My individual edit met all the standards of the brief and managed to make the most of very little due to the often bland looking footage since the pumping station was closed. We, unfortunately, couldn’t get the pumping station as a filming location until i was closed. It only opens a few times a year. This meant that all the ideas of machinery moving and exciting active footage wasn’t going to be available to film. Instead, as camera operator, I needed to use my skills to make the empty station look as exciting as we had planned originally. This was both due to my use of editing skills and camera skills during the project.
Our end product, all of the edits put together and slightly tweaked, looked really great. At the beginning of production, we looked at other promotional videos to see what was good and bad and what ideas we could take and what we could improve on. One of the promotional videos we watched was one for our own college. While both the college promo and our RTR promo were promoting a specific organisation, the video and the ideas in it were highly different. This was obviously down to the fact the organisations were very different and needed to be promoted in different ways. However there are similarities. In both promos, there is a specific subject that the promo focuses on. In the college promo the subjects are students and the courses. The promo focuses on how varied the courses are and how students enjoy them. In our promo, our subjects were the different areas which are part of the RTR programme. So, in our promo, we showed off the variation in the areas and in some we had people who were involved and they all enjoyed themselves which we put across in the video.
Overall, the River Tees Rediscovered project was a success, both as a group and individually.
